Quickies

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A round-up of articles, news items, columns and blog posts that caught our eye this past week.

Quote of the week:

Government cannot make the slow run fast; they can only force the fast to run slower. That’s how government creates equality, how it levels the playing field.

Barry at Word Warrior of SoCal has a great roundup of tax-payer subsidized green technology failures... plus a Milton Friedman reference. Who can pass up Milton Friedman?








Smack of the week: Sarah Palin on Bill Maher, Barack Hussein Obama and "dirty money".

“I don’t know how anyone can sit in the audience of a commentator like Bill Maher and chuckle and laugh and think that’s entertaining. I think it’s disgusting. And this dirty money that he has now provided Barack Obama’s campaign – I don’t know how Barack Obama can sleep at night if he really thinks about Sasha and Mahlia and the treatment of some women today, how he can accept that dirty money. Granted Barack Obama has never been seen in the conventional, traditional way of one we who describe a man of valor, so it shouldn’t surprise us that Barack Obama would accept that dirty money.”

(italics, ours)

That is what is known in Placentia, California as lacking core values and principles.

Look, Palin may be spot on with respect to her assessment of the President's character but she has bought into the distraction. Instead of talking about violations of conscience and religious beliefs, we are talking about locker room language, what differs between a "private" and "public" person and gotcha politics. The advocates for religious liberty and limited government have been derailed. Time to get back on track, gang.





One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter?

The Treasury Department’s counterterrorism arm is investigating speaking fees paid to a long-time Democratic Party leader who is among the most vocal advocates of an Iranian opposition group designated as a terrorist group by the State Department.

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell told The Washington Times that Treasury investigators last week subpoenaed records related to payments he has accepted in exchange for public speaking engagements.

Mr. Rendell is among a bipartisan group of prominent former officials - including Cabinet-level Republicans - who have accepted payment in exchange for speeches calling for the removal of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK) from the State Department’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations.

The MEK, also known as the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long called for the overthrow of the Islamic theocracy in Tehran. The group, which engaged in terror attacks on Iranian government targets in the 1980s, has been on the terrorist list since 1997, when President Bill Clinton put it there in an attempt to improve relations with Iran.

Mr. Rendell and others argue the MEK should be removed from the list because it has not engaged in violence in more than two decades and shares a common enemy with the United States.

Here's an idea: if the concept of freedom for the Iranian people is so important to Rendell and other D.C. pols, perhaps they can take up the cause pro bono. We suppose that maybe freedom really isn't free after all.







Fair and balanced:

MSNBC host Al Sharpton held a rally today, reenacting the famed civil rights march from Selma to Birmingham. "[I]nstead of protesting Jim Crow segregation and police brutality, he's opposing voter ID laws, right-to-work laws, and the Alabama illegal immigration bill," the Washington Examiner reported. It was a political rally, with Sharpton preaching the platform of the Democratic party.

And in fact the political rally was broadcast on cable television. Sharpton's speech was aired on MSNBC, Sharpton's employer.

That the network employs an unapologetic race huckster like Sharpton, speaks volumes.






Good news: San Diego mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio receives the GOP endorsement. Here's what DeMaio had to say about who he perceives as his toughest opponent:

I don’t see this as a race of me against these three other candidates. My campaign is the same campaign I have waged since becoming a taxpayer watchdog years ago: to clean up the mess at city hall.

My real opponents are the government employee unions and powerful downtown interests that benefit from the cozy system at City Hall at the taxpayers’ expense. They know I will end their taxpayer-funded gravy train, and that’s why they are doing everything they can to defeat our grassroots campaign.

And here's B-Daddy (linked above) on the matter:

This also speaks to my long time complaint here in San Diego, that our political choices have been between government that favors big business or government that favors big labor. We need government that favors the taxpayers and average citizens, whether or not that favors particular businesses. An even playing field will ultimately make our city a better place to live.

