Category Archives: Out There

Zenga Zenga: Gettin’ down with Qaddafi, and bringing Arab and Israeli closer together

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Stan Dubinsky brought this to my attention, and I just had to share:

Qaddafi YouTube Spoof by Israeli Gets Arab Fans

By ISABEL KERSHNER

JERUSALEM — A YouTube clip mocking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s megalomania is fast becoming a popular token of the Libya uprising across the Middle East. And in an added affront to Colonel Qaddafi, it was created by an Israeli living in Tel Aviv.

Noy Alooshe, 31, an Israeli journalist, musician and Internet buff, said he saw Colonel Qaddafi’s televised speech last Tuesday in which the Libyan leader vowed to hunt down protesters “inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway,” and immediately identified it as a “classic.”

“He was dressed strangely, and he raised his arms” like at a trance party, Mr. Alooshe said Sunday in a telephone interview, referring to the gatherings that feature electronic dance music. Then there were Colonel Qaddafi’s words with their natural beat.

Mr. Alooshe spent a few hours at the computer, using pitch corrector technology to set the speech to the music of “Hey Baby,” a song by the American rapper Pitbull, featuring another artist, T-Pain. Mr. Alooshe titled it “Zenga-Zenga,” echoing Colonel Qaddafi’s repetition of the word zanqa, Arabic for alleyway….

Mr. Alooshe, who at first did not identify himself on the clip as an Israeli, started receiving enthusiastic messages from all around the Arab world. Web surfers soon discovered that he was a Jewish Israeli from his Facebook profile — Mr. Alooshe plays in a band called Hovevey Zion, or the Lovers of Zion — and some of the accolades turned to curses. A few also found the video distasteful.

But the reactions have largely been positive, including a message Mr. Alooshe said he received from someone he assumed to be from the Libyan opposition saying that if and when the Qaddafi regime fell, “We will dance to ‘Zenga-Zenga’ in the square.”…

The video is above. It’s now gotten 1,922,004 views.

You mean, he doctored this? It seems so lifelike.

Where we’re headed: Pack heat, or else

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Have y’all seen this?

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A House panel on Thursday will take up a bill that would allow anyone who can legally own a firearm in the state to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

The move to loosen gun laws comes in the wake of the Jan. 8 Arizona shootings that killed six and left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords recovering from a gunshot wound to the head, as well as a Dec. 14 incident in Florida where an armed man threatened school board members before he was fatally shot by security.

But rather than seeking to tighten gun restrictions, as some Democrats have urged President Barack Obama to do on the federal level, South Carolina lawmakers are looking at how to make it easier to carry weapons for protection…

Yes, it said LOOSEN our concealed carry law. You know, the one that I had thought had been already been made looser than a gang-banger’s waistband by previous legislation.

Why do we see legislation like this every couple of years? Because we get NEW ideologues in the Legislature who weren’t part of the previous liberalization, and felt left out, and are trying to make their mark and prove to constituents and posterity that THEY, personally, love guns more than anyone.

You know where this is going, don’t you? Another couple of election cycles with heavy Tea Party involvement, and we’ll have legislative newbies pushing legislation requiring us all to go armed at all times. (And if anyone complains that such compulsion violates their rights, they will blame Obama for starting the whole mandate trend with his health care thing.)

I don’t know if I’ll be able to afford it. Have you seen what guns cost these days? It’s not like in Lee Harvey’s day.

Here’s where that path leads, Lindsey

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Just to elaborate a bit on that last post, in which I wrote about how once-sensible Republicans are dancing with madness these days…

I’d just like to point out to Sen. Graham where all this “hate Obamacare to the point that we’ll hurt actual South Carolinians by blowing it up” stuff leads.

Continue down that path, and you cease to be that voice of reason you’ve always been in Washington, that Gang of 14 guy, the guy who took a bullet for comprehensive immigration reform, the guy who at least for a time fought for the Energy Party platform at great personal political risk, the guy who could get President Obama to listen to reason on national security. You cease being all that (which is a national tragedy, because the nation NEEDS you to play that role), and you end up being state Sen. Lee Bright. I mean this guy:

Sen. Lee Bright: SC should coin its own money

Continuing a pattern of attempts to assert South Carolina’s independence from the federal government, State Sen. Lee Bright, R-Roebuck, has introduced legislation that backs the creation of a new state currency that could protect the financial stability of the Palmetto State in the event of a breakdown of the Federal Reserve System.

Bright’s joint resolution calls for the creation of an eight-member joint subcommittee to study the proposal and submit a report to the General Assembly by Nov. 1.

The Federal Reserve System has come under ever-increasing strain during the last several years and will be exposed to ever-increasing and predictably debilitating strain in the years to come, according to the legislation.

“If there is an attempt to monetize the Fed we ought to at least have a study on record that could protect South Carolinians,” Bright said in an interview Friday.

“If folks lose faith in the dollar, we need to have some kind of backup.”

The legislation cites the rights reserved to states in the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings in making the case that South Carolina is within its rights to create its own currency…

Thank Bud for bringing that to my attention. I hadn’t seen coverage of it. But the Boston Globe has noted it. And these guys are applauding it. (This really embarrassing stuff tends to come to my attention this way. While SC media is trying to look the other way — or rather spending its time covering legislation that might actually pass, which sounds better — the rest of the country is chortling. When Mike Pitts proposed doing away with the Yankee dollar and replacing it with gold and silver, I first learned about it from Burl Burlingame and The Onion.)

