Category Archives: Politics

Civil Liberties, Law and Order, Politics

Why Attorneys Matter

It’s hard to break the meme-lock of the Right on the attorneys scandal. They don’t or can’t admit that firing eight of your own appointees in your second term because they aren’t prosecuting your political opponents is different than the normal changeover of USA’s that starts any Presidential term. But maybe they can’t get worked up over what one of the new appointeesis doing.

What was done to Ed Rosenthal is a travesty — one, by the way, that started under the Clinton Administration.

Balko has been on fire lately. The Agitator is quickly becoming one of the best blogs on the internets.

Politics

Radley Reconsidered

A seven hour drive will give you time to think. And I thought about a point on Radley Balko’s take on the Duke affair.

I don’t think that race played that big a role here on the “law and order” Right wingers who jumped to these guys’ defense. Granted, they probably would not have been as vociferous if this had been a pretty white cheerleader accusing three illegal immigrants (althought they defended Kobe Bryant when he was accused). Granted, they reflexively defend Scooter Libby to the point of absurdity (although they didn’t defend Duke Cunningham or Jack Abramof).

But I think a bigger issue for them was the people advocating for the victim — Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. The minute the Right heard these guys thought the Duke trio were guilty, they just KNEW they were innocent. And it’s kind of depressing that our political — and legal — landscape has been reduced to ateam sport. Those guys think one thing, so I must think the opposite. It applies to the Left, too — or perhaps you’ve missed the people reflexively opposing everything Bush does, including massive hikes in social spending. People decide their opinions based on whose side they want to be on.

I used to joke that my default stance on any political issue was to find out what Hilliary Clinton though and support the opposite. It’s distressing that this sort of thinking is becoming all too literal for a significant faction of the American political body.

PS – And is Nancy Grace a fricking coward, or what?

'Culture', Politics

Imus, The Final Chapter

While driving up from New Braunfels, I had a moment of clarity on the Imus issue and was going to write a long brilliant post on it.

Unfortunately, by the time I got up here Radley Balko had said everything I wanted to say, only better. He has the best take on the comment:

Imus isn’t a racist. He’s a misanthrope. He hates people. All people. His show made broad, possibly offensive generalizations about everyone on a near-daily basis. We now learn that the Rutgers women’s basketball team was apparently hurt and offended by the comments. But were they really? I’d hazard to guess that not a single one of them was listening to the show that morning.

The Right:

Of course, the conservative reaction to all of this is pretty stupid, too. “Look at all the rap music! They call women ‘hos’ too!”

No, you idiots. How typical. The answer to politically incorrect censorship is not…more political incorrect censorship.. Not to mention that Imus’ comment was stupid, lame humor. Hip hop is art. Sharpton and Jackson actually are going after hip hop. And their efforts to take words away from rap artists are every bit as lame (lamer, actually) than their attempt to take words away from clueless, aging disc jockeys.

The Left:

Drudge also reported the other day that many activist groups were protesting Imus to the FTC, as well, a’la Brent Bozell. Note to my lefty friends: When you’re imitating Brent Bozell, you’re doing something wrong.

And what I think is the most important point, so much that I made a big deal out of it in my first post on the subject:

I guess my point is that it’d be nice if all the energy spent the last two weeks expressing self-righteous outrage over a mistaken comment from a harmless old fool were instead spent on, say, the racial sentencing disparities in the criminal justice system, or the fact that a substantially higher percentage of black men are in prison in America than were imprisoned in South Africa during apartheid.

Read it.

Law and Order, Politics

Yes!

Absolute brilliance from Radly Balko:

Yes, Nifong was rotten to the core. Yes, the liberals who convicted the lacrosse team in the press rushed to judgment, and were dead wrong. But listening to the right wing over the several months, you’d think this kind of thing only happens to white people, and only liberal, bleeding-heart prosecutors like Nifong are capable of unjust, overtly political, race-fueled witch hunts. The unique thing about this case is that everything happened in reverse. So it tested the principles and allegiances of everybody. The real credit I think goes to the handful of liberal who stood by the lacrosse team, bucking the civil rights groups and feminist groups on the other side.

…

The right-wingers who left their law-and-order perch to hustle to these players’ defense were no less politically motivated than the left-wingers who left their rights-of-the-accused perch to condemn them.

The right-wingers just happened to be right this time.

Read the whole thing

And Lee at Right Thinking has the proper take on the “War Czar”.

'Culture', Politics

Imus Part II

Was listening to Rush today and he was very dimissive of the Boortz concern that the Imus fiasco is the beginning of a campaign to get rid of talk radio. As he said, they’ve been after him for 18.5 years.

Both Sully and, I can’t believe I’m typing this, Snoop have a good response to the Right’s “what about rap?” meme. There is a difference between a black man dissing black people and a white man dissing black people. It may not be fair, but that’s the way it is. It’s one thing to bash your own group, it’s quite another to bash somebody else’s.

