Delahunt to Checkmate Self Over Bishop?

February 14th, 2010

So, let’s see if we can detect a pattern in the following events:

  1. On Friday, Biology professor Amy Bishop goes on a shooting spree over being denied tenure at University of Alabama in Huntsville, killing three people and wounding three others. (It’s interesting to note that spree killers (or, as the police call them now, “active shooters”) are almost never women.)
  2. On Saturday, it comes out that Bishop had shot and killed her own brother in 1986, but had been released even before facing charges. Why? The police received a phone call from then-district attorney William Delahunt telling them to let her go. That would be the same William Delahunt who is currently a U.S. congressman from Massachusetts. Oh, and did I mention that all the files on the case are now mysteriously missing?
  3. Later that same Saturday, Congressmen Delahunt says he’s considering retiring. Strangely, the article announcing this in the Boston Globe makes absolutely no mention of Delahunt’s role in the still-hot Bishop case. As the Church lady would put it, “How con-ven-ient.” And did I mention that congressmen Delahunt gets an F from the NRA and a 100% rating from the gun control enthusiasts at the Brady Campaign? Not to mention his penchant for palling around with Hugo Chavez.

Following Scott Brown’s campaign victory, Delahunt was already considered vulnerable, but the timing on this seems just a little too convenient, don’t you think?

Then there’s this paragraph from that LA Times story about Bishop and her husband: “They were outspoken Northeastern liberals whose political yard signs stood out a little on their suburban lot.” If we were just discussing the Alabama shooting itself, i would call it dirty pool to bring that information up; I don’t think being a liberal makes you any more or less likely to become a spree killer; some people just snap, and politics has nothing to do with it. But I can’t help wondering whether politics may have played a role in her not being charged in 1986. Was she not charged because she, or more likely her relatives or friends, were somehow politically connected to Delahunt? Why is the case file missing, and who took it?

Why did William Delahunt let Amy Bishop get away with murder?

Updated: Belmont Club has more on the story, including links to the DA report in the comments sections, and critiques of same.

Debra Medina, Truther?

February 11th, 2010

For those not following the Texas Gubernatorial Race, Medina is the Republican Party candidate who’s not Rick Perry or Kay Bailey Hutchison. From what little I’ve seen and read about here, she’s comes across as a somewhat clumsy debater (forgivable), pretty Libertarian (good), but in a distinctly fringe-y way (bad). The way she went on about “State Sovereignty” (responding to questions where it clearly wasn’t applicable) in the one debate I saw made me think she wasn’t ready for prime time.

But now that it turns out that, if she’s not actually a 9/11 “Truther,” she’s at least sympathetic to their theories. (Wow, way to make people think Libertarians aren’t nuts. While you’re at it, why don’t you start ranting about how the State of Texas should stop taking little pieces of green paper and insist on being paid in gold the way another loony Libertarian candidate did a few election cycles ago?)

This will not do.

In theory, Texas Republicans should be enjoying a race between three candidates who are, by national standards, genuinely conservative. In practice, all three have some serious baggage.

I hope to talk in more detail about some of Perry and Hutchison’s baggage in a future post…

Assault Breacher Vehicle

February 11th, 2010

There was a Fark thread on the Assault Breacher Vehicle being used in Afghanistan, but the linked article failed to mention it was a modified M1 tank.

(I’m guessing that the submunitions shown at 3:15 are smoke grenades.)

Frozen Wasteland

February 10th, 2010

The banjo player is actually pretty good…

(Hat Tip: Todd H.)

Rep. Charles Wilson, RIP

February 10th, 2010

Texas Rep. Charles Wilson (D-Lufkin) has died. Wilson was famous for two things: 1.) A reputation for unbridled drinking, carousing and hijinks (probably including a little cocaine, though Wilson never came out and admitted it) that lead to him being nicknamed “Good Time Charlie”, and 2.) Being the biggest Democratic advocate of aid to the mujaheddin fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan. (This was back in the days when the phrase “conservative Democrat” wasn’t an oxymoron.) Wilson’s support was crucial in helping to defeat Soviet forces in Afghanistan, the blow-back from which in turn helped topple the Soviet Union. On such unlikely crucibles are evil empires broken.

Back when I was writing for The Texas Review in college, I met Wilson at room in the Texas state capitol, where some compatriots and I turned over a check to Wilson to support the mujaheddin efforts. (I’ve long since forgotten how much we gave him; it was probably some piddling sum like $200.) Wilson struck me as a bluff, sharp-minded good ole boy with the sort of tan that could have come from a Wagner Power Painter.

