Politics, Government & Public Policy: May 2008 Archives

The Obama family has left Trinity United, their church of almost 25 years, after the most recent insane racist sermon.

Words cannot describe the surreality of watching a middle-aged white man in a priest's collar appearing like he is trying to imitate Jeremiah Wright at his most outrageous.

[garbled] expose white entitlement. And supremacy, wherever it raises its head. I said before, I really don't want ot make this political, because you know I'm really very unpolitical.

When Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on, I really don't believe it was put on. I really believe that she just always thought, 'this is mine. I'm Bill's wife. I'm white, and this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate.'

Then out of nowhere, 'I'm Barack Obama!'

Imitating Hillary's response, screaming at the top of his lungs again, he continues, 'Ah, damn! Where did you come from? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my show!'

(mocks crying)

She wasn't the only one crying, there was a whole lot of white people crying!

So Barack Obama announced his "disappointment" and left the church. That's Presidential-quality judgment there, folks! It only took him 25 years to recognize what 99% of the rest of America knew at first blush: Trinity United and its pastors are anti-American racist lunatics.

But I'm being disingenuous... it's obvious Obama knew the nature of his church from the get-go -- even if he didn't inhale, he puffed enough to fit in. He's leaving now not because he doesn't like the taste, but because his formerly private vice has become all-too-public. The crowd he's trying to join now doesn't appreciate the "nuance" of his former clique, so he's having to choose.... Now that Obama's too good for them, it will be interesting to see if his old friends still support him.

Update:

Holy insanity, Batman, get a load of Obama's reasons for quitting the church:

Obama told reporters he didn't want his "church experience to be a political circus — I think most American people will understand that, and wouldn't want to subject their church to that, either." He said it has been "months" since he has attended Trinity. ...

Obama said he also regrets “all the attention that my campaign has visited on” the church.

So... he's not leaving because the church is full of racist crackpots, but because he feels bad about all the national media attention the church has been getting? Talk about tone deaf.

Hillary is in trouble for pointing out the obvious: someone could get assassinated.

Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday brought up the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy while defending her decision to stay in the race against Barack Obama - drawing a furious reaction from the front-runner's camp.

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," she said, dismissing calls to drop out. ...

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton rebuked Clinton, saying her remark was "unfortunate and has no place in this campaign."

Any comments about assassination and the primary contest are especially sensitive because Obama is the first African-American to advance so far in the race for the White House and he has faced threats, congressional sources have said.

Aside from anyone's skin color, Presidential assassination attempts and successes aren't exactly rare. I've often wondered what would happen if one of the major party candidates were killed the day of the election.

Furthermore, I'm sure that the possibility that Barack Obama will be assassinated is one of the scenarios that the Clinton camp has envisioned as one of their few remaining routes to the White House.

You might be surprised to learn that I have no problem with Canton, OH, considering jail time for homeowners who don't cut their grass.

For residents tired of that overgrown lot that resembles a minijungle next door, the city wants to help by trying to put high-grass violators behind bars.

City Council wants to beef up its existing high-grass and weeds law by making a second offense a fourth-degree misdemeanor, which is punishable by a fine of up to $250 and up to 30 days in jail.

In the spring and summer, it's not uncommon for council members to field complaints from residents about overgrown lots owned by individuals or banks and corporations that ignore the law and notices in the mail.

I believe that lower levels of government should have more power to restrict liberty than higher levels of government. I'd oppose a federal or state law governing the height of my lawn, but wouldn't mind having such an ordinance in my city. (Similarly, I wouldn't mind allowing cities or perhaps even states to establish government-authorized religions if their population desired it.)

Lower levels of government are more responsive to citizens than higher levels are. Anyone can go to a city council meeting and be heard, but just try getting your state legislature or Congress to pay any attention to you. Furthermore, it's easier to leave a city that has laws you don't like than it is to leave a state, and easier to leave a state than to leave the United States. Our joint state-federal system was designed to encourage competition and experimentation between different sets of laws. I'm not sure the doctrine of "incorporation" serves us well in this context.

So how should the limits of power be defined for various levels of government? I don't know! That will take some more thought.

Physician Paul Hsieh has written up a very useful list of frequently asked questions about free-market health care and why the free market is inherently morally superior to any form of socialized medicine.

Glenn Reynold's writes that the NRA convention was cheerier this year than he remembers it being a decade ago when the Democrats were trying their darndest to confiscate every gun in the country. This turnaround is a great example of how our two-party political system is supposed to work.

I was struck by the contrast this time around. People seemed much happier, and more optimistic. Most, I think, expected that the Democrats would retake the White House in the fall, but they didn’t seem to expect a return to the Clinton gun-grab efforts.

It’s easy to see why. Hillary is now going out of her way to explain what a hunter she’s always been, and how much she values gun rights. Obama is tagging along as best he can, talking about the Second Amendment and the Constitution, though his record as a Director for the virulently anti-gun Joyce Foundation makes that even less persuasive than Hillary’s attempts. But sincerity isn’t the point, since we’re talking politicians here. The point is that they feel they have to lie. Democrats seem to have given up on gun control — they’ve picked up Congressional seats mostly by running pro-gun candidates in conservative districts — and gun-rights people find themselves a constituency that’s now being courted by both parties, rather than being taken for granted by one.

