So Where is Sean Hannity’s Pin? Are You SERIOUS?

So, Media Matters has yet again coughed up any response they think will help their cause of advancing the left. Trouble is, as usual, they keep missing the target.

Discussing an interview in which Sen. Barack Obama said he had stopped wearing a flag pin on his lapel during the lead-up to the Iraq war, Sean Hannity said on his radio show: “[W]hy do we wear pins?  Because our country was under attack.” He continued: “And to politicize once again the war to this extent. Well, who cares about the war? Are you proud of your country?” Yet while criticizing Obama for not wearing a flag pin, Hannity himself has not worn an American flag lapel pin on a number of recent occasions.

Uh… guys? Someone displaying the flag or not, is of itself not the issue.  The issue is the reasoning one uses to get there.  The reasoning of it, was the whole story, in Obama’s case… and the entire objection. Address that reasoning, if you dare.  I doubt you can.

See also:Obama and Flag pins?

(Sigh) Here we go again.

In the press release the other day from the Giuliani camp:

The Rudy Giuliani Presidential Committee announced today that for the second quarter in a row the campaign leads the Republican field in dollars raised. The campaign showed another strong quarter, totaling over $11 million raised and over $16 million total cash on hand. The campaign reported raising over $10.5 million in primary dollars this quarter.

Of course CNN is making quite a bit of it.

But why is this horse race always measured in terms of money?  The inaccuracy of that measurement would seem to be exemplified by, on the other side, Obama leading the money chase, and yet being 33 points behind in the race that really matters… the number of people who will actually vote for him.

Similarly, Ron Paul hauled in $5MUSD in Q3.  Yet, if it’s possible for anyone’s chances to get elected being more laughable, I don’t see how.  I figure Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich stand about the same chance of getting elected, regardless of how much money they manage to take in, and for the same reason; they’re both demonstrably nuts, and everyone including a lot of folks throwing money at them, know it.  They do however, serve admirably to demonstrate the difference between leading the money race, and leading the race period.  They’ve managed to get as far as they have in the money race, because they have a few supporters with deep pockets, not because they stand a chance in hell of actually getting elected.

The point that I’m making here , is that the amount of money that a particular candidate has managed to sock away, is at best a less than direct indicator of how many actual supporters they have. In fact, I think it more deceptive, than indicative….  And I wonder if that isn’t the purpose of releasing such stories in the first place… deception.

Notice, for example, that when the mainstream media starts talking about the amount of money collected by such and such, and so and so, that the subject is invariably either a full goose bozo kook, such as Ron Paul, the one leaning farthest to the left in a given gaggle, such as this case…..Giuliani. The frequency with which this kind of pattern comes up… which is to say every bloody election cycle… strains credibility that it is not a concerted effort on the part of the mainstream media.

Granted, that some of this effect is the mainstream media, who couldn’t be bothered to do a real job, is probably just reposting press releases from the various camps.  But I doubt that’s all that’s going on here.

Here’s the petition to stand with Rush Limbaugh.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — (AP) Three former Duke lacrosse players falsely accused of rape filed a federal lawsuit Friday against disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong, the city of Durham and the police detectives who handled the investigation.The lawsuit calls the criminal case against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans “one of the most chilling episodes of premeditated police, prosecutorial and scientific misconduct in modern American history.”

What makes this one different, frankly, is that they got CAUGHT.

And by the way, who did they get caught by? Was it the supposed mainstream press? Nope. Blogs.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive and compensatory damages, attorneys fees and numerous reforms to the way the Durham Police Department handles criminal investigations.

Well, as much as I am normally discomforted by such procedure being laid down by means of lawsuit, it is clear that in the case of the city of Durham, and the voters down there who put a Nifong into office in the first place, can’t handle things without being directed. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens, here. One would hope that it will be more satisfying than the 24 hours in jail Nifong received as punishment from the criminal case

Billy notes something I hadn’t: Crystal Gail  Mangum isn’t named in this suit. It’s reasonable to suggest that the reason they did not was that there wasn’t any money there.  Certainly, the case was provable, and more, I think, than justified.  She’d  have to work a lot more parties to be able to raise the cash those boys would need, though.

Prarie Pundit quotes USELESS TOADY:

The number of public corruption cases here has more than quintupled, sparked by a federal crackdown on post-Katrina wrongdoings and a billboard campaign urging residents to expose crooked politics and payoffs, the FBI said.

Federal statistics show that 171 people in the metropolitan area have been indicted on public corruption charges from 2003 through mid-September of this year, said Howard Schwartz, supervisory special agent for public corruption in the FBI’s New Orleans’ office. More than 80% were convicted or pleaded guilty to charges including bribery and fraud.

The upsurge in indictments is partly the result of corruption fueled by the enticement of billions of federal and state dollars flooding the region after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Schwartz said. Nationally, the number of pending public corruption cases has increased 49% since 2001.

