Posts Tagged ‘Obituary’
Friday, September 1st, 2017
The worst of the flooding in Houston seems to have passed, and the Brazos River has crested and is falling again. But over 40 people are dead and over 6,000 homes have been destroyed, and the road to recovery for many families remains long and arduous. Consider donating time or money, if you’re able.
Here’s the Friday LinkSwarm
Before and after photos of flood and hurricane damage.
Federal Judge: “In evaluating Plaintiffs’ claims at this stage, the Court assumes their allegations are true—that the DNC and Wasserman Schultz held a palpable bias in favor Clinton and sought to propel her ahead of her Democratic opponent.” And then dismissed the the case. Because suck it, Bernie. (I should probably do another Clinton Corruption update in the near future…)
“[Democratic Robert] Menendez Mess Expands to Democratic Old Guard. Federal prosecutors ensnare Harry Reid in corruption probe of New Jersey senator.” In addition to his graft trial, Menendez was also accused of sleeping with under-aged prostitutes in the Dominican Republic.
President Donald Trump rolls back costly and cumbersome ‘diversity’ regulations. “Obama’s EEOC called for businesses to provide 3,660 different data points about each employee and their pay structure.” Man, it’s like the Obama crew was upset that businesses were allowed to get any work done at all… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Oakland reporter witnesses Antifa violence firsthand.
Speaking of Antifa violence, here’s an account of how a half-Japanese free speech advocate who magically became a ‘white supremacist’ at the fists of Antifa. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“New Evidence Reveals Comey Exonerated Hillary Before Key Witness Interviews.”
“Democrats are irrelevant to the power equation in Donald Trump’s Washington.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
How Google rigged search rankings for companies that supported Google Plus, and then used its market power to quash media stories about it, and then memory-holed any archives…
Keith Olbermann loses it. At least whatever little “it” he had left to lose…
German nurse killed 86 patients. Surprised they didn’t just transfer him to EU euthanasia brigade. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Former spokesman for charity helping victims of Nice attack on trial for fraud.”
Speaking of charity fraud: “Southern Poverty Law Center Transfers Millions in Cash to Offshore Entities.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Large diet study suggests it’s carbs, not fats, that are bad for your health.”
Women sentenced to 10 years in prison for making 15 false accusations of rape. One look at her picture should have raised huge flags…
Open carry of swords becomes legal in Texas today. God bless Texas! (Hat tip: Bill Crider.)
Franklin BBQ burns. Being closed by a fire makes it only slightly more difficult to get into…
Comedy gold:
Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Board sued for arresting college girls over buying water.
Richard “Oscar Goldman” Anderson, RIP. He also had a role in Forbidden Planet. “Austin’s overseer, Oscar Goldman, was introduced in the first TV movie, played by Darren McGavin.” I had completely forgotten McGavin (another great character actor) originally played Goldman. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Butthole Surfer Wins ‘Yard of the Month’ Award in Austin.”
“Antifa Organizers Announce Plans To Disrupt Neo-Nazi Rally Or Whatever Else Going On That Day.” When you’ve lost The Onion…
Overview of my library of science fiction, fantasy and horror first editions. In case you missed it…
Let’s end with a bit of good news:
Update:
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, antifa, Brazos River, corrupt scumbags, corruption, Crime, Democrats, DNC, Donald Trump, Germany, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Houston, James Comey, Jihad, JJ Watt, Keith Olbermann, LinkSwarm, murder, Obituary, rape, Richard Anderson, Robert Menendez, Social Justice Warriors, Southern Poverty Law Center, Swords, Texas, The Onion, Wilding v. DNC
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud | 1 Comment »
Friday, June 23rd, 2017
Welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! There’s so much news I’m going to punt “The Pelosi Question” to the weekend:
In case you hadn’t noticed, illinois is going bankrupt.
John Podesta to testify before the House Intelligence committee. Hopefully they’ll ask him about the allegations in Shattered that he and Robby Mook cooked up the entire “Russia hacked the election” fantasy within 24 hours of Hillary’s loss. And also about his and his brother’s documented financial ties to Russia.
Former state Department/CIA employee charged with espionage for China:
A former State Department employee was arrested Thursday and charged with espionage for allegedly transmitting Top Secret and Secret documents to a Chinese government agent, according to an affidavit filed with the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, VA.
