Using MLK to Justify Bigotry

One, Gilbert Young has his knickers in a twist because a Chinese man, Lei Yixin, has been commissioned to do statute of Martin Luther King for the Natoinal Mall.   Details, James Taranto.

Gilbert objects to Yixin either because Yixin is Chinese or just not black.   Further Gilbert attempts attribute his bigotry to King himself:

King’s message became universal because only the truly ignorant would not accept and acknowledge that all men are created equal and deserve to be respected and allowed the right to freedoms promised by the Constitution of these United States.

Gilbert is confused.  He gets the divine confused with the mortal.   While God may create all men, God only creates unique individuals.

It is man, who endows human beings with rights.   We, as mere mortals, have no power to make men equal.  The best we can do is treat men as equal under the law.  The law is a human product. 

Equality under the law was the vision of King’s “I have a dream.”  Sadly King’s vision of equality is not shared by Gilbert.

With apologies to Jerry Reed.

CRAIG, Colo.  (AP) The husband of a woman missing since June was arrested on suspicion of murder after her body was found buried deep in a gold mine he operated, police said Sunday.

The body of Cynthia Hankins, 36, was found Saturday under tons of dirt in the mine, 33 miles north of Craig.

Terry Hankins, 70, was arrested on charges of first-degree murder, abusing a corpse, tampering with evidence, forgery, theft and possession of a controlled substance. Mrs. Hankins was reported missing June 3.

There’s a more detailed version of this story at the KUSA website, whence these pictures of the happy couple were lifted.  According to the KUSA report, there was some significant criminal activity going on, the investigation of which led to the discovery of the body.

One gets the feeling we’re going to be hearing about this particular story quite a bit, going forward.  There’s a lot going on here, that certainly the news people, and apparently the investigators as well, didn’t know about.

Ummmmm…… Ouch.

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. -Channel5, Dallas Fort Worth- Aggravated assault charges have been filed against a church deacon and University of Oklahoma Sooners fan after officials say he grabbed a University of Texas fan between the legs during a scuffle in an Oklahoma bar.

I’ve never been one to take college football at all, but apparently, those boys down in that part of the country, take their college football seriously… To a point where it makes the religion of perpetual rage, seem calm by comparison.  Remind me not to travel down there during football season.

There’s more detail, which I won’t bother getting into here, but you can find it at the link, including a video of all things.

Sheesh.

Logan Murphy, Crooks and Liars, writes of Keith Olbermann’s attempt draw attention to himself by picking on an adult.

Sadlly for Mr., Olbermann, as Taylor Marsh, observes, few adults seem to paying attention to Mr. Olbermann’s latest temper tantrum.

I was mildly looking forward to see how Rush would deal with the gnat, but I believe Rush is on vacation.  Mr. Olbermann’s tirade simply will not merit any response.

As for me, I have nothing new to add to my post of 24 March.

(Link repair:Bit)

I notice the web is going nuts about reports that Alberto Gonzalez is about ready to resign his position as attorney general.  The left, in particular, seems to be doing a grave dance on this one, though it seems unclear to me as to why. After all, if he’s as bad as they claim, would it be better for them if he was still in the attorney general spot, come election day?

On the other hand, I suppose that since he has been a target of such as the New York Times with their false accusations of perjury, (Shrug) I suppose I can understand the victory claims.  Still, the old Bithead adage about the worst possible thing you can do to a democrat, is give them precisely what they ask for, seems to apply here.  Odds on favorite for replacing Mr. Gonzalez, is Michael Chertoff.  Running a close second at the moment by some reports, notably Fox, is the current solicitor general Paul Clement, though the rumor mills have it that Clement would be more of an intern pick, rather than a permanent position holder.
McQ, In his response is this morning, points to an interview with Chuckles the Clown Schumer, who says he would prefer to conduct the confirmation hearings in the spirit of looking forward, and intimating that he doesn’t want to spend a lot of time dredging up Gonzalez.  McQ doesn’t believe in for a second, and frankly nor do I.  In Schumer we have someone who made a career of dredging up the past, (at least, bits and pieces of it) for current political gain.  The idea that he wouldn’t do so in this case is questionable at least. The word “desperation” pops up from the lexicon once again.

