Copenhagen Gorebots Jump The Shark

Everybody has a limit. I’ve been following the events in Copenhagen with detached bemusement. There have been some great moments of unintentional honesty, especially when the delegates talk about what is standing in the way of a deal, namely, they want more, much more money that is, to be transferred from the United States taxpayers to countries like China in order to help them ‘go green’. Their plan, for us, is to borrow more money we don’t have from China and then turn around and give that money to China to help them in their transition to becoming eco-warriors.

This morning I’ve reached my breaking point with the Gorebots in Copenhagen. How much Hot Air can we take? Via David Corn’s twitter feed came this,

British BC premier praises Arnold’s (Schwarzenegger) many alt-energy initiatives. No movie jokes but calls him “Climate Action Hero” #COP15 #Copenhagen

If Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Climate Action Hero, then I’m Brad Pitt. From the archives, in honor of the absurdidty of Copenhagen…

July 1, 2008
Eco hypocrite of the day: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Kalifornia Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger exiting his new 6.1-liter V-8 2008 Dodge Challenger SRT8.
EPA Mileage: 13 mpg city / 18 mpg highway

Schwarzenegger Signs Global Warming Bill

“We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late,” Schwarzenegger said during an address before signing the bill.

By “we” he obviously means you and me and not him.

“I’m convinced of that … because nothing is more important than protecting our planet,”

Well, except of course the thrill of driving the Mother of All HEMI’s with 425 horses and 420 pound-feet of torque!

If I was a glass half full kind of guy, this could be cited as progress. After all, he recently (was forced to) stop taking his Gulfstream to work everyday!

Schwarzenegger’s Jet Commute May End as Santa Monica Seeks Ban

May 1 (Bloomberg) — California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s regular commute by private jet from the state capitol to his mansion in Los Angeles has hit turbulence.

A federal judge will decide on May 15 whether the governor can land aboard a Gulfstream IV in Santa Monica, a 15-minute drive to his home in Los Angeles’ wealthy Brentwood enclave. The governor’s brother-in-law, Bobby Shriver, is among the Santa Monica city council members who voted unanimously on March 25 to ban large jets at the municipal airport.

In typical politician and entertainer fashion, the cutbacks and conservation required to combat “the most dangerous crisis we have ever faced” are left to us, the little people. The big shots keep their private jets, limos and gas guzzelers so they can travel freely in order to give speeches about the danger of Global Warming.

Random thoughts on the legacy of Sen. Ted Kennedy

To paraphrase Pat Buchanan, when God puts his hands on a man’s shoulder, I take mine off. Well said. The time to rip Ted was when he was engaged in the debate. Not now.

My parents hadn’t even met when he was sworn in as a Senator.

Forty six years is way too long for anyone to have the same job, especially a politician.

Seventy seven is young by today’s standards, but old for a Kennedy man. He survived a plane crash in 1964, or he could have met the same fate as his three older brothers. Jay Fitzgerald at the great Hub Blog,

The youngest brother lived a long life, growing old and exploring stages of life that some of his siblings never saw. He found balance and happiness later in life. For that reason, there’s a speck of joy within today’s genuine sorrow.

The most positive aspect of Ted Kennedy’s legacy, especially for Massachusetts residents, is not the legislation but the tens of thousands of things his office did for constituents under the radar. Most everyone agrees that his staff is among, if not the, best in Washington. Dan Kennedy has more thoughts along those lines at Media Nation.

The most negative thing I’ll say about Ted today is this, because it involves his job as a senator, not his personal failings…It would be a mistake to ignore the responsiblity Kennedy bears for lowering the bar for political rhetoric and debate in America. His performance during the Bork and Thomas hearings was disgraceful.

Liberal columnist David Corn make a great point this am, via Twitter,

Kennedy showed how much a politician can get done in Washington once s/he gives up the dream of being president. RIP

I wonder what this means for Cape Wind?

How long before John Kerry pulls a Barbara Boxer…”Please call me senior senator, I’ve worked so hard for that title.”

Will be interesting to see how many of our comfortable Congressmen with positions virtually guarenteed for life, will throw their hats into the ring…Markey? Lynch? Frank? Capuano?

Outside of the Red Sox, I don’t think I’ll be watching much TV for the next few days.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the 1960s

So this weekend was the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. Who better to have on than Jonathan Leaf, the author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to the 1960s?

From Amazon,

“The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Sixties proves the anti-Vietnam War sentiment and free love slogans that supposedly defined the decade were just a small part of the leftist counter culture. The mainstream culture was more politically incorrect–but you’ll never hear that from a liberal pundit or read it in a politically correct textbook.”

The Pundit Review Radio Podcast RSS feed can be found here.

What is Pundit Review Radio?

On Boston’s Talk Station WRKO since 2005, Pundit Review Radio is where the old media meets the new. Each week we give voice to the work of the most influential leaders in the new media/citizen journalist revolution. Called “groundbreaking” by Talkers Magazine, this unique show brings the best of the blogs to the radio every Sunday evening from 8-10pm on AM680 WRKO, Boston’s Talk Station.

