Defund the Left
Also on Powerline Blog: Target department store apologized for donating money to a group that supports a Republican candidate in Minnesota. The contributions were critized by a group of homo activists because the candidate opposes gay marriage.
From the Star-Tribune:
Unable to extinguish a firestorm of protest among some of its customers and gay rights supporters, Target Corp. on Thursday took the unusual step of apologizing for making a political donation.
CEO Gregg Steinhafel sent a message to company leaders saying he was “genuinely sorry” that the donation had disappointed some. The message was posted on the company’s Intranet, making it available to all employees.
Minneapolis-based Target had tried for days to emphasize that the $150,000 donation to MN Forward, a pro-business group backing Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, was based solely on a tax and jobs platform. But because of Emmer’s stance against gay marriage, many perceived the donation as flying in the face of Target’s longstanding commitment to workplace equality.
Background here.
We need to fight as hard to defund the left as they fight against our organizations.
Coming…Quarter Century of Bad Decisions
The smart guys at Powerline Blog neatly sum up the disastrous impact of the Republican’s capitulation on Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court nomination.
To get a sense of what it means, think of the three big constitutional decisions rendered by district courts in the past week or two. They are: (1) Judge Bolton’s grant of a preliminary injunction blocking key portions of Arizona’s immigration enforcement law, (2) Judge Hudson’s ruling permitting the Commonwealth of Virginia to proceed with its lawsuit challenging the portion of Obamacare that requires individuals to purchase insurance, and (3) Judge Walker’s outrageous ruling that California’s Proposition 8, which bans gay marriage, is unconstitutional.
If these matters reach the Supreme Court, as seems likely, I have no doubt that Kagan will side with those who challenge the Arizona immigration law and Proposition 8, and with the government in the case of Virginia’s challenge to Obama care. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg — probably less than one year’s worth of bad jurisprudence. Kagan is only 50 years old, so we can expect at least 25 years of the same sort of leftist assault on our traditional freedoms and the rights of our states.
The only way Kagan’s confirmation doesn’t become a disaster is if we are able to elect Republicans presidents pretty consistently during the next 22 years or so, starting in 2012, and thus can keep Kagan busy writing dissents.
The trouble is there’s no guarantee that the Republicans: 1. will have a presidential candidate and then president who will nominate a high caliber conservative justice; 2. that the Republicans in the Senate will fight sufficiently hard enough to keep the Democrats from blocking and/or filibustering that nomination; 3. that the usual RINO turncoats won’t join the Dems in scuttling a strong conservative nominee.
I’m getting to the point where I despise the Republicans as much as I hate the Democrats.
Another Reason to Vote Both Parties Out
Democrats have to go. That’s obvious.
But this illustrates why the Republicans have to go too.
Elena Kagan Confirmed…
The usual suspects on the GOP side of the aisle joined the Democrats to put this highly unqualified, leftist ideologue on the nation’s top court.
Five Republicans Yes votes: Collins (Maine), Snowe (Maine), Gregg (N.H), Lugar (Ind.), Graham (S.C.).
We’ve come to expect this from these clowns, but the rest of the Republicans in the Senate were not better. Simply voting no is not enough. A filibuster until the end of time, or until The Obama withdrew Kagan’s name was the proper course of action.
The Stupid Party.
Your Opinion, Votes & Voice Doesn’t Count
Increasingly, we’re being told by the mandarins running this county that our opinions and votes don’t matter.
Case in point are two recent court cases. Yesterday, a judge in California vetoed the will of 7 million Californians in deciding that a state constitutional amendment limiting marriage to men and women. The other case involved an Arizona judge putting that state’s anti-illiegal immigration law on hold.
On top of that, you have the White House Press Secretary basically telling the 70 percent or more of Missouri voters who reject ObamaCare to shut the hell up.
From the Heritage Institute:
This Tuesday voters in Missouri, by a 40-point margin, approved a ballot measure rejecting the individual mandate at the core of President Barack Obama’s health care law. Asked what the vote meant to the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said: “Nothing.” Yesterday in San Francisco, federal judge Vaughn Walker gave the exact same weight to a California ballot measure that affirmed marriage as an institution between one man and one woman. Specifically Judge Walker overturned the California Marriage Protection Act after concluding, as a matter of fact, that the majority of Californians who voted to protect marriage were bigots who had no rational basis to define marriage on their own terms. Here are just some of the “facts” Judge Walker found:
•Religious beliefs that gay and lesbian relationships are sinful or inferior to heterosexual relationships harm gays and lesbians.
