Hey - Racist!

It was as predictable as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West. But a little unsettling in the widespread and coordinated attacks about anyone who wasn't "sure" that the President is an American citizen. We have Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, saying that Donald Trump is "aspiring to be the new Joe McCarthy." How dare Trump ask questions about the President's birth certificate and grades?
Donald Trump may be a clown, a self promoter, or as the President says, "A carnival barker" but you have to admit that he has done what the supposed media have refused to do, and that is force the President to produce actual evidence. One can argue that it was already proven, so there was no reason, but if so, why the delay of all of this time. One theory holds that the Democrats wanted the issue kept alive so that they could claim that anyone who didn't agree that the issue was resolved must be a racist. To quote from the article:

Many critics of the birther movement say its core tenets--and its stubborn resistance to evidence disproving those beliefs--can be traced to racial hostilities. The fundamental birtherist conviction, these critics say, is that an African-American can't have legitimately won the presidency--and that his elevation to power therefore has to be the result of an elaborate subterfuge.

Why would anyone want to believe that it was a subterfuge? How about the fact that the Main Stream Media sent 70 investigators to Alaska, but we still know almost nothing about the President himself. It is the obviously obsequious lap dogs of our supposed Fourth Estate who have brought their integrity into question. Sure, the birther question was ridiculous, but so was the allegation that "Bush knew" about the 9-11 attacks. One third of Democrats still believe that lie, but they received none of the attacks of people who didn't believe the press.
But the funniest has to be the direct accusations of racism of anyone who doesn't enthusiastically support Obama. Even supposed "newsman" Bob Schieffer discounts any legitimate criticism of the President as being based in racist undertones. He is supported in this baseless accusation by academics who see nothing wrong with what Obama has done, and therefore, the only explanation has to again be racism. the funniest has to be Whoopi Goldberg, who announced that she is deliberately "playing the race card" in this case. Well, if Whoopi Goldberg calls you a racist, you must be one, right?
Their overuse of what was once a legitimate allegation has devolved into a purely partisan one, that is only worthy of scorn and derision. If everyone who is now part of the 53% who disapprove of Obama is a racist, how in the heck did he get elected in the first place?
No, they cannot legitimately defend the President's record so they attack those who are disappointed in him by trying to deligitamise then by using the magic word that always shut up conservatives before: Racist!
The bad thing about this despicable tactic, is that it obscures real racism, and gives cover to those racists, who can point out non-racists accused of the crime. But this is all about winning, not being correct. They can justify their lies because they are so used to lying about everything else.
It's not going to work anymore though. It may become just another perjorative that will be tossed to the side as further evidence of the lack of the accuser's ability to think rationally or present a cogent argument. May that day come when we all laugh at these accusers sooner rather than later.

UPDATE: As proof of the intellectual pygmies, (oops, is that racist?) lack of reasonable thought, you just have to go here so see my points are validated.

Atticus Finch They Ain't

"How can you defend guilty people?" my mother once asked me. I told her that no one is guilty until the judge says they are. "But what if they tell you they did it?" she continued. I told her that the State has the obligation to prove each and every fact, and if they can't, even though my client admitted it, they can't reach a guilty verdict. I know that she wasn't satisfied, and I know that she is not alone in her belief, but I still believe in the Constitution, the presumption of innocence and the right to be represented by counsel.
I love being a lawyer. I love that I can use all of my skill, knowledge and ethics to present the best case on behalf of my clients in the pursuit of justice. I have defended all sorts of people, from the first time defendant who made a mistake on how many glasses of wine she had at dinner, to an incestuous torturing sadist. This isn't saying that I have to like my clients, although many I do, it is my job to put the State to the test and make them prove their case. That is what lawyers do.
Until now.
In case you didn't know it, the Obama Administration has taken the position that they will no longer defend DOMA, otherwise known as the Defense of Marriage Act, which basically prohibits federal recognition of same sex marriage. Now, I think the law is a travesty, violating the X Amendment, and none of their damned business. But the administration choosing not to defend a law on the books is really stupid. Do they not think about what happens when they are no longer in office? If the next Republican administration decides not to defend Affirmative Action, they will have an even greater basis for doing so, since Sandra Day O'Connor said that she thought the law should be invalid after 25 more years from her ruling. The Republican administration could argue that there was no reason to wait.
But this post isn't about the stupid choices of the Obama Administration. It's about lawyers, and the people they represent. Seems that the House Republicans decided to hire a prestigious Atlanta law firm of King & Spalding to represent the defense of DOMA. King & Spalding were apparently happy to take the work until gay activists were able to bring so much pressure on them, that they decided to abandon their client. The lawyer in the firm who took the case, has since resigned, taking the case with him. Former US Soliciter General, Paul Clement said