Kevin Mallory, 60, of Leesburg is a self-employed consultant who speaks fluent Chinese. Court filings show that Mallory was an Army veteran who worked as a special agent for U.S. State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service from 1987 to 1990. Since then, Mallory has worked for various government agencies and defense contractors, maintaining a Top Secret security clearance. The Washington Post reports that Mallory was also an employee of the CIA.
A lot of hardcore Democrats are becoming increasingly uneasy about the way that Trump Derangement Syndrome has warped their party:
We do know that Wednesday’s congressional attacker, James Hodgkinson, shared a conspiracy-tinged Change.org link on March 22, accompanied by the caption, “Trump is a traitor.” Once again, it has to be stressed that this information is woefully insufficient to conclude that the perpetrator was motivated by Russia-oriented conspiracy theories. Motivations are multifaceted, and often political beliefs “intersect” with mental distress, causing people to act violently. But the sharing of the link does indicate that Hodgkinson has been affected by the frenzied climate Democrats have stoked around the Russia issue.
Once again, for extra emphasis: calling attention to the link Hodgkinson shared is not to say that Democrats are directly culpable for this shooting. That would be ridiculous. But the shared link does show that he was to some extent enmeshed in the conspiratorial paranoia that Democrats have knowingly fostered, at full-blast, for approaching an entire year. One ancillary consequence of fostering conspiratorial paranoia for a full year is that certain people with unstable mental predispositions may latch on and commit violent acts. But Democrats and liberals, in their self-assuredness, have been reticent to acknowledge this byproduct of their current political strategy. Proclaiming that the president engaged in treason — as many members of Congress and media figures have — is going to have an influence on the broader public, and included in that broader public are people who might be deranged and/or have violent inclinations.
If you deny that the kind of overblown rhetoric that Democrats have specialized in over the past months — warning about traitorous subterfuge and foreign infiltration — can have any trickle-down effect on regular people, you’re deluding yourself.
It looks like Democrats are learning all the wrong lessons from Jon Ossoff’s loss:
Democrats want a resistance. They want to impeach the President. They want full-blown socialism. They want to go further to the left than the tea party wanted to go right. A lot of activist Democrats are already interpreting Jon Ossoff’s loss as him not being aggressively anti-Trump enough.
The Democrat base has moved way further left than where the American public is and at a time we seem to be in a pendulum swing back to the right, that could hurt them. As they start challenging Democrat incumbents with more liberal activists and start winning primaries in swing seats with radical progressives, they risk their ability to win.
What makes this fun to watch is knowing they reject that idea and think the more radical and more militant the more likely their candidates will win. I cannot wait to watch their slate of moonbat crazy challengers.
All those “Ossoff’s loss was a moral victory” excuses? Vox says don’t believe it: “Don’t sugarcoat it — Ossoff’s loss is a big disappointment, and a bad sign, for Democrats. Democrats need to outperform Hillary Clinton to take back the House. Ossoff did worse than her.”
As bad as political violence is now, the 1960s and early 1970s were much worse.
Phil Montag, technology chairman for the Nebraska Democratic Party, was caught on audio saying he was glad Rep> Steve Scalise (R-LA) was shot and wishing he had died. Make that the ex-technology chairman for the Nebraska Democratic Party. Good. Pink slips seem to be the only thing these people pay attention to. (Hat tip: Gabriel Malor’s Twitter feed.)
“A professor at a Connecticut college said he was forced to flee the state after he received death threats for appearing to endorse the idea that first responders to last week’s congressional shooting should have let the victims ‘f**king die’ instead of treating them.” Step right up, Trinity College Professor Johnny Eric Williams! You’re the next contestant on “Trump Derangement Syndrome Ruined My Life!”
And speaking of Democrats losing it, “Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz accused ex-DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson of lying under oath when he said the DNC refused the help of the DHS in their hacking scandal.”
“This May was the Democratic National Committee’s worst May of fundraising since 2003. The DNC raised $4.29 million in May of this year, according to data recently released by the Federal Election Commission. It is the weakest take for national Democrats since May of 2003, when the party raised a paltry $2.7 million.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Did 5.7 million illegal aliens vote in 2008? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
President Trump follows through on his campaign promise to kill deferred action for illegal alien parents, AKA DAPA.