Gun rights are wildly and broadly popular, and the Democrats have built their current majority in Congress on their acquiescence to that fact -- unpleasant as it may be to their elites. The center point on the issue of gun rights has shifted towards popular opinion because of the competition between the parties for voters near the middle. This is how the two-party system is supposed to work, and it's the sort of effect that doomed last year's "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" despite Congressional and Presidential support.

As much as we Americans like to complain about our bloated, unresponsive, and ineffective government, the two-party "first past the post" system appears to be far superior to the more widespread parliamentary system which is commonly based on proportional representation. (Though, for example, England uses a "first past the post" parliamentary system.)

In a parliamentary system with proportional representation, small political parties can get representation in the legislature with just a small percentage of the vote. For example, in continental Europe it's not unusual for a country to have a Generic Left party which receives 48% of the vote, a Generic Right party which receives 47% of the vote, and a Nazi/Communist/UFO party which receives 5% of the vote. The Nazi/Communist/UFO party only receives a tiny percentage of the vote, and in America they wouldn't win any seats in Congress. Under a proportional representation parliamentary system though, they get 5% of the legislature... and that 5% is enough to swing control of the legislature between the two major parties. The result is that the Nazi/Communist/UFO party gets to break every tie and therefore has power that is far greater than its numbers would suggest. Why should they "move to the middle" when their lunacy lets them play kingmaker?

There's a lot more that could be said on the matter, probably better than I've said it, but hopefully this post whets your appetite and gives you an even greater appreciation for the wisdom of America's Founding Fathers.

Barack Obama doesn't understand what it means to be an American.

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said.

"That's not leadership. That's not going to happen," he added.

Who cares what other countries say? Obama clearly doesn't comprehend American exceptionalism. The whole point of being the wealthiest nation on the planet is so that we can live well and do what we want.

And yes, I'm mostly serious.

I think the recent string of stories about Republican disarray are a bit overstated, but only a bit. Peggy pens perhaps the most painfully pithy point:

"This was a real wakeup call for us," someone named Robert M. Duncan, who is chairman of the Republican National Committee, told the New York Times. This was after Mississippi. "We can't let the Democrats take our issues." And those issues would be? "We can't let them pretend to be conservatives," he continued. Why not? Republicans pretend to be conservative every day.

I'm going to vote for McCain primarily because the thought of being so-close-yet-so-far to a conservative majority on the Supreme Court forces my hand. I've got no hope, however, that Congress will do anything even vaguely conservative until the current crop of Republican leaders is ousted.

(And can anyone think of a synonym for "most" that starts with a "p"?)

Watch out for disingenuous labeling of voters who don't vote for Barack Obama as "racially motivated".

More disturbing, racially motivated voting appeared to be running higher than usual according to exit poll results. Two in 10 white voters in West Virginia said the race of the candidate was a factor in their vote. Of those voters, about 70 percent said they wouldn't support Obama over McCain.

From that link to exit poll results:

Racially motivated voting ran somewhat higher than elsewhere: Two in 10 whites said the race of the candidate was a factor in their vote, second only to Mississippi. Just 31 percent of those voters said they'd support Obama against presumptive Republican nominee John McCain, fewer than in other primaries where the question's been asked.

The implication is clear: people who said that "the race of the candidate was a factor in their vote" are racists. However, there are plenty of other more likely interpretations of the poll results. Just because race was a factor in a voting decision doesn't mean that the respondent voted for or against Obama directly because of his skin color. The connection between the vote and race could be indirect, and quite legitimate.

1. Obama's disgraceful pastor of 23 years, Jeremiah Wright, did more to bring race into the campaign than anyone else. Obama's handling of the Wright issue is a substantial issue that hinges largely on race. His "typical white person" remarks seem intended to cause racial division.

2. Obama's position on affirmative action is a racial issue.

3. Michelle Obama's recently acquired pride in America have a racial angle, considering how much she personally benefited from affirmative action.

4. Obama was quick to call for the firing of Don Imus, despite his multi-decade blindness to the racism of his own church.

I'm sure there are others, but I've got to run at the moment. You fill in the blanks!

I was watching last night's results with as much nailbitingness as anyone, but what can I say that the numbers don't put more eloquently? Hillary Clinton's slight edge in Indiana doesn't look like much compared to Barack Obama's huge double-digit victory in larger North Carolina. Obama picks up a net 200,000+ votes and a handful of delegates. Hillary might stay in through next Tuesday's West Virginia primary, where she's expected to do well, but she probably realizes that there's no point now.

What's more, Clinton has been loaning her campaign millions of dollars a month, and there's at least one way she can get it back: agree to drop out of the race if the Obama campaign pays off her campaign debt. Paying off Clinton's campaign debts would be an indirect bribe since most of the debt is to Clinton herself, but at this stage who's counting? Hillary won't have any leverage for this sort of concession if she drags her campaign on much longer.

