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Associate Editor Michael Moynihan reveals what Britain's Tories can teach America's floundering Republicans.
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Mike Gravel Crosses Over
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- The Center of Britain
What the Tory resurgence can teach Republicans Michael C. Moynihan (5/9) - Virtually Free
An online world embraces regulation. Wagner James Au (5/9) - Friday Funnies
The agony of the Democratic nomination Scott Stantis (5/9)
Will Ron Paul Support a Third Party Candidate? Ask Ron Paul.
Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin has launched his web site, and as the boys at Third Party Watch point out, it's calculated to make him look like Ron Paul's heir. No surprise there. Constitution Party founder Howard Phillips pushed delegates to nominate Baldwin over Alan Keyes on the cryptic promise that Paul secretly supported Baldwin and that the vast riches of the Paul campaign were "resources we can look to."I saw Ron Paul on Wednesday, at a signing event for The Revolution, and he told me he won't endorse Baldwin or Barr. He'll kinda-sorta endorse both. He won't stop them from using photos of him or talking about his campaign.
"Chuck was in my office today to say hello," Paul said. "but I haven't said anything about supporting either one of them. I support both of them in what they're doing, and I encourage them, but that's all."
"Maybe you'll endorse McCain and surprise everybody," asked one of the people walking out of the event with us. "That would surprise me, too!" said Paul. But this is actually a sticking point in the Paul campaign: Some people in his circle want him to swing his weight behind McCain once the primaries are over. At the moment, they're being overruled.
On a related note, back in Pennsylvania I asked Paul if he'd weigh in and help the "Ron Paul Republicans" who are running for office using all or part of his platform. He's started doing so in earnest, buoyed by the easy victories of candidates like BJ Lawson. Here's a quick-'n'-painful endorsement he shot for Amit Singh, fighting for Virginia's 8th district (a safe Democratic seat held by the deeply flawed Jim Moran).
"As a subculture, we are not the spawn of Satan"
The New York Times profiles the weird world of steampunk,a subculture that is the aesthetic expression of a time-traveling fantasy world, one that embraces music, film, design and now fashion, all inspired by the extravagantly inventive age of dirigibles and steam locomotives, brass diving bells and jar-shaped protosubmarines.Whole thing here.
Though the article does refer to the great William Gibson, whose short story "The Gernsback Continuum" is a bona fide steampunk classic, it somehow fails to mention Bruce Sterling, whose own contributions to the genre are far from negligible. Contributing Editor Mike Godwin sat down with Sterling back in 2004 for a freewheeling interview that touched on everything from "Google blindness" to Islamic terrorism. Read it all here.
New at Reason
From our June 2008 issue, Wagner James Au explores why the virtual world Second Life is abandoning laissez faire in favor of left-leaning regulations.
Proof That Murphy Was an Optimist
The invaluable Null Hypothesis: The Journal of Unlikely Science reproduces an amusing article about research done for British Gas in 2004 into Sod's Law. On this side of the pond, Sod's Law is more generally known as "Murphy's Law." The research found:
...based on over 1,000 people's experiences, that the original Sod's Law - ‘anything that can go wrong, will go wrong' - is only half the story. It can now be improved by the use of a new rule - ‘Things don't just go wrong, they do so at the most annoying moment'.
This explains why your email will most likely crash as you try to send something important, how the chances of your spilling a drink down your clothes are highest just before a date, and why it's a safe bet that your heating will most often break down during a cold snap.
Previous studies have shown that Sod's Law isn't a myth - toast will fall butter-side down, odd socks do breed and string can tie itself in knots. Our formula now allows people to calculate the chances of Sod's Law striking, and thus try to beat it.
Check out their formula here. Some other corollaries are:
HOWE'S LAW. Every man has a scheme which will not work.
ZYMURGY'S FIRST LAW OF EVOLVING SYSTEM DYNAMICS. Once you open a can of worms, the only way to re-can them is to use a larger can.
SKINNER'S CONSTANT. The quantity which must be multiplied by, divided by, added to or subtracted from the answer you get to give the answer you should have got.
LAW OF SELECTIVE GRAVITY. An object will fall so as to do the most damage.
A list of other Sod's Law *corollaries to Sod's Law is available here.
*A Sod's Law attack during editing.
Uncle Sam's Medical Marijuana Program
In a recent letter, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) asked Michele Leonhart, acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, to explain her agency's use of "paramilitary-style enforcement raids" and threats of property forfeiture to suppress the medical use of marijuana in California. "Do you think the DEA's limited resources are best utilized conducting enforcement raids on individuals and their caregivers who are conducting themselves legally under California law?" he asked. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that "agency spokeswoman Rogene Waite declined to comment on the questions Wednesday, saying only that 'the federal government does not recognize medical marijuana....The DEA, of course, would be part of the federal government.'"