Sen. Bright, by the way, was last seen pushing broader legislation to protect South Carolina’s “rights” (which rights were under siege was unclear, but then it usual is) from encroaching federal power in general. You may or may not recall that I wrote about it in a post headlined “These guys cannot POSSIBLY be serious.” I led with a reference to that scene from “Gettysburg” with the Confederate prisoners speaking nonsensically about fighting for their nonspecific “rats.” You know how I like movie allusions.

Anyway, that’s where you could end up.

You don’t want to go there, do you, Lindsey? I didn’t think so. But that’s where this “seceding from Obamacare” stuff leads…

If SC “opts out” of Obamacare, you will definitely have stepped over the line

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I say that because, between the two of them — him and Nikki Haley — I figure he’s the one more likely to listen to reason. At least, I would normally think that, although his recent behavior on this subject injects a large measure of doubt.

Here’s what I’m on about:

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and Gov. Nikki Haley on Monday opened the S.C. front in the Republican Party’s battle to roll back health care legislation signed into law by President Barack Obama last year.

At a State House news conference, Graham and Haley took turns blasting the law as an expensive federal takeover of the nation’s health care system. Graham said the law, which won 60 votes in the 100-member U.S. Senate, was passed through a “sleazy” process that offered no opportunity for GOP input.

Graham also said he has introduced legislation to allow South Carolina and other states to “opt out” of the law, which is being challenged in federal courts.

“I’m confident that, if given the chance, a large number of states would opt out of the provisions regarding the individual mandate, employer mandate and expansion of Medicaid,” Graham said, referring to requirements in the law that individuals buy insurance, companies offer it and Medicaid be expanded to cover those without insurance. “As more states opt out, it will have the effect of repealing and replacing Obamacare.”

Last time, I was sort of seriocomic in warning Sen. Graham that he was goin’ to messin’, with my “Lindsey, fill yer hands; I’m a callin’ you out” post.

It’s not funny any more.

In fact, this is the one thing that leading Republicans (or anyone else who got such a notion) could do that would be totally beyond the pale, truly unforgivable.

Look, I get it: You don’t like Obama. No, scratch that: What I get is that your constituents don’t like Obama (in some cases for reasons that don’t bear a lot of scrutiny), so you’re playing to that. I doubt Nikki has any strong feelings toward the president one way or the other (she never even had occasion to think about him until she decided to become the Tea Party’s Dream Girl last year) and for his part Lindsey is perfectly happy to work with him in a collegial manner. But they’re trying to stay in the game with Jim “Waterloo” DeMint, and this leads to trying to fake the symptoms of Obama Derangement Syndrome.

I fully get the fact that since the defeat of November 2008 (when, it you’ll recall, I endorsed both John McCain and Lindsey Graham), the Republican Party has gone stark, raving mad, having concluded that its problem in ’08 was that it wasn’t extreme enough, not wacky enough, causing it, as it wandered lost in the post-apocalyptic landscape, to embrace the Tea Party in its lonely desperation. I get all that.

But that is a disgusting, absurd, inexcusable, disgustingly irresponsible reason to try to prevent the people of South Carolina — who have perhaps more need for health care reform than people in any other state — from deriving any benefit that might accrue from the federal health care legislation.

No, the thing dubbed “Obamacare” doesn’t accomplish much; it’s a bit of a Frankenstein of a bill. But it actually would do SOME people SOME good. And it at least has the one essential element that one would have to have in any attempt to address the crisis in paying for health care in this country, the national mandate — which, absurdly, is the ONE thing you object to most vehemently. (We’ve discussed in the past how there’s no point in talking about “reform” unless you start with the premise that everybody has to be in the game for it to work, so I won’t go on and on about it now.)

Yep, Obamacare is pretty inadequate. But you have NOTHING to replace it with, nothing in the wings (with any chance of passing, or any chance of doing any good if it DID pass) to do what little good Obamacare will do.

So trying to tear it down is nothing but an act of pure destruction. And the thing you’re destroying is the ONE thing that’s been done lately to address the one greatest domestic need in this country.

I expect this kind of nonsense from Nikki Haley (the Tea Party Nikki Haley that is, not the promising young House member I used to know). But Lindsey Graham is fully smart enough to know better.

Fine, have your little press conferences and make your symbolic gestures. But if you actually start to make this “opt-out” thing a reality, that will be unforgivable.

Weird as it gets: “Toking” with Lawrence Welk

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This is way out of left field, but I just had to share it. I was being tritely facetious back here, answering bud’s assertion that someone who favored legalizing marijuana would probably have trouble going far with elements of the GOP (except, of course, for the William F. Buckley Memorial Wing), by saying, “Yeah… that’d be one toke over the line…”

Hey, I told you it was trite.

But being one who can’t leave a stupid (and painfully obvious) pun alone, I went looking for a link to the song — you know, for the youngsters who wouldn’t remember the song.

And I found something freaky, which you can view above. Something that, of course, only boomers will fully grok as being as weird as it is. Here, by the way, is what Wikipedia said about it.

Oh, I’m a Virgo now? I don’t THINK so…

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First they demote Pluto, now this:

Yesterday — and for my entire life — I was a Leo. Today I’m a Cancer. And I am anti-happy about it.

