A Debate on the Constitution That Leftists Actually Won?

Actually, the left wins the Rand Paul CRA debate essentially by default. And if this Slowpoke cartoon is any indication, we've come to the point where for the left there's no meaningful distinction between liberty and equality in the United States today. But Dave Weigel, at the Bloggingheads clip, is right to indicate that it's not worth it for Rand Paul to appear on national TV to try to make the case for flaws in the contemporary civil rights regime. That's radioactive. But at the link Joan Walsh, who's been one of the left's biggest race baiters since Obambi came to office, concludes that if it's not Rand Paul's vision, what's the tea party all about? As noted previously, you'll be hearing this debate all the way through November, since racial recrimination is pretty much all the Democrats have:

Bill Cosby Jell-O Reunion

Stuff you find out when you follow Bill Cosby on Twitter: "Hello JELL-O! Bill Cosby and JELL-O Reunite to Bring about Smiles."

Does this post have a blogging niche? Pundit & Pundette? Jim Treacher? Sir Smitty?

Who knows? I just love Bill Cosby!

Angry James Carville Blasts Obama's Response to BP Oil Spill

Carville's always been a ballsy commentator, and he rips into Obama here, "'Political Stupidity': Democrat James Carville Slams Obama's Response to BP Oil Spill: Democratic Strategist Said White House Should've Acted Quickly, Taken Control of Situation":

GOP Senate Candidates Debate on John and Ken Show (May 25, 2010) – UPDATED!!

Attended the debate with Tom Campbell, Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore. John and Ken's announcement is here. And KFI AM 640's live media player is here.

Posting just a couple of snapshots for now. I've gotta run a quick errand and I'll update and revise into a full report later (lots of MSM outlets on hand, so I'm interested to see how they spin this):

UPDATE: Okay, back now. The top photo above shows Chuck DeVore and Tom Campbell waiting for the debate to begin. At the second Campbell chats with Carly Fiorina during one of the commercial breaks.

There's an AP report up at SF Chronicle, "GOP candidates for Senate debate for last time."

**********

I learned my lesson from John & Ken's Sheriff Arpaio show last month (small venue). I got over to the Ayers Hotel in Costa Mesa at about 12:30pm. Carly supporters had reserved the first half-dozen rows, but the cool John and Ken set-up guys told me to sit anywhere. Maeve Reston from the Los Angeles Times was seated near the front. I introduced myself. She was holding a seat for Robin Abcarian:

Ms. Reston has a surprising piece at today's LAT, by the way: "Conservatives Ramp Up Attacks on Campbell Over His Moderate Social Views."

I spoke with Ms. Abcarian when she arrived. I'm hoping it was off the record, since I didn't have too much supportive to say for Carly Fiorina (although I mentioned I'd support Fiorina if she wins the primary).

Here's Campbell just minutes before the debate began. All that you've heard about him --- amicable, contemplative, scholarly --- is true. Sitting in front, I quietly nodded hello and he nodded back:

John Kobylt opened the debate with a question on immigration for Carly Fiorina, seen here responding. She's got a standard line, "The federal government must do its job and secure the border." And there's not too much difference among the candidates on immigration and not too many sparks flew at this point.

DeVore's got rock-solid credentials on illegal immigration. He hammered Barbara Boxer and the Obama administration, charging the Democrats with the politics of amnesty. DeVore told the audience that in 2006 he "led the walkout" in the California Legislature against then-President Vicente Fox of Mexico.

That's John Kobylt below moderating the panel. Before wrapping up, he gave each candidate a minute to speak on their top issues. Earlier Carly Fiorina had come under fire from both Campbell and DeVore for her role in the 2008 financial bailout (she was 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain's top economic advisor). She spoke up vigorously in defense of active government action, arguing that the U.S. had to "get credit flowing." And she shifted to sloganeering when she suggested that "what we need in Washington is someone who understands how the economy works." She reiterated this point (with minor variations) for the remainder of her talk. And she concluded by rebutting DeVore's attack on her support in 2000 for California's Proposition 26, arguing that the measure would have made vital investments in state education modernization. [And see Robin Abcarian and Maeve Reston's surprisingly fair write-up below] Interestingly, Carly Fiorina reminds me of Hillary Clinton in 2008 --- like Clinton previously, Fiorina clearly adopts the (somewhat annoying and ultimately ruinous) stance of the putative frontrunner. Fiorina was cordial to those in the front rows, as well as John and Ken and the KFI crew, but again she's got that air of inevitability that's dangerous to have in electoral politics. That said, I came away impressed, despite Fiorina's long history as a gender-mongering RINO.

The room held at least 150 people not counting those standing at back. At the picture below, that's Diane DeVore leaning foward at right, in purple, talking to her daughters, "The DeVorettes." Also, right behind the DeVores is my good friend Frances Akhavi of Constitution and Country, a conservative interest group in Orange County.

Folks left pretty quickly, although the DeVores, O.C. locals, posed for pics with the platoon of conservative activists hoisting "Honk for Chuck" signs along Bristol Street :

See also Robin Abcarian and Maeve Reston, at LAT, "Republican candidates spar in U.S. Senate debate":

With two weeks to go until the June 8 primary, and more than one-third of Republican voters still undecided, the candidates were more willing to pull the gloves off than they were earlier this month when they met at the Museum of Tolerance for a more restrained debate.

This time, Campbell attacked Fiorina for her sparse voting record and questioned her party loyalty. DeVore pounded Fiorina for supporting a proposition that would have made it easier to pass school bonds. Fiorina chided Campbell for backing tax increases to help balance the state’s budget.