"A representation should not be abandoned because the client's legal position is extremely unpopular in certain quarters," he wrote to Hays. "Defending unpopular positions is what lawyers do."

The idea that lawyers can be chased from unpopular clients is completely alien to me. The (fictional) standard bearer has always been Atticus Finch from "To Kill a Mockingbird." The small town country lawyer who defended a black man accused of raping a white woman. There was no evidence, and the accuser was shown to be a liar, but the jury convicted nonetheless and later expedited "justice" by lynching the defendant.
The law firm of King & Spalding do not honor Atticus Finch. In fact, they dishonor the entire profession. I may not like my client, his cause, or anything else, but if a lawyer can be forced to withdraw because of popular pressure, the right to counsel is meaningless.

UPDATE: I have since learned that Spalding is the correct spelling, but in my defense, it was spelled that way in the Post article.

Conspiracy within Conspiracy

The Wisconsin Supreme Court election recently passed has almost no effect on Montanans, but the kerfluffle afterwards sure has. Seems as though the initial results reported by the AP did not include some town, and as a result, the AP declared Kloppenburg the winner by just 200 votes. Ms. Kloppenburg promptly raced to the microphones to declare her victory, and of course offer her gratitude to her opponent for losing so gracefully. Then -Whoops, the AP count didn't include over 7000 votes for her opponent, making him the winner. Except that the votes were always there, they just weren't reported to the press. They were reported to the proper authorities and included in the official count. Now Ms. Kloppenburg is hinting at dastardly actions by -gasp- conservative bloggers who have somehow robbed her of her victory.
Now just for fun, let's posit an alternative, for which there is no factual basis, but could be amusing just the same. After the Minnesota Senatorial vote that started out showing Norm Coleman the winner, votes kept popping up all over the place until Al Franken was finally declared the winner. Ponder for a moment, that you are a Republican in Wisconsin, worried about the same sort of electoral mischief happening in your home state. What if you withheld the reporting of a block of votes just long enough to make the possible election thieves show their cards as it were? They would be hard pressed to suddenly go back and try and figure out how many other votes they would have to create for their candidate and would be locked in.
I realize that this is all speculation, and the most important fact that would be used to disprove it is that Republicans don't seem to think that far ahead, in spite of being blamed for starving kids and seniors alike, as well as polluting everything and, oh yeah, taking candy away from kids. (Wait a minute, isn't that the job of the Mayor of New York?)

It's My Blogaversary

Six years ago, started with the first post. Amazing. I think Electric City is the only longer continuously posted conservative blog since Dave Budge became integrated with it and quit posting on his own.
Not sure if six years means endurance, hardheadedness, or lack of imagination. Have to think about that one for awhile.