Update:

But maybe a few million dollars isn't much to risk when you're so close to the Presidency.

Look, everyone knows that the "gas tax holiday" proposed by Hillary Clinton and John McCain is a stupid idea. I'm all for cutting taxes, but this is one of the few taxes that actually goes towards something that the government is supposed to do: maintain our infrastructure. Why not cut some of the taxes that go towards some of the multitude of unConstitutional activities our politicians pursue so vigorously as they try to buy our votes with our own money?

More than 200 economists, including four Nobel prize winners, signed a letter rejecting proposals by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to offer a summertime gas-tax holiday. ...

``Suspending the federal tax on gasoline this summer is a bad idea, and we oppose it,'' the letter says. Economist Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution is among those circulating the letter. Aaron said that while he supports Obama, the list includes Republicans and Clinton supporters. ...

The gas-tax suspension has become a flashpoint in the race for the Democrat presidential nomination between New York Senator Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Clinton and Republican McCain tout the proposal as an example of their concern for struggling middle-class families. Obama, who estimated it would save the average driver less than $30, calls the idea a ``gimmick,'' rejecting it on similar grounds as the economists.

It is a gimmick, just like the stupid "stimulus" checks that are being paid out right now. I dream of a day when "average" Americans are wise enough to see through this crap.

Hillary Clinton's response to these denunciations is also noteworthy, because she explicitly states what most leftists must think when they hear economic objections to their idiot policies:

Clinton said yesterday on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos that ``I'm not going to put my lot in with economists'' because ``we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively.''

Stupid economists! They haven't taken into account that the plan will be designed and implemented effectively! Well gosh, if that's suddenly with our politicians' capabilities then why don't they go back, redesign, and reimplement the rest of our bureaucracy so it works effectively too?

Aside from all the other nefarious goings-on in Pelosi's House, it's this bit that enrages me most personally:

Another motion to lower farm subsidies, by Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, was pending Thursday afternoon when the House adjourned for its usual long weekend of fundraising, politicking and recreation. Unchanged in Nancy Pelosi's House is bipartisan devotion to the three-day week.

I work hard and I work a lot to support my family, to provide for our future retirement, to give my employer and my country an honest return for my wages, and to honor God with my labor.

Eh, maybe I should be grateful they work so little. Everything our Congress does seems designed to screw me over, so maybe the less they work the better off the rest of us are.

It looks like Newsweek has decided that Jeremiah Wright is intentionally hurting Barack Obama.

And while [Oprah] Winfrey, who has endorsed Obama and campaigned on his behalf, had long understood the perils of a close association with Wright, friends say she was blindsided by the pastor's personal assault on Obama. "She felt that Wright would never do anything to hurt a man who looked up to him as a father figure," said her [anonymous] close friend. "She also never thought he'd intentionally hurt someone trying to make history and change the lives of so many people.''

Unless I missed something, how has it been determined that Wright is intentionally hurting Obama, rather than only inadvertently hurting Obama while primarily focused on defending and aggrandizing himself? Seems like Newsweek is providing some helpful spin to the Obama campaign.

No doubt Barack Obama is poised to announce either a more diplomatic approach or a total withdrawal from his home city:

Fifty-four shootings in two weekends. Shot-up bodies recovered in groups of three and five. Is this Ramadi? Basra? No.

Welcome to Chicago.

After a recent outbreak of gun-related violence, Mayor Richard Daley is now pushed into supporting a plan by new Police Superintendent Jody Weis to arm 13,000 Chicago police officers with assault rifles. Depending on how many weapons are eventually deployed, this may develop into the largest militarization of police patrol officers in United States history. If the department arms 10,000 of their officers with M4s, the police will have 9,900 more assault rifles in Chicago than the U.S. Marines presently have in Fallujah, Iraq.

Advice to Senator Obama as he aspires to run a whole country: Physician, heal thyself.

(HT: Instapundit.)

First off, let me say that my wife and I have ardently disliked Hillary Clinton for almost two decades. We would never vote for her for anything. So imagine our surprise when Hillary did quite well during her appearance on The O'Reilly Factor. Bill O'Reilly asked some very good, very tough questions, and Hillary handled them well with a minimum of cast-iron talking-point repetition. I still don't agree with most of her policies and think she's incredibly dishonest, but she came across as poised, likable, and articulate.

To me, the highlight of the interview was when O'Reilly pointed out that her plan to raise taxes (and potentially eliminate the Social Security cap, though she denied it) would result in a 14% tax increase for him personally. She fielded it by saying that people as wealthy as he and her could afford it, middle-class taxpayers would benefit, etc. O'Reilly should have, but didn't, retort by telling her that he employs middle-class taxpayers, and he'd have to lay people off if her tax wishes are granted. But hey, this wasn't meant to be a debate, it was meant to be an interview.

Overall, the wife and I enjoyed watching quite a bit, and we're looking forward to tonight's installment. The questions were far tougher than any we've seen elsewhere, and we can't wait to see O'Reilly interview Barack Obama and John McCain. (Yeah, right.)