Reuters‘ report provides a complexity to the story that has been so sorely missing until now. Among other things, it calls into question the notion that white racism was the motivating factor in Martin’s shooting. That narrative was never entirely convincing, and not just because the mixed-race Zimmerman never fit into the media’s neat white-gunman-black-victim allegory. The New York Times‘ designation of Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” was only the most strained attempt to impose a racial framework on the shooting.

Reuters‘ report muddles the racial element even further. It points out that Zimmerman was not only half-Hispanic but he also had black roots, tracing back to his Afro-Peruvian great grandfather on his mother’s side. So far from harboring anti-black racial resentments, he appears to have sought out the company of black friends and colleagues. In 2004, for instance, Zimmerman, an insurance agent, teamed up with a black friend to start up an insurance office.

Even more significant, perhaps, Reuters’ report makes clear that much of the media has simply failed to present the context in which the shooting took place. Yet that context is critical to understanding, if not justifying, why the shooting happened as it did. One would never suspect if from most media accounts, but Zimmerman had good reason to be suspicious of an unknown young black man walking through his neighborhood – and racism had nothing to do with it.

“Three weeks ago our prosecution team promised those sweet parents [of Trayvon Martin] we would get answers to all of their questions, no matter where our quest for the truth led us,” special prosecutor Angela Corey told reporters in Jacksonville. “And it is that search for justice for Trayvon that has brought us to this night.”

It is far from clear what exactly transpired on that fateful February night in Sanford. At the same time it seems crystal clear that the original version of the story that painted a picture of a fanatical cop-wannabe who, without provocation, brutally gunned down a defenseless young man because he was African-American isn’t quite true.

At trial Zimmerman may be shown to be guilty of something. Lawyers say that for him to be convicted of murder in the second degree under Florida law it would have to be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant lacked the intent to kill but still acted in such a grossly reckless and negligent manner that the victim died. A jury could also take a pass on “Murder 2″ and convict Zimmerman of a lesser offense. Florida’s “stand your ground” law could come into play and complicate matters. The key issue seems to be whether Zimmerman was in the circumstances justified in using lethal force against Martin.

These matters are best decided in court and not in the streets. Yet U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder may have already joined the leftist lynch mob and reached his own verdict in the controversial case that, thanks to cheerleader journalism, has divided America. Holder, whose visceral contempt for conservatives is well documented, is the top law enforcement official who has single-mindedly focused on turning the Department of Justice into a postmodernist racial grievance incubator, as brilliantly demonstrated by former DOJ lawyer J. Christian Adams in his excellent book Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department.

While the department considers bringing federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman, the agency is “helping the state in its attempt to bring a case as well,” Holder told reporters at a DOJ press conference Wednesday. While Holder’s underlings burn the midnight oil to find a way to prosecute Zimmerman, the DOJ continues to maintain its eerie silence about the New Black Panther Party’s $10,000 “Wanted Dead or Alive” bounty on the accused man’s head. In Holder’s topsy-turvy worldview some Americans are more equal than others. The man has no stomach for offending black militants or any members of the Democratic Party coalition.

But as racial demagoguery related to the Martin killing inflames communities across the nation, it is telling that Holder took time out from his busy schedule yesterday to drop in on racial arsonist Al Sharpton, president of the Alinskyite “National Action Network” and host of MSNBC’s “Politics Nation.”

On the opening day of NAN’s 14th annual convention in the nation’s capital, Holder might as well have genuflected before Sharpton. The attorney general hailed the radical charlatan –who seems ready to execute Zimmerman with his bare hands— for “your partnership, your friendship, and your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill.” Holder clearly knows how to lay it on thick.

Thus, it was more than a little ironic that one day after former Black Panther Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL) was demonstrating “solidarity” with Trayvon Martin by donning a hoodie during a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives last Wednesday, 13 people were shot and two were killed in a single night of violence. The worst shooting of the night left one man dead and five others wounded. They ranged in age from 16-24, and they were victims of two men wearing hoodies, who opened fire inside a convenience store.