'Culture', Politics

Imus

I’m going to have to tread carefully here. I shouldn’t stick my foot in the racial waters surrounding Don Imus. But I think there are three points to make:

First, what Imus said was out of line and disgusting. He should be punished. And don’t come at me with free speech. You have a right to say what you want . . . and the responsibility to take the consequences. He has no Constitutional right to have a job. And I’m afraid I have to disagree with the first half of Boortz’s comments. I don’t think this is a liberal conspiracy to “get” right-wing talk show hosts. We heard that when Trent Lott was forced to step down, that this was just the beginning of getting Republican after Republican. It was garbage then and it’s garbage now. There was no equivalent outcry when Rush Limbaugh “jokingly” suggested that the media was being hard on Rex Grossman because he was white. People just ignored him. Boortz has been making inflammatory comments for years, including his famous “Boo Got Shot” routine. No one’s calling for his head.

Second, and it pains me to say this, but the Right has a point. Where is the concordant outrage over violent and misogynistic rap lyrics? This has a far greater potential for doing harm in the black community than some idiot on a radio show that no one listens to. And Boortz has one point — is there any equivalent outrage over the Duke Lacrosse incident, which was highly racially charged? Are any of these same agitators backing off of their comments about how Duke, men’s sports, North Carolina and the entire nation were a bunch of racist crackers who were reponsible for this? It does seem that Mike Nifong will be held accountable for his action, however.

Finally — here’s my most controversial statement — don’t Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have something better to do with their time? While they are preening for the cameras over Imus’ words, black kids are dropping out of school, getting involved with drugs and crime, having kids out of wedlock and getting murdered. These are difficult but solvable problems.

OK, they’re politicans. Fine. How about advocating for letting non-violent drug offenders out of prison, then? How about doing something about the highway robbery that is our Social Security system? Why not advocate for fundamental education reform like school choice?

I’m reminded of 1991 when the Braves were in the World Series. There was some controversy over their logo and the Tomahawk Chop. I asked a genuine Native American, rather than a white agitator, what he thought. His response was something along the lines of, “When we’ve solved the problems of health, education, alcoholism, drug abuse, unemployment and poverty, then we can worry about offensive chants.”

Again, don’t they have something better to do? Imus’ words do not reflect some deep-seated racism in the industry or the country. He’s just a twerp on the radio. He’s now suspended and been pilloried. They’ve made their point. Move on to more pressing problems.

Law and Order, Politics

Over

So now that the three Duke Lacrosse players have been vindicated, where do they go to get their reputations back?

Of course, expect crows of triumph from Coulter and the rest who smelled a rat from the start. But just because they were right doesn’t mean they were right. There’s a huge difference being right about something because you’re smart and perceptive and being right about something out of sheer dumb luck. If you opine enough and throw out enough opinions, you will occasionally be right about something — as sportscasters demonstrate every day. They were basing their defense of these men more on reflex (and the background of the accuser) than fact. It was a snap judgement — it just happened to be right.

The same, of course, goes for those who instantly pronounced these men guilty based on their gender, class, race and geography. They immediately bought that priveleged white men in the south would do such a dispicable thing — facts be damned.

No one in the political circles really cared about the facts of the case or the wheels of justice (or the woman, for that matter). They were far more interested in their partisan political take on it. Fortunately, someone in the DA’s office was being more concientious that either group of political cretins.

Politics, Taxes and Spending

Two Numbers in the Dark

The Heritage Foundation has a completely bullshit study of how much illegal aliens are costing us. Supposedly, the are costing us $2.2 trillion. However

  • This is over ten years. I’m getting sick and tired of this business of projecting things over five or ten years and proclaiming them gigantic.
  • As Heritage itself will attest, this is almost entirely due to our progressive tax system. Illegal aliens tend to be in the lower income brackets and lower income brackets pay very little taxes while consuming enormous benefits. I don’t see that 12 million illegal aliens are necessarily worse than 30 million people living in “poverty”.
  • Here’s what makes me doubt the whole smash. The study bases this on 2/3 of the illegals. But what of the other 1/3? Are they revenue neutral? Revenue positive?
  • And finally, it’s a huge mistake to confound government revenue with national revenue. Are the illegals going to produce $2.2 trillion in goods and services in that period of time? If they’re paying $9,000 per annum in taxes, that means they are growing the economy by at least $40,000 per year. That’s $4 trillion they are contributing to the economy.

    • There’s another Number in the Dark out there — the supposed $400 billion tax hike the Democrats are giving us. First, this is over five years, so it’s actually an $80 billion tax hike. Second, they are not raising taxes, they are allowing the tax cuts to expire. And third, who was it who gave us expiring taxes in the first place? Who was it who, rather than give us a permanent tax cut, gave us a perpetual issue to bash Democrats with? Who was it who had a six year spending orgy?

    Why, geewhillikers, that would be the Republicans!