•The campaign to pass Proposition 8 relied on stereotypes to show that same-sex relationships are inferior to opposite-sex relationships.
•The Proposition 8 campaign relied on fears that children exposed to the concept of same-sex marriage may become gay or lesbian.
•The genetic relationship between a parent and a child is not related to a child’s adjustment outcomes.
•Children do not need to be raised by a male parent and a female parent to be well-adjusted.
How did Judge Walker arrive at these “facts”? By agreeing with everything the same-sex marriage proponents’ “experts” said while ruling that the traditional marriage witness was “unreliable” and “provided no credible evidence to support any of the claimed adverse effects proponents promised to demonstrate.” In so doing, Walker not only ignored the views of millions of Californians, but by basing his decision on the 14th Amendment, he also ignored the factual determinations of every single popular vote that has been held on the issue in the past two decades. According to Judge Walker’s reasoning every single one of these Americans is a bigot whose opinion on marriage has no place under Judge Walker’s Constitution.
More often than not, the decisions to cancel the will of the electorate is not based on the Constitution, law, reason, tradition or science, but merely the opinions, largely ill-formed, of judges and lawyers.
Why bother with elections at all? Why bother with Congress and state legislatures when a small group of appointed members of the judiciary or some bureaucracy can arbitrarily oppose the will of the majority for no other reason than their own personal opinion on any given topic?
The proper corrective to all of this begins at the ballot box, starting this November, but continuing in two years. The next step is to aggressively defund the left, labor unions, bureaucrats, community groups and all the other big-government moochers.
Finally, a clean sweep of the federal judiciary is in order. We need to remove judges like the two in California and Arizona. Congress needs to enact legislation stripping the court’s authority over matters best left to the states. (And yes, Congress has the constitutional authority to limit the court’s perview.)
Why the News Is Broken
Missouri voters overwhelming (73% to 27%) reject ObamaCare in a state-wide referendum yesterday. Yet, the moron reporter and editors for KMOV St. Louis Channel 4 interviewed two voters coming out of the polls who supported government-run health care.
Incredibly, when three quarters of the people who entered that polling place voted against ObamaCare, the station couldn’t find a single person to interview.
This is partisan political advocacy masquerading as journalism and pure incompetence. Regardless of your political leanings, commonsense should compel a reporter to find at least one voice in opposition to the agenda to at least give the appearance of objectivity.
When the nightly news doesn’t even come close to portraying reality, why bother watching?
A No Vote on Kagan, Please
Republicans must vote against and even filibuster the vote on Elena Kagan for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., outlines the many excellent reasons why Kagan is unqualified for the job:
However, I have little confidence in senate Republicans to do the right thing.
We’ll see.
Happy Birthday Mr. President
Today’s allegedly The Obama’s birthday, although no one’s ever seen official proof.
From Yahoo News:
When President Obama celebrates his 49th birthday Wednesday, he won’t be surrounded by his wife and daughters, who are on summer vacation. He’ll spend the night in Chicago, where on Thursday he’ll mark the occasion with “friends” — the kind who are willing to part with $30,000 or so for the chance to see the president presented with a birthday cake.
As Rush said yesterday:
Tomorrow is Obama’s birthday, not that we’ve seen any proof of that… What? We haven’t seen any proof of that! They tell us August 4th is the birthday; we haven’t seen any proof of that! Sorry. It is what it is.
Cheez Doodle Creator Dead at 90
I read in the Richmond Times-Dispatch this afternoon that the creator of Cheez Doodles died July 27 at the age of 90.
Having spent many happy moments with orange fingers devouring those tasty snacks, I have to say, Morrie R. Yohai, was a truly great man.
Yohai developed the small tubular snack at his Old London Foods factory in the 1950s. The company already was selling Dipsy Doodles rippled corn chips, which were made with a machine that spit them out under pressure through a nozzle shaped like the letter W.
He modified that concept by changing the machine to squirt liquefied cornmeal out in a round shape that was baked and then coated with flavorings and cheddar cheese.
In 1965, Borden approached Yohai about selling the Old London company, which also made Melba Toast, ice cream cones, cheese crackers and other products. He became senior vice president of Borden’s snack food division, acquiring Wise potato chips, Drake’s cakes, Campfire Marshmallows and other products for the company.
Morrie R. Yohai, RIP.
Hope or Change…?
Not sure which this is, but ABC News reports:
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner acknowledged that it is still a “tough economy” for most Americans, and warned it’s possible the unemployment rate will go up for a couple of months before it comes down as more people enter the labor force.