Some researchers at the Minnesota Planetarium Society took it onto themselves to double check the calculations that determine the signs of the Zodiac. Babylonian astronomers drafted the original Zodiac during the early first millenniua B.C. by determining the position of constellations along various spots of the ecliptic, the path of the sun, and dividing it into 12 sections — actually 13, see below. Your star sign is based on the position of the sun along the Zodiac on the day you were born.

Well, guess what, the Earth moved and wrecked everything! Over the past several thousands of years, the pull of the moon’s gravity has shifted the Earth by about a month, says Parke Kunkle, a board member at the society.

Like the cast list of the high school play your mom made you try out for, here’s your new part:

Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
Pisces: March 11-April 18.
Aries: April 18-May 13.
Taurus: May 13-June 21.
Gemini: June 21-July 20.
Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
Ophiuchus:* Nov. 29-Dec. 17.
Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

* Discarded by the Babylonians because they wanted 12 signs per year.

So I’m a Virgo now? I don’t THINK so. I’ve always been a Libra, and the whole Libra personality description even kinda FIT me in some ways (for instance, I remember reading once that we Libras are particularly good-looking… uncanny, huh?) — something from which I took a certain amount of satisfaction, even though I thought the whole thing was hogwash. (Mostly hogwash, anyway. I think the time of year that a person was conceived and gestated and born might conceivably have an impact on that personality — maybe not much, but it seemed remotely conceivable. (The world is different in winter than in summer, and people live and act differently, and bundle babies up more, and the difference could have an impact on a newborn. Conceivably.) Although I didn’t think it was because of stars, and the notion that horoscopes have any value — that a person’s fate will be different on a given day because of when he was born — is laughable.

But now… sheesh.

I expect I’ll get over it, though, as I urged a couple of colleagues to do when they lamented over lunch that they were no longer Virgos. “Hey,” I comforted them. “It’s always been the way of the world that all people start out as Virgos, but usually at some point cease to be.”

But not being Libra… well, that disturbs my sense of balance. And Libras don’t hold with that.

One last comment: We all know that astrology is a crock, right? So… what’s the idea of trying to amend it in light of science, of all things?

You’ve seen the movement; now wear the boot

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Nikki Haley and the Tea Party are inseparable, right? So what’s next?

Nikki Tea, the boot.

That’s right. It’s an actual product produces by Clarks. I learned about it from the Dillard’s ad on Page A10 of today’s paper. Or rather, my wife did. When she read it out to me, I thought she meant “Nickie T,” or something, but she said, no, Nikki like Haley and T-E-A like Tea Party.

Pretty freaky. Especially seeing as how I can’t imagine Nikki wearing anything that looked like that. Of course, before this year, I couldn’t have imagined her turning into a populist demagogue to win an election, so what do I know?

I would love to know how they came up with that name, or why they thought it described that boot. But I do know it’s pretty weird.

You’ve just gotta read this one…

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Here’s Slate’s summary of a piece on Politico:

New GOP Legislator Incensed by Delay of His Government Health Care Coverage

A newly elected Maryland congressman startled other frosh at a congressional info session on Monday by growing indignant over the fact that his government-funded health care wouldn’t be active immediately, reports Politico. Republican Rep. Andy Harris, who triumphed over Democrat Frank Kratovil in his congressional race with promises to vanquish Obamacare, couldn’t believe that his policy would take a month to become active after his swearing in on Jan. 3. “He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer present at the benefits information session attended by 250 freshman, staff, and family members. “Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” said the staffer. Harris, a doctor turned legislator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, also told the audience: “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed.” During his congressional campaign, Harris vowed to “fight to repeal health-care reform.” His spokeswoman said his statements at the meeting were merely intended to highlight the ineptitude of government health coverage.

For the rest of the story, here’s the link.

I hardly know what to say, beyond the obvious — if Congress would simply let us all buy into its health plan, I’d be happy. Wouldn’t you? If only Obamacare did that much, it would be a wonderful thing.

DeMint is now officially Too Big For His Britches

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Folks, this is really embarrassing. Throughout our history, U.S. senators have not exactly been known for modesty. Fritz Hollings, for instance, was no shrinking violet. Being one of only 100 in the country, with some pretty weighty constitutional responsibility, can go to one’s head. Add in the tradition going back to ancient Rome, and you have a formula for bombast.

But I have never heard or read of any one senator taking upon himself such a megalomaniacal presumption as what Jim DeMint has taken upon himself with this latest move:

U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., in an extraordinary move, has warned the other 99 U.S. senators that for the rest of the legislative session this year, all bills and nominations slated for unanimous passage must go through his office for review…

Normally, senatorial ego is limited by the understanding that there are 99 others just like you, which is the wellspring of senatorial courtesy. The notion that the world does not revolve around YOU is something that we start teaching our children as we’re trying to get them beyond the Terrible Twos. Most of us pick up on it by the time we reach the age of majority, at least to some extent.

But if Jim DeMint had ever been familiar with this concept, he has forgotten it.

Contrast this obnoxious cry of ego, if you will, to the quiet way that Lindsay Graham has worked behind the scenes to have a salutary effect on foreign policy since the election of Barack Obama. Despite the imperative of satisfying his left wing, I keep seeing Obama do things in Afghanistan and elsewhere that show a marked pragmatism, a reassuring wisdom. And apparently, Sen. Graham is one of the main reasons why:

A new book by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward describes U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham as playing a central role in the formation and execution of President Barack Obama’s war policy in Afghanistan through his close ties to Vice President Joe Biden, Gen. David Petraeus and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

The book by the former Watergate reporter, Obama’s Wars, contains vivid and previously undisclosed portrayals of Graham’s closed-door conversations and confrontations with Obama, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other key figures.