Campbell and DeVore also ganged up on Fiorina, whose spotty voting record has left her open to accusations of less-than-stellar citizenship. DeVore got in a two-fer when he noted that in 2000, while Fiorina was chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, she co-authored an op-ed with Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr calling for voters to pass Proposition 26, which would have changed one of the tenets of Proposition 13 by lowering the constitutional requirement to pass school bonds from a two-thirds vote to a simple majority of the electorate. “And you didn’t even bother voting in the election in which it was defeated narrowly!” he exclaimed.

Be sure to RTWT.

Mining Water? Environmentalist Attack Nestlé Bottled Water Operations

Man, this is getting to be something else.

Remember my post from the the other day, "Nestlé Knuckles Under to Greenpeace? Well, Those Enviro-Nazis Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!"?

Well, follow that up with this piece at WSJ, "Bottled Water Pits Nestlé vs. Greens":

CASCADE LOCKS, Oregon—In this idyllic town on the north slope of Mount Hood, an autopsy on three dead rainbow trout may play a role in Nestlé SA's efforts to reverse a deep slide in its bottled-water business.

Bottled water, which for years delivered double-digit growth for Nestlé, is under fire from environmentalists. They decry the energy used to transport it and the use of billions of plastic bottles, and oppose efforts to use new springs, citing concerns about water scarcity.

In Cascade Locks, Nestlé is trying to tap 100 million gallons of water annually for its Arrowhead water brand from a new spring—and keep the environmentalists happy, too. A key is proving that water drawn from the spring—which supplies a hatchery that raises Idaho Sockeye, an endangered species—can be replaced with municipal well water, with no harm to the fish.

Nestlé is running a one-year test here to raise 700 rainbow trout in a tank filled with well water. Worried that activists might sabotage the test, Nestlé put the 1,700-gallon tank under lock and added security cameras. Officials from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife monitor the fish's progress and are now autopsying the three that have died so far.

"We are accused of mining water, which would suggest we are depleting a resource," says Kim Jeffrey, chief executive of Nestlé's North American water business. "But instead, we take water in a sustainable way. The notion that we just take what we want is simply not factual."

The project is testament to Nestlé's determination to fix its bottled-water business. Its North American water sales fell to 4.4 billion Swiss francs, or $4.2 billion, in 2009, down 13% from 2007.

"Water is a category that gave us so many years of joy," Nestlé Chief Executive Paul Bulcke said in an interview. "And all of a sudden, it changes. That is what hurts."

Until 2007, bottled water was a dream business for Nestlé, whose brands include Pure Life, Poland Springs and Perrier. Per-capita consumption of bottled water in the U.S. soared to 29 gallons in 2007 from 16 gallons in 2000. A bottle of Nestlé's San Pellegrino water became a trendy statement of health consciousness.

Annual growth rates of Nestlé's U.S. water business topped 15% in the mid-2000s. By last year, it had 38% of the $10 billion U.S. bottled-water market, more than rivals Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. combined.

But the gusher has slowed the past two years as environmentalists have tried making bottled water a new cause. Some tony restaurants in Los Angeles and New York have conspicuously stopped offering bottled water. A slate of documentaries claims that water producers mislead the public about the virtues of bottled water compared to tap.

Nestlé's water sales have been hit badly by the economic downturn, as shoppers began seeing bottled water as an unnecessary luxury, turning to cheaper tap water instead. Moreover, consumers who still wanted bottled water began buying some of the slew of cheaper new private-label brands that supermarkets have launched over the last couple of years. In response, Nestlé has been pushing Pure Life, a lower-priced water that comes from purified municipal sources.

Bottlers say bottled water represents a small share of water use and is typically tapped in a sustainable way, a view backed by independent hydrologists. But the attacks hurt.

In 2007, one group launched a campaign called "Lying in Advertising." One poster read: "Bottled Water Causes Blindness in Puppies," with a tagline reading, "If bottled-water companies can lie, we can too." And now, a Congressional bill that would slap a 4% tax on bottled water to pay for upgrades of municipal water systems is gaining fresh attention, after a rupture in a water main left two million Boston residents without drinkable water in May.

Nestlé has been a favorite target of activists since the 1970s, when it encountered tough criticism of how it marketed baby formula to poor mothers in underdeveloped countries. Its role as leader of the U.S. bottled-water market and the fact that it taps springs in often-pristine rural areas has exposed it to particular criticism from opponents of bottled water.

Some 80% of Nestlé's bottled water is from springs, while the rest is purified municipal water. Coke and Pepsi's bottled water brands largely come from purified municipal sources.

Last fall, Nestlé threw in the towel on plans to tap one glacier-fed spring in Northern California after a six-year battle. Nestlé waged a six-year court case to carry on using a spring in Michigan, reaching a settlement last summer. In October, it gained approval to tap a Colorado source, after agreeing to 44 conditions.

Now, in Cascade Locks, Nestlé is fighting environmentalists' opposition to its plan to draw water from a spring in this 1,100-person town.

Video: The introduction from "Flow: For the Love of Water."

RELATED: At OregonLive, "Campaign launched against Nestle Waters proposed Cascade Locks plant."

Twitter People Power: With a Price Tag – #Bloggers #WebDevelopers

Couple of related and significant news items:

At USA Today, "Twitter power: Learning from ourselves, in real time":

Once derided as a peddler of infantile missives ("My latte is cold!"), the service has revealed itself to be an accurate barometer of mass culture. Today, if something isn't tweeted, did it happen?

"Twitter has become the world's water cooler," says Adam Ostrow, editor of the social media blog Mashable. "It's a place where you can hear what millions are saying and feel, unbiased and in that moment."

