Writes Jay Henderson: "Black Sabbath originally wrote the song 'War Pigs"' in protest of the Vietnam War. Now a new band, Cake, has reprised the message for a new generation and a new war."
Cops were committing more crimes than usual in our fine state over the past 48 hours or so.
According to neighbors who witnessed it, [see here] police murdered a man in cold blood on Sunday because, as the police point out, "there was a restraining order against him." And he was trespassing. Where I come from, those offenses don't warrant the death penalty, but I guess all that Catholic schooling made me soft.
They actually pumped him full of lead while he was laying on the ground.
Tax money well spent.
Then, a state trooper arrested a woman for having an unleashed dog 10 years ago and left the woman's 7-month-old infant daughter and her 15 year-old niece alone in the dark on the side of the road.
When ordinary people do it, it's called child abuse. But then, we only pay their salaries.
But here's the cop response: "I just ask the public to trust that we would handle this appropriately,"
If you are going to St. Paul for the GOP convention, don't wear your Teva sandals, have hair like a hippie, flash a peace sign, or hang out with the vegans. The feds are planting snitches and will brand dissenters as 'terrorist groups or organizations.'
What they were looking for, Carroll says, was an informant—someone to show up at “vegan potlucks” throughout the Twin Cities and rub shoulders with RNC protestors, schmoozing his way into their inner circles, then reporting back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between multiple federal agencies and state and local law enforcement. The effort’s primary mission, according to the Minneapolis division’s website, is to “investigate terrorist acts carried out by groups or organizations which fall within the definition of terrorist groups as set forth in the current United States Attorney General Guidelines.”
Thanks to Bretigne (the heroic Butler Shaffer's daughter) for the link.
Writes Rick Fisk: "The book people sold 750 copies of The Revolution: A Manifesto (all that they had in the store). I bought one and took the one I pre-ordered through Amazon with me and Dr. Paul signed both of them. The local Fox affiliate was there and so was every local activist group and Ron Paul GOP delegate.
"I shouldn't have been, but I was very nervous and self-conscious. Dr. Paul looked terrific, not even a little bit tired and tremendously friendly. It was an honor to get that close to the man.
"On a personal note, he confided in me that you were 'always keeping track of everything.' Do you have a background in intelligence or something? :)"
Adds Jim Bob: "It was an hour wait to get your book signed. And they could have sold another thousand. Lots of upset people because they didn't get there early enough to get a book."
Just so people know where I'm coming from when I do political analysis, here's my preference list for President:
1. Ron Paul
2. Libertarian Party nominee
3. Nader
4. Clinton
5. Obama
6. McCain
I try not to let my personal biases affect my analysis but they probably do anyway. If I spend so much time on 4 and 5, it's because that's where I think the next President will come from. Though anything could happen in this crazy year.
(No offense to Chuck Baldwin; I just don't know enough about him.)
“Two or three arrests per week, you could make $700, $750 per week,” Sergeant Selfsaid. “You could make better than a minimum-wage job.”
The police state loves recessions. People hard up for money are turning in their family, neighbors, and anybody else for some quick cash payments from the snitch state.
Some Crime Stoppers coordinators say their program appeals to community spirit and emphasize that not everyone who calls is after money. But their advertising makes no bones about the benefits of a good tip.
“Crime doesn’t pay but we do,” say the mobile billboards cruising Jacksonville, Fla. A poster in Jackson, Tenn., draws a neat equation: “Ring Ring + Bling Bling = Cha-Ching.” The bling, in this case, is a pair of handcuffs.
The New York Times celebrates the mindless, little totalitarians who become informants to help pay the bills. As the writers of the article note, the snitches are "creative." I argued a long time ago that there's always been a totalitarian force amongst the masses, and what better way to fan the flames of fear and grow state dependency than to offer up depreciating dollars to a bunch of financially needy and mindless losers.