Petraeus, the former commander of U.S. troops in Iraq who now holds the same post in Afghanistan, describes Graham as “a brilliant and skillful chess player” whom the general admires for his ability to navigate the power channels of Washington.

Talk about your polar opposites — the ball hog vs. the guy who just wants to make sure his team wins. And his team (and this might come as a shock to Jim Demint) is the United States of America, NOT the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, which Sen. DeMint seems to think is his country.

And what is Jim DeMint trying to accomplish in all this, aside from self-aggrandizement? Note this in The Washington Post:

Consider the case of Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, the new Republican kingpin and enforcer on Capitol Hill. DeMint claims he was misquoted by Bloomberg Businessweek last week as saying that his goal for the next Senate is “complete gridlock.” But you’d never know it from the way he’s behaving during the Senate’s do-nothing, pre-election legislative session. DeMint makes no apologies for saying that there’s no place for bipartisan compromise or consensus or some “watered-down Republican philosophy,” as he put it. For DeMint, this is war. The only acceptable outcome is total victory, and any Republican who dares to disagree will be treated as a traitor during the next election cycle.

And of course, he’s trying to get in a position to accomplish all this by such moves as supporting such candidates as Christine “Witchy Woman” O’Donnell.

I’ve never been more proud of Lindsey Graham, or more embarrassed by Jim DeMint. This moment has been coming, but I never suspected it would go this far.

No wonder The Washington Post dumped Newsweek

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When Newsweek first put Sarah Palin (I mean, Nikki Haley — I know the difference, but the superficial, pandering twits editing Newsweek apparently don’t) on its cover, I wrote about how Vincent Sheheen faces a problem that no other candidate for governor of South Carolina had ever faced — an opponent who gets vast amounts of free national media coverage. It’s a disadvantage that no candidate can raise enough money for paid media to overcome. It distorts everything. (See “The Newsweek endorsement of Nikki Haley,” July 6.) I wrote:

Oh, you say it’s not an endorsement? Don’t bore me with semantics. As I said, the national media — not giving a damn one way or the other about South Carolina, or about who Nikki Haley really is or what she would do in office — is enraptured at the idea that South Carolina will elect a female Indian-American (Bobby Jindal in a skirt, they think, fairly hugging themselves with enthusiasm), which just may be the most extreme example of Identity Politics Gone Mad that I’ve seen.

I told you we would have to expect this. And this is just the beginning…

Hey, am I a prophet or what? Now, in their slavish devotion to all things Sarah (and Sarah surrogates are almost as good, especially if you can create a collage of them WITH Sarah), Newsweek has done it again.

And do they have any serious, substantive reason to do this? Of course not. The putative reason for putting Nikki’s smiling mug on the cover again is to discuss the burning issue of “mama grizzlies.” I am not making this up.

Of course, if you turn inside to one of the few remaining pages in this pamplet — right in there next to the scholarly treatise on “Men Look at Women’s Bodies: Is Evolution at Work?” — you can find some home truths about Nikki. Such as:

Haley, who has two children but has never referred to herself as a grizzly [so why the freak did you put her on this stupid cover? never mind; I realize there’s no rational answer, beyond maybe that you had a picture of her in red], is just the sort of pro–business, low-tax, limited–government conservative Palin loves. Her platform is focused mostly on economic issues: creating jobs and unleashing entrepreneurial energy by slashing taxes. She holds herself out as a paragon of fiscal responsibility (never mind that she and her husband have failed to pay their taxes on time in each of the past five years).

But I must ask you: How many of the undecided voters who might be gullible enough to be razzle-dazzled into voting for Nikki do you think will read that far into the piece? Just being on this cover is all Nikki could possibly ever want or need from Newsweek.

Folks, I gotta tell ya — I never thought a whole lot of Newsweek. Back in the day when I was even in the market for such a publication, I always read TIME — and I haven’t done that in 30 years. Whatever value that format had ceased to be anything you could take seriously so, so long ago. Those publications became pretty much everything I disdain about TV “news.”

Recently, The Washington Post apparently decided the same, selling the mag to a guy who made his fortune selling stereos. And as The Wall Street Journal observed:

Since he agreed to purchase the magazine from Washington Post Co. earlier this month, pundits have called Mr. Harman’s motives—and sanity—into question. He took on more than $50 million in liabilities and agreed to keep most of Newsweek‘s employees—all for a magazine on track to lose at least $20 million this year, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Good luck with that, pal.

My advice to you readers? You want to read news in a magazine format? Go with The Economist. That is still a serious source of news and commentary. Interestingly, it calls itself a “newspaper,” in spite of its format. It’s certainly better than all but a handful of newspapers on this side of the pond. Yet another reason to love The Economist — so far, no Nikki Haley covers (that I’ve seen, anyway).

Kennedy-Ayers affair holds lesson for Tea Party

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I really hope that Nikki Haley, Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Joe Wilson and every adherent of the Tea Party reads that last post I shared with you. It contains an important lesson.

These people are fond of equating liberalism with dangerous radicalism. And they’ve pulled previously sensible Republicans along with them into this nasty habit of thought (if you can call it thought).