Celebrities were among the first to recognize Twitter's connective power: Former American Idoljudge Paula Abdul abdicated her seat in a tweet to fans, and singer Erykah Badu tweeted right through her youngest daughter's birth.

Now devotees range from CEOs to average Joes, all chatting in a digital town square with the power to aid Haiti with an avalanche of donation pledges or make 16-year-old pop phenom Justin Bieber a global sensation.

And perhaps in the ultimate crowning of the medium, William Shatner will play the father in a CBS sitcom based on the real-life Twitter feed of Justin Halpern, who tweets out his dad's rants to 1.3 million followers. Shatner announced the news on Twitter, of course.

With this wacky soup of meaningful and mundane info, it's no wonder the Library of Congress plans to archive all the world's tweets. The transfer of data is about six months off as the library assembles a staff to curate and disseminate the information largely to scholars, library spokesman Matt Raymond says.

"It's about having a record of what both the first-person participants in history and its spectators were saying," Raymond says. "Wouldn't it be amazing to have the broad and immediate reaction of people to Pearl Harbor?"

No question. But for most people, Twitter's charm is the way it cuts to the social media chase.

More at the link.

But what's more interesting is the related news on Twitter's shift to monetization, which could affect big bloggers as well as tiny Internet advertisers. See, PC World, "Twitter Gets Serious About Getting Paid," and especially, All Things Digital, "Twitter’s Free Love Era Comes to an End: Time for Developers and Publishers to Pay Up":

So is Twitter only interested in really big publishers who use Twitter? Not necessarily. I asked Costolo about the Huffington Post, which has prominently embraced Twitter and uses it frequently to fill out its pages. Like this Twitter widget under a grisly story about a gored bullfighter (careful!).

That’s probably fine, Costolo said. But what about Huffpo’s “Twitter editions,” which are primarily made up of tweets? I’ve asked Costolo about those in a follow-up email, but haven’t heard back yet. My gut: He’s not sure yet. Which is going to make for lots of interesting conversations in the coming weeks and months.

For all it's fancy left-wing pedigree, HuffPo's still basically a blog – and big outfits like that will be paying percentages on the revenue they make off Twitter.

RELATED: Follow American Power on Twitter.

Nikki Haley Claims No 'Inappropriate Relationship' With Blogger, But Dials Up Sarah Palin in New 'Family Values' Campaign Spot Anyway

CNN's got the background to this Nikki Haley ad buy:

Nikki Haley: I am a woman who understands that through the grace of God all things are possible. Nikki Haley: It's no longer about electing Republicans, it's about electing conservatives. Nikki Haley: We need fresh faces, fresh voices, and fresh ideas working for the people of this state, not the power of the legislature. Announcer: Nikki Haley supporter, Governor Sarah Palin. Gov. Sarah Palin: A strong pro-family, pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-development, conservative reformer, your next governor, Nikki Haley.

RELATED: At Fit News, "Cell, Email Records Could Solve 'Haley-gate'."

The False Religion of Mideast Peace

Aaron David Miller at Foreign Policy:

Like all religions, the peace process has developed a dogmatic creed, with immutable first principles. Over the last two decades, I wrote them hundreds of times to my bosses in the upper echelons of the State Department and the White House; they were a catechism we all could recite by heart. First, pursuit of a comprehensive peace was a core, if not the core, U.S. interest in the region, and achieving it offered the only sure way to protect U.S. interests; second, peace could be achieved, but only through a serious negotiating process based on trading land for peace; and third, only America could help the Arabs and Israelis bring that peace to fruition.

As befitting a religious doctrine, there was little nuance. And while not everyone became a convert (Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush willfully pursued other Middle East priorities, though each would succumb at one point, if only with initiatives that reflected, to their critics, varying degrees of too little, too late), the exceptions have mostly proved the rule. The iron triangle that drove Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and now Barack Obama to accord the Arab-Israeli issue such high priority has turned out to be both durable and bipartisan. Embraced by the high priests of the national security temple, including State Department veterans like myself, intelligence analysts, and most U.S. foreign-policy mandarins outside government, these tenets endured and prospered even while the realities on which they were based had begun to change. If this wasn't the definition of real faith, one wonders what was.

That Obama, burdened by two wars elsewhere and the most severe economic crisis since the Great Depression, came out louder, harder, and faster on the Arab-Israeli issue than any of his predecessors was a remarkable testament to just how enduring that faith had become -- a faith he very publicly proclaimed while personally presiding over the announcement of George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy in an orchestrated ceremony at the State Department two days after his swearing-in.

At first, it seemed that Obama, the poster president for America's engagement with the world, had found a cause uniquely suited to his view of diplomacy, one whose importance had been heightened by his predecessor's neglect of the issue and the Arab and Muslim attachment to it. Even before the Gaza war exploded three weeks prior to his inauguration, Obama had been bombarded by experts sagely urging a renewed focus on Middle East peace as a way to regain American prestige and credibility after the trauma of the Bush years. The new president soon hit the Arab media running as a kind of empathizer-in-chief, ratcheting up expectations even as Israelis increasingly found him tone-deaf to their needs.

Obama surrounded himself with key figures, such as chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who believed deeply in the peace religion. He named as his chief peacemaker Mitchell, a man with real stature and negotiating experience; and his national security advisor is James L. Jones, himself a former Middle East envoy who made the stunning pronouncement last year: "If there was one problem that I would recommend to the president" to solve, "this would be it."