If the federal government does not recognize medical marijuana, why does it send pot to patients? As the Marijuana Policy Project notes, tomorrow marks the 30th anniversary of the federal government's own medical marijuana program, under which four patients regularly receive joints from Uncle Sam. Theoretically, they are experimental subjects in a Compassionate Investigational New Drug (IND) Program, but the government has never bothered to publish any research based on their experiences. At its peak, the IND program for marijuana covered no more than a dozen or so patients, and in 1992 the George H.W. Bush admistration closed it to new applicants after receiving a flood of requests from AIDS patients. But the existing enrollees were grandfathered in, and those who are still alive continue to get a supply of marijuana grown by University of Mississipi scientists under contract with the U.S. government. "Most Americans would be shocked to know that the federal government supplies medical marijuana to patients while claiming that marijuana is a harmful drug with no medical value," says MPP's Rob Kampia. "If federal officials believe their own statements, they're knowingly poisoning four innocent people."
[Chronicle story via The Freedom Files]
Oink! Oink! Oink!
The Washington Post reports that the solons on Capitol Hill have finalized their negotiations on the farm bill payola. The bill has wide support. The Post notes:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports the bill. Congressional leaders plan to bring it to the House and Senate floors next week for votes that could test the depth of support for it.
Here are some Post low-lights:
Only taxpayers and consumers are the losers. President Bush says he'll veto the bill, but a lot of Republicans are in thrall to the farm lobby so this turkey of a bill is likely to pass over his veto. Go to Post story here.The package, the product of weeks of closed-door bargaining, is stuffed with plums for key constituencies. Dairy farmers will get as much as $410 million more over 10 years to cover higher feed costs, and negotiators tucked in an annual authorization of $15 million to help "geographically disadvantaged farmers" in Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa and Puerto Rico.
The bill assures growers of basic crops such as wheat, cotton, corn and soybeans $5 billion a year in automatic payments, even if farm and food prices stay at record levels...
...new protections for sugar beet and sugar cane growers that will require the government to buy excess quantities of Mexican sugar and resell it to ethanol plants at a loss...
...bill increases support prices and guaranteed prices for more than a dozen crops, making the United States vulnerable to trading partners' claims that it violates subsidy limits.
For the Love of Godwin...
This is mean-spirited, unfair, and profane. I loved it.[Via Andrew Sullivan.]
If You Don't Like Hank Williams
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal featured a long, favorable review of the new Hank Williams (and family) exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. From Barry Mazor's article:The lives of Hank and Audrey Williams; of their children, Hank Jr. and Lycretia; and of Hank's daughter Jett are all traced, as well as the growing careers of Hank Jr.'s performing progeny Hank III, the punk rocking honky-tonker, and Holly, the singer-songwriter. The exhibit features some 200 family artifacts, most never seen before in public, from Hank Sr.'s prized, inlaid Martin guitar and his violin, and the suitcase he had with him the night he died, to the family's early television set and bric-a-brac from their den. There are the spangled new Nudie suits provided Hank Jr. and then Hank III, in turn, when they were small boys, the white guitar Ms. Jett took to the stage as she began her own late-blooming career, and intimate family photos and home movies.For my two cents, any celebration of America's honky tonk king is worth the trouble. And I can't help wondering what the folks at the Grand Ole Opry make of it. The Opry, of course, gave Hank the boot back in 1952, rescinding his membership as punishment for all the booze and pills he was downing. As Nick Tosches writes in Country: The Music and the Musicians, less than a month after scoring a crossover pop hit in the fall of 1952 with "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)," Hank was "in the worst shape of his life," shacking up at the boardinghouse run by his mother in Montgomery, Alabama. "He pined for his faithless wife, Miss Audrey, drank, took chloral hydrate, drank, fell down and cracked his skull, drank some more, and wrote ‘I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive.'" A few months later he was gone, found dead in the backseat of a chauffeured Cadillac.
Today, Opry visitors are greeted at the door by a Hank impersonator. And why not? He's arguably the greatest singer and songwriter in all of country music. But then why hasn't the Opry reinstated his membership after all these years? Here's what Reinstate Hank has to say about it:
Despite being one of the most powerfully iconic figures in American music, Hank Williams has yet to be reinstated to the Opry. Now, your help is needed to honor and preserve his legacy. Join the campaign and add your signature to the petition to Reinstate Hank Williams to the Grand Ole Opry.Petition here. Hillbilly hellraiser Hank III carrying on his granddad's legacy here. My look at country's tangled roots in blackface minstrelsy (including Hank's "Lovesick Blues") here.
