California Conservative

Stuart Varney’s WSJ op-ed is must reading. Mr. Varney’s op-ed prominently includes Judge Napolitano’s story which I posted about here. Here’s what Mr. Varney wrote:

Here’s a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.

King Banaian notes here that TARP monies didn’t exclusively go to troubled banks: (more…)

Having been a victim of a racially corrupt judge and prosecutor, my heart goes out to Jesse Merrell.

After Federal Judge James Robertson dismissed his request for Barack Obama to prove his Hawaiian birth, Merrell shared his sentiments in writing with Judge Robertson:

“How dare people use a flimsy thing like the Constitution to darken your sanctimonious door!… The insane idea that a blue-gum baboon slashing our Constitution has to prove U.S. citizenship – as our silly old Constitution demands – is too absurd to consider in the sacred chambers of the tiny tin gods of the Potomac, adorning the royal purple and sipping Jim Jones Kool-Aid.

“Thanks to smug, slimy shysters like you, Obama gets a free ride – snootily stomping on our foolish Constitution, which supercilious idiots like you have long ago shredded for their own stupid opinions!”

Instead of celebrating Merrell’s First Amendment right, Judge Robertson dispatched US Marshall’s to Merrell’s home.

As a retired LAPD officer and licensed investigator, I’m skeptical of conspiracy theories. In this case, however, I’m confused by Obama’s apparent refusal or inability to present convincing proof of his American birth.

Birth certificates are not a new concept. When Helen Lim was born in San Francisco’s insular Chinatown in 1908, her certificate of live birth recorded the names and birth places of her parents, the attending physician, along with seals and signatures. Despite their humble beginnings, Elvis Presley’s parents were also able to secure a credible certificate.

Like Helen and Barack, I was born to parents who were born on other continents. Like Obama’s father, my mother was not a legal US resident. Like Helen, my parents were able to secure my birth certificate. While Helen and I can produce easily verifiable certificates, President Obama either cannot produce proof of his US birth, or refuses to.

Helen Lim and I were both born in California. Elvis was born in Mississippi. Were Hawaiian certificates different during the 1960s?

Apparently not. While this Hawaiian birth certificate has the same information found in my certificate, Obama’s certificate contains almost no useable or verifiable information. What clouds Obama’s birth even more is that subsequent public notices may have also been forged.

As a police officer and US Marine who once held a Top Secret security clearance, I understand the US Government’s concern about social unrest if Obama is removed from office for constitutional reasons. Obama has a much bigger profile than Rodney King – whose arrest ignited riots that cost Los Angeles residents $2 billion in damage and lost revenues. If Obama and the Democrat Party are found to have used fraud to elect America’s first foreign born US president, the LA riots could look polite by comparison.

As a career investigator, I can’t tell whether Obama was born in the United States or not. But as easy as it is for me, Helen, and Elvis to produce our own certificates, it’s hard to imagine why Obama would rather fight these lawsuits than produce his own verifiable birth certificate.

In this case, Jesse Merrell may have good reason to express contempt for Judge Robertson’s court. It’s also remarkable that Robertson would send Barney Fife to threaten Merrell with arrest for expressing his understandable (and apparently well-founded) contempt.

James Robertson may be a federal judge, but he has also sworn to protect and defend the US Constitution. Having failed in that responsibility, Jesse Merrell has a right to show as much contempt for Robertson’s court as Obama now shows to America’s citizens.

Because we couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

via: Domain Name Wire

I was playing out in the yard with my daughter this afternoon when I stepped in a pile of some dog’s poop.

I lost my cool, which is unusual for me. After cleaning off my shoes and regaining control, I asked myself why I lost my temper.

Then it hit me: I’m tired of people not taking responsibility. One of my neighbors wasn’t responsible and didn’t pick up after his dog. And I paid the price. All day, I had been reading about people being rewarded for not taking responsibility for their actions and how I was going to pay the price.

Just an hour earlier I read details of Obama’s homeowner bailout plan, paid for with my money. Obama claims that it will be cheaper for law abiding, mortgage-paying citizens like myself to bailout homeowners than to deal with the repercussions of foreclosed homes. He has a point, but he doesn’t address the long term affects of the homeowner bailout. It teaches our children the wrong lesson and creates moral hazard. Next time there’s a housing bubble and everyone’s buying more house than they can afford, you may as well jump in. The government will bail you out, anyway.

A couple weeks ago I talked to a real estate agent who told me how tough it has been lately. He bought three investment houses at the peak of the bubble and is losing $500 a month on each house. He explained to me (without me asking) that his credit and reputation were important, so he was still paying the mortgages. It was as if he felt like he needed to make an excuse for being responsible instead of just dumping the houses on the bank. He’s probably had to answer questions from friends about why he cuts back on spending to keep current on his mortgages. “Why don’t you just drop the keys off at the bank?” He is taking responsibility for his own decisions, but that’s not in style right now. (more…)

Now they’ve decided to get involved by criticizing Gov. Palin’s building the natural gas pipeline:

When Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska took center stage at the Republican convention last week, she sought to burnish her executive credentials by telling how she had engineered the deal that jump-started a long-delayed gas pipeline project.