TPPF’s Chris Jacobs is not impressed with the Republican Senate ObamaCare replacement bill. TPPF’s Chip Roy said:
Simply put, the bill doubles down on the fundamentally flawed architecture of Obamacare and if implemented, will neither increase the actual care available to the people nor drive down the cost of care or insurance. It maintains Obamacare’s subsidy regime, retains almost the entirety of the regulatory architecture driving up people’s premiums and deductibles, continues the previous Administration’s unconstitutional bailouts to insurers, and maintains the Medicaid expansion for five more years before slowly attempting to reform the program.
More on the same subject: “Top Ten Ways Senate Obamacare Bill Is #FakeRepeal.”
ObamaCare tweet:
Liberal lawyer Alan Dershowitz states that Presidnet Trump’s tape bluff is perfectly legal. “What President Trump did was no different from what prosecutors, defense attorneys, policemen, FBI agents and others do every day in an effort to elicit truthful testimony from mendacious witnesses.” Also: “We must declare an armistice against using our criminal justice system as a political weapon in what has become a zero-sum bloodsport.”
Saudi king replaces crown prince with his own son.
Saudis foil Iranian sabotage attack on their offshore oilfields.
“Trump Imposes New Sanctions on Russia Over Ukraine.” Insert record scratch sound over derailment of the “Trump is Putin’s stooge” narrative here. Oh, also, New York Times: When you invade, occupy and annex territory, it’s not an “incursion,” it’s an “invasion.”
Helmut Kohl, the chancellor who oversaw German reunification, dead at age 87. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Remember all those “refugees” Angela Merkel invited in? “Up to three quarters of Germany’s refugees will still be unemployed in five years’ time.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Trump Administration Begins to Dismantle Obama Campus Rape Tribunals.” Good.
“CENTCOM confirms Islamic State’s ‘Grand Mufti’ killed in airstrike…Turki al-Bin’ali was killed in a May 31 airstrike in Mayadin, Syria.”
Amazon buying Whole Foods ties into their overall strategy of high fixed costs and returns to scale.
Alternate view: Amazon buying Whole Foods is this cycle’s AOL/Time Warner merger.
East Lansing, Michigan punishes man for daring to express pro-Christian thoughtcrime on Facebook.
“The amount of labor that once bought 54 minutes of light now buys 52 years of light. The cost has fallen by a factor of 500,000 and the quality of that light has transformed from unstable and risky to clean, safe, and controllable.”
The year-by-year descent into airline hell. But: More people are flying than ever before, and airlines are actually profitable. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Man almost dies after getting swept away by a river while hiking, learns important survival lessons. (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Harvard introduces segregated commencement ceremony for black students. next up: Their own water fountains.
“A mentally ill homeless woman in Florida is accused of vandalizing a policeman’s patrol car and smearing feces on a church where she left the walls defaced with nonsensical writings against ‘patriarchy.'”
F-35 puts on an impressive demonstration at the Paris Air Show. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
F-16 catches fire at Houston airport.
The meaning of Bill Cosby’s hung jury:
The extraordinarily high prosecutorial burden of proof in any criminal trial is intentionally designed to heavily favor defendants, because we long ago embraced as a society Blackstone’s principle. Formulated in the seventeen-sixties by the English jurist William Blackstone, the presumption is that it is better to have ten guilty people go free than that one innocent person suffer. Hard as it is to stomach today, embracing that calculus means that we should even want ten rapists (not to mention terrorists and murderers) to go free in order to protect the one falsely accused. Unfortunately, Cosby is one of those to escape criminal punishment. And, to put a fine point on the over-all gendered impact of requiring proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the inevitable effect of the heavy tilt toward defendants is that in sexual-assault trials, which involve mostly male defendants and mostly female accusers, men are favored over women.
What works in Bill Cosby’s favor also works in Bill Clinton’s favor… (Hat tip: Christina Hoff Summers’ Twitter feed.)
15 companies that made great games that still went bust. Spoiler: The phrase “bought by EA” appears a lot.
Colin Kaepernick seems to have decided that his career is indeed over. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Whipped cream fatality.
