Category: Uncategorized

Paul Jacobs demonstrates that we live in a hereditary oligarchy:

Here’s how it works. Bill Lipinski, the 22-year career congressman, faces no competition. That’s par for the course with incumbents in Congress, 98 percent of whom are re-elected cycle after cycle. Lipinski was unopposed in both the primary and general election in 2002. In 2000, his challenger raised less than $20,000 and Lipinski won with 76 percent of the vote.

At least a year ago, Lipinski decides that he wants to retire. However, he does not announce that this will be his last term, which would truly open up the seat and allow the election process to take place in a manner available to all candidates and voters. He keeps his intentions to himself, and to his favored replacement.

Lipinski also does not resign his seat and trigger a special election, even though in so doing he would still be able to time his departure to allow his favored replacement a head start in organizing a campaign. Instead, Lipinski runs unopposed, yet again, for the Democratic nomination in this rock-solid Democratic district.

Then, a mere two months before this November’s general election, Congressman Bill Lipinski [of Illinois] suddenly withdraws and orchestrates the awarding of the Democratic Party’s nomination for Congress, like a crown on a royal pillow, to . . . guess who?

This coronation is for Bill Lipinski’s son, Daniel.

Perhaps Daniel Lipinski would make a fine congressman. But even if he would, shouldn’t he represent Knoxville, Tennessee, where he has lived for the last 15 years? But no, that’s not how the divine right of hereditary succession works in modern times. And besides, Pop has no power of incumbency in Tennessee. (You know, like the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz had no power in the East. If only voters could click their heels together and say three times, “There’s nothing like term limits.”)

Now, after 22 years of his father, third district citizens have 38-year-old Daniel Lipinski to look forward to term after term for how many more decades? This is “representative government”? These are “free elections”?

And you think the Presidential primary selections are any more open? The American people don’t select a President, they are simply permitted to choose between the two men the oligarchy has selected for them. Perhaps people will begin to wake up to this reality when George Bush IV is running against yet another Massachusetts Democrat in 2040.

Hindrocket writes on Powerline:

On our show this afternoon, Michelle referred admiringly to Deacon’s post. My sense is that she generally agrees with Deacon’s conclusion, as do I. I would only add that it is easy for us to see, with hindsight, that there wasn’t much danger of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast. This wasn’t obvious in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. And while there is no doubt that the vast majority of Japanese Americans were loyal, there is equally no doubt that some were not. It is impossible to know what injury to our war effort may have been prevented by the relocation. Having said that, I don’t think the evidence of danger was sufficient to justify the measures taken. But that is a judgment call on which reasonable minds can differ.

With all due respect to Hindrocket and Deacon, that’s a massive, stinking load of elephant dung worthy of a knowledge-free moral relativist at university. It is not only obvious now, it was obvious at the time that there was ZERO danger of a Japanese invasion of the West Coast. The facts and the actions of the US military at the time entirel support this. Would Hindrocket also say that it was “a judgment call” to say that reasonable minds could differ on the possibility of a German invasion of the East Coast?

The Germans had 2,000 fewer ocean miles to cross. The Kriegsmarine was of similar size to the Japanese Navy. (It may have lacked aircraft carriers, but its 1,170 U-boats alone could have landed more troops than Japan’s entire 176-ship Imperial navy) And yet the notion is entirely absurd! How much more ludicrous is the idea of a 5,500 mile trans-Pacific invasion?

The Germans couldn’t cross 21 miles of the English Channel with air equivalence. The Allies required air supremacy and 4,600 ships to invade Normandy, on a French coastline that is not, as one of the Northern Alliance gang weirdly asserted last week, smaller than the American West Coast. (France’s Atlantic coastline alone is 1875 miles compared to the 1359 miles of the American West Coast, and if we’re dealing in unlikely hypotheticals here, the Germans would also have had to worry about guarding against an invasion from the Mediterranean or the North Sea as well. The entire French coastline is 3437 miles in all, 2.5 times larger than the American West Coast.) An invasion isn’t a simple matter of landing troops, it’s also about arranging for supply, support and reinforcement, none of which was even remotely possible for Japan.