Joe Alston, Top Fibby, Badminton Champ: RIP
One of the more interesting obituaries I've read in a while:
Joe Alston, an FBI agent who investigated Patty Hearst's kidnapping and a champion athlete who was the only badminton player ever to make the cover of Sports Illustrated, has died. He was 81.
[...]
He had just won his second U.S. Open singles title when he appeared on the March 7, 1955, cover of the sports magazine. At the time, he had been with the FBI for four years.
“That picture really changed my life,” Alston told Sports Illustrated in 1999.
“The bosses said, 'Maybe this isn't the time to have you doing undercover surveillance.' As a result, I continued working investigations – kidnappings, extortions, bank robberies, all the good stuff – the rest of my 30 years in the bureau.”
[...]
He was the FBI's major case coordinator in Los Angeles from 1967 through 1980. His family said he was involved with investigating the 1974 kidnapping of Hearst, the newspaper heiress who was seized by the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, and in the still-open investigation of airplane hijacker D.B. Cooper.
As a badminton player, Alston represented the U.S. eight times in the world men's team championships. He also was the only U.S. player to win the men's doubles title in the prestigious All England Open Badminton Championships. He and Johnny Heah of Malaysia won in 1957.
His son also was an FBI agent and a leading U.S. badminton player in the 1980s.
Back to Atlanta
Arthur Tesler is the only officer involved in the Atlanta drug raid that killed 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston to fight the charges against him. The testimony to so far come out of his trial really only confirms what we knew about the narcotics division at Atlanta PD from the federal investigation into Johnston's death, but it's still pretty striking stuff:
It would be pretty näive to think these kinds of shortcuts only happen in Atlanta. Prior reason coverage of the Johnston case here.A former Atlanta police officer testified Thursday that narcotics officers routinely lied under oath when seeking search warrants, a practice that led to police killing a 92-year-old woman.
Former Detective Gregg Junnier told a Fulton County jury that detectives would tell judges that they had verified their informants had bought cocaine from dealers by searching them for drugs before the buy took place.
"I have never seen anyone searched before they go into the house, I've never seen that done, even though officers always swear to it," Junnier said. "It's done that way in 90 percent of the warrants that are written."
But it wasn't just lies to get the warrant to search Kathryn Johnston's home that made Junnier uneasy, he said. He had an inkling something was wrong when he and Officer Jason R. Smith were leading the narcotics team to the front door. He said the northwest Atlanta house differed from the informant's description.
"I said, 'Man, this doesn't look right,' and he said, 'I know,' " Junnier testified. " 'I said what do you want to do.' He said, 'Hit it.'"
A minute later, Johnston was lying on her floor, dying.
[...]
He said the chance to seize a kilo (2.2 pounds) of cocaine also drove the officers, who normally made arrests for much smaller amounts.
In the raid, police fired 39 shots. Junnier was shot in the face, chest and leg. Two other officers were also wounded. Investigators determined Johnston had fired one round from a revolver; the officers were shot in their own crossfire.
Junnier described entering Johnston's house: "She was still alive. She was gasping for air. I heard ... the order to cuff her."
Later that day, he said, the cover-up began.
Grand Theft Auto IV Steals Sales Records
It's a bona fide grand slam, despite some mixed reviews and moralizing attacks:
Grand Theft Auto IV has claimed two entertainment industry sales records, posting the best ever single-day and seven-day sales totals for a computer game.
The highly-anticipated, and highly-controversial, game is the latest instalment in Rockstar Games' flagship franchise.
Take Two Interactive, which owns Rockstar, said that GTA IV sold more than 3.6 million copies on its first day of availability, garnering $310m in sales.
Over the course of the first week, that total grew to six million units and $500m in sales.
New at Reason
In this week's Friday Funny, Scott Stantis breaks out the ink and quill and commemorates the candidates' messages in the never-ending (but almost over!) Democratic race.If Dirty Want His Money, I Think Y'All Should Give Him His Money
I predict that Steven Ybarra of Sacramento will end this primary as the Democrats' least popular superdelegate. Why?He says he'll sell his vote for a price. A very high price: $20 million.But not in public! And not for $20 million. J.D. Rockefeller bought the Senate for less than that!
Steven Ybarra of Sacramento says that eight-figure price is peanuts for the presidency.