But the tale of how Bill Ayers honored Sirhan Sirhan for killing liberal icon Robert F. Kennedy, and how Bobby’s son, now a pillar in his community, led a board (likely chock full of liberals, although I don’t know that) to deny an honor to unrepentant terrorist Ayers because of what he did, is instructive.

It shows liberals as mainstream people who uphold fundamental standards of decency in their communities, just as real conservatives — in the traditional sense of the word; not the way Sarah Palin and her ilk use it — would do.

Dangerous radicals are beyond the pale. Sensible liberals, and conservatives, are the people who point out that fact.

Therein lies the difference. So knock it off with the demonization of people who are NOT beyond the pale.

RFK son leads board to settle score with Ayers; good for him

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Normally I’m not one to applaud people using positions of trust to settle personal scores, but even if that’s what you call this, in this case I’m all cheers for the Kennedys:

When retiring University of Illinois at Chicago Professor Bill Ayers co-wrote a book in 1973, it was dedicated in part to Sirhan Sirhan, Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin.

That came back to haunt Ayers on Thursday when the U. of I. board, now chaired by Kennedy’s son, considered his request for emeritus status. It was denied in a unanimous vote.

Before the vote, an emotional Chris Kennedy spoke out against granting the status to Ayers.

“I intend to vote against conferring the honorific title of our university to a man whose body of work includes a book dedicated in part to the man who murdered my father,” he said.

“There can be no place in a democracy to celebrate political assassinations or to honor those who do so.”

Later, Kennedy told the Chicago Sun-Times he and the board have not seen any signs of remorse from Ayers in the nearly 40 years since the dedication.

“There’s no evidence in any of his interviews or conversations that he regrets any of those actions — that’s a better question for him,” he told the Sun-Times…

There was a lot of back-and-forth about Ayers back during the 2008 election, you will recall. The thing I like about this personal action by Chris Kennedy is that it serves a public purpose, and of course the public good was what RFK’s memory should be about.

The public good served is that we are made to face clearly what a blackguard Ayers was, and still is (since he’s never expressed regret about what he did back in the day).

So in that sense, this isn’t personal, it’s strictly business. By the way, the “Godfather” reference here is not strictly gratuitous. Mario Puzo wrote another book called The Fourth K, which was about a latter-day member of the Kennedy family who wages unrestricted war on terrorism after his daughter is murdered by terrorists. (The whole “business-vs.-personal” theme was a big one for Puzo. He was fascinated by the idea of powerful men using their power for very personal purposes.)

In this case, Chris Kennedy found a much more gentle way to settle a family account. And good for him. And good for the board, which redeemed this act beyond the realm of personal vengeance by acting unanimously, on principle. This is the way retribution should be conducted, by the full community.

The South won’t rise again, but it will keep on making head fakes in that direction

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Imagine the irony! I was listening, via Pandora, to an excellent live version of Levon Helm singing his masterpiece, “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” It opened with a little horn riff on “Dixie” itself. The song is simply magnificent, capturing everything that was noble and tragic and horrible and epic and personal in our ancestors’ fall into defeat.

So imagine how it was ruined for me by, even as I was listening to it and appreciating it, reading this low farce from Karen Floyd:

Dear Subscriber

An unprecedented event recently occurred, where the president of the United States issued a report to the U.N. Human Rights Council that bashed a state law. In a desperate attempt to gain the awe and admiration of global elitists, President Obama sounded off about the many “sins” in America’s history, including Arizona’s new illegal immigration bill.Obama writes, “A recent Arizona law, S.B. 1070, has generated significant attention and debate at home and around the world. The issue is being addressed in a court action that argues that the federal government has the authority to set and enforce immigration law. That action is ongoing; parts of the law are currently enjoined.” He also went on about how he is seeking to offer free health care to illegal immigrants.

The context of this U.N. forum is to discuss human rights in the United States. Apparently, Obama thinks that Arizona’s law is in violation of human rights, which is why he is not only suing the state, but also reporting it to the U.N. council.

Lesson learned everyone: a liberal will always seek the praise and respect of foreign powers over the rights of the American people or the Constitution.

As a direct result of Obama’s ridiculous report to the U.N., the Arizona law will come under formal review on November 5 by the three member countries of the UN Human Rights Commission: France, Japan, and Cameroon. The U.N. Commission will then issue directives on what they recommend the United States do in response to the Arizona law.

This is simply outrageous! How can an American president sell out his own countrymen to a foreign entity over a state law that simply enforces existing federal laws? Our president should be bowing to the people’s demands, and NOT the whims of an international organization.

Folks, it is time to fight back. We desperately need trusted conservatives like Mike Mulvaney, Nikki Haley and Jim DeMint to fight for our liberties and state sovereignty. The elitists in Washington are trying to allow a foreign power to dictate your life and safety. Will you allow this to happen?

Click here to help fund conservative change and individual rights! Let’s help elect individuals who will enforce the Constitution and stand up for our rights and sovereignty.

Sincerely,

Karen Floyd

SCGOP Chairman

P.S. Let’s take the battle to them and send Obama a message! Please click here to donate now.

Just as elites conned the poor white population into being their cannon fodder in a lost and bankrupt cause in 1860, this new strain of Radical Republicanism keeps playing on the same resentments and sensitivities and inferiority complexes to manipulate the great mass of white voters in the South today.

They just keep on driving Dixie down.