I haven’t read Charlie Wilson’s War (or seen the movie, for that matter), but Charlie Wilson was one of the few Democratic congressmen of the 1980s that actually had a hand in defeating communism.

Requiescat in pace.

How Did Civil Rights Leaders Stand Up to the Klan?

February 10th, 2010

Bravery, determination…and guns.

Rep. John P. Murtha, RIP

February 9th, 2010

Since I’ve slagged him fairly mercilessly in this space, I would be remiss not to mention the passing of Rep. John P. Murtha. Murtha served his country honorably in Vietnam, and then dishonorably in Congress, where he became the poster child for earmark corruption, doing everything in his power to steer pork patronage to his friends and relatives. The fate I wanted for Murtha was seeing him defeated and indicted, not dead. He’s now beyond the reach of any earthly justice, but the endemic congressional culture of cronyism and corruption he helped create and perpetuate survives him.

The Current Political Debate, in a Nutshell

February 6th, 2010

As I write, these are the top two stories listed on Real Clear Politics:

Blame the Childish, Ignorant American Public – Jacob Weisberg, Slate

Why Are Liberals So Condescending? – Gerard Alexander, Washington Post

If you put that in a novel, an editor would reject it as far too unsubtle to be realistic…

Zombie ObamaCare Still Lurching About Capitol Hill, Seeking Brains Votes

February 4th, 2010

You would have thought that Scott Brown’s election would have caused even the dimmest bulbs among Congressional Democrats to give up on showing ObamaCare down the throat of a nation violently opposed to it.

You’d be wrong.

Like some sort of ghastly, undead thing, ObamaCare has risen from the grave yet again, shambling mindlessly along the halls of congress, seeking trillions of taxpayer dollars and ever-more-elusive votes. In a way, this is the best possible result for Republicans. Instead of throwing ObamaCare to the hordes of rake-carrying peasants howling for their blood in November, Democrats seem determined to clasp the deformed beast to their bosoms in order to drag it over the finish line, even at the cost of their own (political) life. Indeed, they’re still scurrying around trying to protect their various backroom deals.

If you wanted to design the perfect storm for Republicans to retake control of the House and Senate this fall, you’d have them keep working on dragging ObamaCare across the finish line until right before the November election, when voters can do nationwide what they’ve already done in Massachusetts. Every day they keep trying to breathe life into the hdieous, undead thing brings us a step closer to that goal.

Left-Winger Rips Obama a New One

January 31st, 2010

Far left-winger David Michael Green gets positively medieval on Obama’s ass for incompetently ruining liberalism in America. Can’t say I agree with all his points, but it’s a tasty buffet of pull-quotes:

There’s only one political party in the entire world that is so inept, cowardly and bungling that it could manage to simultaneously lick the boots of Wall Street bankers and then get blamed by the voters for being flaming revolutionary socialists.

Obama and his colleagues have now managed to bring the future of the Democratic Party into question, just a year after it won two smashing victories in a row. Personally, I’m not real bothered by that. Today’s Democrats are, almost without exception, embarrassing hacks who deserved to get stomped a long time ago.

Barack Obama has now, in just a year’s time, become the single most inept president perhaps in all of American history, and certainly in my lifetime. Never has so much political advantage been pissed away so rapidly, and what’s more in the context of so much national urgency and crisis. It’s astonishing, really, to contemplate how much has been lost in a single year.

“[Obama has] let Congress ‘lead’ on nearly every issue, another surefire mistake. Instead of demanding that they pass real stimulus legislation – which would have really stimulated the economy, big-time, and right now – he let those dickheads on the Hill just load up a big pork party blivet of a bill with all the pet projects they could find, designed purely to benefit their personal standing with the voters at home, rather than to actually produce jobs for Americans. And on health care, his signature issue, he did the same thing. ‘You guys write it, and I’ll sign the check.’ Could there possibly be a greater prescription for failure than allowing a bunch of the most venal people on the planet to cobble together a 2,000 page monstrosity that entirely serves their interests and those of the people whose campaign bribes put them in office?”

I wouldn’t necessarily say to read the whole thing, as they’re the usual left-wring rant stuff in there as well (Dick Cheney, corporate dictatorship, fascist, blah blah blah), but it goes a long way to show that it’s not just the right and middle that have lost faith in Obama. Even the nutroots are starting to sour.

Hat Tip: Ron Smith of The Baltimore Sun