Says PP:

You can read the entire story and not find the party identification of those who have been charged.

Yes, well you know full well that if there were Republicans involved it would be national news.  Tell me again about how the national news outlets are not biased. and tell me about the rabbits, again.

In looking at the flag pin issue with Obama earlier, I suggested there might be a bit of self-hate among his supporters.

Looks like I was right.

So Barack Obama won’t wear a flag pin anymore?

Yes, I know all about What he says, that it doesn’t show true patriotism. Of course, first of all, his definition of “patriotism” is questionable now before he even opens his mouth.  He says he wants to show his “true patriotism” . so now, we are to believe that he is a superior patriot, because he refuses to wear a flag in his lapel?

But hold on a minute.  

Why is it that the default leftist position is that those who show outward signs of patriotism, are hypocrites or fakes… not “true patriots”?  Is there some means of vision into the American brain they possess that nobody else does that allows them to make this determination?  What we’re really talking about here, is Obama deciding to denegrate those who fly the flag. Who display Amercan Flag bumper stickers on their vehicles. Who stand in respct when a flag walks by. What is it that makes Obama think he is morally superior to these?

Seems to me, that this is of a kind with the De Facto Democrat position about  the military.  For all their screaming, over the years about supporting the troops, those who truly do support the troops, are consistently referred to as “chicken hawks”. And in that case, what was the reason for the label?  Supposedly, because some of the people to whom that label was attributed, had never served in the military, suddenly we were supposed to accept as God’s truth that they were on qualified to speak on this subject.

But why doesn’t that limitation applied to them?  Most of the people screaming anti-war nonsense under burning flags, flags mounted upside down, or holding flags which are being defecated upon, have not served either, for the most part.  Yet the restrictions about speaking about things involved with war, doesn’t seem to apply them.

In any event, calling the voter morally inferior because he loves his country and is willing to show it doesn’t seem to me the best way to get a vote from that voter.  Unless, that is, you’re counting on a certain level of self hatred in the voter to become manifest on the first Tuesday in November.

John Hawkins answers the question and it ain’t pretty.

CAMP PENDLETON -NC TIMES- A Marine Corps official has recommended that murder charges be dismissed against a Camp Pendleton squad leader accused in the deaths of 17 civilians killed in the Iraqi city of Haditha two years ago.

Attention John Murtha: There’s a woman (She’s not fat… She’s vertically challenged ) warming up just offstage.  Get your apology ready you worthless, spineless, slug.

Lying Lizzy,  a.k.a.  Elizabeth Edwards, a.k.a. Mrs. John Edwards is at it again.    Unlke her husband who made his fortune duping juries into believing he knew more about delivering babies than OBY/GYN”s, Lying Lizze is claiming medical expertise as to the condition of Rush Limbaugh’s derrier circa 1970.

Ben Smith, Politicio:

[Lying Lizzy] My classmates went to Vietnam, he did not. He was 4F. He had a medical disability, the same medical disability that probably should have stopped him from spending a lifetime in a radio announcer’s chair; but it is true, isn’t it? If he has an inoperable position that allows him not to serve, presumably it should not allow him to sit for long periods of time the way he does. I think this is a serious enough offense for the people who fund him, who buy ads and allow him to be on the air, need to be asked if this is what they really stand for, do they think it is all right for someone who has never served to denigrate the men and women who have simply because they are expressing an opinion. Frankly, I thought that is what we are fighting for.

I don’t recall Lying Lizzy panning Howard Dean’s medical deferment for a bad back, which did not prevent Dean from skiing.

I want Mrs. Edwards to cite her medical expertise and the source of her professed knowledge of Limbaugh’s medical condidition in 1970.    Is Edwards leaking confidential medical records that are not known to exist?

Tom Maguire at Just one Minute:

Patrick Ruffini identified an intriguing puzzle that leads Sitemeter to inflate traffic statistics for high-traffic sites.

Briefly, Sitemeter claims that each unique visiting IP address is tracked for half an hour.  But what Patrick deduced is that Sitemeter has a second, hidden constraint – its Basic service only stores the last 100 visitors.  On a low traffic site, that constraint means little.  However, the Daily Kos draws about 30,000 visitors per hour during prime time, which is roughly one hundred visitors every twelve seconds.

So, if Patrick is right, if I go to the Kos site I will be recorded as a unique visitor; if I then hit a second Kos page twenty seconds later I will be recorded as another unique visitor, despite Sitemeter’s protestations about a half-hour rule.  Due to the 100 visitor hidden constraint, Sitemeter will correctly record page views but overstate unique visitors.

Yeah, well, that isn’t the half of it, despite the idea that Tom does his own testing on the issue.

For quite some time now, the numbers being collected by Sitemeter,  are nowhere near this web sites internal trackers, in terms of unique visitors, page hits, and so on.