And that gives me the thinnest of possible justifications to post this classic:
Tags:1960s, 2016 Presidential Race, aircraft, airlines, Alan Dershowitz, Amazon, amnesty, Bill Cosby, Border Controls, China, Chip Roy, Chris Jacobs, Colin Kaepernick, Connecticut, Crime, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrats, DHS, DNC, Donald Trump, Elections, F-16, F-35, Foreign Policy, Georgia's 6th Congressional District, Germany, Harvard, Helmut Kohl, Illegal Aliens, Illinois, Iran, Iraq, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, James T. Hodgkinson, Jihad, John Podesta, Johnny Eric Williams, Jon Ossoff, Kevin Mallory, Michigan, Military, ObamaCare, Obituary, Phil Montag, Regulation, Saudi Arabia, Social Justice Warriors, Syria, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Trinity College, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Turki al-Bin’ali, Ukraine, Voter Fraud, Whole Foods
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, ObamaCare, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »
Friday, May 5th, 2017
Happy Cinco de Mayo, the holiday that celebrates the French army getting their asses kicked by Mexicans!
A bunch of big news that everyone and their dog has been covering at the top of the LinkSwarm:
Big News 1: Despite having the House, Senate and White House, House Republicans spinelessly cave on budget negotiations. “It is noteworthy for what it does not include: namely, most of Donald Trump’s and Republicans’ recent campaign promises. The bill does not defund Planned Parenthood. It does not include any of the president’s deep cuts to domestic agencies. Public broadcasting is funded at current levels. The National Endowment for the Arts’ budget is increased. There’s even funding for California’s high-speed rail.”
Big News 2: House Republicans also passed an ObamaCare replacement bill.
Consensus is that it sucks less than both ObamaCare and the March versions of the bill, but still sucks plenty. The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Chip Roy had this to say in a press release:
“Today, conservative leaders in the House brought the American people a glimmer of hope that states might save American healthcare from the clutches of a federally controlled and regulated system under Obamacare,” said Roy. “This improved version of the American Health Care Act grants governors the ability to seek waivers from the onerous Obamacare regulations that unfortunately remain in place as the default rule even under this bill. This means governors would have both the opportunity and the burden of leading to free their states from these default regulations.”
“Further reform remains necessary, however, as the bill retains far too much of Obamacare’s flawed Medicaid expansion, replaces one form of subsidy with an even more expansive one in the form of a refundable tax credit, creates a $138 billion slush fund for insurers, and leaves almost all of Obamacare’s cost-driving regulations and mandates as the federal standard,” Roy continued. “As the bill heads to the Senate, we hope it will be improved, at least by allowing states to opt in to Obamacare rather than forcing states to temporarily, partially opt out.”
By one account, the ObamaCare replacement amounts to a $1 trillion tax cut. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
French runoff Presidential elections happen Sunday. The overwhelming favorite Emmanuel Macron is being pummeled by leaked documents (sound familiar?) that suggest he’s been avoiding taxes using offshore accounts. Naturally French prosecutors are ready to pounce…on those spreading the allegations.
Texas legislation to repeal sanctuary cities heads to Governor Abbott’s desk.
And Travis County sheriff Sally Hernandez even says she’ll obey the law. Imagine that!
The Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office want police to know that illegal aliens have more rights than American citizens and shouldn’t be prosecuted.
President Trump’s insistence on actually enforcing immigration laws is already paying dividends.
The concrete, realpolitik reason that amnesty is dead is that the appropriate law enforcement policies have been set in motion and they are gaining momentum fast!
I have long argued that the illegal alien community in the United States is highly fragile. President Trump’s executive order directing Immigration and Customs Authorities and Border Patrol officers to broadly interpret their jurisdiction for capturing and removing illegal aliens has had the immediate effect of decreasing attempts to cross the border as well as inspiring panic in illegal immigrant communities. Police officers and county sheriffs have told me that, even at the height of the Obama era of nonenforcement, illegal aliens shunned the police. Now, in the era of Trump, the possibility of going to work and ending your week in Mexico is a real and potent threat. (This is particularly true if you live, as I do, in Massachusetts). It is a commonplace that law enforcement professionals go to sleep muttering “5% enforcement equals 95% compliance.”
At the same time, businesses cannot prosper in an environment of uncertainty. The initial impulse of business owners in agriculture and other illegal-alien-heavy industries is to demand, yet again, some succor from the government in terms of work permits for their illegal workers. Just such measures are championed by incoming Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue. However, assuming this relief is not forthcoming in the near future (and I’ll get to that in a minute) the only rational policy is for business owners to begin exploring their other options — which might include automation or wage increases.
When every small business owner in America finally takes paper and pencil and sits down at the kitchen table with their spouse and says “honey, we are going to have to figure out how to make our business work when we can’t hire illegal aliens anymore,” then and only then will the light appear at the end of the tunnel.