Why the Birther Movement Endures

A recent article is headlined, "Only 26 per cent of Iowa Republicans believe Obama was born in U.S." I bring this up because of Donald Trump's quest to make the President provide his birth certificate. Now I have long held that "birthers" are no different than the Democrats who claimed that Bush stole the election, or that "Bush lied." There was absolutely no evidence to support those contentions, but they were made for the purpose of deligitimizing the President to prevent him from doing his job.
But I am beginning to think that there may be another explanation: We no longer trust the Main Stream Media, otherwise known as the Press Secretariat for President Obama. For instance, if you go back to the article linked above, it seems as though nearly three quarters of Republicans believe that Obama is foreign born. But if you read the article, you find that 26% also say that they don't know.
The reason they don't know, is that they do not trust the media to be honest. Let's face it, when Sarah Palin was nominated for VP, there were something like 70 investigators sent to Alaska to dig up dirt on her. How many were sent to Princeton or Harvard Law to find out anything about Obama? Do you know anything about his time at those institutions, or even anything about his life that is not in his books? In fact, someone who is an Obama biographer even stated not too long ago that a good portion of his book was just made up. But no one asks him any question about it.
It goes beyond that, from Nancy Pelosi saying that Republicans are going to starve 6 million seniors, or more locally, the radio commercial that says we are all now breathing in arsenic and polluted air since Denny Rehberg voted against the commercials sponsor's pet view. Yet there is no media saying to them, "That is false." Instead, they go running to the Republicans to ask their opinion of the Democrat's talking points, as if they have accepted them at face value.
The Fourth Estate has claimed for themselves the mantle of protecting Democracy by their ever probing and investigating of public figures. While it is good that they do that to the Republicans, it is their absence of the same strict scrutiny for Democrats which shows that they are nothing more than lap dogs for the Democrat Party. Of course Republicans don't believe them when the press announces that Obama is a natural born citizen. They don't believe them on anything else either.
I know that if I had to provide a birth certificate, I would have to make an application to Virginia listing my place and date of birth and they would send me a copy of my birth certificate. But is it really me? Sure I was raised by my parents who told me that is who I was, but I have no proof beyond their assertions. There is no photo of me being born, nor any genetic material tied to the certificate that could be tested to verify it is me. Personally, I have no actual recollection of the event, so I can bring no details to verify that it is me.
But that doesn't mean I am not the person on the birth certificate. But let's face it, the only solution for this to end is for the President to authorize the Governor of Hawaii to release his birth certificate to the public. Oh wait a minute, maybe that won't work.

Obamnomics Revisited

President Obama in his recent address on the budget (where he ignored his previously proposed budget) lambasted Cong. Ryan even after having invited the Congressman to sit in the front row. Well that will build goodwill toward solving the problem. But maybe, he never was in favor of solving the problem. If you believe Cloward-Piven, this is exactly on track with their plan to bankrupt the country and create social upheaval to the point of revolution. The problem with Cloward-Piven is that the disruption of government also results in the disruption of social services, so the poor are disproportionately hurt. But at least those that espouse the theory will be happy that the current situation will be ended. That is, that they think the poor will rise up and eat the rich I guess. It makes no sense, but it does seem to be the path that we are on.
Another option is to raise the taxes on the rich. A favorite of class warriors everywhere. We must punish those that have more than we do. Why? I still haven't figured that one out. But again, class envy is on display and it is not a pretty thing. The Progressive Caucus of Congress is even proposing a tax of 90% on all income over $106,000 a year. What a wonderful idea! Sure, taking everything (and I mean 100% of all income of the top 25%) wouldn't close the deficit, it would make Progressives feel better. But they seem to lack the understanding that if you are a high income earner, that if confronted with the choice of working 80 hours a week to make a net $10k in take home per year, the majority are going to decide that it's time to close the business and retire. That will really end their ability to be rich, or employ people, or invest, or even to pay taxes at the same rate they are now. The Left seem to believe that the rich are hard workers and will continue to work just as hard for no incentives. I think that they are wrong, but time will tell.
So, in either case under the proposals of the President and the Democrat Party, we will not close the debt, we will destroy the country and unemployment is going to make the Great Depression look like a walk in the park. But they also are using Qualitative Ea&sing to inflate the dollar to cover the debt. This will result in a complete destruction of personal savings, and forcing old people on fixed incomes to clip coupons just to buy their one can of Alpo they can afford each day. Not to mention it will be impossible to buy a home on a mortgage of 21% or more.
Hope and Change, and the unbelievable thing is that Obama may get re-elected because of the weakness of the Republican Presidential candidates.
My advice is to face the facts and grab all you can before it all goes to hell. There is no hope with this administration that either consciously or not is working to destroy our nation. It's too late, unless you have enough savings to flee to Australia. Oh wait, they are no different either.