“What we Democrats have always said is that we need somebody in this department … who will put rule of law above all others, rule of law above any political consideration,” Schumer said on CNN Monday. “… Our attitude is going to be one of cooperation.”

If the law was and is their concern, why concern themselves with Gonzalez at all?  The firing of those attorneys was not illegal by any stretch of the imagination.  Indeed, it has been a matter of routine, the most recent previous occasion for such being the Clinton administration, which the democrats said not word one about.  the fact of the matter was and remains that they were after political blood.  Nothing more.  This had nothing whatever to do with the rule of law, and everything to do with politics as usual for the democrats.  When even the New York Times admits that the charge of perjury was unfair , as leveled by the democrats….

(Sigh)

My own view, is that he probably should have told congressional democrats to get stuffed, over year ago. After some initial screaming that would have been the end of the conversation.  They’ve been trying to nail him on this fired attorney business, and the fact of the matter is is that there was nothing illegal about what happened.  The best response would have been to tell them to get used to the idea that they weren’t in the white house.  Here again, the spirit of “bipartisanship” on the part of the administration was neither required nor desired.  It cost them and us far too much.

McQ at Q&O:

Dale destroyed the Martin Lewis “open letter” to General Pace requesting Pace “relive the president of his command” without even breaking a sweat. It is an absurd notion and anyone with even a modicum of intelligence and knowledge of the Constitution knows that. Obviously Martin Lewis, however, didn’t.

Yeah, well everyone else burned him down, too, including me. Given the easy target he made of himself, no great shakes for that. The reaction of Lewis, though, was even more pathetic than the original call to arms;

After being savaged in the comment section there and apparently savaged in the blogsophere as well, Lewis now claims it was all a big joke:

I have been reminded of that question as I watch with bemusement the right-wing blogosphere getting its knickers in a twist over my column that presented a tongue-in-cheek open letter to General Peter Pace suggesting that he arrest George W. Bush for “Conduct Unbecoming”. It was of course just a ‘a modest proposal’…

Anyone who has read “Gulliver’s Travels” (even the ‘Comics Illustrated’ version from Regnery Publishing for the “challenged reader”) is aware of a little thing called satire. Perhaps has even heard of Jonathan Swift.

But it appears that the only “Swift” that the right-wing nuts have heard of is the Swift Boat.

Swift = Smear they understand.

Swift = Satire…? Well, let’s just be charitable and say that it “eludes” them.

Riiiiiight!

Really. As I observed in somebody’s comments section on the matter, the man doesn’t have the common sense God gave a doorknob. He’d be better off if he would admit that he doesn’t have the intelligence necessary to pull off a joke of that order. The man’s own comments section is ample evidence of that point.

One thing about desperation; you very seldom get the chance to think desperate acts through. This is clearly one of those.

Addendum: (David L)  Ok, I will not post my own article, nor will find a picture of a gold plated shovel, Golden Shovel Award.  However, I do note this, Martin Lewis’ defense of satire would ring true if and only if, his original assertions of fact in this original article were true.  They were not.   Lewis wrote:

General Pace – you have the power to fulfill your responsibility to protect the troops under your command. Indeed you have an obligation to do so.

As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Pace has utterly no combat command troops under his command, nada, none zero.   Pace is NOT in the warfighting chain of comand.   A good lie at least gets his facts straight.  Lewis isn’t even a good liar.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution- The Falcons will try to recoup $22 million already paid to suspended quarterback Michael Vick, a person with knowledge of the team’s plans told the Journal-Constitution on Saturday.

Vick was suspended indefinitely by the NFL on Friday after he pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges in Virginia. That cleared the way for the Falcons to pursue money paid to Vick in signing bonus money.

Vick has received roughly $40 million in guaranteed bonuses — and even more in base salary — but teams are only allowed to try to recoup money paid in signing bonuses, per the collective bargaining agreement with the players’ union.