Blue Mass Group’s “reality-based” BS

Liberals have a reputation for being soft on crime and weak on military issues. If you have ever wondered why or whether it was justified, Blue Mass Group , Massachusetts leading liberal blog site, has the answer.

Just read their website. Here is an overview of Blue Mass Group posts on GatesGate.

Hey Boston Globe, Why Won’t You Post Police Report Now? WITH POLL

No evidence to support CPD version

Some thought-provoking analyses of the Gates arrest

Stupid is as Stupid Does: Cambridge PD Attorney Doubles Down on Acting Stupidly

Police unions get their backs up; Obama talks with Crowley [update] and Gates

Crowley to Critics: “Up Against the Wall, and Spread ‘Em!”

The Anti-Violence Project questions the legality of the Gates arrest/detention

Cambridge police officer, stupidly, won’t apologize

Obama: Cambridge police “acted stupidly” in arresting Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

Shame on Globe and Local Media Critics

Cambridge cops take black, disabled professor away in handcuffs. Read the police report here.

See a theme here? Sgt. Crowley, the Cambridge PD and the police union are the bad actors, not Henry Louis Gates, despite the preponderance of evidence to the contrary. This from a group of people whose tag line is “A reality-based community on politics and policy in Massachusetts”.

Since this community of Massachusetts liberals is “reality-based”, I thought I would do a site search on Jared C. Monti. After all, what is more reality-based than the Medal of Honor? Since 2001, there have been only five awarded, before Massachusetts native Jared Monti was posthumously awarded one last week. Here’s what I found,

Blue Mass Group Site Web Search
Your search - Jared C. Monti - did not match any documents.

Here is a reality for the “reality-based community” of Blue Mass Group liberals, your reputation for being weak on law and order and military issues is well earned and richly deserved.

Barney Frank, one arrogant SOB

The excellent financial blog Crossing Wall Street nails it,

Barney Frank was just on CNBC. I’ve started a game of watching at what point Frank goes into his overly dramatic routine that he’s being interrupted and not allowed to answer the question. He does this all the time.

Fortunately, this time he was up against Mark Haines who doesn’t put up with his nonsense. I hope CNBC posts the video. I don’t think Congressman Frank understands that he’s not the chairman everywhere in the world. It’s pretty sad: You put a gavel in some people’s hands and it goes to their heads.

Haines asked a perfectly reasonable question. In Frank’s response, he asked Haines a question to which the anchor responded. This set Frank off. Instead of engaging in the back and forth of a conversation, Frank wastes even more time with his “I can’t answer routine.”

Congressman Frank is bully pure and simple and today he was put in his place.

Another Friday night doc dump, more proof Bush’s third term continues

Meet the New Boss

Poor liberals, they have to wake up heartbroken every Saturday morning. That is no way to start your weekend!

On May 10 I wrote about a pattern I was seeing with the Obama administration,

“The only time of the week worth paying attention is on Friday nights. Why? It’s PR Rule #1, when you have news your trying to bury….release it on a Friday night.” What news was he dribbling out? Just his reversal on military detainees, that’s all. After all he said lambasting the Bush administrations policy, who could blame Obama for trying to hide the fact that he was now adopted those very positions? He may be Mr. Transparency and Open Governement, but he is also pretty adept at hiding the difference between his words and deeds.

What heartache are his liberal supporters waking up to this week?

Andrew McCarthy at National Review has the background,

The Uighurs, Chinese Muslim detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, received terrorist training at al Qaeda affiliated camps (from an organization formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization under U.S. law) and were captured after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. They are the Left’s combatant cause célèbre. The military took the incoherent position that they were trained al Qaeda terrorists but that their real beef was with China, not us. Thus, the federal courts have held that they are not enemy combatants. The government has been trying to relocate them for years but no country will take the remaining 17 — other than China, where our treaty obligations arguably forbid us from sending them because there is reason to believe they’d be persecuted.

So, how did the Obama administration go about restoring our reputation in the world? By once again adopting the Bush administration’s policies, from SCOTUS Blog,

The brief holds to the position of the Bush Administration that a court’s power to issue a remedy in a habeas case — even in the wake of the Supreme Court’s mandate last year that the detainees have a constitutional right to seek their freedom — is limited to a finding of eligibility for release, without an actual release from captivity while diplomatic negotiations to resettle a prisoner continue. The brief seeks to draw a clear distinction between “simple release” and “release into the U.S.”

The filing also clearly embraces the Bush Administration view that detainees cleared for release may be held for a “wind-up” period of indefinite duration, while resettlement efforts proceed. The brief does not specify how long such a period could last, saying only that it would be “a reasonable period of time.” But it cites examples from past history suggesting that it could run for “several years.”

As I said on May 10,

Maybe, just maybe, the previous administration put into place an agggressive series of measures that were carefully considered in order to protect the United States? What other conclusion can you reach if so many of them are suddenly acceptable to our new president?

