But, but, we were told this was a nothing story!

“She misspoke,” said Lanny Davis, a White House lawyer and spokesman for President Bill Clinton. “Every day that goes by that they don’t say she misspoke and she used the wrong words ... they just feed it and give it life and give Rush [Limbaugh] and [Sean] Hannity more airtime unnecessarily.”

Said Democratic strategist Chris Lehane: “In this day and age, six or seven or eight weeks is a long time to go without addressing an issue that can potentially take on a life of its own and evolve and grow.”

As I wrote yesterday, this is an issue that can split even the Democrats, but only if we have the guts to keep pressing it. Both Democratic strategists quoted are afraid of what happens if Republicans stay on this message without a response from the White House. Because even if he doesn't withdraw her nomination, Obama is going to take a beating for this nominee.

Judge Sotomayor has openly admitted bias based on race and gender. Now, as Americans we put up with a lot of peculiarities when it comes to people's personal beliefs. But one that is beyond the pale is discrimination based on race. The judge and the White House should immediately explain why her racial comments are not disqualifying. I think we all deserve reassurance that Judge Sotomayor will be able to set aside her bias if she were to join the Supreme Court.

Not Just For Now, But For Always: There has been some talk that Republicans should not press too hard on this. My fear is that if we do not take a stand now against the racism implied in Judge Sotomayor's statement--"a wise Latina better than a wise white man"--it will be more difficult to make a stand against it later.

We need to get it into people's heads that this type of thing is not appropriate for Supreme Court justices. Judge Sotomayor's opinion is popular with many Leftists. In fact, I'm sure that the fuss has left Obama and many in the White House scratching their heads because they don't understand what we're objecting to. So I have no doubt that they will keep proposing judges and justices who hold similar views. Unless we tell them clearly in a way they're never going to forget that this will not fly. Firmly opposing Judge Sotomayor on the basis of her comments is the best way to do that.

And let's make clear where she went wrong. For Judge Sotomayor, and for many people, it is an article of faith that racial and gender diversity in institutions like the courts is a good thing in itself. Well, fine, that's not a disqualifying offense. But she took it a step further. She suggested that particular race and gender combinations are actually better than others. That is racism. That is sexism. That is unacceptable.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:45 AM | Add Comment
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Friday, baby!

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:08 AM | Add Comment
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I'm about to turn in and I don't see an overnight thread yet. So, here ya go. Don't say I never gave ya nothing.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:22 PM | Comments (4)
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Bumped. Note well she was actually a member of the Royal Auxilliaries, driving a truck (and trained as a mechanic) for the Allied cause in WWII.

Snubbed.

WTF?

...

So embarrassing for us. We're sorry, your Majesty! We know he's a buffoon and we're trying to get rid of him.

Indeed, she is decidedly displeased, angry even, that she was not invited to join President Obama and FranceÂ’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, next week at commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, according to reports published in BritainÂ’s mass-circulation tabloid newspapers on Wednesday. Pointedly, Buckingham Palace did not deny the reports.

The queen, who is 83, is the only living head of state who served in uniform during World War II. As Elizabeth Windsor, service number 230873, she volunteered as a subaltern in the WomenÂ’s Auxiliary Territorial Service, training as a driver and a mechanic. Eventually, she drove military trucks in support roles in England.

While serving, she met the supreme Allied commander for the D-Day landings, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and developed a fondness for him, according to several biographies. This prompted Queen Elizabeth, who was crowned in June 1953, to say in later years that he was the American president with whom she felt most at ease.

That's right. She actually served in World War II. Maybe, just maybe the President could properly acknowledge her contribution.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:34 PM | Comments (7)
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On Glenn Beck, encouraging Beck to promote the idea of a statewide California tax strike (or a national tax strike? He's not clear), stating he's seriously considering not paying taxes anymore.

He's more trying to push the idea and get a movement behind it rather than being the guy who actually does this first and gets carted off to tax-jail.

Pretty wild. I'm sure there'll be video later, which I'll post.

I had no idea he was a conservative. He's not saying he is, but he seems to be of that ilk.

I wonder what the legality of this is. I believe there are (largely unenforced) laws about agitating to defy, say, the draft; I wonder if the US Code contains any similar law about agitating for tax defiance.

Then reads the Declaration of Independence. Stuff about usurpation.

Asked if he's prepared to go to jail for this, says, "I am going to jail."

Video:

Correction: It wasn't Craig T. Nelson. It was Brian Dennehy, who played "Norm" on Cheers.

Not really. That's an in joke that started yesterday after I mentioned Brian Dennehy and people kept praising him for his work in movies he wasn't in. He was confused with M. Emmet Walsh and others, until wisenheimers started making a joke about it and started "mixing him up" with Yakov Smirnoff and Mary Lou Retton.

Posted by: Ace at 01:31 PM | Comments (12)
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Dropping in a terrorist joke in the headline, so maybe I'll be mentioned on O'Reilly. I mean, they didn't even call Obama "Hussein" and still O'Reilly claimed they did.