All these veteran leaders were not only believers, but had extra reason to encourage a tougher line toward Israel; they had seen the Benjamin Netanyahu movie before and were determined not to let their chance at Middle East peace end the same way. In his first turn as prime minister in the 1990s, the brash hard-liner Netanyahu had driven Bill Clinton crazy. (I remember being briefed on their first meeting in 1996, after which the president growled: "Who's the fucking superpower here?") Confronted with Netanyahu again, Obama and his team needed no encouragement to talk tough on the growing Israeli settlements in the West Bank, an issue that experts inside and outside government were clamoring for Obama to raise as the first step in his renewed push for peace.

At the time, it looked to be a magical convergence of leader and moment: The Arab-Israeli issue seemed perfectly suited to Obama's transformational objectives and his transactional style. If Obama wanted to begin "remaking America," why not try to remake the troubled politics of peace, too? After all, this was the engagement president, who believed deeply in the power of negotiations.

A great piece.

But what are the prospect? Well, be sure to RTWT, at the link.

(And here's a hint: "In the spring of 2010 we're nowhere near a breakthough, and yet we're in the middle of a major rift with the Israelis. Unless we achieve a big concession, we will be perceived to have backed down again.")

But never to give up, see Barbara Slavin, "U.S. to set deadline for Middle East peace."

Chuck DeVore Running Strong in GOP Senate Primary

From Chuck DeVore on Twitter:

Just saw our Tom McClintock endorsement commercial on Sacramento's Fox affiliate. #CASen #tcot #sgp

Plus, DeVore on 24:

Ask yourself this question, Jack Bauer fans: which person would Jack want as his U.S. Senator? Barbara Boxer, a Guantanamo-closing, tax-raising, big-government-growing ultra-liberal who reads Miranda rights to foreign terrorists? Or Chuck DeVore, a U.S. Army Reserve intelligence officer who likes Guantanamo Bay as it is, thinks foreign terrorists should have an interrogator - not a lawyer, and supports lower taxes and smaller government?

He also mows his own lawn and can throw a mean hand grenade.
We know the answer to that question.

Vote for Chuck DeVore and give California a U.S. Senator that Jack Bauer can be proud of.

And at Desert Conservative:

Dear Fellow Patriot,

The latest PPIC poll is out and shows Carly Fiorina with 25%, Tom Campbell with 23%, and Chuck DeVore with 16%. The margin of error is +/-5%.

The previous PPIC poll showed Fiorina with 24%, Campbell with 23%, and DeVore with 8%.

Here’s what you need to know:

• Chuck DeVore has doubled his support from the last PPIC poll — and he’s within the margin of error of the front-runner.
• The distance from the first to third is narrowed into the single digits — ground easily covered by Election Day.
• As in every poll of this year, Campbell’s numbers are static.
• This poll was taken after Fiorina’s big endorsements, and after the launch of her massive media blitz. All that got her a single point.

Erick Erickson from RedState.com has the best analysis out there! We provide the entire post below.

It is Not Chuck DeVore Who Must Drop Out. Carly Fiorina Must Go.
read online here

The myth in the California Senate race is that Tom Campbell has corralled the moderate/left votes, and Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore are splitting the conservative vote between them. In this myth, DeVore, as the lower-polling candidate, functions as a “spoiler” for Fiorina — who would otherwise win with a united conservative base behind her.

As with all myths, this one is wholly false.

Of the major polls taken on CA-Sen in the past 90 days, only five of them explicitly polled on ideological identification: Rasmussen, two SurveyUSA polls, LAT/USC, and Field. A survey of those five polls reveals the following:

1) The ideological breakdowns among the CA-Sen candidates broadly follow the overall polling breakdowns.

2) Tom Campbell, contrary to myth, has his base in self-identified conservatives, and leads among them — even in categories in which he is antagonistic toward the ideological position, such as pro-lifers and gun owners.

3) There is little evidence of movement from one candidate to another, and hence of any “spoiler” role. The only such evidence is found in the SurveyUSA polls, in which Fiorina losses are almost exactly matched by DeVore gains; if sustained in other data sets, this arguably makes Fiorina a “spoiler” for DeVore, but not vice-versa.

The bottom line is that the DeVore-as-spoiler myth is a falsehood perpetrated by an increasingly worried and anxious Fiorina campaign that is already seeking to cast blame for its failures on third parties. There is no data to support it.

You can help Chuck's campaign here.

RELATED: At News10 Sacramento, "Senate candidate Chuck DeVore defends expansion of offshore drilling."

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Black Firefighter Applicants

Los Angeles Times has a report, "Supreme Court backs black applicants in firefighter discrimination suit." And from New York Times, "Black Firefighters’ Claim Was Timely, Justices Say":

In a case that carried echoes of two of its most divisive decisions in recent years, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that black firefighters in Chicago did not miss a deadline to argue that the city used an employment test in a way that disproportionately hurt their chances.

The decision was reminiscent of one decided last year by a 5-to-4 vote, Ricci v. DeStefano. There, the court ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven claiming race discrimination.

Monday’s decision also touched on issues at the core of a 5-to-4 decision from 2007, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. In that case, the court ruled against Lilly M. Ledbetter, saying she had not filed her pay discrimination suit soon enough. (Congress effectively reversed that ruling, though not in a way that affected the Chicago case.)

This time, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a unanimous court. The facts of the case, a concession by Chicago and the text of the law at issue compelled a ruling in favor of the black firefighters, Justice Scalia wrote.

Further details at the link.

Judge Orders Drug Testing and Alcohol Monitoring for Lindsay Lohan

At Los Angeles Times, "Alcohol monitor placed on Lindsay Lohan at Beverly Hills courthouse":

A Los Angeles County judge Monday imposed a strict regime of drug testing and alcohol monitoring on actress Lindsay Lohan and said she will have to delay filming a movie in Texas because the checks must be done locally.