When asked whether it was right to offer what is clearly a quid pro quo, he responded, "yeah, absolutely. People do it all the time," answered Ybarra.
Ybarra isn't trying to enrich himself—he's bribing the party to spend money "registering and educating eligible Mexican-American voters, who he calls the key to the White House." It's yet another reminder of how foolhardy the Clintonites sound (or in-kind allies like Rush Limbaugh) when they talk about the small-d democratic values of the primary. There's no election less democratic than a Democratic primary. Wintry, tiny states get godlike powers over the citizens of the other 48. Electoral vote-less places like Guam and Puerto Rico have a say. "Momentum" is almost totally hostage to quirks of the calender—how strong would Obama look now, for example, if Indiana (swing) and Pennsylvania (strong Clinton) had had their primaries on Tuesday, and not Indiana and Obama's sure-thing North Carolina?
New at Reason
Managing Editor Jesse Walker reveals what’s really at stake in Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling’s copyright fight against the publishers of The Harry Potter Lexicon.Read all about it here.
New at Reason
From our June issue, “Christian-conservative-libertarian-environmentalist-lunatic” Joel Salatin, the proprietor of Polyface Farms in Charlottesville, Virginia, and author of Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal, lists three things he would like to do on his land but can’t because of state and federal regulations.The Drug War in Black and White
In yesterday's column, based on a recent report from the New York Civil Liberties Union, I noted how racially skewed the Giuliani-Bloomberg anti-pot crusade has been. Two studies published this week highlight the racially disproportionate impact of the war on drugs generally. Between 1980 and 2003, the Sentencing Project reports, the rate of drug arrests rose by 70 percent among whites and 225 percent among blacks. Looking at data for 34 states, Human Rights Watch finds that "a black man is 11.8 times more likely than a white man to be sent to prison on drug charges, and a black woman is 4.8 times more likely than a white woman."
Drug warriors presumably would argue that such disparities reflect blacks' greater propensity to be involved in the illegal drug trade. Human Rights Watch is a bit evasive on that point. "Although whites commit more drug offenses," it says, "African Americans are arrested and imprisoned on drug charges at much higher rates." Or as the group's senior counsel, Jamie Fellner (who wrote the report), puts it, "Most drug offenders are white, but most of the drug offenders sent to prison are black."
It's true that blacks and whites are about equally likely to use illegal drugs. Whites, being the majority, therefore commit "more drug offenses" and account for "most drug offenders." This comparison is directly relevant in evaluating the fairness of New York City's crackdown on pot smokers: As I noted in my column, blacks are much more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession in New York even though they are no more likely to be pot smokers (and therefore, presumably, no more likely to be carrying small quantities of marijuana in public). But comparable drug use rates do not mean that blacks and whites are equally likely to commit the sort of drug offenses for which people tend to go to prison. For a variety of reasons, including a lack of appealing economic alternatives in inner-city neighborhoods, blacks are disproportionately represented among the low-level drug dealers who are most conspicuous and easiest to catch. That's the main reason they're disproportionately represented among drug offenders who get arrested and go to prison.
If, instead of going after street dealers, police raided homes at random throughout the country, the drug offenders (including users) they nabbed would be more representative of the general population. Needless to say, this is not a change in strategy anyone should be advocating for the sake of racial justice. As Fellner says, "The solution is not to imprison more whites but to radically rethink how to deal with drug abuse and low-level drug offenders."
In a 2006 review of Nate Blakeslee's book about the Tulia, Texas, drug bust scandal, I argued that the drug war's racial impact is just one aspect of a broader injustice.
Addendum: Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance points out that a 2000 Human Rights Watch report cited data on the prevalence of drug dealing among blacks vs. whites:
During the period 1991-1993, SAMHSA [the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration] included questions about drug selling in the annual NHSDA [National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, which has since been replaced by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health]. Although the responses are best seen as a rough approximation of drug selling activity, they are nonetheless highly suggestive. On average over the three-year period, blacks were 16 percent of admitted sellers and whites were 82 percent.
So it may well be that whites (currently about 80 percent* of the U.S. population) are just as likely to sell drugs as blacks (about 13 percent of the population) yet much less likely to be caught doing it, perhaps because they are less likely to do it frequently (the survey question asked whether the respondents had sold drugs at all in the previous year), less likely to do it in public, and/or less likely to do it in neighborhoods with a heavy police presence.
[*This figure includes Hispanics who do not identify themselves as black or African American.]