Because, um, because he’s a DEMOCRAT, right?

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First, let me apologize that I’ve been missing in action all day. Some kind of horrific stomach bug. I’m somewhat better now, but then I haven’t eaten since breakfast.

But just to say I’ve posted something, let me share this…

Back on this earlier post, a reader named Rose wrote:

I don’t know why Republicans think Democrats don’t own guns. Most of my family members are moderate Democrats (although we do unfortunately have a few loony Tea Party cousins) and we own guns. Shotguns, rifles and handguns. We hunt. We shoot targets. And I guarandamntee you that I’m a helluva better shot than Haley.

So I don’t understand why Southerners think only Republicans like guns.

Well, as it happens, Rose, Vincent Sheheen is a regular Southerner, as he noted in a story by Yvonne Wenger:

Sheheen said he also supports gun rights.

“As chairman of the South Carolina Sportsmen’s Caucus and gun owner, I have repeatedly worked with the NRA to protect the gun ownership rights of South Carolinians,” Sheheen said in a statement. “There is no candidate that is a stronger supporter of Second Amendment rights and as governor, I will make sure the rights of citizens to own guns are never infringed.”

So how come this “Gun Owners of America” (of which I had never heard before Nikki touted their endorsement; had you?) didn’t endorse Vincent? Yvonne wondered, too, and asked. Here’s what she didn’t learn:

The group’s director of communications Erich Pratt said Monday that the reason why Sheheen did not receive the endorsement wasn’t immediately available.

Don’t you love it? “Wasn’t immediately available!” Of course, the answer most likely is that the folks making this decision probably didn’t know squat about Vincent Sheheen or his positions on issues, and didn’t care. They just went with the Republican who mouths extremist slogans. So, if she’s one o’ US, he’s gotta be some gun-hatin’ hippie liberal weirdo, right? Stands to reason…

This kind of reminds of the national media’s ecstasy over the idea that South Carolina might elect an “Indian-American woman.” It never occurs to them that as a Lebanese-American Catholic, Vincent would also score two firsts as governor. As if that sort of thing mattered. And like the “Gun Owners of America,” they don’t care, either.

Maybe they’d care if Will Folks claimed to have had an affair with him.

Uh-oh. I shouldn’t have had that thought when my stomach was already queasy…

An “ad homo-nem attack” on Sheheen?

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First, I’ll admit that I got the “ad homo-nem” joke from my elder son, who said that when he saw the same thing I’m reacting to here:

@TreyWalker: Effeminate sounding non-answers by @VincentSheheen on ObamaCare won’t cut it in this cycle. From the Post and Courier: postandcourier.com/news/2010/aug/…

Say what? Effeminate-sounding? And this from one of your more sensible Republicans, Trey Walker, a McMaster and McCain kind of guy…

Here, for the record, is what Yvonne Wenger wrote on that subject:

Sheheen said he has answered questions throughout his campaign about his national policy stances, such as abortion rights.
“My answer is the same: I support life. I have always supported life and my voting reflects that,” he said.
Likewise, Sheheen said he has laid out his position on the new federal health care law, including his concerns about the expense and the burden to small businesses. But the new law has components that will remedy long-standing issues in the country that only a “bitter partisan” would find fault with, such as denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions.
“I think it’s the next governor’s job to stand up against things that aren’t helpful to South Carolina within the health care law,” he said, adding that he would do just that if elected.
It is unclear where Sheheen stands on the individual mandate that Americans have health insurance and whether he supports the court challenge on the new law by the state Attorney General Henry McMaster, a Republican. Sheheen’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to questions Tuesday on the matter.

On thing that astounds me is that MSM types will actually go along with the Haley strategy of distraction by asking questions about inside-the-Beltway GOP litmus tests of a candidate running for governor of South Carolina. Abortion? Immigration? Obamacare? (This kind of mindlessness — the phenomenon whereby reporters exercise no judgment whatsoever about what matters, slavishly going along with any idiotic topic that gets brought up by either of the two “sides” you’re falling all over yourself to be fair and impartial to, whether it’s relevant or not — is why I gave up news and switched to editorial in 1994. In editorial, you’re allowed to think, and call B.S. “nonsense.” Unfortunately, we still couldn’t call it “B.S.” Not in a family newspaper. Or on a family blog.)

There is no frickin’ way I would expect a governor of SC to have an overall opinion on Obamacare. Hey, I don’t have an opinion on Obamacare (if I did, you’d have read it here). But maybe that’s because I sort of quit paying attention to Obama on health care way back during the primary campaigns back in the Year Seven, when it became clear that he was too timid even to suggest doing what ought to be done. (Seriously, folks, have you seen any effects from this massive health care “reform” yet? Neither have I.) Since that’s my position, I tend to look at these Republicans who keep wetting their pants about their imagined “government takeover of health care” as though they were recent arrivals from Venus. (Which, in case you missed the implication, is an “effeminate” planet. Your more masculine delusionals come from Mars.)

Another thing that astounds me is that Vincent stays cool and doesn’t get totally ticked off about it. I certainly would.