That shooting took place in Bobby Rush’s district. As of this writing, he has had nothing to say about that incident, of any of the others that took place in his own city. He did however do an ABC interview–wearing a hoodie and sunglasses–where he explained the reason for his mini-protest at the House. “It seems like the lives of black men in this nation are not given the same value as the life of others, and there’s something wrong with that,” said Rush.

Rush is absolutely right, but like so many others with an agenda, he manages to remain willfully oblivious to reality. Those who place less value on the lives of black men are overwhelmingly other black men: the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics found that between the years 2001 and 2005, nine-out-of-ten black murder victims were killed by other blacks. Seventy-five percent of those victims were killed with a gun. The DOJ also determined that homicide is the leading cause of death for black males between the ages of 15 and 34.

Unfortunately, Delric Miller IV will never even reach the low-end age of that disturbing age demographic. Delric was killed in February when a gunman brandishing an AK-47 pumped 37 bullets into his home on the west side of Detroit Michigan. “Again, adult behavior has brought another child in Detroit to an end,” said Police Chief Ralph Godbee at a press conference. “It’s actually amazing that more people in that house were not killed. There’s no question about it. This is gang-related,” he added.

Delric was nine months old.

Both this shooting and the one in Miami reveal another unpleasant and rarely-talked about reality behind much of the violence that afflicts black America. Much of the killing is senseless. According to police, the Miami funeral turned into a shooting gallery because someone at the wake touched Morvin Andre’s body in a way deemed disrespectful by other gang members in attendance. This “disrespect” triggered an argument that triggered the shooting. Delric Miller’s death was purportedly the result of his mother, Diamond Salter, getting into an argument with another women over limited seating at a baby shower. “The shower was overbooked, and there was an argument because there weren’t enough seats,” Cynthia Wilkins, Delric’s grandmother told the Detroit News. Ms. Salter was followed home by a group of men and women, one of whom is believed to have perpetrated the shooting at 4:30 a.m. the next day.

Two other killings make even less sense. Twelve-year-old Kade’jah Davis was killed in Detroit when a gunman fired shots into her home — allegedly as a result of a dispute over a cell phone. In the same city, 17-year-old Je’Rean Blake was killed when a man on a moped allegedly didn’t like the look on Blake’s face. The man returned with a gun and sprayed bullets into a crowd, killing Blake in the process.

Such is the “value of life” as it is measured far too many times within black American communities. In Philadelphia, according to statistics from the Philadelphia PD, 75 percent of 324 victims killed last year were black men, 80 percent of whom were killed by black males. In the first three months of this year, Chicago, the city with the highest murder rate in the nation, has been victimized by 114 homicides, a 35 percent increase compared to the same period last year. In New York City, 83 percent of all gun assailants were black during the first six months of 2008. Overall, the homicide rate for black men between the ages of 18 and 24 is well over ten times that of whites. And lest anyone think that such killing is equally divided among the races, completed law-enforcement investigations in 2009 reveal that 352 blacks were killed by known whites–a category that includes Latinos–while 4,094 blacks were killed by other blacks, according to FBI data.

Should high school kids be walking around with their underwear showing and their pants sagging? No, of course not. It makes them look like trash or idiots, or more accurately, idiotic trash.

That being said, why is that the government’s business?

Seems the best way to sell legislation these days is that it’ll be good for the economy. That’s how Rep. Hazelle Rogers (D-Lauderhill) pitched her so-called “sagging pants” bill to members of the House’s K-20 education innovation subcommittee today.

“This pro-family, pro-education, pro-jobs bill provides each school district … adopt a student dress code of conduct, a policy that explains to each student their responsibility,” she said. “This would make for a better school district and more productive students.”

The bill passed the subcommittee unanimously.

Rogers’ bill doesn’t actually use the words “sagging pants.” But it requires school districts adopt a dress code that prohibits students from “wearing clothing that exposes underwear or body parts in an indecent or vulgar manner.” Penalties include verbal warning and a call to parents for the first offense; ineligibility for extracurricular activities for up to five days on the second offense and in-school suspension on the third offense.

House staffers did, however, provide a brief history of sagging pants in a bill analysis: “Although no rigidly academic analysis of the history of ‘sagging’ has yet been conducted, it is commonly thought that ‘sagging’ originated in prisons where belts are not issued because they may be used to commit suicide or used as weapons. The lack of belts combined with loose, ill-fitting pants result in pants falling below the waist.