Today on fair-and-balanced radio - I think it was FOX - there was a big stink about Michelle Obama's "for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country" remark. Anyone that fails THE TEST - that is, does not uphold the pro-war Right's standards for plastic patriotism - is deemed an enemy of America. The conservative reaction has been predictable and shallow, as one would expect. How dare she! If you can't wear a flag lapel pin, sing Lee Greenwood's "Proud to be an American," and happily trade the seventh inning stretch ("Take Me Out to the Ballgame") for God Bless America, you are a traitor and you hate America. Torture was even contemplated when the Tennessee Republican Party "urged radio stations to play "patriotic music" during Michelle's visit to Nashville." Ouch. Perhaps the firing squad would be more painless and humane. Mrs. Cindy McCrazyCain even hopped on the "I'll show you" bandwagon and proclaimed, "I'm proud of my country, I don't know about you, if you heard those words earlier. I'm very proud of my country."
So now the race is on for each and every person of political significance to prove their patriotic value by adopting any and all "patriotic" symbols, phrases, and events. Even Barack Obama, trying to deflect the potential for anti-American claims, has been seen wearing his old glory lapel pin, again, since the Michelle incident happened in February.
Obama fired back with his "lay off my wife" warning. The FOX chatter was about whether or not going after his wife was in proper form. Obama's chivalry aside, his wife is traveling the country speaking about war and freedom and policy, and on his behalf. She's been made an official spokesperson for the campaign and promises to be a force in the event of an Obama administration. Thus even the unfair and unbalanced types are right when they say she's stepped in front of the bullseye, so she's fair game.
Thanks to the Fed's credit-crisis and the plummeting dollar's higher gas prices, the RV industry has skidded into a ditch.
Writes Frank Rich: "The biggest gift President Bush has given his party this year was to keep his daughter’s wedding nearly as private as Connie Corleone’s. Now that his disapproval rating has reached the Nixon nadir of negativity, even a joyous familial ritual isn’t enough to make the country glad to see him. The G.O.P.’s best hope would be for both the president and Dick Cheney to lock themselves in a closet until the morning after Election Day." But why stop there? In any event, read the rest.
Writes Daniel: "This morning I entered the Metro station on the way to work and saw a dog running around frantically and a man seeming to be chasing him. At first I thought 'how strange that this unfortunate man’s seeing eye dog is running away from him.' Then the man pointed to my lunch bag as I walked by toward the train and screamed at the dog 'SEEK!!!' at which point the very large dog darted toward me, scaring the heck out of me. It took me a second before it hit me that Metro 'customers' were being assaulted by some kind of bomb (or drug?) sniffing dogs. Is it considered unpatriotic to say that I felt violated and abused?"
When the Syngman Rhee regime in South Korea, which launched the war on the North in cahoots with the Truman regime here, also murdered at least 100,000 of its own people, with US supervision and approval. Truman's Air Force then drowned more than a million civilians in the North by deliberately bombing the dykes. Today, despite a militarist regime still supervised by US occupation forces, the South Korean people want peace, trade, and travel with the poor people of the North, no matter how rotten their socialist government. The US occupation prevents this. US Out! (Thanks to Ralph Raico and Antiwar.com)
Writes Rand Paul: "Ron visited Kentucky this weekend. More than 700 students and supporters crowded into the Bowling Green High School Basketball Arena. Nashville and Bowling Green television and print media covered the event. Ron's grandson, Will Paul, introduced him.
"Afterwards, Barnes & Noble hosted a booksigning and more than 200 copies were signed.
"On May 17th, Ron travelled to Louisville. The booksigning at Borders Books was one of their largest ever. The manager said only Jimmy Carter's booksigning was larger. More than 700 books were sold to about 550 people. The line wound and wandered throughout the store and outside. See the video.
"The speech at the Louisville Palace theater was electrifying. About 1,400 people filled the auditorium. The NY Times and Louisville television and print media covered the event."
The Baltimore Sun's political blog, when considering the Ron Paul bestseller, poses my Amazon review against J. Davis's.
That's what James Pethokoukis says in US News & World Report. (Thanks to Darel.)