Maybe that — the fact that Vincent stays cool — is what Trey thinks is “effeminate.” Maybe Vincent should take a swing at reporters when they ask stuff like that. Not at Yvonne; that wouldn’t be manly. How about Tim Smith of The Greenville News? He’s the one who always wears the cowboy hat. It’s always manly to hit a guy in a cowboy hat. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a codicil in the unwritten Guy Code that if a guy’s wearing a cowboy hat, you’re allowed (and perhaps required) to hit him, whether he’s done anything to provoke you or not. OK, that should be Vincent’s strategy from now on: Whenever anyone in the MSM asks a particularly stupid, irrelevant or irritating question, Vincent should just take a big swing at Tim Smith. After a few times of doing this, the TV cameras would be ready and watching for it, and reporters would be making up stupid questions just to see Vincent pop Tim a good one. The voters would all see this on their boob tubes, and that would lay this “effeminate answers” non-issue to rest for good.

Anyway, I was standing there during the exchange that Yvonne was writing about, which you can see pictured in this image from a previous post (that’s Tim in his cowboy hat, and Yvonne at the left). You can also see Yvonne with me back on Episode 2 of “Pub Politics,” the one entitled “Wesley Sounds Like Crap.” But that’s sort of a digression, isn’t it? Although not nearly as much of a digression as asking candidates for governor of SC about abortion, immigration and national health care policy.

Vincent can stay cool in such absurd moments, because his staff gets all ticked off for him — the way I would. Below, you can see Campaign Manager Trav Robertson intervening to tell the reporters in no uncertain terms to can the stupid, irrelevant questions — and to arrange a time for an extended interview if they want to talk about irrelevancies. Good for you, Trav. Go get ’em…

“Noooooo! Goooooooo! Nooooooooo! Go away!”

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Well, Alvin Greene has been unfairly besmirched once again by the MSM.

They claim that’s his voice howling “Noooooooo!” and “Goooooooo!” on that video clip. Or on this audio clip.

Actually, it’s the SC Democratic Party executive committee, begging Alvin to quit after his indictment.

At least, that’s what it sounds like to me.

An “alternative” Nikki Haley? Nope. Her sister…

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Twisted Sister — whose music both Nikki Haley and Sarah Palin employ as a theme, in spite of their Family Values messages — represents one kind of irony. Here’s another kind, and it also involves a sister — specifically, Nikki’s. (At least, it’s her sister unless there’s another person with the same name who looks this much like Nikki.)

When I first saw the picture above, I thought it WAS Nikki — maybe Nikki in an alternative universe — but then I saw it was her sibling, Simran Singh. Her Web site describes her this way, in part:

Simran Singh, Visionary, Life Coach, Talk Show Host, Publisher of 11:11 Magazine, Founder of C.H.O.I.C.E. (Collaborating Holistic Organizations Inspiring Conscious Empowerment) and Creator of BELIEVE…Choices for Conscious Living, utilizes the mind, body, and heart to support individuals in realizing authentic personal expression by tapping inherent power and potential via self-inquiry and conscious choice. Through honoring and illustrating value for each step in the journey, her products and services bring to awareness one’s inherent value.

So many choices! N.O.W. has “reproductive choice.” Nikki has private school “choice.” And her sister has “Collaborating Holistic Organizations Inspiring Conscious Empowerment.” What a country we live in! Something for everybody.

Be sure to check out the video on the site. Way, WAY New Age:

Tune in and turn on… feed the mind… embrace positively… release the tension… step out of fear. Host Simran Singh will help you broaden your mind and open your heart toward a greater understanding… on Seventh Wave radio… because shift happens.

You might want to check out the recordings of some of her shows. Like this one about Jesus’ “30 Lost Years” and his connections to Eastern religions. The coming Age of Aquarius and the quest for the philosophers’ stone are mentioned in connection with her guest, “a renowned American clairvoyant.”

Yup. It’s a very interesting world we live in.

Alvin Greene not really anything new for SC

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At lunch today, I said something about “Mad Men,” and a lady friend mentioned that one of the actresses from the show was on the cover of Playboy. This grabbed my attention, although I calmed down a bit when she told me it was NOT Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan Holloway. Yes. I was disappointed, too. But I wanted to know who it was, and was already trying to think whether an actress from “Mad Men” being on the cover would be a good enough excuse to buy a copy, the way I justified to my wife buying the Jimmy Carter interview edition (think, honey — all those interesting articles!), while the lady did some hunting on her iPhone — and came up with the picture.

And as I looked, and admitted I didn’t recognize her, but might if given the opportunity to study additional photos more closely, she said, “You know, this is what Alvin Greene got arrested for.”

Which is true. And in fact, the more I think about it, that arrest is perhaps the one thing that explains why we’re so flabbergasted that he is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. There are other things. His unemployment, for instance. But I was unemployed for a year, and I’d vote for me. The fact that he lives with his Dad? Why wouldn’t a single, unemployed guy, recently out of the Army, stay with his aged father? As for being out of the Army: Sure, we don’t know why he was involuntarily released, but is it all that unusual to have unanswered questions about a candidate’s military service, if he even has any? Do we really know where W. was when he was supposed to be on Guard duty? Has anyone yet learned exactly where and how John Kerry was wounded to get those Purple Hearts that were his early ticket home? Mr. Greene was honorably discharged, and how much else to we need to know.

OK, so he’s no public speaker, and his grasp of the issues is unimpressive. Whoop-te-doo.

Allow me to remind you that this state’s last Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate was no great bargain either. Remember Bob Conley? He, too, was a bit on the flaky side. Sure, he actually had some campaign materials, but they reflected a set of values that seemed oddly out of place in a Democrat, and would make a reasonable person wonder how in the world he won the nomination.