Similar legislation went nowhere last year. A Senate bill with the same language was scheduled to make its last committee stop today. The NAACP Florida State Conference released a statement today calling the Senate bill a waste of time that could have a negative impact on young black males. Rogers and the sponsor of the Senate bill, Sen. Gary Siplin (D-Orlando), are both black.

…One committee member, Rep. Kathleen Passidomo (R-Naples) said she’d read recently a horrible story out of Texas about the rape of a young girl.

“There was an article about an 11 year old girl who was gangraped in Texas by 18 young men because she was dressed like a 21-year-old prostitute,” she said. “And her parents let her attend school like that. And I think it’s incumbent upon us to create some areas where students can be safe in school and show up in proper attire so what happened in Texas doesn’t happen to our students.”

No one commented on that line of reasoning.

What stupider? Kids wearing saggy pants or the comments from that article?

Continue reading at Right Wing News.

(Photo courtesy Pamela Geller, who has many more here.)

They started showing up long before the rally began at noon today. They came from Washington state, California, Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, South Carolina, Florida, and elsewhere. They were Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, atheists, Muslims of conscience. They were lovers of freedom.

An hour before the rally began, they numbered 1,000. Zuccotti Park's owners sided with the Islamic supremacists and withdrew their permit to allow us to gather there, and so the police repeatedly requested that people leave the park and move into the pens that the police had set up at Church and Liberty streets. Before noon, however, the pens were full -- and so, with free citizens having every legal right to be in the park, the park became a site for the rally despite the best efforts of its clueless dhimmi owners.

By the time the rally was in full swing, the crowd filled the pens, the park, and the other side of the street. Police estimated that 5,000 people were there, and other estimates ranged as high as 10,000. The crowd carried signs expressing their love for freedom, their contempt for Sharia, and their anger at Islamic supremacism and insult to the memories of those murdered on 9/11 that this mosque represents.

And we had a full spectrum of top quality speakers. There were 9/11 family members, including C. Lee Hanson, who lost his son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter on 9/11. There were people who experienced the oppression of Sharia firsthand, such as the Egyptian ex-Muslim Nonie Darwish, the Sudanese ex-slave Simon Deng, and the Hindu human rights activist Babu Suseelan. There was Dennis McKenna, who worked recovering remains from the ruins of the World Trade Center; Alan T. DeVona, the patrol sergeant on duty on September 11, 2001; and Keith LeBow, an ironworker who was one of the first responders on the scene on September 11. There was Herb London of the Hudson Institute and Beverly Carlson of the Band of Mothers -- and a host of other speakers, all lovers of America and lovers of freedom.

The theme among all the speakers was common: the mosque is an insult to the Americans who were murdered there. It is a manifestation of a radically intolerant belief system that is incompatible with the freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. And even with all the political elites against us, and the mainstream media indifferent or compromised (5,000 to 10,000 people at the rally, and no mainstream media coverage!), we will prevail. All we have on our side is the truth.

Pamela Geller did interviews with Al-Jazeera, AP, Chilean television, Italian television and many others; I was interviewed by Italian television and TV Asia. ABC? NBC? CBS? CNN? Even FOX? AWOL.

And the truth is powerful. The forecast had called for rain, but it didn't start raining in New York until after the rally had broken up. Many took it as a sign that we represented the cause of right and justice. And even with all the indifference of the politicians and the media, we sent a signal today: we will not let this injustice stand. We will be rallying again in September, and again when construction begins on the mega-mosque. We will be filing suit against the Federal Government, asking that the Burlington Coat Factory site where the mega-mosque is going to be built be designated a war memorial, a la Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg, etc., because of the part of one of the 9/11 airplanes that crashed into the roof there, and that is in the makeshift mosque that Muslims are using there now.

And above all: we will never give up.

President Obama’s job-approval rating just hit an all-time low. And there’s a pattern behind the trifecta of issues that are driving the drop — the oil spill, the Arizona immigration-policing law and the fallout from the Greek crisis.