But the key to the problem and the reason for optimism is this: with the law now being enforced, however incrementally, even without funds for more agents, even without funds for the Wall, even without E-Verify, the pressure to re-evaluate in the illegal alien and the business communities will only grow. The success of the policy in reducing the inflow and initiating “self-deportation” will feed back on itself. For years the only salient argument of the open borders advocates on both the right and the left was that enforcing the current laws on the books was impossible. As it becomes obvious how easy, in fact, enforcement is, those advocates will be forced to rely on their more avaricious motives for keeping illegal aliens here.
One in four federal inmates is foreign born. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Why Hillary lost, Part 6974: Voters who went for Obama in 2012 and Trump in 2016.
Welcome back my friends to the 2016 election that never ends, we’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside. There behind the glass is a pile of Hillary’s foreign cash, be careful as you pass, move along, move along. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Even Dianne Feinstein says there’s no evidence of Russian meddling in the election. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
President Trump is more trusted than the national media.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro decides not to run against Ted Cruz. Smart move.
Did a Pakistani ISI assassin defect to India? Sources say: Maybe not.
Netflix deletes Bill Nye segment from 1996 that talks about how chromosomes determine sex. When science clashes with the current smelly orthodoxies of liberal dogma, it seems that science gets the axe.
Following Victims of Communism Day, here are ten films on the victims of Communism. These appear to be all documentaries.
VA official who kept secret wait lists veterans died on fired. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Puerto Rico declares bankruptcy.
Is Russia arming the Taliban?
“A New Instance of Android Malware is Discovered Every 10 Seconds.”
Leftists try to take over the Humble school board.
And don’t forget the Rond Rock Bond issue vote this Saturday.
Lunatic scumbag street-preacher/tax evader/child molester Tony Alamo dies in prison. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Auction for a treasure trove of early material on the Nation of Islam. Including two manuscripts handwritten by founder Wallace Fard Muhammad, who disappeared in 1934. Alas, the opening bid is a tad steep for my blood…
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, 2018 Election, 2018 Texas Senate Race, Afghanistan, auctions, Austin, Baltimore, Bill Nye, Border Controls, Budget, Cinco de Mayo, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Dianne Feinstein, Donald Trump, Elections, Emmanuel Macron, Foreign Policy, France, Greg Abbott, Hillary Clinton, Humble ISD, Joaquin Castro, LinkSwarm, Media Watch, Nation of Islam, ObamaCare, Obituary, Puerto Rico, Sally Hernandez, sanctuary cities, Ted Cruz, Texas, Tony Alamo, Travis County, Veterans Administration, Wallace Fard Muhammad
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Texas | No Comments »
Thursday, December 8th, 2016
Astronaut John Glenn, the first American in space, has died at age 95.
Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth, and later a four-term U.S. senator from Ohio, died Thursday at the Ohio State Cancer Center. He was 95.
Glenn became a hero in World War II and Korea, flying an astounding 149 combat missions in the two conflicts. He earned the Distinguished Flying Cross on six occasions and an Air Medal with 18 clusters. In Korea, he downed three Russian MIGs in air-to-air combat during the last nine days of that war. Ted Williams was sometimes his wing man.
He was, at that time, just another American who had served his country. But after the war, he heard about the space program, an outrageous idea of risk and service open to military test pilots. Of course, he was interested. After rigorous and competitive testing Glenn was chosen as one of the Mercury Seven, America’s first astronauts.
On April 8, 1959, Glenn was introduced at a press conference with Scott Carpenter, Walter M. Schirra, Jr., Alan B. Shepard, Jr., L. Gordon Cooper, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, and Donald “Deke” Slayton as the country’s Project Mercury astronauts. Glenn, who was the last surviving member of the group, a wore a bow tie.
To understand why John Glenn became so important in America, it is important to remember how badly the United States was losing the space race in the early 1960s. The Soviet Union had pulled ahead in this Cold War battle when it launched Sputnik, the first man-made object to be placed into orbit. It then made a mockery of the American program by sending the first human being, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit. Then the Soviets sent a second cosmonaut into orbit.
So all of America was watching at 9:47 in the morning on Feb. 20, 1962. Sitting in the cramped quarters of the Friendship 7 spacecraft, Glenn took off from Cape Canaveral. Scott Carpenter, the backup astronaut for the mission, famously said: “Godspeed, John Glenn.”