Mon enfant, ma mère
Celebrated French writer Michel Houellebecq, author of the terrific novel Elementary Particles, is doubtless accustomed to being scorned by the Paris literati. He is notoriously un-PC, having recently been prosecuted for calling Islam the "stupidest " religion. He is frequently accused of indulging in needless "obscenity" and gratuitous sexism. He was expelled from the leftish literary collective/review Les Perpendiculaires for being irredeemably bourgeois. But now he faces his toughest and most acerbic critic in the 83-year-old French writer Lucie Ceccaldi. So what is Ceccaldi's problem with Houellebecq? Well, for starters, she deems him an "evil, stupid little bastard," a "liar, an imposter, a parasite and above all—above all—a petit arriviste ready to do absolutely anything for money and fame." Of Elementary Particles, Ceccaldi says: "That book is pure pornography, it's repugnant, it's crap. I don't understand its success at all, that just shows the decadance of France." And the rest of his oeuvre: "What's this moronic literature?! Houellebecq is someone who's never done anything, who's never really desired anything, who never wanted to look at others. And that arrogance of taking yourself as superior ... Stupid little bastard. Yes, Houellebecq's a stupid little bastard..." The Guardian has more on the spat.It should be noted, though, that Ceccaldi is currently promoting her own memoir, titled L'Innocente, and is obviously trying to gin up interest in the book. And perhaps it should also be noted, in the spirit of full disclosure, that Mme. Ceccaldi is M. Houellebecq's mother.
Ron Paul Un-endorses White Supremacist
Bill Johnson, who is running for Superior Court judge in Los Angeles (with the help of campaign manager Holly Clearman, who is a California coordinator for Paul's presidential campaign), was the author of the 1980s Pace Amendment to the Constitution, which read in part:
No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood, provided that Hispanic whites, defined as anyone with an Hispanic ancestor, may be citizens if, in addition to meeting the aforesaid ascertainable trace and percentage tests, they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe. Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States.
"Thought-tormented Ron Paul fan" Tim Cavanaugh extracts a statement from Paul chief of staff Tom Lizardo:
Over the past several weeks, I have also been involved in assisting Dr Paul with the consideration of candidates who are seeking his endorsement for their campaigns. We have gone through the process of setting up a method by which candidates are to be considered for such endorsements. During that period, we have also received and reviewed requests from dozens of candidates.
Although Bill Johnson's name ended up on the endorsement list, he did not go through this process. In light of this fact, and in light of the revelations regarding his past statements and associations, Dr Paul has retracted the endorsement and hopes that, in the future, the process that has been put into place will mitigate the likelihood of similar errors.
Cavanaugh spars with angry Paul supporters here; Paul supporters argue amongst themselves here; other coverage of Johnson by the Metropolitan News-Enterprise and the L.A. Times' Opinion L.A. blog.
Dave Weigel has been all over the ongoing Ron Paul Republicans story, including a forthcoming column in the July issue.
Tracy Ingle's Website
The sister of botched drug raid victim Tracy Ingle has set up a website with information about his case, including how to donate to his legal defense.
Summary of Ingle's story here.
New at Reason
Steve Chapman scatches his head and asks why John McCain is so contemptuous of the realpolitik that won the Cold War. What would McCain's thinking mean for the War on Terror? Find out here.Ready, Aim, Firewall!
Remember how anyone protesting China in Nepal risked getting shot during the Olympic torch relay at Mt. Everest?
Well, that's not the only censorship that's going to surround the Olympics, though it's a rather more dramatic interpretation of the word firewall: Technology Minister Wan Gang told Reuters some sites would be shut down or screened during the Games. "To protect the youth there are controls on some unhealthy websites."
In light of statements like there, there seems to be a serious case of unfounded optimism at the IOC:
Wan's statement comes just over a month after the International Olympic Committee reminded China of its obligations as an Olympic host city to allow the press to report as freely as they have in the past—which usually includes full, unfettered access to the Internet. The IOC insisted to the government that the Internet be "open at all times during Games time," and commission vice chairman Kevan Gosper appeared optimistic that China would comply. "On all issues where that's been concerned they've lived up to the (host city) agreement so we don't see any reason why they'd step back from that now," he said at the time.
Drink Up Me Hearties, Yo Ho
The next time one of your English-born pals complains about America's impending collapse into fascism, tell her to try flying the Jolly Roger back in Merry Old England. From The Guardian:A fireman has been threatened with legal action for flying a Jolly Roger outside his home for his daughter's pirate-themed birthday party.
[...]
"It's a £5 flag, not hurting anyone, and they're probably spending hundreds of pounds of our cash getting me to take it down," the father-of-four told the Evening Standard. "That could be spent on improving the local area—it's disgraceful."