Here’s what I wrote about him in The State’s endorsement of Lindsey Graham:

Bob Conley is one of those anomalous candidates who occasionally step into political vacuums — a nominal Democrat who takes the position of the angry right wing on immigration and would abolish the Federal Reserve. His Web site touts words of support from Ron Paul and the wife of Patrick Buchanan.

Bob Conley

In fact, he sounded for all the world like he was running under the Tea Party banner, before we’d even heard of the Tea Party. For more about Bob and his views, check this campaign flier.

He was fringe. He was out there. He was nobody’s concept of a Democrat. In fact, the few views that Alvin Greene has expressed are a far better fit for the party. So how did this guy win the nomination? The same way Alvin Greene did. Zero attention was paid to the race beforehand because Lindsey Graham, like Jim DeMint today, seemed like a sure bet (once he got past the extremists in his own party in the primary). So voters went into the booth without crucial information — and inexplicably, inexcusably voted for someone they knew nothing about. Sound familiar?

It could just as easily have been Alvin Greene — and this time, it was.

There is very little new in this situation. So the guy faces charges from showing pictures to a co-ed? Hey, he could have been an ax murderer for all the voters knew.

So why are we so worked up about Alvin Greene, as though nothing like this has ever happened before? Here’s my theory: The national media had their eyes on SC because of the craziness surrounding Nikki Haley, and just before they turned away, they went “Hey wait — and these nuts also elected some guy they’d never heard of…?” And from that, another star was born.

Silly national media. They didn’t realize we do this all the time.

“We Coloreds,” or, How do you get kicked out of the Tea Party?

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By now, you’ve probably heard that Mark Williams, the Tea Party guy I quoted back here, has been kicked out of the National Tea Party Federation for the satirical letter he wrote, which I will provide here in its entirety when I can find a link. Until then, here’s what several news organizations have reported of it:

In the voice of slaves, Williams wrote: “Mr. Lincoln, you were the greatest racist ever. We had a great gig. Three squares, room and board, all our decisions made by the massa in the house.
“We Coloreds have taken a vote and decided that we don’t cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!”
He went on to say blacks don’t want taxes cut because “how will we Colored People ever get a wide screen TV in every room if non-coloreds get to keep what they earn?”

This, of course, raises a number of questions, beginning with “What? You can get kicked out of the Tea Party? How does that work?” I didn’t know there was anybody in Tea Party who had authority over anybody else in the Tea Party. And indeed, this seems to be a battle between different factions in the movement, which seems to have as many iterations as the competing bands of communists in the Russian revolution.

Interesting how, in the four days since a letter writer in The State said that the “millions” of Tea Partiers “never have been documented to have said or done anything racist,” one Tea Partier alone has provided us with two instances that might seem to call that assertion into just a tad of doubt.

The Tea Party and racism

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Was struck by this letter in The State this morning:

Francee Levin (“State right to fly USC flag,” Monday), the NAACP and others who mischaracterize the Tea Party movement need to stop listening to the liberal media and maybe attend a Tea Party rally for themselves. I’ve attended several at the State House, and the group includes people from all ethnic groups and walks of life who cannot sit by and witness the destruction of our great country by the present administration.

The movement is made up of millions of everyday Americans who love their country and want to see it restored to what the Founding Fathers created, and never have been documented to have said or done anything racist or violent.

Violent? No, thank goodness. Not yet, anyway. But racist? Depends on what you mean.

When I was at the Tea Party rally where I shot the video of Sheri Few tearing into that “socialist” Anton Gunn, she went on a long tale about how far back to the foundation of the country her kinfolk go, and it was so much like a my-family-came-over-on-the-Mayflower speech, only with an anti-government political flavor, that it both bored me and made me feel a tad uncomfortable. You know, like “I’m a REAL American, and have the pedigree to prove it.” I’ll see if I caught any of that on video… And at that same rally there was also some vituperation toward illegal immigrants — which many of you will hasten to explain was because they’re illegal, not because they are brown people who speak Spanish.

So no — I haven’t heard anything from Tea Party speakers that sounded like anything like what Ben Tillman might have said in advocating lynching. So pat yourselves on the backs there, if you’re so inclined. But I’ve heard plenty of stuff along the lines of what nativists say when they have their party manners on.

And then there was this report that I saw today:

A day after leaders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, met to pass a resolution that condemns the Tea Party, a grass-roots anti-tax political movement, for tolerating racism among its members, CNN contributor Roland Martin invited a Tea Party Express spokesman onto The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer. Mark Williams, “asked to tell racists ‘you’re not welcome’ in the tea party,” the Huffington Post reported, “replied ‘Racists have their own movement. It’s called the NAACP.'” On the show, which aired Wednesday night, Williams accused Martin of driving racist people to Tea Party events by talking about the issue consistently on the air, by convincing them that Tea Party events are where they will “find a happy home.” “You’re not going to lie on CNN. I never said that,” Martin responded. “I have said consistently, the Tea Party people have an absolute right to assemble, to protest. But what I have said, there is no room in that movement for racists. And what I’ve said is, you should come out and say you’re not welcome here.” That’s when Williams broke in to call the NAACP a racist organization, adding that members are “a bunch of old fossils looking to make a buck off skin color.” “That’s nonsense,” Martin responded before Blitzer broke in to end the heated debate. The Huffington Post has video of the exchange on its Web site.

Make of that what you will.