Stretching more than 1,700 miles, it would deliver natural gas from the North Slope of Alaska to the lower 48 states and be the largest private-sector infrastructure project on the continent.

“And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence,” said Ms. Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. “That pipeline, when the last section is laid and its valves are opened, will lead America one step farther away from dependence on dangerous foreign powers that do not have our interests at heart.”

Does the NY Times think that building a 1,700 mile pipeline is an overnight project? Or is it that they think that we’re too stupid to figure that out? Her point in highlighting the project was to highlight her ability to affect change despite entrenched powers opposed her. That’s what we’re hiring her to do. (more…)

“I think it is highly sexist to suggest that Sarah Palin cannot be a good mom and run for office,” said Kate Michelman, an adviser to Democrat Barack Obama.

Michelman, a premier advocate of abortion rights, faced a different form of sexism during the run-up to the Democrats’ primaries: MSNBC hardballer Chris Matthews asserted that she had abandoned her commitment to the women’s movement by backing Obama instead of Hillary Clinton. So much for the glass ceiling being broken.

Tribune journalist Salena Zito reports the full story.

Theres a lot floating around the web today concerning the media love affair with Sen. Barack Obama. While some think its a myth (e.g. the progressive site Think Progres). Well, Investors Business Daily took a look at the numbers, specifically donations to candidates by members of the media.

An analysis of federal records shows that the amount of money journalists contributed so far this election cycle favors Democrats by a 15:1 ratio over Republicans, with $225,563 going to Democrats, only $16,298 to Republicans .

Two-hundred thirty-five journalists donated to Democrats, just 20 gave to Republicans — a margin greater than 10-to-1. An even greater disparity, 20-to-1, exists between the number of journalists who donated to Barack Obama and John McCain.

Searches for other newsroom categories (reporters, correspondents, news editors, anchors, newspaper editors and publishers) produces 311 donors to Democrats to 30 donors to Republicans, a ratio of just over 10-to-1. In terms of money, $279,266 went to Dems, $20,709 to Republicans, a 14-to-1 ratio.
…
What is truly remarkable about the list is that, discounting contributions to Paul and Rudy Giuliani, who was a favorite son for many folks in the media, the totals look like this: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans (four individuals who donated to McCain).

Let me repeat: $315,533 to Democrats, $3,150 to Republicans — a ratio of 100-to-1. No bias there.

This should refute the “well, Obama’s just more newsworthy” line that many espouse to refute alleged bias.

Rasmussen polling shows that more people are beginning to recognize this bias. According to their polling, 49% of people believe the media is trying to help Senator Obama (up 5 points from last month), with 14% saying that the media will try to help Senator McCain (note that this polling occurred before the New York Times refused to print McCain’s op-ed). I’m not sure that these polling numbers reflect the 100:1 spending ration observed, but they do represent that the public is partially aware of the biased coverage.

Lastly, to highlight the disparity in media coverage, consider the following from the Wall Street Journal:

CNN interrupts a discussion of whether the media are in the tank for Obama for a news bulletin that Obama’s plane has landed safely–a dog-bites-man story if ever there was one.

You’ve got to be kidding me. This is over the top, and I hope Wolf Blitzer recognizes the irony here. During a discussion on the situation room about whether the media is biased towards Sen. Obama, they interrupted the story to provide coverage of “O Force One” landing. Blitzer followed the interruption with:

All right, Sen. Obama has just arrived at Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. And upon his arrival from Amman, Jordan, he made a brief statement, reaffirming his strong support for Israel.

Cross-Posted at The Gentle Cricket

When John F. Kerry writes an op-ed, fisking it is extremely easy. This time is no different. It doesn’t take long before spotting Senn. Kerry’s first false premise:

When Bush accused “some”, including Obama, Bush aides explained, of “the false comfort of appeasement,” McCain echoed this slander. “What does he want to talk about with [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad?” McCain asked, fumbling to link Obama to the Iranian president’s hateful words. Soon, a GOP talking point was born.

Lost in the rhetoric was the question America deserves to have answered: Why should we engage with Iran?

In short, not talking to Iran has failed. Miserably.

First off, people have talked with Iran. That’s what’s “failed. Miserably.” Secondly, we knkow that terrorists think that Americans are paper tigers. At least, they used to think that during the Clinton administration. They didn’t think twice during Jimmy Carter’s administration, either. Apparently, Sen. Kerry still hasn’t learned the principles behind the Reagan Principle.

The Reagan Principle is what I call President Reagan’s habit of not negotiating with evil empires until that evil empire was scared out of its wits. Sen. Kerry obviously didn’t remember that Reagan didn’t have a summit with the Soviets until his second term. Reagan’s not having a summit with the Soviets in his first term didn’t seem to turn out too badly. (more…)

Over at Politico, Roger Stein is speculating on McCain’s chances at winning California in November. His take is intriguing:

1. If McCain wins California in November, he almost certainly will become the next president of the United States.

The Democratic nominee would find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to get to 270 electoral votes and victory without California. Sure, the Democrat could theoretically make up for the loss of California (55 electoral votes) by winning both Texas (34) and Florida (27), but how likely is that? Not very.