Another neighbour erected a Jolly Roger in support but took it down after receiving the same warning letter from the council.
A spokeswoman for Mole Valley district council said they visited both properties flying the flags and wrote to the owners informing them of the regulations.
The letters stated that although any resident was entitled to fly national flags outside their properties, the Jolly Roger was not allowed under the Outdoor Advertisements & Signs Regulations.
[...]
"It's a £5 flag, not hurting anyone, and they're probably spending hundreds of pounds of our cash getting me to take it down," the father-of-four told the Evening Standard. "That could be spent on improving the local area—it's disgraceful."
Another neighbour erected a Jolly Roger in support but took it down after receiving the same warning letter from the council.
A spokeswoman for Mole Valley district council said they visited both properties flying the flags and wrote to the owners informing them of the regulations.
The letters stated that although any resident was entitled to fly national flags outside their properties, the Jolly Roger was not allowed under the Outdoor Advertisements & Signs Regulations.
Whole thing here.
I'm curious about just what the council thinks he's advertising? But here's the real issue for reason's UK fans: What the hell flag is an anarchist supposed to fly?
Via the indispensable Fortean Times.
UPDATE: Contributing Editor Charles Oliver chronicled the opening salvos of this battle in the November 2007 print edition.
Why Does Aspirin (and Hillary Clinton Supporters) Work?
Hillary Clinton is well on her way to becoming the most reviled politician in the country. Not because she's resisting establishmentarian calls to step aside and let Prince Obama stride toward coronation − hell, I'd keep competing too, if I was that close to the mechanical rabbit. No, it's more that she will leave no faux-populist-bullshit-hardhat-Scranton-antitrade-what's-an-economist-Pabst-in-my-lunchbucket-Obama=Jesse stone unturned in her (and her husband's) quest to debase each and every molecule in their bodies, and snuff out every last positive memory we might have had of the way the federal government managed its affairs in the 1990s (when we, meaning me, never really liked her to begin with, and never voted for her husband).
The latest from Hitlery:
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
"There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
Yes, there is. When mincing little twerps like Paul Begala posit this rancid crew of Beltway power-mongers as the too-legit-to-quit anti-"egghead" faction representing the vast non-latte-drinking values of Real America, it's almost enough to make a guy pine for the authenticity of John Edwards.
I sincerely hope Hillary takes it all the way to the convention, even if that means I won't be able to watch cable TV for a few months. Few prospects would delight me more than seeing the Clintons stand up on a national stage in front of the political party they've long dominated and then get showered with richly deserved boos.
Bob Barr is Your President
Former Rep. Bob Barr's campaign won't confirm or deny it, but John Martin is reporting that Barr will move from an exploratory bid to an official presidential run on Monday.
As I reported last week, Barr is the frontrunner, narrowly, for the Libertarian Party nomination—it's been a close three-way race between him, Wayne Allyn Root, and Mary Ruwart. Root-backing South Carolina delegate Stewart Flood tells me that he was "on the fence" as long as Barr didn't officially declare, but he's "definitely supporting him" come Monday. "I'm sure Wayne's not happy," Flood says, "but he knows my position. I think he'd make a great running mate." (I pointed out to Flood that Root has said he'd turn down the vice presidential nomination: "If Wayne doesn't want the VP under Bob, I'll buy a hat so I can eat it."
Candidate George Phillies, who has theorized that Barr was going the "exploratory committee" route because he didn't think he could win the nomination, didn't express much surprise. "If he tried announcing his bid at the convention it would get complicated," Phillies says. "This way he has a chance to make a legitimate case to the delegates. He must think he can pull it off." (Phillies has his own motives, obviously, but the "Barr won't get in because he's scared to lose" meme was swirling around when I talked to delegates.)
Phillies isn't intending to step aside for Barr. "My current reaction is that if he’s the nominee he’ll blow the party apart," he says. "The entire radical wing will walk. Some of the centrists will walk. Bob may get the nomination and go after some of those disaffected conservative voters, but it would be a dismal result for the party."
UPDATE: A statement from Wayne Allyn Root:
Bob Barr is a fine man and a solid candidate- with a well-known name in D.C. political circles.UPDATE: Mary Ruwart responds.
But the Libertarian Party is an anti-establishment, anti-big government, anti-tax, anti-D.C. insiders party. Bob is a politician, ex-prosecutor and lawyer- just like virtually every single candidate offered by the Republicans and Democrats.