Damn, what's a sensible person to do?

Global Warming Has been Cured

April 18th, 2011 at 3:30 p.m.

I said when I walked in that Global Warming was a lie, and one of my young earnest associates reminded me that it's currently called "Climate Change." I told her the climate is changing in the wrong damned direction.

What the Tea Party is Really About

“It’s amazing to me to be lectured to and hear about how awful the Tea Party is.”

So began Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-KY) defense of the Tea Party on the Senate floor yesterday. And he took off from there, inviting detractors to visit an actual rally and chastising Democrats for trying to blame the Tea Party for the delay in approving a budget bill.

“They want to blame it on the Tea Party because in their secret caucus meetings they’ve done a poll that says the Tea Party could be the villain. Call them extreme, call them all Tea Partiers, say the Tea Party has taken over the Republican Party,” he said. “Well you know what the Tea Party believes in? Good government. We Believe in balancing the budget. We believe in reducing spending.”

I suppose that is why they are demonized. Because the status quo allows for the continuing ripoff of the taxpayers and they don't want it to stop.

Free Obama!

In spite of his announcement that he is running for re-election, President Obama is bemoaning his loss of privacy. He can no longer just be a dad without the world having to wait for his decisions.

I know I will do my part to help him reattain that level of anonymity of Jimmy Carter.

Paul Krugman Says There Will be Death Panels

Sheesh, why in the world anyone would believe this idiot is beyond me. Doesn't he know that the official Lefty line is that Death Panels were made up by Fox News? Of course, he could finally be coming into contact with reality.
My bet is that Krugman will find a way to spin this as a positive.

Rethinking the Argument

While the Left is concerned because their message isn't getting out (it really is, that is why it is rejected) the Republicans seem to have a problem framing their argument as well. For instance, on the recent budget compromise, the agreement was to cut $38 billion from an already bloated budget. $38 billion sounds like a lot of money, and the opponents have been able to demagogue Republicans as wanting to starve old people and kill kids with that amount of cuts.
But what if instead of arguing for that amount of cuts, they were instead to call for a 5% cut across the board in all government spending? That amount doesn't seem so much does it? Surely the government could exist on 95% of what it had before. And the beauty of the thing is that a 5% cut would equal about $180 billion in savings. Still too little concerning a $1.6 trillion dollar deficit, but if you keep cutting 5% every year, you could actually get down to a real number.
Another argument that needs to be made is that we need to balance our priorities while we balance the budget. For instance, the corporation for public broadcasting received $422 million in federal subsidies last year. How many meals would that provide for the elderly? How many children could receive immunizations for that amount? In fact, let's keep going, National Endowment for the Arts? How many homeless shelters could we provide for the same amount? Green energy subsidies - those that raise the price of food and fuel? Instead of doing that, reorienting the money into mass urban transit. In fact, if you were to eliminate the Department of Education, how many more Pell grants could be offered from the savings?
The trick would be to defund these organizations, and put half the savings into debt reduction and the other half into more worthwhile aid to the truly needy.
But they don't call Republicans the "Stupid Party" for nothing.