Astronaut Glenn climbed into space, circled the globe three times, and then dropped down into the Atlantic Ocean. The flight took all of 4 hours, 55 minutes and 23 seconds, but it changed the space race and restored American pride.
Later in life Glenn would be elected to the senate as a moderate Democrat, back when there were such things, and would vote in favor of Gramm-Rudman. He would lose the 1984 Democratic Presidential nomination to Walter Mondale, and later be involved in the Savings and Loan scandal as part of the “Keating 5.” The best that could be said about his political career is that he was far from the worst Democratic Senator during his four terms.
Tags:astronaut, Democrats, John Glenn, NASA, Obituary
Posted in Democrats | No Comments »
Saturday, November 26th, 2016
Cuba’s communist dictator Fidel Castro has died.
Says Texas Senator Ted Cruz: “Fidel Castro’s death cannot bring back his thousands of victims, nor can it bring comfort to their families. Today we remember them and honor the brave souls who fought the lonely fight against the brutal Communist dictatorship he imposed on Cuba.”
Castro was known both for opressing and torturing his people (and more recently putting gay people in concentration camps) and for getting left-wing useful idiots to sing his praises. The sort of clueless leftists who sing the praises of Cuba’s “modern” healthcare without ever having experienced the filthy hellholes that are its hospitals firsthand. There are political prisoners who have rotted in jail for more than two decades merely for speaking out against Castro’s brutal regime.
Those interested in the real Cuba beyond the tourist Potemkin villages for the useful idiot fellow travelers should read Michael Totten’s many dispatches from the island.
The world is a better place for Fidel Castro’s too-long-delayed passing.
Tags:Communism, Cuba, Fidel Castro, Foreign Policy, Michael Totten, Obituary, Ted Cruz
Posted in Communism, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
Sunday, March 6th, 2016
Former First Lady Nancy Reagan has died at age 94.
If you were not alive at the time, you would not believe how much the liberal media loathed her in the 1980s. Just look at how ruthlessly they criticized her for buying enough new White House china for 220 people at state dinners for a total cost (not to the taxpayers, mind you, but picked up by a private foundation) for the cost of about 1/40th the average Obama family vacation…
Tags:Nancy Reagan, Obituary, Republicans, Ronald Reagan
Posted in Republicans | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 14th, 2016
The reactions to the unexpected death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia are still coming in. Conservatives (and some liberals) hailed him as a great justice, a keen mind, and one of the court’s finest writers. Other liberals…
Eh. Let’s get to the sweet before the bitter.
Texas Senator and Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz:
Today our Nation mourns the loss of one of the greatest Justices in history – Justice Antonin Scalia. A champion of our liberties and a stalwart defender of the Constitution, he will go down as one of the few Justices who single-handedly changed the course of legal history.
As liberals and conservatives alike would agree, through his powerful and persuasive opinions, Justice Scalia fundamentally changed how courts interpret the Constitution and statutes, returning the focus to the original meaning of the text after decades of judicial activism. And he authored some of the most important decisions ever, including District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized our fundamental right under the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms. He was an unrelenting defender of religious liberty, free speech, federalism, the constitutional separation of powers, and private property rights. All liberty-loving Americans should be in mourning.
Justice Scalia’s three decades on the Court was one of President Reagan’s most consequential legacies. Our prayers are with his beloved wife Maureen, their nine children, and their precious grandchildren.”
Former Texas Attorney General and current Texas Governor Greg Abbott:
Justice Antonin Scalia was a man of God, a patriot, and an unwavering defender of the written Constitution and the Rule of Law. He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution. His fierce loyalty to the Constitution set an unmatched example, not just for judges and lawyers, but for all Americans. We mourn his passing, and we pray that his successor on the Supreme Court will take his place as a champion for the written Constitution and the Rule of Law. Cecilia and I extend our deepest condolences to his family, and we will keep them in our thoughts and prayers.
Instapundit and law professor Glenn Reynolds: “As we remember Justice Scalia’s time, let us remember that every age’s smug certainties come to an end eventually and that the dissents of Supreme Court Justices often turn out to be prophetic.”
Powerline’s John Hinderaker: “Scalia was a towering intellect and a great justice.”
