To see what is right,
and not to do it,
is want of courage or of principle.
Confucius
Images of the Day
The reason I'm embedding this first picture is not to focus so much on the constitutional guarantee of the right to self-defense but the the larger issue of the unconscionable exploitation of children for propaganda. The second photo is a child during the recent Texas special session protests holding a pro-abort coat hanger sign, an iconic symbol of the extremes a woman might go to in order to kill her preborn child. (You are supposed to empathize that a woman might hurt herself in the process, not unlike a terrorist blowing himself up making a bomb.) A kid probably thinks of a coat hanger as something you hang clothes on. Stop using kids as props for divisive politics!
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| Courtesy Facebook Gun Owners |
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| Child "Protester" of Texas Abortion Reform Law Via Twitter |
This is not the first time I've been unhappy with judges, activist, SCOTUS (e.g., John Roberts' incoherent decisive ObamaCare decision), or otherwise (e.g., the gay district judge ruling, California's Proposition 8 "unconstitutional") Justice Kennedy has already qualified this year with his inconsistent rulings in favor of traditional state regulation of marriage on one hand but essentially disenfranchising the California voters whom voting for Proposition 8 because California's governor and attorney general arbitrarily refused to defend state law and SCOTUS refused to give standing to surrogates.
But Circuit Judge Rosemarie Aquilina, in my opinion, is a particularly odious piece of work whom is abusing her judicial authority by first of all ruling that a bankruptcy settlement--which is speculative at this stage--would involve a state "unconstitutional" reduction in public union retirement benefits. The idea that pensioners are more equal than other Detroit creditors is blatantly unconstitutional on its face. The idea that prior Democrat lawmakers made unsustainable promises they failed to adequately fund somehow have preempted any and all other future claims on city revenues by operations and city vendors/creditors is preposterous. Aquilina is clearly a partisan tool. Consider the ending paragraph of the excerpt:
Douglas Bernstein, a partner with Plunkett Cooney in Birmingham, said Aquilina’s ruling is surprising.“This is generally how bankruptcies occur: You file bankruptcy when there is an impending crisis at the eleventh hour,” Bernstein said. “You file bankruptcies to stave off litigation.”
Aquilina, who like most of the judges on the Ingham court has a Democratic background, appeared prepared for the likelihood her orders will be appealed by the state.
She also ordered that a copy of her declaratory judgment be sent to President Barack Obama, saying he “bailed out Detroit” and may want to look into the pension issue.Not a chance in hell The (Unconstitutional Incompetent) One will be allowed to once again corruptly abuse the bankruptcy courts on behalf of his cronies. This time we'll impeach his ass and in any event appeal to SCOTUS. Not a penny of federal money to bail out corrupt Democrat deal-making with unions. Not only is that dead on arrival in the House, we would filibuster it in the Senate. We are not going to allow a precedent for the similarly corrupt states of Illinois and California to use. It's about time voters come to terms with Democratic over-promises and under-deliveries.
I predict this "judge-in-name-only" will soon be overruled, if not in state courts, then in federal bankruptcy court. But just the fact she is in a state of denial about the reality of bankruptcy and is blurring the line between justice and politics is enough to warrant nomination.
Remember how Obama Threw His White Grandmother Under the Bus?
She had expressed some concern about a black man at her bus stop--and teenage Obama viewed her concern as "racist".
Via Libertarian Republican we have this news item:
21-year-old Zack Finkelstein was walking to a bus stop [Thursday afternoon] so he could meet his grandmother for lunch when someone beat him. The incident occured on Hord Avenue [St.Louis]. [Brother] David said Zack was randomly targeted after someone said “hi” to him while he was walking to the bus stop. St. Louis County Police describe the suspect as an African American man in his 20s or 30s, six foot three inches tall, weighing 280 pounds and has a scruffy beard.Mike Adams, "Racism theater: How the media, Obama and the racism industry are tearing America apart for their own selfish gain", Thumbs UP!
After yesterday's rant on Obama's ill-advised post Zimmerman verdict comments, what interested me in the cited rant by the self-professed [Natural] Health Ranger is we are finally seeing pushback from people whom are tired of self-anointed high priests of color/diversity and/or political correctness (like Jackson and Sharpton). I've on occasion referenced some of Adams' rants (e.g., federal crackdowns on producers or vendors of raw milk products); he occasionally blogs on certain libertarian issues. But the point is that most of us leaning to a libertarian point of view generally have skeptical views on politicians, but we tend to celebrate the rights of the individual, which are not diminished by incidental characteristics like race, ethnicity, religion, etc. and find identity mobocracy antithetical to individual rights.
And let me point out that Adams also gives Bush a blistering review in this piece, especially on fourth amendment issues.
No matter my ideological differences with Obama, I did share some pride that a country once divided over the institutional abomination of slavery elected a man of color President of the US, from a minority comprising just 13% of the population. And there are things I admire about him like his seeming unflappable style. I liked his all-American family. And I liked the fact that he had distanced himself from the polarizing rhetoric of Jeremiah Wright and other black "leaders". I don't have "white guilt"--I and my ancestors had nothing to do with slavery or establishment of Jim Crow laws; I don't feel, like many social liberals, that I have to say something like "some of my best friends are black"; ask me whether I care if Al Sharpton or other members of the identity movement high priests consider me "racist" for opposing their point of view. They simply nullify the meaning of the term.
Unlike some conservatives, I don't really care about whether it is hypocritical for blacks to use the N-word; as a matter of civility I think you should avoid using terms the other person objects to, but at the same time I don't think people should go nuclear over what some ignorant person says; who cares what they say? It's as if you are giving them power over you. What counts is what you think about yourself.
I'm not going to pick apart Adams' opinion here--I don't think, though, that the Latino population rallied behind Zimmerman like blacks did for Trayvon Martin; I think they're still vested in identity politics. Obama has always had some flaws in his post-racial persona--his pretending not to know about Jeremiah Wright's radical theology was never believable to any thinking person; then there were things like his discussion of his white grandmother (see above) which I found objectionable.
Why did Obama pull a boneheaded stunt Friday? Does he simply not care, knowing 2012 was his last election, that he can finally let the world see the "real" Barack? But I think he has really put a nail in the coffin of being the post-racial President. He probably lost whatever residual respect we still had left for him--for whatever bizarre reason, the "forward" President is now revisiting the racial politics of the twentieth century with an anemic economy, unsustainable deficits, etc. Whereas Martin's passing was tragic, so are the far more significant victims of black-on-black crime for which there is almost no attention given... Obama is squandering his remaining time in office playing politics vs. demonstrating true leadership.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy |
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups Redux
The Beatles, "Penny Lane". We are now getting into the blue album material, which is more mature, artsy, conceptual, and/or drug-influenced,