On the other hand, I offer a very different and unique image and attitude for the LP. I'm the ANTI-POLITICIAN. I'm a son of a butcher, 2nd generation American, small businessman, home-school father of 4 young children (including a brand new baby), and a citizen politician. I'm the quintessential Washington D.C. outsider. I've never worked in DC, never lived in DC, never done business with the government, never collected a check from government (other than a student loan - which I paid back in full). That's a very different resume for a Presidential candidate.
Amazingly, I've actually created jobs. I've actually risked my own money to start businesses. I've actually made payrolls and signed checks so others could live the American Dream. I've actually paid the health insurance for my employees. How's that for different? I don't just talk about jobs...and the economy...and the problems of small business...and the health insurance crisis- I've lived it. This is the stuff that politicians, prosecutors and lawyers just talk about!
And in a country where small business now creates the majority of non-government jobs, I think a President who understands the unique issues and problems facing small businessmen and women is the perfect person to put in the White House.
If a third party wants to think "out of the box" and present a unique candidate that fires up the spirit and passion of American voters who are obviously sick of "the same old, same old" and the same D.C. status quo, I'm the rebel with a pitchfork. That's a picture that will make huge inroads versus the 2-party system in 2008. As opposed to running a politician, ex-Congressman and lawyer to defeat who? A bunch of politicians, Congressman and lawyers. And where is Congressman Barr announcing his decision? In Washington DC of course. I spend my life figuring out ways to avoid going near the federal government or stepping foot in D.C. Quite a difference in image and attitude.
As far as media, let's compare my record to former Congressman Barr or former Senator Gravel. I'm able to attract major national media because of who I am and what I have to say, not what I've been (an ex-politician).
The media is attracted to me because I have interesting things to say and because I always say it in a dynamic, passionate and colorful way that makes Americans stop the channel and take notice. That's precisely what the LP so desperately needs. Not just someone with a great Libertarian message- but someone who can translate that message in a way that appeals to mainstream American voters.
Having said all that, I look forward to presenting our messages and visions to LP voters at our convention in Denver.
There are a lot of good things about Barr candidacy, and there are some things that trouble me. One thing that bothers me is his endorsement of the Fair Tax. I think we should eliminate the income tax and replace with nothing. That’s something we’ve been saying for years in the Libertarian Party. The fact that he wants to replace the income tax suggests that Bob is not serious about cutting spending.Ruwart didn't rule out running as a VP candidate to Barr "if I felt it would be good for the party."
There's something else I talked about with Bob several weeks before: The legalization of hard drugs. He said he'd come down on the side of liberty, and he said he'd express that in the media. But when he went on Hannity and Colmes he got pushed to the wall by those guys. And once again he took a different position than the LP has taken.
He sponsored the Defense of Marriage Act, something that's making a lot of gay couples very unhappy, and the gay community has produced some of the biggest supporters of the LP. I'd hate to think of doing anything that would antagonize that community.
Bob has made quite a turnaround in his views, and that's a good thing. He's seen the light: That's a powerful message to Republicans disillusioned with the major parties. If I were in Bob’s shoes I’d certainly run for president, but four years ago, not this time. I'd correct my record on DOMA, my hard drugs stances, my tax stances. Our standard bearer should epitomize the libertarian philosophy in entirety, and present it in an attractive package to the country. If our standard bearer doesn’t believe in liberty, how can we convince the American people to do so?
"Drop Dead Gorgeous—and Military Trained!"
Via the overheated commentary of Extreme Mortman comes this bizarre slow-news-day CNN Situation Room bit on how Israel (that 60-year-old!) is overhauling its image by having former military gals pose for Maxim magazine. "Israel is hip, sexy, and fun," says CNN:
Not sure if Fox News will counterblast with the girls of the PLO.
Gentle reader, does this news change your views on foreign aid?
Or does it merely convince you further that we're living in the Rapture and we don't even know it?
Jesse, Are You Listening?
Q: Could the Libertarian Party nomination fight draw in a third legendary former-office holder?A: No. No, it couldn't. But former Minnesota Gov. Jesse "the Mind" Ventura gave an interview to Maria Heller a week ago, from his Mexico hideaway, where he opened the possibility of the LP gratefully awarding him its presidential slot. Thirty-two minutes into the video he starts discussing it.
I had somebody from the Libertarians contact me, and they said their convention is in May, and I don't know if this is true but he claims they have ballot access in all 50 states.They actually don't, but Ventura says he'll explore it "when I get back in country May 15." He follows up this thought with a discussion of the 9/11 "truth" movie Loose Change. If the party could reject the brainy-but-conspiracy-minded Aaron Russo, the chances of Jesse Ventura parachuting into the race a week before the convention and seizing the nod are... slim.