Judge Marsha N. Revel, at a hearing in Beverly Hills conducted because Lohan missed a mandatory court appearance last week, immediately forbade the actress from consuming alcohol, and ordered that she submit to random drug testing, attend alcohol-treatment classes weekly and wear an alcohol-testing device.

The 10-ounce ankle device, known as a secure continuous remote alcohol monitor, was put on Lohan at the courthouse.

Lohan missed an appearance in her probation hearing for driving under the influence because she said her passport had been stolen at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

At Monday's hearing, Lohan's lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley, told Revel the actress needed to travel to Texas to shoot a movie and wanted to submit to random alcohol testing there instead.

"She is going to have to delay that for now," Revel said. "The drug testing is going to be here."

Also at TMZ, "Judge to Lindsay Lohan - No Alcohol, No Drugs."

Rand Paul Interview at WHAS11 Louisville: Plus, Dems Turn Midterms Into 'Referendum on Rand Paul'

Here's the local media interview from the weekend, "Rand Paul Sits Down With Joe Arnold to Address Recent Controversial Statements" (via Memeorandum and HuffPo):

In the wake of the controversy that followed Paul's Wednesday night appearance on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, and subsequent interviews with other national networks, the Paul campaign has suspended interviews with national reporters, including canceling a planned appearance on NBC's Meet the Press. Referring to a live interview on ABC's Good Morning America on Friday morning, Paul said he "held my own against (George) Stephanapolous."

Paul said one lesson learned from the MSNBC experience is "I need to be very careful about going on certain networks that seem to have a bias. Because it really wasn't the interview so much that was unfair. The interview I think was very fair. But then they went on a whole day repeating something over and over again. It makes me less inclined to go on a network."

More at the link.

Paul's naivety is cringe worthy, although his decision to hold off a bit on national media interviews is a winner. It's time to get that campaign organization up to world class standards, you think?

Meanwhile, the netroots radicals are turning the November midterms into "a referendum on Rand Paul" (and that's a real quotation). See Daily Kos, "SCANDAL! Rand Paul MUST return Neo-Nazi funds NOW and DENOUNCE Stormfront ..."

Sure, the post's from a Kos diarist, but the entire conservative movement is a dog-whistle for the KKK as far as the Democratic Media Industrial Complex is concerned. It's all they've got, frankly. For example, at the pedestrian Political Carnival blog, "White Supremacist Watch: Stormfront Funding Rand Paul."

See also Dan Gainor at Newsbusters, "Gainor on Fox & Friends – Rand Paul Attacks All About (2010) Race":

And Dan Gainor's analysis at Fox News, "The Media's New Villain -- Rand Paul."

Nikki Haley Denies Blogger Sex Rumors

The image is from Nikki Haley's Wikipedia entry, and looking over her biography, this is the kind of woman who speaks volumes to equal opportunity in the United States. And honestly, I have no clue as to the local happenings in South Carolina, but this is an extremely interesting story. Of course, she's a Republican woman who's endorsed by Sarah Palin, so that'll get you half way there. (Don't believe it? Well, "Caribou Barbie" at Daily Kos is hot on the trail ... and David Waldman follows up with, "South Carolina Gone Wild!"... no doubt Andrew Sullivan will be along shortly ...). Anyway, check "In S.C., ex-Sanford protege Nikki Haley denies affair with ex-Sanford press secretary":

South Carolina is in apparent need of chastity belts. Thousands of them. Unisex, and industrial strength.

Less than a year after Gov. Mark Sanford left for his hike on the Appalachian Trail, two of his former acolytes are in a public argument over whether they slept together.

One of them – the one who says nothing happened — is Nikki Haley, the Republican candidate for governor whose campaign has been surging since an endorsement by Sarah Palin. Jenny Sanford, former wife of the South Carolina governor, is also backing her – as is Georgia’s own Erick Erickson.

Today, in what was pitched as a protest against nefarious political maneuverings, former Mark Sanford press secretary Will Folks posted the following on his Web site, Fitsnews.com:

I have become the primary target of a group that will apparently stop at nothing to destroy the one S.C. gubernatorial candidate who, in my opinion, would most consistently advance the ideals I believe in. For those of you unfamiliar with the editorial bent of this website, the candidate I am referring to is S.C. Rep. Nikki Haley.

This network of operatives has made it abundantly clear that in the process of “taking down” Rep. Haley, they will also stop at nothing to humiliate me, destroy my family and take a sizable chunk out of the credibility this website has managed to amass for itself. Such is the blood sport of S.C. politics, I suppose – particularly in the wake of the scandal that consumed my former boss, Gov. Mark Sanford.

Specifically, within the last forty-eight hours several pieces of information which purportedly document a prior physical relationship between myself and Rep. Haley have begun to be leaked slowly, piece by piece, to members of the mainstream media. I am told that at least one story based upon this information will be published this week. Watching all of this unfold, I have become convinced that the gradual release of this information is deliberately designed to advance this story in the press while simultaneously forcing either evasive answers or denials on my part or on Nikki’s part.

I refuse to play that game. I refuse to have someone hold the political equivalent of a switch-blade in front of my face and just sit there and watch as they cut me to pieces.

The truth in this case is what it is. Several years ago, prior to my marriage, I had an inappropriate physical relationship with Nikki.

That’s it.

I will not be discussing the details of that relationship, nor will I be granting any additional interviews about it to members of the media beyond what I have already been compelled to confirm.

Additional information at the link. But see in particular, "Haley denies affair with blogger."

Plus, all the buzz at Memeorandum. And from R.S. McCain, "The Kind of Blog Post That You’re Thankful Someone Else Wrote."