To collect the money, Vick must remain on the Falcons’ roster. Therefore the team will not release Vick until the matter is resolved, the person familiar with the situation said.

Ouch. That’s taking a bite outta crime. I’ll bet we see him crying “poverty” before all this is done.

Well, since Marla Maples is also raising money for Hillary, maybe it should be “Hookers AND Sluts for Hillary.” And Porn Stars, too. You knew something like this was coming. With Hillary, it’s all about crashing the Glass–and in this case, Silicone–ceiling:

So writes Debbie Schlussel.

The collection of idiocy calling itself Climate Progress takes environaziism to a whole new level with their post of the 6th of August, wondering in the title, “Did climate change contribute to the Minneapolis bridge collapse?”

Are we too seriously believe that a quarter of a degree difference in temperature on average is going to create this kind of a catastrophic collapse?  Are we seriously to believe that the structural engineers are going to be planning in their design for weather variances, particularly in the coldest area of the country? Are we too seriously believe that a quarter of a degree worth of average variance, is going to create a situation which pushes the bridge out of its delivered design criteria?

If we needed any more solid evidence  that “global warming” is a mixture of bull feces and hysteria, we don’t anymore.

Dave Schuler, writing at Outside The Beltway wonders why the New York Times is suddenly so anti-China:

On Friday the New York Times ran a fear-mongering story on the prospect of a Chinese company acquiring Seagate Technology, a leading manufacturer of hard drives:

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 24 — A Chinese technology company has expressed interest in buying a maker of computer disk drives in the United States, raising concerns among American government officials about the risks to national security in transferring high technology to China.

The overture, which was disclosed by the chief executive of one of the two remaining drive makers in the United States, William D. Watkins of Seagate Technology, has resurrected the issues of economic competitiveness and national security raised three years ago when Lenovo, a Chinese computer maker, bought I.B.M.’s personal computer business.

The NYT is late to this party. Hard drives have been manufactured overseas for many years now and China is a leading supplier if not the primary supplier. Engineering has followed manufacturing, first to Taiwan and now, increasingly, to China (where a lot of Taiwanese companies do their manufacturing). Is it a surprise that management would follow engineering and manufacturing? What did you think the Chinese would do with all the dollars they’ve been accumulating?

All very true.  However, this gets deeper…

Yesterday the Newspaper of Record painted a horrifying picture of environmental degradation in China:

BEIJING, Aug. 25 — No country in history has emerged as a major industrial power without creating a legacy of environmental damage that can take decades and big dollops of public wealth to undo.

But just as the speed and scale of China’s rise as an economic power have no clear parallel in history, so its pollution problem has shattered all precedents. Environmental degradation is now so severe, with such stark domestic and international repercussions, that pollution poses not only a major long-term burden on the Chinese public but also an acute political challenge to the ruling Communist Party. And it is not clear that China can rein in its own economic juggernaut.

To the paper’s credit the article obliquely suggested that market forces be harnessed to gain control over the situation. Little was said about the political, social, and legal reform that would make that possible.

Schiller makes several other valid points, usually in the form of questions.  However, here, I think, Schuler swings into the truth, without realizing it. The fact of the matter is that China, be they our friend or our foe…(And I think them neither) is probably the best example in the world today of what happens to both freedoms, and standard of living, once you start swinging away from socialism.  Their rate of success has been directly connected to the rate of that swing away from socialism.  Entrepreneurship has to a large degree taken over in China, and their massive economic might these days is a direct result of that swing.  I see no signs of that stopping.  I suggest that eventually China will become a more democratic state than are many of the nation’s whom we are pleased to call friends today.

I am by no means suggesting that China is without problems in these regards. Nor am I suggesting that the swing toward entrepreneurship and increased individualism is without problems, either.  The recent abuses as regards Fisher Price, for example. The recent pet food scandal, for another.  I am suggesting, however, that these will be resolved as a matter of course , not as a matter of edict, either internally or externally.