And plus, Allah wrote the same headline I would have, so I have to go somewhere else.

Obama arrogantly ticks off all of his "accomplishments' -- mostly small-bore stuff. The credit card thing? It seems basically good, from what I know of it, but generally such bills are considered housekeeping measures, not major political victories.

He doesn't mention his greatest accomplishment -- spending the once-mighty US economy into ruin.

More at Hot Air. He also didn't mention his heroic fight to keep gay marriage illegal.

Posted by: Ace at 11:29 AM | Add Comment
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No arrests, thankfully, but an "interrogation" and cease-and-desist type letters.

A local pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a San Diego County official, who then threatened them with escalating fines if they continued to hold bible studies in their home, 10News reported.

Attorney Dean Broyles of The Western Center For Law & Policy was shocked with what happened to the pastor and his wife.

Broyles said, "The county asked, 'Do you have a regular meeting in your home?' She said, 'Yes.' 'Do you say amen?' 'Yes.' 'Do you pray?' 'Yes.' 'Do you say praise the Lord?' 'Yes.'"

The county employee notified the couple that the small bible study, with an average of 15 people attending, was in violation of county regulations, according to Broyles.

Broyles said a few days later the couple received a written warning that listed "unlawful use of land" and told them to "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit" -- a process that could cost tens of thousands of dollars.

"For churches and religious assemblies there's big parking concerns, there's environmental impact concerns when you have hundreds or thousands of people gathering. But this is a different situation, and we believe that the application of the religious assembly principles to this bible study is certainly misplaced," said Broyles.

News of the case has rapidly spread across Internet blogs and has spurred various reactions.

Ah. So I'm late again.

Thanks to DrewM., who plucked it off Andy Levy's twitter feed.

Outrage Withheld? Yah, I didn't really want to push the outrage button myself, not yet anyway. Bumperstickerist writes:

The article didn't mention the frequency of the "small bible studies" which leaves open the possibility that there are two bible study groups per day every day. If I'm a neighbor and there are a dozen cars parked out front of the pastor's house every day, all week, you can be damn well sure I'll be inquiring as to why.

So, for the sake of argument, the pastor could be running a de facto church out of his house.

We had a similar story a while back about a family that was forced to remove some baseball equipment from its yard and cease baseball practice for local youth. It was the heartbreaking saga about kids dreams being crushed by mean people.

Then the mean person wrote a letter saying "Look, we like baseball, but this guy has 30-40 kids over everyday, they're doing full practices, batting cages, fielding coaches, instruction, and it just.never.stops. You try living next to that for more than two weeks and see how you do. We'd like to enjoy our deck and our yard on occasion."

So, I'll withhold my Anger at the MAN until I find out about the other stuff.

The Atom Bomb of Loving Kindness writes:

You can't run a church out of your house. The guy is described as a 'pastor.' If he's a pastor, then why not have the Bible things at the church he is the pastor of? It sounds like the house is the church. I live in a townhouse. If one of my neighbors starts having 15+ people over every weekend and sometimes during the week (which makes me walk a block to get into my house) then you can bet I'll be complaining. There's liability and safety issues, too.

Ah, good point, but you don't need a church to be a pastor.

Regarding the car parking situation: Can't neighbors and the officials suggest the congregants car-pool to avoid congestion? Who knows, maybe that was suggested but the suggestion was ignored.

Headline Corrected. Right, "cops" wasn't specified. A dumb assumption on my part. Or trying to condense the headline, but inaccurately so.

More Detail: Again, from Drew. A neighbor called the authorities after his car was hit.

Pastor David Jones has been hosting weekly Bible studies at his Bonita home during the past five years. About 15 people attend the meetings, he told 10News.

Jones said a visitor to a neighbor's house called the County after a Bible study member hit the visitorÂ’s car while leaving. Shortly after, a county code enforcement officer gave him a citation that said he needed a permit to host the weekly Bible study meetings, he said.

Doesn't really push the story one way or the other. Yeah, sucks that someone hit the guy's car, but usually that's handled by exchanging insurance information.

In the Comments: Zoning a-Go-Go! Zoning always gets people stirred up like hornets. It's a non-sexy non-red-meat topic that nevertheless generates strong passions.

I side more with the zoners. Then again, I have never owned property and so haven't been the victim of vindictive and corrupt zoning boards and asinine rules, either.

A lot of people will say a man's home is his castle, etc., and he's free to enjoy his property however he likes, but that studiously avoids the question.

If you're in your castle, and the guy in the neighboring castle is blasting Jay-Z (or Richard Marx-- whichever you believe to be worse) at all hours of the night and morning, isn't his free enjoyment of his castle infringing on your putatively-absolute right to free enjoyment of yours?

In rural areas this is less of an issue. (And yet still an issue -- you don't want a guy using his property for a pig-reduction factory, churning out smoke and the stink of burned fat, a half-mile from your residence.) But in the suburbs and especially in the cities, residences are stacked so closely on top of each other that what would be unobjectionable in the countryside becomes a nuisance.