This is a fundamental, human right. Well, within the context of property rights, anyway, and it is thus all the more significant that the way this right is made possible in practice is the market economy. One of the few glorious remainders in America's libertarian legacy has been a residual and proud capitalism, made quite clear in Americans' shameless enjoyment of food, great dining establishments, and liberally sized portions. This, of course, is what Obama and the Democrats want to do: Destroy our few remaining liberties. What a disgusting election year. I still prefer him to McCain, but it is utterly depressing that I come to this conclusion.
All too many Democrats today would be perfectly satisfied to see a Scandanavian welfare state fastened upon the empire. A minority of them, the ones who cheered on Ron Paul, dissent from this socialist impulse. But organizationally, the Democratic movement has for five generations been the party of socialism and the military-industrial complex. All their complaints about the party leadership boil down to an alleged failure to emulate the very worst Democratic tyrants, especially FDR.
Lew's new speech is all too timely. This is one of my favorite parts:
"All of history has been defined by the struggle for food. And yet that struggle has been abolished, not just for the rich but for everyone living in developed economies. The ancients, peering into this scene, might have assumed it to be Elysium. Medieval man conjured up such scenes only in visions of Utopia. Even in the late 19th century, the most gilded palace of the richest industrialist required a vast staff and immense trouble to come anywhere near approximating it.
"We owe this scene to capitalism. To put it differently, we owe this scene to centuries of capital accumulation at the hands of free people who have put capital to work on behalf of economic innovations, at once competing with others for profit and cooperating with millions upon millions of people in an ever-expanding global network of the division of labor. The savings, investments, risks, and work of hundreds of years and uncountable numbers of free people have gone into making this scene possible, thanks to the ever-remarkable capacity for a society developing under conditions of liberty to achieve the highest aspirations of the society's members."
Even the semi-mild form of socialism promulgated by Obama is a threat to our civilization. And so Lew does not exaggerate when he says, "the wish for socialism is a wish for unparalleled human evil."
Writes Warren Woodward: "I had always thought that the War of 1812 was the last legitimate war of self defense fought by the US. Recently I came across some posts somewhere where people were saying the US started it by invading Canada. My history is a little rusty. Is there an article you could recommend on the subject?"
Warren, David Gordon recommends J.C.A. Stagg, "James Madison and the Coercion of Britain: Canada, the West Indies, and the War of 1812" The William and Mary Quarterly (January 1981)
The New Yorker calls the death of the GOP "The Fall of Conservatism."
They can't bear the onerous burden of reality. Nothing exists to the right of Frum, Kristol, and Brooks.
Having made that determination, they're right, of course, that the Little Frummer Boy, the Kristol Kid, and the Highbrow Con are washed up. Apparently they were asleep at the switch when Ron Paul made the top of the NYT best-seller list.
From the Associated Press: "Texas mayors and business leaders filed a class-action lawsuit Friday alleging Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff hoodwinked landowners into waiving their property rights for construction of a fence along the Mexican border.
"Members of the Texas Border Coalition said Chertoff did not fairly negotiate compensation with landowners for access to their land for six-month surveys to choose fence sites.
"The coalition of mayors and business and community leaders is seeking an injunction to block work on the fence. . . . "
A very interesting rumor says he will seek the LP presidential nomination. Certainly somebody is polling LP delegates to ask if they would support him.
Doug Wead on the continuing GOP conspiracy against Ron and the Paulians. Contains a great story on the bigwig campaign against Ron, and the outrage that anyone should dare to dissent from the partyline.
Writes Kristin Larabee: "The picture of the LRC billboard in your Saturday blog made me smile, and I must concur with the gentleman who paid for the ad that education can indeed make a big difference. For example, a mere couple years ago, I thought 'conservatives' mostly stood for low taxes and intolerance (thank you, Rush Limbaugh!) In fact, a lot has changed for me since I joined the 'Ron Paul Revolution' and my desire for learning was reborn (after State education killed it.) For example:
"In previous years, I spent my 'tax refund' (for which I was immensely grateful to the government) on guitars, tattoos, and entertainment. This year I spent my money (which the government has the audacity to forcibly take from my paychecks) on the Ron Paul campaign, an 8-hour Constitution class, and nonfiction books.