Frankly, we're a little surprised the endorsement (at 71%, even) went to DeMaio. Our bet would've been on Nathan Fletcher, the more establishment of the two. Our guess: current Mayor Jerry Sanders' willingness to champion public employee pension reform tipped the scales to DeMaio. We welcome other theories.






When you lose the New York Times...

Conveniently tucked away in the Saturday Op-ed section:

President Obama, who came to office promising transparency and adherence to the rule of law, has become the first president to claim the legal authority to order an American citizen killed without judicial involvement, real oversight or public accountability.

That, regrettably, was the most lasting impression from a major address on national security delivered last week by Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.

There were parts of the speech worth celebrating — starting with Mr. Holder’s powerful discussion of why trying most terrorists in civilian courts is best for punishing them and safeguarding America. But we are deeply concerned about his rejection of oversight and accountability when it comes to killing American citizens who are suspected of plotting terrorist acts.

A president has the right to order lethal force against conventional enemies during conventional war, or against unconventional enemies in unconventional wars. But when it comes to American citizens, there must be compelling evidence that the threat the citizen poses is imminent and that capturing the citizen is not a realistic option.

Giving credit where credit is due, kudos to the NY Times for finally acknowledging this constitutional inconsistency. Now, how about some of the same treatment from the rest of Obamabot Nation? We won't be holding our breath.






W.C. Varones on the student loan debt scam:

The third point, student loans as welfare, is new to me, but not surprising. Making "student loans" that prop up consumer spending but will never be paid back is just a way to do more stimulus spending without it showing up in the deficit. That debt will be forgiven by taxpayers decades from now, when the miscreants in power today have retired to a private life of luxury.

Allow us to add a fourth point: Student loan debt can be used conveniently as a class warfare/political issue as this President has done with the assistance of his lackies in the Obama's Whining Squatters set.







Folks, meet Karen Bass, freshman congresswoman from L.A.'s Westside so you know that it would totally be in form for her to state the following:

“The environment is much more important than jobs”.

Leslie at Temple of Mut has more on the background and agenda of yet another Team O economic illiterate.





And finally, Sarah Bond of Lipstick Underground regarding the Kony 2012 video:

At the end of the day I really only have one genuine criticism of the video and campaign: it glosses over the fact that is is going to take military action and violence to find and capture Joseph Kony. Most of the early supporters of Invisible Children and and Kony 2012 are peace-nicks. Do they realize that to ‘arrest’ Kony, someone is going to have to shoot their way through his human shield of child soldiers? If we’re going to insert ourselves into someone else’s problem for the greater good, let’s try to be honest about the cost.

Oh, and finally Pt. II: Sarah gets quoted in a front page San Diego Union-Tribune article on rising gas prices.

Sarah Bond and her husband bought their home in Valley Center, about one hour from downtown San Diego, so their two young children could grow up close enough to nature yet not too far from their favorite destinations. But with gas prices soaring, they just don’t get out as much.

“It’s no more going to the beach, no more taking drives to the mountains. It’s school and groceries and what we could do at home,” Bond said. “We might as well live in Oklahoma for what it’s costing us.”

Bond, co-founder of the SoCal Tax Revolt Coalition, said she’s frustrated with lawmakers and the president for not making energy more accessible, “not exploiting our natural resources in the clean, environmentally sound way that only Americans can do,” she said.

Atta way, Sarah!


And from the other side of the aisle:

Hugh Moore, treasurer­ for the Green Party of San Diego County, said he hates that people have to pay more for gas because oil companies are raking in more profits, “but the truth is we should be paying considerably more for every gallon of gas.”

The intellectual inconsistency is stunning. The guy necessarily wants high gas prices but doesn't want the gas companies to profit from it. Sorry, Hugh, can't have it both ways. And since he does indeed want higher gas prices, why doesn't he have the courage of his convictions and actively champion the cause instead of displaying his false sympathy for his fellow citizens at the pump.

No wonder the Green Party never gains any real electoral traction outside of agitation and litigation.



OK, gang, that's it for today. See you all tomorrow.



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