Ali Fedotowsky is 'The Bachelorette'

She was my first pick last season to go with Jake, but the (faux?) teary drama at the end killed the magic for me. We'll see how it goes this time around, starting tonight:

Marx, Keynes, Pelosi

From William Kristol:

“It is all about a four-letter word: jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. We are all about jobs.”

—Nancy Pelosi, May 4, 2010

“We see [health care reform as] a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care. You won’t have to be job-locked.”

—Nancy Pelosi, speaking to musicians and artists
in Washington, D.C., May 15, 2010

The tension between these two statements runs through the left. Pelosi’s first statement recalls the Old Left, her second the New. The first is in the spirit of the mature Karl Marx (not to accuse Pelosi of being a Marxist!), while the second echoes the young Marx, who wrote in 1846: “As soon as the distribution of labor comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”

So which is it? Is progressivism all about providing good jobs at good pay? Or is it all about transcending the world of being “job-locked” in the name of creativity?

It’s all about both—as we can learn from John Maynard Keynes, who, halfway between the age of Marx and the era of Pelosi, wrote this in 1930:

When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals. We shall be able to rid ourselves of many of the pseudo-moral principles which have hag-ridden us for two hundred years, by which we have exalted some of the most distasteful of human qualities into the position of the highest virtues. We shall be able to afford to dare to assess the money-motive at its true value. The love of money as a possession—as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life—will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity. .  .  . But beware! The time for all this is not yet. For at least another hundred years we must pretend to ourselves and to everyone that fair is foul and foul is fair; for foul is useful and fair is not. Avarice and usury and precaution must be our gods for a little longer still. For only they can lead us out of the tunnel of economic necessity into daylight.

Keynes has given us a glimpse into the heart of modern progressivism: For now, progress requires a respect for work, for jobs, for economics. So the left embraces the use of government for economic ends. But ultimately all of this is for the sake of transcending “pseudo-moral principles” like precaution. So the left embraces big government while disdaining the need for self-government.

RTWT at the link.

Sarah Ferguson Caught on Video in $750K Bribery Scandal‎

I'm still shaking my head at this one. At Times of London, "Duchess of York caught in tabloid sting":

THE Duchess of York has been filmed in a newspaper sting apparently offering to sell access to her former husband Prince Andrew.

Sarah Ferguson is alleged to have asked for a $40,000 (£27,650) golden handshake in cash from a reporter posing as a representative of an Indian company and for £500,000 to be sent to her bank.

In return she is said to have promised an introduction to Prince Andrew, who works as an unpaid special representative for UK Trade & Investment, a government agency, saying: “Look after me and he’ll look after you . . . you’ll get it back tenfold. I can open any door you want.”

There is no suggestion that Prince Andrew was ever aware of the meetings or the claims said to have been made by the duchess.

Ferguson, 50, whose American promotions company Hartmoor folded with debts of £650,000 last October, is also reported as saying: “I could bring you great business. I’d like to think that if I, for example, if I introduced you to . . . Andrew, for example . . . and he opened up doors for you which you would never possibly do. Then, depending if it was a very big deal with, I don’t know, I can’t imagine, then each deal you and I discuss the percentage of it.”

More at the link.

But it's News of the World that worked the sting. See, "CASH FOR ROYAL ACCESS SENSATION: 'Andrew said to me: 'Tell him £500,000'. Look after me and he'll look after you'; Desperate Fergie lies to make money out of Prince."

Sarah Palin on Barack Obama's BP Cash Pipeline: Deep Water Horizon Gulf Spill Cover-Up?

Via Memeorandum, Elizabeth Williamson and Victoria McGrane write:

Since 1990, oil and gas companies have donated $238.7 million to candidates and parties, with 75% of the money going to Republicans.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” couldn’t resist weighing in. “Well, Sarah Palin was involved in that election, but I don’t think apparently was paying a whole lot of attention,” Gibbs said. “I’m almost sure that the oil companies don’t consider the Obama administration a huge ally. We proposed a windfall profits tax when they jacked their oil prices up to charge more for gasoline.

“My suggestion to Sarah Palin would be to get slightly more informed as to what’s going on in and around oil drilling in this country.”

Yeah. Right.

WSJ is looking at industry totals overall, while the key issue is British Petroleum's inside graft with this administration:

Now, if this was President Bush or if this were a Republican in office who hadn't received as much support even as President Obama has from B.P. and other oil companies, you know the mainstream media would be all over his case in terms of asking questions why the administration didn't get in there, didn't get in there and make sure that the regulatory agencies were doing what they were doing with the oversight to make sure that things like this don't happen.

And as it turns out, Palin's obviously been doing her homework. See Politico, "Obama biggest recipient of BP cash":

While the BP oil geyser pumps millions of gallons of petroleum into the Gulf of Mexico, President Barack Obama and members of Congress may have to answer for the millions in campaign contributions they’ve taken from the oil and gas giant over the years.

BP and its employees have given more than $3.5 million to federal candidates over the past 20 years, with the largest chunk of their money going to Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Donations come from a mix of employees and the company’s political action committees — $2.89 million flowed to campaigns from BP-related PACs and about $638,000 came from individuals.

On top of that, the oil giant has spent millions each year on lobbying — including $15.9 million last year alone — as it has tried to influence energy policy.

During his time in the Senate and while running for president, Obama received a total of $77,051 from the oil giant and is the top recipient of BP PAC and individual money over the past 20 years, according to financial disclosure records.

And this is the quote everyone's citing, from CRP:

During the 2008 election cycle, individuals and political action committees associated with BP — a Center for Responsive Politics’ “heavy hitter” — contributed half a million dollars to federal candidates. About 40 percent of these donations went to Democrats. The top recipient of BP-related donations during the 2008 cycle was President Barack Obama himself, who collected $71,000.

