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Ron Paul comes out hard against migration:

A controversial new anti-illegal-immigration ad by GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul has sent his libertarian supporters into high dudgeon, but it’s getting rave reviews from border-security hawks, including some Homeland Security officials.

In a surprise move, the strict constitutionalist has taken aim at the 14th Amendment as part of a proposal to control growing illegal immigration. U.S. Rep. Paul, R-Texas, proposes repealing the provision that gives automatic citizenship to children born in the U.S., even if their parents enter the country illegally.

“Ron Paul wants border security now,” his new campaign ad asserts. “Physically secure the border. No amnesty. No welfare to illegal aliens. End birthright citizenship. No more student visas from terrorist nations.”

This ad should be of significant appeal to those Americans who prefer America to Mexameristan and should make it increasingly difficult for the media to continue misrepresenting his position by conflating it with the Libertarian Party one. And this is good news, as it’s a vital and necessary policy on which the other candidates should be forced to explain their position.

I suspect the number of voters who are interested in increasing the number of honor killings and country music murders bears a direct relationship to the number of new citizens that have been created in the last two decades.

Pat Buchanan clearly recognizes this, although he would appear to be leaning slightly towards Huckabee rather than Paul on the basis of the former’s economic populism: What has alienated America is the Bush bellicosity, the my-way-or-the-highway free-trade ideology, the refusal to defend the border with the implication that anyone who wants to preserve the country he grew up in is some kind of bigot. The Party of Reagan is losing the country because it is no longer the party of the principles, policies and persona of Reagan, as applied to the problems of our time.

The Magic Negro sells the centuries-old vision of collective ascendancy:

Barack Obama gives his folks the ecstatic experience. “They said this day would never come. They said our sights were set too high. They said this country was too divided, disillusioned to ever come together around a common purpose,” he told them Thursday night, creating a patriotic lump in every throat in the room.

The interesting thing about Obama is the huge gap that lies between how he is perceived and the policy positions he actually advocates. I’ve seen several references to his being “anti-war”, when he is actually more overtly pro-war than Hillary Clinton. One would assume that Team Clinton will exploit this gap sooner rather than later, but instead, Hillary appears to be rambling on about “change” herself.

I have to admit, I would find it tremendously amusing if the bipartisan ruling party’s two candidates, Clinton and Giuliani, both proved to be so inept that they couldn’t even make it to the main event. The past history of post-Iowa fades, however, make this an extremely unlikely prospect. Mitt Romney has learned that organization isn’t everything, but then, one should not leap to the opposite conclusion and assume that it is nothing either.

The essential point appears to have escaped Vodkapundit:

I’ll put this in language even your tiny little Iowa brains can understand: What the f*** is wrong with you people?

The news coming out of Des Moines (literally, French for “tell me about the rabbits, George”) tonight is distressing in the extreme. 32 years ago, your Democratic brethren took one look at Jimmy Carter — the worst 20th Century President bar Nixon, and the worst ex-President ever — and declared, “That’s our man!”

Three decades later, and along comes Mike Huckabee. Same moral pretentiousness, same gullibility on foreign affairs, only-slightly-less toothy idiot’s grin. Then you so-called Republicans took a look at Carter’s clone and said, “That’s our man, too!”

This is an almost inexplicable take on the matter. From a purely pragmatic point of view, one would have to conclude that the similarities between the Huckster and a man who made a terrible president but nevertheless won both his party’s nomination and the general election should be taken as a sign of insight on the part of Iowans, not idiocy. If Iowa Republicans actually cared about political principles, more than 10 percent of them would have voted for Ron Paul.

And you know, I cannot deny feeling a certain amount of schadenfreude seeing the conservative commentariat whine about how Mike Huckabee is too liberal and too fond of big government, after spending years pushing George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Mitt Romney on the conservative base.

Iowa was a big win for both Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama. Of the two winners, I think Huckabee has a better chance of riding Iowa momentum onto victory, but time will tell. Obama’s upset of Hillary Clinton is certainly a pleasant surprise, as anything that sets back the Lizard Queen is good news for everyone, but I still think he’s ultimately competing for a VP slot rather than representing a genuine threat to the anointed one. Setback and triumphant comeback makes for a much better story than a grim and uneventful march to the Cherry Blossom Throne, after all.

The best thing about Huckabee’s ascendance, however temporary, is summarized by David Brooks in the New York Times. He writes in “The Two Earthquakes”:

While Romney embodies the leadership class, Huckabee went after it. He criticized Wall Street and K Street. Most importantly, he sensed that conservatives do not believe their own movement is well led. He took on Rush Limbaugh, the Club for Growth and even President Bush. The old guard threw everything they had at him, and their diminished power is now exposed.