To highlight the absurdity of the pro-internment case, Germany was not only far more active on the East Coast – 27 merchant ships were sunk on the West Coast, compared to 397 on the East Coast Atlantic, Gulf, and Caribbean – but furthermore, as Japan was wholly dependent on raw materials imported by sea, any invasion would have been nothing but a large-scale suicide mission, with no possibility of reinforcement or supply, that would have instantly doomed the island empire.

One cannot be an expert on everything. But any defense of internment based on the notion of genuine military danger to the United States of America requires a combination of logical failure and near-complete ignorance of military history and strategic realities.

In fact, if we were to accept this very poor reasoning, then Malkin and her ilk would be more than justified in calling for throwing out the Constitution and locking up every American of Arab descent or Islamic creed, as the danger from them and their nations of origin, however slight, is far more serious than that posed by the Nisei and Imperial Japan. The fact that she denies any intent to make such a case only shows that she is either a) full of it, b) clueless, or c) disingenuous.

In any case, color me seriously unimpressed. I’m a Powerline fan and I think they’re doing fantastic work on the ongoing rout that is the Kerry campaign v. Swift Vet clash, but I suspect they’ll look back on this apology for Ms Malkin’s absurd case with more than a little embarassment.

Blogger has done a rather decent thing, in replacing the ads at the top with a search toolbar. Enter a word or two, click search, and it will find the most recent entry containing those words. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work very well, as if you happen to know, for example, how many times I’ve mentioned Daunte Culpepper over the last ten months, it’s quite clear that the search tool is not finding all of them.

Still, it beats ads for Bill Clinton’s book or whatever. And I’m sure they’ll improve it soon; Blogger has been very good about continuing to improve its product.

Chris Adamo passes on an email from a Canadian acquaintance:

Thought I’d let you know that the battle lines are drawn even here in Canada for U.S. Presidential elections.. A local paper had a article by a Dual citizen pushing liberal agenda and was eager to sign up other dual citizens for absentee ballots and the Democratic party. There are approximately 700,000 Americans living in Canada.

I sent him a short and sweet reply saying that Mr. Kerry was not fit to be a commander in Chief of anything. You can smell how desperate the liberals are to get to power, and God help us and others if they do. I got my absentee ballot card and will be voting accordingly in November.

While I rather doubt that his idea of “accordingly” would parallel mine, it’s interesting to note that the election campaign appears to be active outside American borders. You’d think that there’d be rampant opportunity for voter fraud here as well.

PRG gang agley:

For someone who’s current kick is pointing fingers at “media whores”, Vox sure enjoys name-dropping and career-pimping (the rest of us aren’t exactly boasting of hanging out with rock stars while authoring best-selling novels and creating million-dollar software).

Career-pimping? Name-dropping? Okay, PRG, what do I do? What industry am I in? There would seem to be a shocking lack of information out there; if I’m doing as you say, I appear to be doing a terrible job of it.

As for best-selling novels, I certainly haven’t boasted of that, seeing as I haven’t written any. It would sure be nice to have the ability to do so, though. Maybe one day.

Waterboy refuses to carry water:

Vox: “In unrelated news, in light of our recent discussion on what makes a media whore, this post of hers did make me laugh”

Waitaminute, holdonhere.

You link to MM’s post about where she’ll be appearing, alluding to her “whoreness”, yet you do the same here and here and here

You don’t see any difference between appearing on one local radio show a month and (at least) three television shows in two days? Which, in your opinion, would be more accurately described as chasing cameras? I am invited onto a show where the hosts read my column and with whom I have regular interaction, Ms Malkin has her agent trying to put her on as many shows as possible regardless of who they are. I’m expecting her to show up on Wayne’s World any day now.

There’s nothing wrong with telling people where you’ll be on, in case they’re interested, it was simply the sheer volume I was pointing out.

Ironically, Saint Paul asked me to be on the Northern Alliance show with Ms Malkin later today, but I declined because I am more interested in an outing with Space Bunny. I’ll take a pretty blonde over a camera or microphone every single time. The defense rests.