But Oil Price Weekly Intelligence Report, a petroleum industry newsletter, indicates a broader influence-peddling conspiracy, "The Cover-up: BP's Crude Politics and the Looming Environmental Mega-Disaster":

WMR has been informed by sources in the US Army Corps of Engineers, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Florida Department of Environmental Protection that the Obama White House and British Petroleum (BP), which pumped $71,000 into Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign -- more than John McCain or Hillary Clinton, are covering up the magnitude of the volcanic-level oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and working together to limit BP's liability for damage caused by what can be called a "mega-disaster."

Obama and his senior White House staff, as well as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, are working with BP's chief executive officer Tony Hayward on legislation that would raise the cap on liability for damage claims from those affected by the oil disaster from $75 million to $10 billion. However, WMR's federal and Gulf state sources are reporting the disaster has the real potential cost of at least $1 trillion. Critics of the deal being worked out between Obama and Hayward point out that $10 billion is a mere drop in the bucket for a trillion dollar disaster but also note that BP, if its assets were nationalized, could fetch almost a trillion dollars for compensation purposes. There is talk in some government circles, including FEMA, of the need to nationalize BP in order to compensate those who will ultimately be affected by the worst oil disaster in the history of the world ....

The Obama administration also conspired with BP to fudge the extent of the oil leak, according to our federal and state sources. After the oil rig exploded and sank, the government stated that 42,000 gallons per day was gushing from the seabed chasm. Five days later, the federal government upped the leakage to 210,000 gallons a day.

However, WMR has been informed that submersibles that are monitoring the escaping oil from the Gulf seabed are viewing television pictures of what is a "volcanic-like" eruption of oil. Moreover, when the Army Corps of Engineers first attempted to obtain NASA imagery of the Gulf oil slick -- which is larger than that being reported by the media -- it was turned down. However, National Geographic managed to obtain the satellite imagery shots of the extent of the disaster and posted them on their web site.

There is other satellite imagery being withheld by the Obama administration that shows what lies under the gaping chasm spewing oil at an ever-alarming rate is a cavern estimated to be around the size of Mount Everest. This information has been given an almost national security-level classification to keep it from the public, according to our sources.

Rand Paul's Constitution

At WSJ:

A Senate campaign is not a libertarian seminar, a lesson that Kentucky Republican Rand Paul has learned the hard way since his primary victory on Tuesday. He has now renounced the doubts he expressed last week about some parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and has declared the matter closed. But before we move on, it's important to understand why Mr. Paul was wrong even on his own libertarian terms.

In his acceptance remarks on Tuesday night, Mr. Paul sounded mainstream conservative themes on spending, taxes and the reckless expansion of state power. But in his first brush with national scrutiny, the eye doctor let himself be drawn into a debate over the landmark 46-year-old law. Some conservatives want to blame liberal journalists for asking the questions, but Mr. Paul agreed to appear on MSNBC, and such queries were predictable given the liberal stereotype that all conservatives are secretly racists.

Mr. Paul then handed his opponents a sword by saying that while he favored the civil rights statute's ban on public discrimination, he thought it was mistaken to prohibit private bias. Asked if a restaurant should be able to refuse service to blacks, Mr. Paul was at first evasive but eventually replied, "Yes."

Even if Mr. Paul was speaking out of a principled belief in the rights of voluntary association, he was wrong on the Constitutional and historic merits. The Civil Rights Act of 1964—and its companion laws, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965—were designed to address abuses of state and local government power. The Jim Crow laws that sprang up in the South after Reconstruction and prevailed for nearly a century were not merely the result of voluntary association. Discrimination—public and private—was enforced by police power and often by violence.

In parts of the mid-20th-century South, black men were lynched, fire hoses and vicious dogs were turned on children, and churches were bombed with worshippers inside. By some accounts, two-thirds of the Birmingham, Alabama, police force in the early 1960s belonged to the Ku Klux Klan. State and local government officials simply refused to acknowledge the civil rights of blacks and had no intention of doing so unless outside power was brought to bear.

The federal laws of that era were necessary and legal interventions to remedy the unconstitutional infringement on individual rights by state and local governments. On Thursday Mr. Paul finally acknowledged this point when he told CNN, "I think there was an overriding problem in the South so big that it did require federal intervention."

There's more at the link, although while I mostly agree, I think it's more complicated, and because of that, Rand Paul and libertarians can't win (and thus shouldn't enter into those debates and then cry foul).

Brian Garst wrote a sharp essay on this at RWN this weekend:

The left has twisted this into a story about Rand Paul supporting racism, or possibly being racist himself. This is foolish nonsense, but it comports with the general erosion of serious thinking on the left. Discussions of constitutionality or the necessary trade-off with freedom that is made when people are not allowed to discriminate are verboten, and anyone who brings them up is reflexively labeled a racist.

We're all expected to bow our heads at the very mention of good-feeling government policies like the Civil Rights Act. Certainly we're all pleased to be living in a society in which discrimination is no longer a regular occurrence. But the idea that such is due primarily to government legislation, as opposed to changing social mores, is mistaken. Yes, the CRA did have a legitimate purpose and many constitutionally defensible parts. For instance, it prohibited racism in government run schooling and undid the Jim Crow laws. But that's just it. Those were laws. Laws are government. So when the New York Times says that "it was only government power that ... abolished Jim Crow," they are missing the forest for the trees. It was only the power of government that allowed Jim Crow in the first place. That's not an indictment of libertarianism. It's an indictment of government and proof that it poses a unique danger to our civil rights!