Comedy

There are times, that I envy the Left. Unconstrained by logic, facts or consistency, they are ardent in their misguided adventures. Some argue that all government spending is good for the economy, except military spending. According to them, if we don't pay for NPR and Planned Parenthood, the entire US economy will collapse into shambles. There seems to be absolutely no awareness of a moral obligation to pay one's debts. Why this is seems to escape me. But that is just one of their advantages.
But the best part has to be how they feel that their messaging is just not quite good enough. Apparently, it's not enough to describe Republicans as being villains who want to starve 6 million old people, kill everyone on Medicare, or who just want to eat the flesh of babies who escape abortion. No, they feel that isn't working well enough, so Matt Singer has come up with a new solution: The Tax Cheat as a villain. From the article:

But of course there's no reason why we can't learn from our mistakes by copying their strategy. And to those ends I'd like to suggest that our new villain is the "Tax Cheat". The name itself tells us a few things. We're not going to say that he's rich, we'll let the voters fill that one in for themselves. Which is great because this lets us play the class card, without offending any of our wealthy allies and donors who happen to have a conscience. But more importantly it says he has tax liability or that he owes something to society. Few people actually enjoy paying their taxes (although most people like what our taxes afford us), but we pay them nonetheless out of obligation to each other and future generations. Most importantly regardless of what we pay, each of us thinks individually that we pay our "fair share." But the Tax Cheat doesn't. He doesn't contribute a dime toward all the things that make our system work. He still uses the parks, schools, and bridges like everyone else, but we the "tax-payers" end up footing the bill.

Emphasis added.
Now, I actually like this one. But there's just one problem, they are viewing it through their ideological prism, and don't see the missteps inherent. First, if you want the rich to pay their "fair share" you have to argue for a tax cut for them. How is it "fair" if we go out for a group gathering and when the bill for the 10 of us comes, one pays almost half, four pick up the rest and five pay nothing? Obviously, to be fair, all should pay, but that apparently isn't the "fair share" that is envisioned. "Fair share" has been beaten into something that no longer represents the common understanding of the word.
But what about all of those people who use our parks, schools, and bridges and don't pay anything? Essentially the 47% of the public that effectively pay no income tax. Or how about using schools and voting for school bond levies without owning property subject to tax, in other words, getting by scot free.
Just further evidence that the Democrats have moved from representing the working man to being the party of government.

What Was The Point?

When Obama first decided to enter the Libyan civil war on the behalf of the rebels, I wrote that I supported him, just as I would have hoped that the Left would have supported any president who sends American forces into harms way. But now that American forces have been withdrawn, I have to ask, "What the hell was he thinking?"
Bombing another country, then walking away saying "Never mind" is not a usually successful foreign policy. Especially when that country has been know in the past to use terror agents to kill Americans. I have a feeling that this act of humanitarianism is going to come back and haunt us in the not too far future.

Obama and the Libyan rebels remind me of the Murphy's Law that "Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs."

Why Conservatives Should Vote for Obama

They told me if I voted for McCain we would have tax cuts for the wealthy, military intervention without Congressional approval, Gitmo would remain open and terrorists would not be tried in civilian courts, not to mention secret terrorist detention centers. That there would be increased secret communications monitoring, and less transparency in government, that the government would prosecute its enemies
But at least with Obama, there aren't those massive protests of by all of the Lefties. Just kind of goes to show that the only thing wrong with Bush is that he wasn't a Democrat.

Barone on the Ryan Budget

I always enjoy Michael Barone, and dd not know that he is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, but he has a piece out talking about the proposed Ryan budget. What is sad and yet so predictable at the same time are the opponents demonizing a plan that they do not know, nor understand. But we are facing a predictable crisis, and half the politicians are using it to beat over the heads of their opponents. But if we fail to act, health care costs will be nothing compared to payment on the debt.
We have three options: Raise taxes, which lowers economic growth, except for tax avoidance; cut sending and finally; increase GDP. By doing the first two, we will automatically cause the third.
But I have little faith in my countrymen at the moment. I am sure that the Democrats will demagogue this thing to death, and will continue to make the problem worse.