If you are a liberal Obama supporter you must be one of two things this morning, either heartbroken or a hypocrite. After all, how could they support the second coming of George W. Bush?

Clive Crook writes in the Financial Times that it is time for Obama to apologize, to his supporters, and President Bush,

..he owes his supporters an apology for misleading them. He also owes George W. Bush an apology for saying that the last administration’s thinking was an affront to US values, whereas his own policies would be entirely consonant with them. In office he has found that the issue is more complicated. If he was surprised, he should not have been.

Sounds like a good idea to me, what do you think?

Obama White House offers the GOP some tremendous advice

Politico: White House to Sonia Sotomayor critics: Be ‘careful’

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs issued a pointed warning to opponents of Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination Wednesday, urging critics to measure their words carefully during a politically charged confirmation debate.

“I think it is probably important for anybody involved in this debate to be exceedingly careful with the way in which they’ve decided to describe different aspects of this impending confirmation,” Gibbs said.

AllahPundit asks,

Imagine the nutroots pathos had a Republican press secretary dropped this on them.

Imagine indeed. That doesn’t mean it’s bad advice. I happen to agree with Gibbs. Be careful GOP senators! You wouldn’t want to come across as mean, bitter, nasty partisan hacks. Let’s take a trip down memory lane all the way back to the most recent vacancy for the Supreme Court. How did these thoughtful, restrained, decent and respectful Democrats treat Samuel Alito?

Ted Kennedy ,

In case after case, Judge Alito’s decisions demonstrate a systematic tilt toward powerful institutions and against individuals attempting to vindicate their rights. How can a clear record like that possibly justify a lifetime position on the Supreme Court?

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA),

In Judge Alito we see patterns, patterns which demonstrate a hostility to the disadvantaged and the poor.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Like Rosa Parks, Judge Alito will be able to change history by virtue of where he sits. The real question today is whether Judge Alito would use his seat on the bench, just as Rosa Parks used her seat on the bus, to change history for the better or whether he would use that seat to reverse much of what Rosa Parks and so many others fought so hard and for so long to put in place.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT)

More broadly, Judge Alito’s record and his missed opportunities during the hearing to answer concerns about his record leave me wondering whether he appreciates the role of the Supreme Court as a protector of Americans’ fundamental rights and liberties. He has failed the test…Judge Alito’s record and testimony demonstrate that he does not understand the vital role of the courts in implementing the constitutional guarantees of equal protection and equal dignity for all Americans.

Republicans will question Judge Sotomayor’s record and criticize her philosophy but they will not savage her personally. She is no further left than Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Ginsberg was confirmed 96-3. That’s how it is supposed to work.

Democrats, they want it every way. They attack and then call for restraint. They implore “fair-minded” and “reasonable” questions and then accuse the nominee of being racist. They behave exactly like they warn the Republican not to act like. They are hypocrites. And let’s not kid ourselves that this is a recent phenomenon.

Ted Kennedy (D-MA) on Robert Bork’s America

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is — and is often the only — protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….

…President Reagan is still our president. But he should not be able to reach out from the muck of Irangate, reach into the muck of Watergate and impose his reactionary vision of the Constitution on the Supreme Court and the next generation of American. No justice would be better than this injustice.

So there you have it GOP. Don’t be them. Take their advice.

And no, Newt, Rush and Coulter’s criticism of Sotomayor is not proof of the GOP doing what Democrats do. They are all pundits, not elected politicians. Every Democrat quoted above served on the Judiciary Committee, so please, spare me.

UPDATE: I was wrong about Kerry being on the Judiciary committee. I think. I can’t find any reference to him being on it. Kennedy, Leahy and Schumer were all on the Alito Judiciary committee.

UPDATE II: Krauthammer is exactly right. Republicans should use the confirmation as a teaching moment, then confirm her.

Since the 2008 election, people have been asking what conservatism stands for. Well, if nothing else, it stands unequivocally against justice as empathy — and unequivocally for the principle of blind justice.

Empathy is a vital virtue to be exercised in private life — through charity, respect and loving kindness — and in the legislative life of a society where the consequences of any law matter greatly, which is why income taxes are progressive and safety nets are built for the poor and disadvantaged.

But all that stops at the courthouse door. Figuratively and literally, justice wears a blindfold. It cannot be a respecter of persons. Everyone must stand equally before the law, black or white, rich or poor, advantaged or not.

…Make the case for individual vs. group rights, for justice vs. empathy. Then vote to confirm Sotomayor solely on the grounds — consistently violated by the Democrats, including Sen. Obama — that a president is entitled to deference on his Supreme Court nominees, particularly one who so thoroughly reflects the mainstream views of the winning party. Elections have consequences.

Vote Democratic and you get mainstream liberalism: a judicially mandated racial spoils system and a jurisprudence of empathy that hinges on which litigant is less “advantaged.”

A teaching moment, as liberals like to say. Clarifying and politically potent. Seize it.