It is no indictment of libertarianism or small government to suggest that government was needed to overturn discriminatory government policy. Quite the opposite. It is affirmation of the views of Rand Paul and many others that it is government policy which most frequently threatens civil rights. It is discrimination of government which is both unconstitutional and cannot be tolerated. Discrimination by private citizens, while disagreeable, is neither. Private citizens are constitutionally allowed to discriminate, though of course other private citizens are free to condemn them for it. It is government which is prohibited, rightly, from discriminating. And it is primarily government discrimination which the Civil Rights Act dealt with.

Still, it's all about nuance, and on a subject like this, it's not going play well in 30-second attack ads.

RELATED: At Fox News, "Rand Paul is Learning What It's Like to Be Me, Says Sarah Palin" (via Memeorandum).

Nestlé Knuckles Under to Greenpeace? Well, Those Enviro-Nazis Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

Well, I guess there's some benefit to following Alyssa Milano on Twitter: She's a serious environmentalist. Here's her latest, for example, "Greenpeace Social Media Campaign Forces Nestlé To Stop Using Unsustainable Palm Oil."

Seriously. Here's Nestlé's press release, "Statement on deforestation and palm oil":

Nestlé views destruction of tropical rainforests and peatlands as one of the most serious environmental issues facing us today. It is estimated that rainforest destruction contributes to around 20% of carbon dioxide emissions – more than the entire transport sector. The growing use of biofuels is a serious factor in this destruction – which we have vigorously condemned.

At the recent Annual General Meeting our Chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe reinforced this position and repeated our support for a moratorium on the destruction of rainforests. He invited all concerned parties, including Greenpeace, to join this initiative.

That Greenpeace ad is gnarly, which begs the question, "Is it possible to avoid unsustainable palm oil?" Well, if they say so:

... really, why should we be driven to niche non-palm-oil products when sustainable palm oil is readily available? Yes, palm oil can be and is being grown sustainably. The global initiative that aims to bring together processors, manufacturers and NGOs known, as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), had certified enough plantations to produce 1.75m tonnes of sustainable palm oil midway through this year. The tragedy is that less than 15% of this sustainable oil has actually been sold.

Geez, this is interesting. And who knew? Help is on the way, "Palm Oil Guide to Candy & Snacks - October 2009" (via the Cheyenne Mountain Zoological Society in Colorado Springs).

And, well, I checked the guide (and then our pantry), and ... uh oh!

Wait! My wife says back off you Enviro-Nazi wackos! No way she's chucking those Ding Dongs!

And, oh, my kids are safe --- no palm oil in Nacho Cheese Doritos! What would we have done??!!

This:

Or this (cry, like Kramer):

And now that I think about it, what's in Alyssa Milano's cupboard!

Hey, that's a job for our crack investigative journalist R.S. McCain!

Hopefully I can get a retweet out all of this!

MA State Rep. Mike Moran – Tax & Spend Democrat, Pro-Abort, Pro-Gay Marriage, Pro-Undocumented Immigrant – Rear-Ended by Drunk Illegal Alien

Massachusetts State Rep. Michael J Moran was rear-ended by a 27 year-old illegal immigrant on Friday. Boston's Fox25 reports, "State Rep. in accident with suspected illegal immigrant."

I don't see any additional reports on Moran's condition, and my thoughts go out to him.

But according to the report:

The suspect, 27-year-old Isaias Naranjo, was charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, leaving the scene of an accident and driving without a valid license. According the report, when told of the serious charges he would be facing, he just laughed.

But because of action taken by Gov. Deval Patrick, state police were unable to notify immigration authorities that Naranjo might be illegal.

Three years ago, Patrick revoked an order by former governor Mitt Romney which gave state police power to investigate immigration violations.

The governor's aides are defending the measure, saying the department of correction can still pursue the violation.

The accident is bound to reverberate at the Statehouse where lawmakers just narrowly rejected a bill to crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Some folks are focusing on Governor Patrick, but this guy Moran is a number unto himself!

Checking Moran's legislative record at local news reports and Project Vote Smart, we see he voted to "delay indefinitely" a proposal to "require the state to verify that anyone over 18 who applies for state benefits is legally in Massachusetts":

The proposal would require a person seeking benefits to produce proof that he or she is here legally by providing either a valid Massachusetts driver's license or identification card, U.S. military card, Coast Guard Merchant Mariner card, military dependent’s identification card or Native American tribal document. Anyone who could not produce one of those documents would have the option to execute a notarized affidavit stating that he or she is a U.S. citizen or legal permanent resident or is otherwise lawfully present in the United States.

The measure provides many exemptions from the requirement and allows people who cannot produce the necessary identification to still receive emergency medical treatment, immunization and services such as soup kitchens, crisis counseling and intervention and short-term shelter.

Some supporters of the study said that the proposal is mean spirited and anti-immigrant and noted that many illegal immigrants are hardworking people who perform jobs that most Americans would not do. Others said that the House should gather information before making a rash decision and noted that this problem really should be solved on the federal level. Some argued that there are many legal immigrants who would find it difficult to produce the necessary documents.

Opponents of the study said that it is simply another example of a sneaky way for legislators to avoid a direct vote on the proposal itself.

Not only that, Moran voted in favor of "In State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrants"; to expand "Reproductive Health Clinic Buffer Zones"; for a "Cigarette Tax Increase" and "Sales Tax Increase"; and against a "Constitutional Amendment Defining Marriage" between a man and a woman.

Well at least the guy's consistent!

RELATED: From Washington State, "Investigators: Edmonds rape suspect deported nine times" (via Memeorandum and at JammieWearingFool).