    They’ve been caught by their own cynical political ploy. Or rather, the America taxpayer has. Yes, the Democrats should extend the tax cuts for “the rich”. I’m getting that tax cut and I’m not rich. But the GOP have only themselves to blame. They empowered the Democrats, in every way imaginable. The Dems must be chuckling now. Thanks to the Republicans, they can raise taxes without a single vote.

    Politics

    Iran Redux

    It occurred to me that my posts on the Iran situation may have come across as your standard “blame Bush” diatribe. I’m not a liberal or a Democrat and I don’t reflexively blame Bush for everything (although if my upcoming observing run is clouded out, that might change). But there are two points worth making, both of which fly in the face of the rantings and raving of the Right.

    First, politics has to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it were. The Bush Administration has long had problems with reality. But the situation we had with Iran was that we had 150,000 troops pinned down just west of them, an Iranian leadership practically begging us to bomb them and a situation that could be and was eventually resolved diplomatically. What we did, given the circumstances, was the right thing.

    However, my second point is that those circumstances were the product of the man in the Oval Office. Were we not pinned down in Iraq, were Iraq at peace, Iran would not have pulled this stunt. Our problems in Iraq have emboldened our enemies and this was but a sample of what may be coming.

    You see, the Right lauded Bush when Libya, in the wake of Iraq, ended its weapons programs. They said that the terrorist nations were scared and, I believed, they were right. But you can’t, on the one hand, give Bush credit when our actions intimidate evil men and then, on the other, not give him blame when our actions embolden the enemy.

    Yeah yeah yeah, I know. It’s the Democrats. It’s the media. It’s the wussy American people who have emboldened the enemy. The same wussy American people who supported the war for three years and continue to support the troops despite incompetent leadership. And Bush never takes any blame. Nothing is his fault. Everyone can be blamed for Iraq and foreign policy problems except the one man was has unfettered power in these areas.

    Yeah.

    Culture War, Politics

    Lawyers

    Read this story about the how the Bush Justice Department has been recruiting heavily from Pat Robertson’s law school. Regent has actually improved its reputation remarkably over the last few years but was a bottom-tier school when Bush began recruiting from it.

    The law school’s dean, Jeffrey A. Brauch, urges in his “vision” statement that students reflect upon “the critical role the Christian faith should play in our legal system.” Jason Eige (’99), senior assistant to Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell, puts it pithily in the alumni newsletter, Regent Remark: “Your Résumé Is God’s Instrument.”

    This legal worldview meshed perfectly with that of former Attorney General John Ashcroft—a devout Pentecostal who forbade use of the word “pride,” as well as the phrase “no higher calling than public service,” on documents bearing his signature. (He also snatched the last bit of fun out of his press conferences when he covered up the bared breasts of the DoJ statue the “Spirit of Justice”). No surprise that, as he launched a transformation of the Justice Department, the Goodlings looked good to him.

    The problem here is not so much where Bush is recruiting from or what battles they choose to fight. If they think “persecution” of Christians is more worthy of being investigated that blacks being denied votes, that’s their perogative. What bothers me is the same thing that always bothers me about the Religious Right. When you think that God is on your side, anything is justified. How can laws, the Constitution or fundamental rights stand up to the Will of God? How can you can accept an election that will turn out his chosen candidate?

    A lot of the problems in the Bush Administration become clearer when they are seen through the lens of religious dogma. The insistence on loyalty and having “our guys” in charge, the treating of unbelievers as though they were subhuman (Abu Ghraib, etc.).

    As I have said many times, I have no problem with a religious President. But I get concerned with one who thinks God talks to him.

    Politics

    Decline and Fall?

    Peter Scobic throws some cold water on the idea that the Iran situation demonstrated the weakness of the west.

    The specter of Western decline is an old conservative and neoconservative trope that wasn’t true during the cold war and is even less applicable now. Great Britain has two active carrier battle groups and spends more on its defenses than all but four countries, lagging significantly behind only the United States and China. It also deploys 16 megatons of nuclear explosives on its Trident submarines. That’s about 1,000 times the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Put it this way: If British leaders woke up one day and decided that Iran should no longer exist, Iran would no longer exist.

    As a matter of history, the United States is more powerful now, relative to the rest of the world, than Rome was at her peak.

    However, allow me to quibble. I am not worried that our country is going to be invaded any time soon. I am worried, however, about Iran being able to choke off a third of the world’s oil or send a million men westeward into Iraq. The military ability of the United States is defined primarily by how much power we can project and the deterrence that our power buys. We have a huge military precisely so that we never have to used it.

    Bush’s mismangement of Iraq has seriously degraded both our deterrent and projection ability. We currenly have 150,000 troops bogged down in Iraq and an Iranian nation that’s feeling frisky because they’ve seen us stumble. Mr. Scoblic, the point of Iran is not that they can beat us in battle, it’s that they might feel stupid enough to challenge us. And we’d win but at a high cost in lives and treasure.