As the late Lee Atwater, a major architect of George H.W. Bush’s victory in 1988, said, “I can win without California; they can’t, so I want it.”

2. Winning California is going to be very tough for McCain.

On the surface, McCain looks like a reasonably good match for California. He is a relatively moderate Republican, he is strong on the environment, he talks about low taxes and ending waste, he retains a somewhat maverick image, and he could be popular with independents. He is, broadly speaking, in the same mold as California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, who will campaign vigorously for him.

But there is a one big difference between Schwarzenegger and McCain, and it has enormous political implications: Schwarzenegger supports abortion rights and McCain does not.

3. Candidates who oppose abortion rights do not win California.

They don’t win at the state level, and they don’t win at the national level. The last presidential candidate who opposed abortion rights and won California was George H.W. Bush, and that was 20 years ago.

And since the Democratic nominee is sure to support abortion rights, McCain cannot win California, right? Not necessarily. He may have one slim chance to win California if Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee.

4. Obama favors giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants. McCain opposes it, and this could give McCain the state.

Giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants is unpopular in California. Schwarzenegger successfully exploited opposition to such driver’s licenses in both of his elections, and McCain would have a shot at winning California by exploiting it also.

Yes, it would be ironic for McCain, a moderate on immigration, to take a hard line on this issue, but politics often make people do ironic things.

Dan Schnur, who was McCain’s communications director in 2000 and is now a political strategist based in California, says the driver’s license issue could trump the abortion issue when it comes to McCain. ….

This could swing in two directions. On the one hand, abortion-rights people may recognize that it is somewhat unlikely that Roe be overtuned and decide to vote McCain for other re

There has been another school shooting tragedy with five innocent victims dead.

Pundits are asking how such a thing could happen … after all, Northern Illinois University was as gun free zone. So, many are renewing the call for increased gun control, despite its dismal record of failure.

Typical of such flawed and dishonest thinking was a column by Los Angeles Times columnist Tim Rutten in the Feb. 16 issue. After rehashing a recent series of shootings ranging from Kirkwood, Mo., to Chicago, to Louisiana Technical College, Rutten has fingered the villain — the National Rifle Association. He blames what he calls “Second Amendment fundamentalists,” pressuring politicians. If not for them, he reasons, effective gun control laws could be enacted.

Guns, he maintains, “…make the malicious, the malcontent, and the mad powerful.”

What he doesn’t say is that is that it makes the crazies powerful because they know their intended victims are disarmed and helpless.

That is the legacy of “gun free zones.”

Rutten does note is that 12 states — Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Washington — are considering legislation allowing students, faculty and staff with concealed-weapons permits to carry weapons on campus. He calls this, “social idiocy.”

What he doesn’t note is that other school shooting incidents were halted when armed faculty members or students confronted the shooters. Pearl High School in Mississippi and Virginia’s Appalachian School of Law are two such examples.

Academic study also supports the premise that concealed-carry deters such shootings. University of Chicago Professor John Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime” clearly shows the correlation. As for the mass shooters, Lott notes, “Such people may be deranged, but they still appear to care whether they themselves will be shot as they attempt to kill others.”

He based this conclusion in part on finding that states that adopted nondiscretionary concealed-carry laws between the years 1977-92 virtually eliminated public mass shootings.

The evidence, both academic and empirical, is clear — more gun control laws and creating “gun-free zones” guarantee mass shootings will continue; concealed carry permits will stop them.

But recognizing this involves a degree of intellectual honesty that Rutten and his ilk lack. To use Rutten’s own phrase, they persist in the “social idiocy” of denying simple truth.

In a town where jurors will give the benefit of the doubt to people like OJ, Phil Spector, Robert Blake, Cardinal Mahoney and Warren Christopher, I was surprised to read that an LA jury cleared the LAPD of being mean to Mitch Grobeson.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Grobeson, who calls himself Sergeant Mitch, was so preoccupied with his homosexuality that he negated his responsibility as a police officer to promote his personal activist gay agenda. Several gay LAPD officers told me how sick they were about his latest lawsuit against the LAPD, and how he had hurt the reputation and mainstreaming of gay officers.

During his failed career, Grobeson’s gay peers have performed their duties with steadfastness and quiet heroism. Some have been promoted to command positions. They got there not because they were gay, but because they were good cops. Conversely, Grobeson thought he deserved his badge and promotions because he was gay. In the end, even the jury disbelieved him by a wide margin.

Grobeson says he’ll appeal, but overturning a jury verdict is almost impossible. And unless he starts filing age-discrimination lawsuits against future employers, it’s not likely that he’ll darken LA’s doorstep any longer. No longer the gay blade, we can only hope that Mitch will devolve into the bitchy old queen he always was.