REFLECTIONS

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –

In this issue: 1. Journolist 2. Sherrod
3. Webb 4. Showers 5. Dealers 6. Roe

1. Journolist. Tucker Carlson and the Daily Caller got their hands on the gold mine of leftist journalism collusion. The period of time covered was the 2008 campaign and up to the present. Around 400 reporters, media people, editors and university journalism professors were members of an e-mail list serve called Journolist. Also present on the list were Obama campaign and current WH people. This list was the vehicle used to coordinate Obama talking points, attacks on opponents, and bury unflattering stories. The first set of e-mails published discussed how leftist media collusion managed to bury the explosive Jeremiah Wright story during the democrat primaries. It also demonstrated how the Obama campaign and leftist journalists conspired to paint every Obama critic as a racist. There were e-mails from a left coast professor calling for the feds to shut down Fox News. Apparently Freedom of Speech is like Freedom of Choice in that it is only available to leftists. Also released over the course of the last week were a series of e-mails demonstrating the coordinated assault on Sarah Palin after her selection as McCain’s running mate. By weeks’ end, e-mails discussing Palin’s youngest Down’s syndrome child Trig were released. These e-mails promise to do to the remaining credibility of the state run media what the CRU e-mails did to the notion of manmade global warming – utterly destroy it in the eyes of the general public. The 2008 election was rigged by the media, which went into the tank 100% in support of Obama and democrats nationwide. They have been carrying that water ever since. The striking thing about the e-mails was the level of petty nastiness, bullying, and preening by these wannabee professionals. Rumor has it that Journolist members have moved on to another private list serve. Perhaps this ought to be a lesson to everyone about e-mail. E-mails are forever. They are created and saved on multiple servers. Every single time a system is backed up, it creates yet another copy of the e-mails. And professional computer management requires LOTS of backups.

2. Sherrod. Within days after the NAA(L)CP passed a resolution that in essence called the Tea Parties racist, Andrew Breitbart released a video tape of a talk to NAA(L)CP by a USDA political appointee named Shirley Sherrod. Sherrod talked about discriminating against a poor white farmer because he was white. The dummies in the NAA(L)CP audience just sat there, nodding their heads in agreement at this revelation. The tape was intended to show that the NAA(L)CP was just as racist (perhaps more racist) as anything or anyone they have accused of racism in recent years. The video triggered an instant and panicked reaction out of the USDA, which fired Sherrod; the Obama WH which forced the USDA to fire her; and the NAA(L)CP which went into full CYA mode. As it turns out, the video was an edited version of her talk. Bretibart shortly obtained and released a more complete version of the video which showed Sherrod reconsidering her approach to the white farmer, and deciding that her personal animus toward the poor white farmer was due to his financial status rather than his race. Although the more complete tape shows something of a revelation by Sherrod, it demonstrates what a nasty, race baiting piece of work this political appointee is. She lives, eats, breathes and oozes race on a 24/7 basis. As the week wore on, the WH, USDA, NAA(L)CP all went after Breitbart via a new set of talking points. Sherrod is yet another of the pocket Marxists that seem to infest this administration. She was part of a cooperative of rural farmers in Georgia that won a $13 million judgment against the USDA the day before she was hired by the USDA. Details of that case and judgment are still not well known, but it smells a lot like the race-based shakedown of businesses spearheaded via the Community Reinvestment Act. Expect more from this story as it plays out.

3. Webb. James Webb (D, VA) of macaca fame is up for reelection in 2012. To date, he has been a reliable vote for Harry Reid and the Obama administration. As Virginia swings hard right, it looks like Webb is deciding to save his own sorry carcass before he ends up on the ash heap of history. He wrote an article in the WSJ calling for the end of race-based preferences and affirmative action programs. Like all democrats, talk is indeed cheap. Before writing the WSJ article last week, Webb was the single vote that passed the financial reform legislation that includes racial, sexual and diversity preferences in financial industry hiring. He voted for racial, sexual and diversity preferences in ObamaCare, and the stimulus legislation. Webb talks a good line. But he is just another democrat that does whatever he wants to do and expects the rest of us not to notice. Nice try, Jim. Good luck in 2012, you fraud.

4. Showers. Anyone else remember the pro-abortion and gay rights call for the government to get out our bedrooms? Well, from the same side of the ideological divide, we have the modern environmental movement, that believes it is perfectly acceptable to reach into your bathroom and regulate how much water a toilet can use per flush week. They believe it is perfectly acceptable to reach into your home and replace all your light bulbs with CFLs and LEDs. They are back yet again, this time with regulations that control what you can and cannot put into your shower. New luxury showerheads are becoming quite popular with some. They are large, expensive fixtures that use a tremendous amount of water. Folks that have them installed love them, as they are built into the walls and ceilings of showers. And that’s the rub, as the Department of Energy nannies believe they use too much water and are busily enforcing 20-year old regulations to outlaw their use in homes. PowerLine, Thurs.

5. Dealers. An audit released last week by TARP auditor Neil Barofsky found that the Obama regime takeover of GM and Chrysler needlessly destroyed tens to hundreds of thousands of jobs in dealerships that were shut down. The audit noted that the dealership shutdowns were not done via Chrysler’s or GM’s standing procedures on underperforming dealerships. There was not accountability. Nor was there any transparency in determining who was shut down and who was not. Essentially Rattner and the Obamaroids made it up as they went. In this same vein, there are also a number of civil rights complaints and lawsuits being filed against the Obama regime, GM and Chrysler by a number of dealers noting that dealerships that were minority or women owned, or were donors to democrat campaigns did quite well and were not shut down in nearly the numbers of those dealerships owned by white men or those that donated to conservative and / or Republican candidates. Hot Air, Tues.

6. Roe. A group of Mississippi citizens filed a class action suit against the feds calling for ObamaCare to be found unconstitutional. One of the legal precedents that ObamaCare violates is the privacy provisions underlying Roe v Wade. A NRO article from June 15 describes the logic behind the lawsuit. The following two paragraphs are from that article:

Privacy, like speech and assembly, is a fundamental constitutional right, according to Roe. Although the immediate issue in Roe was abortion, the Supreme Court’s decision created a broad “zone of privacy” that included not only abortion but more generally the right “to care for one’s health and person,” as Justice William O. Douglas stated in his concurring opinion.

In Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Court described Roe as a rule of “personal autonomy” that protects all “intimate and personal choices . . . central to personal dignity” in matters “fundamentally affecting a person.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has argued that abortion restrictions violate the constitutional principle that the law cannot treat a woman “as less than a full adult human responsible for her own choices.” Consistent with these broad principles, courts have held that the right to privacy includes, for example, the right to refuse medical treatment — even life-saving treatment — and the right to access acupuncture services.

Find the entire article at: National Review.

It will be most entertaining watching the leftists sitting on the SCOTUS squirm on the horns of their own personal dilemmas, attempting to uphold both Roe and ObamaCare. You can’t do both.

More later — AG

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the previous Town Hall Conservative group.