Normally, I wouldn’t complain very much.  but the fact of the matter is  just about everything to do with blog status is tied to Sitemeter numbers, including TTLB.  If these are inaccurate… and I have good reason to think they are….

Jules Crittenden looks at the leftie slavering overthe latest NYT gotcha on Intense interrogation …

“The problem is, once you’ve got a legal opinion that says such a technique is O.K., what happens when one of our people is captured and they do it to him? How do we protest then?”

Article neglects to mention we are fighting an enemy that considers powerdrills into kneecaps and videotaped beheading of captives business as usual.

True enough Jules, but there’s more… much more.

Don’t bother trying to tell me about how if we use torture, they will.  I defy the reader to tell me in what war in this nation’s entire history the Geneva conventions were actually followed by the people we were fighting against.  You cannot.  They never were.

Also on this one:

Riehl World View,  The Politico

The Politico:

A Minnesota judge Thursday denied Sen. Larry Craig’s decision to withdraw his guilty plea.

“Because the defendent’s guilty plea was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and because the conviction is supported by the evidence, the defendent’s conviction for disorderly conduct occuring on June 11, 2007, in the men’s public restroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in Bloomington, Hennepin County, Minn., is valid,” Judge Charles A. Porter wrote in a 27-page opinion released at 1:40 p.m.

There has been no reaction yet from Craig. He initially said he would resign from his seat last Sunday, but decided to stay in office until the judge issued his ruling.

Actually, the most recent reaction from Craig’s office that I have heard of is that he is announcing he will not run for reelection.  He is also saying however that he’s going to stay in office until that time.

But here again, we have a major difference between the parties; The Republicans are doing everything within their power to get Larry Craig out of office immediately, if not sooner.  The Democrats, on the other hand, have made so much moves with “Cold Cash” Jefferson, and continue to defend him.

A short time ago, we were treated to democrats defending Bill Clinton.  Remember what the defense was?  “It’s all about sex”.  I would suggest to you, that if we take their statements about their value structure at face value, Larry Craig is all about sex.

Whereas, Jefferson is all about bribe money.

Which is the worst of these two offenses in your mind?

Understand…This is not a defense of Larry Craig… let me be very clear about this; I want him out of there, as I have stated several times previously.  But how do we judge the Democrats in the matter , particularly when they’ve been screaming for Larry Craig’s ouster, when they don’t lift a finger to oust Johnson, on something which by their own lights is a far worse crime?

Interesting admissions, today, from Jonathan Turley.

Like many academics, I was happy to blissfully ignore the Second Amendment. It did not fit neatly into my socially liberal agenda. Yet, two related cases could now force liberals into a crisis of conscience. The Supreme Court is expected to accept review of District of Columbia v. Heller and Parker v. District of Columbia, involving constitutional challenges to the gun-control laws in Washington.

The D.C. law effectively bars the ownership of handguns for most citizens and places restrictions on other firearms. The District’s decision to file these appeals after losing in the D.C. appellate court was driven more by political than legal priorities. By taking the appeal, D.C. politicians have put gun-control laws across the country at risk with a court more likely to uphold the rulings than to reverse them. It has also put the rest of us in the uncomfortable position of giving the right to gun ownership the same fair reading as more favored rights of free press or free speech.

The Framers’ intent

Principle is a terrible thing, because it demands not what is convenient but what is right. It is hard to read the Second Amendment and not honestly conclude that the Framers intended gun ownership to be an individual right. It is true that the amendment begins with a reference to militias: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” Accordingly, it is argued, this amendment protects the right of the militia to bear arms, not the individual.

Yet, if true, the Second Amendment would be effectively declared a defunct provision. The National Guard is not a true militia in the sense of the Second Amendment and, since the District and others believe governments can ban guns entirely, the Second Amendment would be read out of existence.

More important, the mere reference to a purpose of the Second Amendment does not alter the fact that an individual right is created. The right of the people to keep and bear arms is stated in the same way as the right to free speech or free press. The statement of a purpose was intended to reaffirm the power of the states and the people against the central government.

Tell me, Jonathan, where was your honesty a few years ago?  I ask, because I have begun to fear that it is far too late to recognize those rights which are Federal government, in many state and local governments, have been so willing to trample these past 70 to 100 years.

Oh, please….

 A Detroit radio station has apologized after a disk jockey advertised a contest to determine when Britney Spears would commit suicide.

“When will Britney end it?” listeners were asked on the Web and the Tuesday night radio show hosted by DJ Big Boy on Channel 955, according to a story in the Detroit News.

Look gang, let’s face it, this is after all what this has evolved into.  The woman has been circling the drain for the last five years.   Is there anyone on the planet who doesn’t know that?  Have we become so apology- centric that we’re all supposed to ignore the bleeding obvious?