All this represents a threat to the leftists everywhere, not least of which at the New York Times.  The success story that China has become stands in direct opposition to that kind of world that the Times and it’s ardent readership has been striving for for the last 60 years.

By the same token, the New York Times flat out loves the mess that Fidel Castro has made of Cuba.  Thus the Times fawning over Castro each time the subject comes up. He provides no challenge to socialism.  Of course, he provides no bettering in the standard of living for the Cuban people either, but that’s inconsequential to the Times.

Where freedom proves successful, even when applied in limited amounts as in China, it’s a sure bet that the New York Times is not going to look favorably on it.

INVERNESS, Fla. -MSNBC- A man who kidnapped a little girl from her bedroom, raped her and later buried her alive was sentenced to death Friday.

John Evander Couey, 49, who was found guilty of murdering 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford in February 2005, said earlier this week in a recorded jailhouse conversation with his aunt that he expected the decision and regretted his act.

“I kick myself in the butt a hundred times a day,” Couey said. “I just keep asking myself, why were you so stupid?”

Forgive me, but I find it difficult to raise any sympathy for this idiot. I will lose no sleep whatever over this.
Of course, that having been said, I notice that those at the Democratic Underground  don’t seem to have any problem generating sympathy for him… I note, however, that there is hope for some of these people, at least.  What interests me is, that this is a discussion that would not have happened, say, eight years ago.  More indication, I think, of the splits that are happening, ideologically, on the left .

It is said, that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.   Perhaps, given some of the reaction were seeing over there, there is some weight to the argument.

“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!”

…

“I’ll follow him around the Horn, and around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition’s flames before I give him up.”

…
– Moby Dick, Herman Melville

Dale Franks notes the insanity going on on the left, and insanity I’ve commented on here several times:

This is a seriously written bit of complete insanity. And worse.

It’s from Martin Lewis at the Huffington Post, whoever he is. In this post, he writes an open letter to General peter Pace, the CJCS, urging him to—get ready for it—”relieve the president of command”.

Though you are Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the President’s principal military advisor – President Bush has shown his disdain for your honesty and wisdom. Though you are a decorated Vietnam war hero – who has served his nation honorably for four decades – the President is dispensing with your services. You have one month left in your position before you are tossed out by the President.

President Bush is going to ignore your advice. Just as he has ignored the advice of other Generals who have had the courage to respectfully point out how terribly wrong he is in respect of the Iraq War and the safety of the US military he is sworn to protect. Highly-decorated colleagues of yours such as General Anthony Zinni (Commander in Chief of U.S. Central Command), General Eric Shinseki (Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army) and General John Abizaid (Commander of the U.S. Central Command).

General Pace – you have the power to fulfill your responsibility to protect the troops under your command. Indeed you have an obligation to do so.

You can relieve the President of his command.¹

Not of his Presidency. But of his military role as Commander-In-Chief.

Lewis then goes on to expound the most outrageously stupid legal theory, based on the Uniform Code of Military Justice, that would authorize such a move.

It’s difficult to know where to begin to even address this kind of neutron star density of stupidity.

It should no longer be unclear to anyone that what we are dealing with here is a far left that is Ahab-like in its desperation to ‘Get Bush”.  Think;

The left has been screaming for years how untrustworthy the military was.  Obviously, to now call a member of the military to take over the country so as to remove Mr. Bush, (something that they have been unable to do themselves, ) signals a desperation that they have been unwilling to admit to, even to themselves.
Forget the idea that what is being proposed by these idiots is unconstitutional and thereby impossible, forget that the UCMJ doesn’t apply to the president, who is, after all, a civilian, who was elected to the position… forget all that.  What we are talking about here is the unconstitutional usurpation of command. Why am I not surprised that the left is proposing such an idea?

After all, since when has the constitution been a significant roadblock to the political aims of the Democrats? They simply ignore it, at need.