There was a time in 1999 and 2000, dimly-remembered now, when Ventura really could have jumped into the presidential race, gotten taken seriously, and as much as 22 percent of the country would consider voting for him. Ventura has definitively joined the Chuck Hagel Memorial Home for Candidates Who Blew Their Chance.
In the "candidates who didn't blow their chance" file: Ron Paul's The Revolution will be #1 on the New York Times bestseller list this weekend.
Headline disturbingly explained here.
Philly Mayors Says Cops Were Wrong in Beating
The actions of a throng of [Philadelphia] police officers shown on a videotape kicking and punching three shooting suspects during a traffic stop were inappropriate, Mayor Michael Nutter said Thursday.
A sergeant and five officers have been removed from street duty as authorities investigated the footage. More than a dozen officers were involved, and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said investigators were having the videotape enhanced to try to identify how many were actually striking the suspects. Information will be sent to prosecutors, who will determine whether to press charges.
"It absolutely shows inappropriate behavior," Nutter said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America." "There is a way to take people into custody ... and there (are) not acceptable ways of taking people into custody."
More here. The police commissioner has said something similar, and it's refreshing to see authorities not working overtime to defend beserker cops.
Watch the video of the beating and decide for yourself.
And then check out Paulville.org, whose goal is to establish "gated communities containing 100% Ron Paul supporters and or people that live by the ideals of freedom and liberty." (To be honest, I don't know if that means that such police beatings would be totally illegal or an everyday occurence, especially if neighborhood associations embraced the early '90s ideas of Paul advisers/ghostwriters Murray Rothbard and Lew Rockwell [whose takeaway from the police beating of Rodney King was fear of videocameras].)
I'm wondering where in the world Alan Keyes could be, I been looking for him even clear through Tennessee
For heaven's sake, stop encouraging him:The Constitution Party may not want Alan Keyes but some people do. Keyes scored his best Republican primary performance of the campaign last night, winning 3 percent of the vote in North Carolina (although he still trailed John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, and "no preference"). Keyes continues to run as an independent. And the state party chairman of the American Independent Party, Keyes's largest bloc of support at the CP national convention, told Ballot Access News that he would still like to nominate Keyes for president.
Now Playing at Reason.tv: Mississippi Drug War Blues—the Case of Cory Maye
The latest Drew Carey Project video for reason.tv tells the story of Cory Maye, who shot and killed a policeman during a 2001 drug raid gone terribly, terribly wrong.
"Mississippi Drug War Blues" is a story about the intersection of race, the war on drugs, the disturbing increase in the militarization of police tactics, and systemic flaws in the criminal justice system. It is a tragedy in which one man is dead and another may spend his life in prison without possiblity of parole.
Click below to view the video and access related materials, including an interview with reason Senior Editor Radley Balko, whose searing October 2006 story changed the course of the case and helped expose fundamental problems with the rules governing Mississippi's expert testimony.
This Just In: Francisco Franco was a Vote-Stealing Scumbag
Is there no end to the horrors of the Franco regime? John Labeaume, co-proprietor of the terrific website electiondissection.com, passes along this horrifying tale of fascist vote rigging:
Singer Cliff Richard was robbed of victory in the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest because Spanish dictator Francisco Franco rigged the vote, a documentary to be aired Thursday claims.
Richard's song "Congratulations" was the runaway favourite but was beaten in the contest, held that year in London, by just one point by Spanish contestant Massiel, who sang "La La La".
According to the documentary, music and television executives sent by Franco bought the rights to series that never aired and signed little-known acts in other European nations in return for Eurovision votes.
Spanish public television journalist Jose Maria Inigo told the documentary that the Franco regime "had a great need to win recognition, even if it was only in one area."
Full story.
Sir Cliff performing his classic song "The Young Ones" on (post-Franco) Spanish television.
Now Playing at Reason.tv: The New York Sun's Alternative Take on the Big Apple and Beyond
reason.tv Editor Nick Gillespie recently sat down with The New York Sun's Deputy Managing Editor Robert Asahina and Culture Editor Pia Catton to talk about the six-year-old daily paper's alternative take on the politics and culture; whether the War on Terror will drive Election 2008; how the visual arts are flourishing; why Americans love to hate New York; who deserves credit for the city's turnaround; whether the Big Apple is a libertarian pleasure-dome; and much more.
Approximately 15 minutes; shot by Dan Hayes. Click on the image below to view.