Huckabee is no lover of freedom and it’s no accident that those who still think well of George W. Bush overwhelmingly supported him, but it’s impossible to mourn the declining influence of the Republican elite that championed Bush the Elder, Bob Dole and Bush the Younger. I’ve long had the impression that WND reached more Republicans than NRO, the fact that the Chuck Norris-endorsed candidate absolutely trounced the National Review-approved one despite being heavily outspent tends to support this notion, at least for one week. A Huckabee upset in New Hampshire would confirm the hypothesis that the old guard has completely lost touch with the general party.

While I’m disappointed that Ron Paul didn’t do better – although he did outperform most pre-caucus media polls and did well enough to stay in the game – I’m not surprised. Freedom is a tough sell in this day and age. And there’s no reason to feel upset about the average voter’s unwillingness to interfere with the status quo or stand up for an oft-violated Constitution, especially not in light of this old Chinese poem from Romance of the Three Kingdoms

The rebel Tung conceived the foul design
To thrust the king aside and wrong his line.
With folded arms, the courtiers stood, save one
Ting Kuan, who dared to cry that wrong was done.

It should hardly be necessary to inform the reader who is wise to the ways of this world that Ting Kuan “was removed and summarily put to death.” The luxurious chains that Americans wear will always chafe those who love liberty, but it must also be recognized that they are far from the worst that humanity has endured.

By the way, here’s the results. It’s telling that Fox will permit Giuliani, whose actual votes are down around where the polls have long suggested Paul’s would be, to participate in the pre-New Hampshire debate. Yes, I know Giuliani “isn’t competing” in Iowa or New Hampshire, but if he’s not competing there, then why allow him to participate? He isn’t competing because he isn’t competitive there, and my guess is that he will be equally uncompetitive in a lot of other states soon.

34 Huckabee
25 Romney
13 Thompson
13 McCain
10 Paul
03 Giuliani

38 Obama
30 Edwards
29 Clinton
02 Richardson
01 Biden

Joe Carter takes time out from rightfully celebrating the Huckster’s victory to offer a sincere apology:

Earlier this week I made reference to a rumor going around about Mitt Romney. Several readers–including a few men who I respect greatly–gently chastised me for making the remark. As my friend Steve Camp wrote in a comment, “You dishonor the FRC and the body of Christ by joining in on this type of negative pandering….

But they are right; I am guilty of behaving shamefully. I owe an apology not only to Mitt Romney but to all of the readers of this blog. I am truly sorry that I stopped so low as to spread such gossip.

I don’t accept Joe’s apology because I don’t believe it is necessary. In fact, I wish Joe hadn’t merely mentioned the rumor that apparently everyone inside the campaigns knows, but informed the uninformed masses precisely what the insiders were discussing. One of the primary benefits of the blogosphere is that it makes information previously available only to the elite available to everyone and it does not behoove bloggers to mimic the outmoded media’s standard designed to protect the political elite from scrutiny by the people.

The truth is that the media always gets it wrong. Always. I was recently interviewed by a newspaper reporter and was blatantly misquoted – not actually misquoted, the reporter erroneously wrote that I said something in keeping with the story narrative that I did not actually say. I wasn’t upset because this sort of thing has happened literally every time but one that I have been a part of a newspaper story or television report.

I’m quite aware that rumors get out of hand and some of them are completely false. There’s no shortage of wildly inaccurate ones about me out there, but that’s true of every public figure with critics, no matter how insignificant they might be. I don’t think the Biblical injunction applies in this situation because information that could reflect on the selection of a national leader isn’t mere gossip and if the information is available to the power players, it should also be available to the voting public.

Here’s what the weighted DVOA at Football Outsiders calls for this weekend:

Jacksonville over Pittsburgh
Tampa over the Giants
Seattle over Washington
San Diego over Tennessee

On the other hand, here’s predictions based on the resident NFL conspiracy theorist’s theory of gameday choreography:

Steelers
Giants
Seahawks
Chargers

I’m going with the Jags, Bucs, Skins and Chargers.

And their “fair-and-balanced” exclusion of Ron Paul from the New Hampshire debate:

This is a very bad decision for a cable news channel whose slogan is “fair and balanced.” Back in 2003, Roger Ailes, the president of Fox News, explained how his competitors showed their bias: “Bias has to do with the elimination of points of view, not presenting a point of view.” Isn’t that exactly how Fox News is demonstrating an outrageous form of bias today against the increasingly viable and unexpectedly impressive candidacy of Ron Paul?