There is madness of a sort at work here.  The comment that I posted from Hillary Clinton yesterday I think correctly identifies the genesis of it.  They recognize that power is being lost to them. Power, to the Democrats, is as life itself.  It is as the breath that they take. The desperation that we see here takes on the quality of a drowning man, flailing about for something / anything that will float, thus sustaining that breath.  The implication here is that they know the only way that they can maintain their power, is to usurp it… unconstitutionally.  Illegally.

Sadly, this is not the worst example of this that we are going to see, between now and November of 2008.  Nor, of course, is it the first.

I suppose it could be argued that these people are acting as enemy agents within our country, and are subject to the law . Sedition, you know is a serious crime, Democrats and their wet dreams not withstanding.

Then again, western law and western justice, which in turn is based on western morality, has always been lenient as regards the actions of the insane.

So, I’m scanning the AP wire, and I note a story moving under the heading:

“Obama names Republicans he’ll work with “

Well, says I, this should be mildly amusing..

“There are some very capable Republicans who I have a great deal of respect for,” Obama said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The opportunities are there to create a more effective relationship between parties.”

Among the Republicans he would seek help from are Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, John Warner of Virginia and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Obama said.

Well, these choices should surprise nobody.

Lugar has been on my excrement list since “Advice to the next president” which was a work that Jimmy Carter would have been proud of.  And of course, scroll down a little bit, to another article and you’ll notice that I label Jimmy Carter the worst disaster in foreign policy in this country’s history.  John Warner, just recently, prove himself too much about had to be taken seriously, and I’m not even going with Coburn.

The only person missing from the list, that he probably would be making noise about under different circumstances, would be John McCain.  The trouble is, McCain is a possible contender, all be it , like Obama, he doesn’t stand much of a chance… sure politics, then, not to mention them.

Perhaps somebody  ought to tell Obama, that when you’re this far behind in your own party’s primary, much less actually running for the presidency, you don’t get to dictate your terms.

And smack dab in the middle of the article, Obama comes up with THIS little gem:

Part of Washington’s problem is that President Bush has created a partisan atmosphere, he said.

Talk about projection.   Every time you open system out the demonstrates clearly why Ddemocrats in general, and he in particular, deserve not even a whiff of the reins of power.

As regards the betting pools that have popped up for when Fidel Castro begins his stay in one of the few places I can think of that warmer than Cuba, I’ll add my comments.
Rumors and indications notwithstanding, there’s no real way to tell whether not the man has kicked the enchilada  until such time as the Cuban government sees fit to advise us all of the fact.  But personally, it’s my view that the Cuban government has every reason not to make that announcement.

Let’s face it, love him or hate him, his personality, and the cult that was built up around it, is the only reason that the Cuban government still stands as such today.

His still wasting air, is the only reason that many of the people within the Cuban government are also wasting air.  My guess is that when he goes, many of his followers will go with him, mostly violently, at the hands of the people that they have oppressed for so long.   When that happens, nearly everything about Cuba will change.

We are talking about the possibility of the long are pressed people of Cuba standing up and taking over the country .  We are talking about the large number of Cuban exiles , joining the fight.  All this bottom lines at the power structure of Cuba as we have known it since the 60’s being laid waste.
For all of this, and more, even assuming the slimeball is gone, we are not going to be officially told about it.

One possibility that I have thought of over the past several days, is that if the anti Castro people get two powerful, we might see his protégé, Hugo Chavez, react with military force. It strikes me that in all the hemisphere, there is probably nobody else that would.  That, of course, is pure speculation on my part, since I have no idea what the state of his military is in.  Then, two, of course, comes the question of whether or not his military would fight in such a situation, given the level of disgust and distrust   the Venezuelan people have been exhibiting toward their government these last six months or so.

The existing power structure in Cuba, may actually be thinking about moving Venezuelan troops in to reinforce their own, prior to making the announcement.  Again, speculation, but it tends to make sense… If we assume that Chavez has that capability.

The biggest foreign policy disaster in the history of this country, bar none, was Jimmy Carter.

On that basis, it strikes me as damning with faint praise that Zbigniew Brzezinski the man who help to implement that unmitigated disaster, has thrown his support behind the presidential candidacy of one Barrack Obama.

No kidding.