Ross Douthat:
He was important because of his intellectual influence. There were and are many legal theories and schools of constitutional interpretation within the world of American conservatism. But Scalia’s combination of brilliance, eloquence and good timing — he was appointed to the court in 1986, a handful of years after the Federalist Society was founded, and with it the conservative legal movement as we know it — ensured that his ideas, originalism in constitutional law and textualism in statutory interpretation, would set the agenda for a serious judicial conservatism and define the worldview that any “living Constitution” liberal needed to wrestle with in order to justify his own position.
This intellectual importance was compounded by the way he strained to be consistent, to rule based on principle rather than on his partisan biases — which made him stand out in an age when justices often seem as purely partisan as any other office holder. Of course there were plenty of cases (“Bush v. Gore!” a liberal might interject here) in which those biases probably did shape the way he ruled. But from flag burning to the rights of the accused to wartime detention, Scalia had a long record of putting originalist principle above a partisan conservatism. And this, too, set an example for his fellow conservatives: The fact that today the court’s right-leaning bloc has far more interesting internal disagreements than the often lock-step-voting liberal wing is itself a testament to the premium its leading intellectual light placed on philosophical rigor and integrity.
Even honest liberals who disagree with Scalia’s politics praised the keenness of his mind and prose:
Jeet Heer in The New Republic from last year: “Antonin Scalia Is the Supreme Court’s Greatest Writer.”
Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker:
In his most significant decision for the court’s majority, District of Columbia v. Heller, in 2008, Scalia transformed the understanding of the Second Amendment. Reversing a century of interpretation of the right to bear arms, he announced that individuals have a constitutional right to possess handguns for personal protection. The Heller decision was so influential that even President Obama, whose politics differ deeply from Scalia’s, has embraced the view that the Second Amendment gives individuals a constitutional right to bear arms.
And noted liberal legal scholar Alan Derschowitz priased Scalia: “Love him or hate him, every American should appreciate his contribution to U.S. law. The word unique is often overused, but they broke the mold when they created Justice Scalia. There will never be another like him. I will miss him both personally and professionally.”
Meanwhile, other liberals have reacted with unbridled joy:
(Hat tip: Breitbart.)
Scroll through these Salon comments to see numerous liberals openly calling for Clarence Thomas’ death.
Twitchy has more examples of liberals openly wishing for Clarence Thomas’ death.
A reminder, yet again, that conservatives regard liberals as wrong, but many liberals regard conservatives as not just wrong but evil, and feel no absolutely no remorse in openly celebrating the death of a great man for the crime of daring to hold non-liberal thoughts.
Tags:Alan Dershowitz, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, DC vs. Heller, Democrats, Glenn Reynolds, Guns, Instapundit, Jeffrey Toobin, Obituary, Ross Douthat, Supreme Court, Ted Cruz
Posted in Democrats, Guns, Supreme Court | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 14th, 2015
Congressional Medal of Honor winner Tibor Rubin, who went from being a prisoner at Mauthausen concentration camp to being one of the baddest bad-asses in the Korean War, died at age 86 last week.
In summer 1950, Mr. Rubin was “volunteered” to defend a strategic hill while the rest of his company withdrew to safety near the Pusan Perimeter amid an onslaught by North Korean troops. He armed himself with grenades and guns and waited, knowing the sergeant had no intention of relieving him, ever.
The enemy attack began at dawn, and Mr. Rubin said he became “hysterical” as they swarmed the hill “like ants.”
He fired helter-skelter, lobbing grenade after grenade to create the impression of more than one man. “Pull the pin, boom, pull the pin, boom,” he said. Unable to see through the resulting smoke, he kept up the defense for a full day, defending his post until American-manned Corsairs repelled the remaining North Koreans from the air.
“He inflicted a staggering number of casualties on the attacking force during his personal 24-hour battle, single-handedly slowing the enemy advance and allowing the 8th Cavalry Regiment to complete its withdrawal successfully,” read his citation for the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest award for valor.
Later he was captured by the communist Chinese, and repeatedly risked his life sneaking out to find food for his fellow prisoners.
And after all that, he got screwed out of his medal until George W. Bush set it right in 2005.
Also, the book about his life just came out this year: Single Handed: The Inspiring True Story of Tibor “Teddy” Rubin–Holocaust Survivor, Korean War Hero, and Medal of Honor Recipient.
(Hat tip: Legal insurrection.)
Tags:Congressional Medal of Honor, Military, Obituary, Tibor Rubin
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