Mitch Miller RIP
Mitch Miller is dead at 99.
AP called him the “goateed orchestra leader who asked American’s to Sing Along With Mitch on television and records.”
I remember we had a couple of his albums: his holiday album and this one too.
Miller had a show in TV that started, I think, in 1961. Here’s a clip:
Here’s another:
Mitch Miller made singing fun and reminded people that really anyone can sing, you don’t have to have a “singer’s voice.”
Many years ago, we belonged to a Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America congregation in Pittsburgh. One of the distinctives of that denomination is that they don’t use musical instruments in worship services or sing anything but Psalms acapella.
Going there for a decade or so, I learned to read music, and sing bass (I have a very deep voice). I also learned that the four parts of four-part harmony make it possible for everyone to sing, regardless of whether you have a very high voice or very deep.
Mitch Miller’s music sounds corny now, but it was really a lot easier and fun to sing to than just about anything you hear on the radio today. In fact, most popular music is impossible to sing to.
As he said himself of rock and roll:
Rock ‘n’ roll is musical baby food: it is the worship of mediocrity, brought about by a passion for conformity.
Mitch Miller: RIP
Judge OKs Va. anti-ObamaCare lawsuit.
Looks like Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli won round one in the fight against ObamaCare.
From the AG’s website:
A federal judge ruled today that Virginia does indeed have standing to bring its lawsuit seeking to invalidate the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The judge also ruled that Virginia had stated a legally sufficient claim in its complaint. In doing so, federal district court judge Henry E. Hudson denied the federal government’s motion to dismiss the commonwealth’s suit.
“We are pleased that Judge Hudson agreed that Virginia has the standing to move forward with our suit and that our complaint alleged a valid claim,” said Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Cuccinelli and his legal team had their first opportunity in court on July 1, arguing that Virginia’s lawsuit was a valid challenge of the federal health care act and that the court should not dismiss the case as the federal government had requested.
The U.S. Department of Justice argued that Virginia lacked the standing to bring a suit, that the suit is premature, and that the federal government had the power under the U.S. Constitution to mandate that citizens must be covered by government-approved health insurance or pay a monetary penalty.
In denying the motion to dismiss, Judge Hudson found that Virginia had alleged a legally recognized injury to its sovereignty, given the government’s assertion that the federal law invalidates a Virginia law, the Health Care Freedom Act. In addressing the issue of Virginia’s statute, the Court recognized that the “mere existence of the lawfully-enacted [Virginia] statute is sufficient to trigger the duty of the Attorney General of Virginia to defend the law and the associated sovereign power to enact it.” He also found that even though the federal insurance mandate doesn’t take effect until 2014, the case is “ripe” because a conflict of the laws is certain to occur.
“This lawsuit is not about health care, it’s about our freedom and about standing up and calling on the federal government to follow the ultimate law of the land – the Constitution,” Cuccinelli said. “The government cannot draft an unwilling citizen into commerce just so it can regulate him under the Commerce Clause.”
Long time, no posting
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything here at knuckleheadidjitgaloot.com.
Started a new job in March. The long-awaited sheriff sale of my house of nearly a decade happened at last at the end of May. We packed up and moved to a rental house that’s way out in the country, right in the middle of a 1,400 acre farm.
The place is beautiful. The house is really cool. I feel like we’re living in a national park.
But the downside is we have no Internet access. Cell phone service is spotty, and the landline phone by Verizon delivers Third World service. Really, there’s a constant loud buzz on the line and the phone goes dead for several hours a day.
Did I mention that VERIZON SUCKS!
Anyway, been trying to get a rural broadband carrier to make good on threats to put an antenna or dish or whatever on a silo on the farm to send the wireless signal to our house.
Until then, posting will continue to be spotty.
Sorry.
Jailhouse Wednesday
Who Needs Experience?
Hell, we’ve got a president who had zero experience at anything, but running for election. And look how well that’s worked out.
So who cares if The Obama’s Supreme Court nominee has zero experience too?
From FoxNews:
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has never been a judge, she’s never ruled on a case and she’s never written an opinion. But that doesn’t mean she’s President Obama’s Harriet Miers.
For the president’s supporters, lack of courtroom experience is no problem for a Supreme Court justice.
“President Obama said he wanted someone on the high court who understood the impact of the law on average Americans, and I believe the depth and breadth of Ms. Kagan’s experience will allow her that perspective,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Monday in a statement echoed by several Democrats.