Do I think Ron Paul is going to win the nomination? No.

Do I want him to win the nomination? No.

Do I think he can be the next president of the United States? No.

But he deserves to debate. He and his supporters have shown they can compete with any of the other Republican contenders – for money, in enthusiasm and in the polls that really count.

I don’t always agree with Mr. Farah. I don’t always think he bases his opinion on logically defensible grounds. But his core integrity is one reason I enjoy writing for his publication.

Jonah Goldberg thinks the Lakota Indians’ move to break away from the USA is sad. I, on the other hand, think it’s an early candidate for the best news of the year, if not decade:

The Lakota Indians, who gave the world legendary warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, have withdrawn from treaties with the United States, leaders said Wednesday. “We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us,” long-time Indian rights activist Russell Means told a handful of reporters and a delegation from the Bolivian embassy, gathered in a church in a run-down neighborhood of Washington for a news conference.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes before someone in Washington is calling for an invasion of the Lakota nation, although this would seem difficult given our rationale for invading Iraq. It would tend to confirm world opinion, once and for all, that the USA really are the black hats. But considering that they don’t appear to have plans for an income tax, the Lakota could play Singapore to the USA’s People’s Republic of China.

UPDATE – Pity it’s a PR stunt, but ever since learning about the unique status of the Indian tribes in college, I’ve assumed that one day an Indian tribe is going to figure out that there are better ways to take advantage of that status than simply running a few casinos. You can’t tell me there aren’t more than a few Fortune 500 CEOs that wouldn’t leap at the chance to offshore internally.

A lot of people are into plasma and LCD screens. I’m not, I prefer projectors because I like monster screens that fill the entire wall. And while I’ve anticipated mobile phone-computers with projectors inside, I had no idea that the hardware technologies are as close as they appear to be already.

This is an extremely interesting post from Joe at EO, must-reading for anyone paying any attention to the Republican primary. He’s a pretty sunny guy in general, so his uncharacteristic dislike for the Romney campaign is remarkable. It’s a pity he doesn’t simply share whatever story the campaign media is sitting on now; the whole point of blogdom is that it isn’t journalism so there’s no reason to abide by their hypothetical standards.

But I also have to note that I find it incredible that the individual who is capable of discerning this:

My Opinion of Giuliani…Hasn’t Changed — Is he still in the race? Why? Mayor Bloomberg has a better chance of being the next President.

is also capable of declaring this:

The Ron Paul Phenomenon is Not About Ron Paul — It will take a more astute political mind than I possess to comprehend this Ron Paul phenomenon. All I know is that it has less to do with the candidate than about people’s desire for something different. When Rod Dreher, Andrew Sullivan, Vox Day, John Derbyshire, and the 9/11 Truthers all agree on a candidate its safe to say that they aren’t all seeing the same thing.

This isn’t the first post to indicate that Joe appears to be constitutionally incapable of grasping the fundamental point of libertarianism. He doesn’t understand that the diverse collection of individuals he mentioned all do see precisely the same thing in Ron Paul, mostly because he cannot. And yet, he’s right, the Ron Paul phenomenon isn’t about Ron Paul, it is about human liberty. Unlike Huckabee, Romney, McCain and Giuliani supporters, Ron Paul’s fans aren’t looking for a Daddy figure who will run the State the way they want it run, they want someone who will refrain from running the greater part of it. This holds true regardless of what particular area of government intervention they most dislike.

The Crunchy Republican Rod Dreher wants to be left alone so that he can live free and crunchy. The Log Cabin Republican Andrew Sullivan is often ambivalent about what he wants, but in the end he correctly surmised that gays will be better off being left alone living free and gay instead of trying to use the government to impose their lavender agenda on everyone and risking getting the opposite crammed down their throats instead. The Christian Libertarian is viciously opposed to all central government across the board and the Atheist Evolutionist Derbyshire is fed up with the constant failure of conservative leaders to actually conserve anything worthwhile as well as the repeated failures of aggressive interventionist foreign policy. The 9/11 Truthers are confident that the very last thing Ron Paul would ever do is stage a Maine/Lusitania/Pearl Harbor/Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to justify a foreign military conflict.

Ron Paul is not representing all things to everyone, the very heart of his appeal is that he represents nothing to anyone. And nothing is precisely what a lot of very different people want from the federal government.