From Drudge:

KERRY CAMPAIGN CALLS FOR BOOK BAN. The Kerry campaign calls on a publisher to ‘withdraw book’ written by group of veterans, claiming veterans are lying about Kerry’s service in Vietnam and operating as a front organization for Bush. Kerry campaign has told Salon.com that the publisher of UNFIT FOR COMMAND is ‘retailing a hoax’… ‘No publisher should want to be selling books with proven falsehoods in them,’ Kerry campaign spokesman Chad Clanton tells the online mag.

So much for the fantasy genre. And Star Trek is right out! But at least we know Kerry’s position on the First Amendment. I’m struck by the thought that my title for next week’s column was bloody prescient.

I’m honestly beginning to think that Kerry won’t even make it to November. Seriously, if Kerry had any sort of case at all, he’d go on one of the big shows, invite four or five of his fellow vets and throw down. That would put an immediate end to the story and probably hand him the election, as he would walk away looking like Duke Nukem, kicking ass and chewing gum, except he’s all out of gum. But he won’t do that because he can’t. He can’t because he, more than anyone else, knows that he’s full of merde

I’ll cheerfully slash Ms Malkin to shreds all day long on her newfound love for the G, not to mention her defense of FDR, but she definitely didn’t deserve the rude mistreatment she received at the hands of Chris Matthews.

This foaming jerk Matthews, who called me irresponsible and kicked me off the show admitted that a) he himself had not read the damned book, b) he was not interested in asking Kerry about the specific doubts raised by vets about his wounds, and c) he had not and would not question Kerry about these specific allegations.

“Are you saying he shot himself on purpose?” Matthews hammered. I repeated myself again clearly that I was referring to the allegations about self-inflicted wounds in the book. When I tried to explain that the vets who were with Kerry had cast a lot of doubt on whether enemy fire occurred during the first two incidents, Matthews cut me off again. “Why did you say that?” he badgered. Because, I said, I was talking about what was in the book, which he had admitted he hadn’t read.

“Don’t you wonder?” I asked.

“No, I don’t,” he bellowed. “It’s never occurred to me.”

With that, I was kicked off the second segment.

As the show broke for commercials, Matthews scrambled for his producers to see if what he said was true. And I’m irresponsible? One staffer ran to the office where I had left my copy of the book, and handed it to Matthews, who–for the first time, apparently–started flipping through it. I asked for my book back and politely said thank you. After I left, he trashed me again on the air and his scurrilous charges were repeated by his MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann, who called me an “idiot.”

Of course, had Michelle simply pointed out that it was John Kerry who stated that he had wounded himself in his much-abused tushy in Tour of Duty, she could have easily trounced Matthews. Got to be quicker on your feet, Ms Malkin.

In unrelated news, in light of our recent discussion on what makes a media whore, this post of hers did make me laugh.

I would like to know precisely how many car chases, missing children stories and murder trials the Fox News Channel has covered since 1996. I’m not a Fox junkie, so I’m not really up on this, but if anyone happens to know, let me know. Thanks.

JJ poses a question:

I’m just curious, Vox – who would NOT count as a media whore? Is it possible for someone who is a member of the media full time not to be a media whore?

The criteria are three. To three, thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Thou shalt not count to five, neither shall thou count to two, excepting in that thou then proceedeth to three.

1. Are they camera hungry? Do they give off an air of wishing that this brief shining moment when the eyes (or ears) of the world are upon them could go on forever? Do they show up despite having nothing to add to the conversation? Do they allow others to speak, or do they try to monopolize the microphone.

2. Do they suck up to the host? Conversely, if they are hosts, do they suck up to their guests? Do they pretend to be friend, pals and buddies when they don’t even know the other person and clearly don’t get along with them?

3. Are they willing to abandon their principles any time anyone calls them on it? Do they even have any discernable principles? Do they always seek to please the powerful? Does the end of being on the show appear to justify the means?

I haven’t worked out a formal definition yet, but this should indicate what I’m thinking.