A half-mile of physical distance reduces most noise (and many smells) to a bearable level. Plus, no concerns about parking or congestion. But the situation changes when that very-useful half-mile of physical buffer doesn't exist, when houses are mere feet from each other, or when apartments share a common wall or floor.

This is among the most nettlesome areas of the law. There is an argument to be made that zoning itself is unconstitutional, as it is a "taking" of certain rights of land use without any compensation by the government at all; but that argument has been long rejected. I think the pretext for deeming it constitutional was that it was not a "taking," but just a regulation, and further, it was a regulation that secured for you an equal quantum of reciprocal rights. Sure, you're not allowed to open up a factory in a zoned-residential area, but neither is your neighbor. Your right to open a factory is taken away, but in return you gain the right to not have your neighbor damage your property by opening a factory.

Furthermore, without zoning, in a regime of property rights absolutism, you would in fact bear the risk that your nice family residence would be rendered all but unlivable just because your neighbor decides he wants to use his house as a strip club.

And then you get into arcane discussions about the Coase Theorem.

Like democracy, zoning is the very worst of all possible regimes, except for all the others.

Posted by: Ace at 11:01 AM | Comments (4)
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A West Berlin cop shot a left-wing protester in 1967, setting off an outrage greater than the US experienced after Kent State and greatly empowering Germany's left. (And also providing the impetus for, and public sympathy for, its various left-wing terrorist groups.)

The shooter turns out to have been a spy in the employ of the Stasi, East Germany's secret police.

It's not (AFAIK) proven that this was some kind of agent provocateur action ordered by the Stasi -- seems unlikely, really, as the shooter wound up in prison for the better part of his life -- but even so, Germany is shocked to learn that what it had long known to be true is in fact not quite true.

Posted by: Ace at 10:43 AM | Comments (3)
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I haven't heard of Marc Faber before, but he seems legitimate. Not saying he's the be-all end-all -- again, never heard of him -- but he's not just some crank that somehow conned Bloomberg into quoting him.

At any rate, he says he's sure hyperinflation is coming.

The U.S. economy will enter “hyperinflation” approaching the levels in Zimbabwe because the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates, investor Marc Faber said.

Prices may increase at rates “close to” Zimbabwe’s gains, Faber said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Hong Kong. Zimbabwe’s inflation rate reached 231 million percent in July, the last annual rate published by the statistics office.

“I am 100 percent sure that the U.S. will go into hyperinflation,” Faber said. “The problem with government debt growing so much is that when the time will come and the Fed should increase interest rates, they will be very reluctant to do so and so inflation will start to accelerate.”

Seems unlikely to me. But what do I know.

Oh: He wrote this. Pretty funny.

The federal government is sending each of us a $600 rebate.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, the money goes to China.
If we spend it on gasoline it goes to the Arabs.
If we buy a computer it will go to India.
If we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala.
If we purchase a good car it will go to Germany.
If we purchase useless crap it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it on prostitutes and beer, since these are the only products still produced in US. IÂ’ve been doing my part.

Posted by: Ace at 10:34 AM | Add Comment
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I bet no one saw that coming, right?

Thankfully, Mark Hemingway read it so you don't have to.

While no one expects Reid to praise George W. Bush, the degree to which he is judgmental and catty regarding the former president pretty much speaks for itself. Three pages in, after lamely trying to establish his bipartisan bona fides by talking up George H. W. Bush, Reid shares this charming anecdote about his early days in the Senate: “[Former Texas senator and vice-presidential candidate Lloyd] Bentsen went on and on effusively about what a quality man President-elect [H. W.] Bush was. Then he paused and said, ‘But watch out for his wife; she’s a bitch.’ I have never had anything against Mrs. Bush, but guided by Bentsen’s crude advice, I’ve always said that our forty-third president is more his mother than his dad.”

WhatÂ’s the purpose of recording for posterity a bit of hearsay defaming a woman Reid admits he has no cause to dislike? Is Reid really so petty as to insult someoneÂ’s mother? Why yes, yes he is.

And then it gets really obnoxious.

I seem to recall Democrats going after John McCain because he didn't beat up an old lady who called Hillary Clinton a bitch, though he did chastise her. Now here's the current Senate Majority Leader proudly associating himself with someone who called another first lady a bitch. Democrats will be outrageously outraged in 3-2- oh look over there, it's Sonia Sotoamayor!

It's almost like there is a double standard for Democrats and Republicans when it comes to public behavior. Who knew?

(via The Weekly Standard)

Update: Heh, I love you guys. Harry Reid, Yo Momma jokes? That's great.

Since I'm awful at that game I will simply steal IreneFingIrene's...

Reid's momma's teeth are so yellow, traffic slows down when she smiles!

Posted by: DrewM at 07:54 AM | Comments (4)
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