"A year ago, I was reading Dean Koontz novels and Rolling Stone magazine; today, I'm reading Speaking of Liberty.
"A year ago, I knew naught (and cared not) about economics; now, I quote 'Jekyll Island' and Gary North and engage my twenty-something friends in conversations about the gold standard and sound money.
"A year ago, I was watching CNN and reading the NYT with only slight skepticism about the reliability and trustworthiness of the mainstream media; today, I know better, and I read LRC!"
Not according to the latest poll:
Suffolk 05/17 - 05/18 600 LV Obama 45 Hillary 41
That I bashed on Saturday.
BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Is a huge opportunity but we've got have leadership from Washington, the same way we had leadership when Kennedy said we're going to the moon, we want to invest what we need to make it happen and there are all sorts of spin offs benefits from that. So that's what we want to do on global warming here in the United States.
We are also, though, going have to negotiate with other countries. China, India, in particular Brazil. They are growing so fast that they are consuming more and more energy, and pretty soon, if their [carbon] footprint even approaches ours, we're goners.
That's part of the reason why we've got to make the investment; we've got to lead by example. If we lead by example -- if we lead by example, then we can actually export and license technology that have been invented here to help them deal with their growth pain. But keep in mind, you're right. We can't tell them, don't grow. We can't -- drive our SUVs and you know, eat as much as we want and keep our homes on you know, 72 degrees at all times, and whether we're living in the desert or we're living in the tundra, and then just expect that every other country's going say OK.
You guys go ahead and keep on using 25 percent of the world's energy. Even though you only account for 3 percent of the population, and we'll be fine. Don't worry about us. That's not -- that's not leadership. That's not going to happen. And that's, by the way, why, for example, I had this big argument with Senator Clinton and McCain about the gas tax, holiday. Which was an example. That's how Washington works. It's not thinking long term. It's thinking, how do we get through the next election?
And, you know, John McCain, for him to come to Oregon as an environmental president, but his big strategy is to do more drilling and to have a gas tax holiday for three months, that's a phony solution. You know, you can't -- John McCain has consistently been opposed to fuel efficiency standards, raising fuel efficiency standards on cars. How is he going to meet any of these targets? Maybe he's imagining it the way he did imaging getting out of the war in Iraq. You know? We -- we need somebody with a plan. And who is willing to talk to the American people about these difficulties and how we're going to get through these challenges together. All right? OK. All right. OK. Over here.
I just watched McCain's ad promising everything but the Second Coming by 2013 (I guess he's leaving that to Pastor Hagee). No adjective is strong enough to express fully its vapid and pathetic impact.
I did manage to find a silver lining, however. I was reminded of my years as a roadhouse entertainer. One night two bored and boorish regulars were arguing at the bar. One of them grumbled, "I wish I was in Florida."
His pal, in a classic demonstration of closing-time one-upmanship, grunted, "Hah. I wish ** I ** was on the Riviera!"
Me, I wish it was 2013. (Hat tip to TPM Cafe).
The state Department of Food and Agriculture is currently being slowed down in its policy of spraying Santa Cruz, Monterey, Sonoma and other parts of the state to battle the brown apple moth. It has already quarantined a part of Sonoma. And, "Although people reportedly got sick last year in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties because of the aerial spraying, it seems this is the only viable solution to terminate the moths."
You gotta love the state. Whether to kill moths or to save moths, the state puts mere man in his place.
Writes Tim Swanson: "Two months, ago Paul peaked at just over 85,000 supporters and then slowly dipped down into 84,000. In the past 3 weeks his fan base has increased and is above 87,000 now."
The reason? His new book, of course, and his continuing opposition to the McCainiac.
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