After four months of hovering between a low of 46 percent approval and a high of 49 percent, Obama just fell to 42 percent in the daily Rasmussen polls. What’s hurting him and why?

On each of these issues, the president originally seized on the issue to make populist political hay. But then the problem wouldn’t go away — and voters began to realize that Obama is, in fact, the president and (logically enough) started giving him much of the blame.

When oil started to spill into the Gulf of Mexico, Obama seized the opportunity for a partisan attack — blaming Republicans who had chanted “drill, baby, drill” the whole summer of 2008 as high gasoline prices gave John McCain’s candidacy new steam.

Even though the president had himself, with lamentable timing, moved to allow expanded drilling a few weeks before the rig exploded, the impetus for drilling was clearly seen as Republican, and the disaster hurt Republican ratings. Obama couldn’t resist also piling populist scorn on BP, lambasting big oil for the spill.

But then the leak didn’t stop — and the slick kept heading to shore. Now the public is wondering why it’s seen no presidential action to stop the spill. As the oil seeps onto the beaches of Florida, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi, it also seeps into Obama’s poll numbers and drags them down. His press conference was a clear effort to look decisive and effective, and stop the bleeding — but it came awfully late in the crisis.

As soon as Arizona passed its law authorizing cops to pick up illegal immigrants, the president jumped on the issue, trying to use it to drive up Latino turnout for Democrats later this year.

But it became clear that the majority of Americans strongly back the law — and now Obama is sending 1,200 National Guard troops to the border to stop the bleeding in his polls.

Then there’s the stock market. After the crash of 2008, Obama was quick to blame banks and other big businesses for their irresponsible behavior and then to take credit for averting a global collapse in the aftermath. So when Greece exploded due to its top-heavy debt load and dragged the market below 10,000, people wondered if Obama’s populist treatment of the financial markets and his big spending and borrowing were subjecting America to economic peril.

When Moody’s announces that it is considering downgrading the credit rating of the United States of America — the richest nation, by far, on earth — it raises understandable alarm.

Of course, Obama’s polls will rise and fall in the weeks, months and years ahead; today’s 42 percent may prove a long-forgotten blip. But it’s bit like noticing the line of seaweed on the beach. The tide comes in and go out — but the seaweed marks where it will likely return to.

Look at it this way: Obama got 52 percent of the vote in 2008 — so his 42 percent approval means that one in five of his voters has turned on him.

And it’s a traumatic event for someone who voted for Obama and had stuck with him since, saying he approved of the president’s policies, to finally turn and says he doesn’t approve. That voter may go back to approving of his president again — but it gets easier and easier to voice disapproval.

Especially if the oil keeps spilling, the illegals keep coming — and the market keeps tanking.

Dick Morris and Eileen McGann are authors of the new book “2010: Take Back America — A Battle Plan.”

Here is full video -- with subtitles! -- of my address on Islamic law at Florida State University Law School, March 30. Many thanks to Eric McCullough for the video.

The storyline goes like this: Recent elections find voters in an angry, “anti-incumbent” mood.

Time magazine wrote: “This is how it goes in 2010 at the ballot box: old orders are upended, political lions become roadkill, chosen successors get left behind and the outsider, riding a wave of discontent, becomes the new front runner.”

The Associated Press wrote: “It’s an anti-Washington, anti-establishment year. And candidates with ties to either better beware. Any doubt about just how toxic the political environment is for congressional incumbents and candidates hand-picked by national Republican and Democratic leaders disappeared late Tuesday.”

No. Voters said: “It’s not the incumbents, stupid. It’s how they voted. It’s what they stand for.” No incumbent who voted against the Bush/Obama bank bailouts, the “stimulus” package and ObamaCare lost his or her job.

Voters hate the bank bailouts. They hate the government takeover of carcompanies. They do not believe that the $800 billion stimulus package stimulated anything but bigger government. They reject ObamaCare and think it’s costly and likely to worsen health care. Incumbents who voted for these things now face the music.

Democrats are breathing a sigh of relief that Mark Critz — Democrat and former staffer of the late Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa. — won the special election to succeed Murtha. But the pro-life, anti-gun control Critz said he would have voted against ObamaCare. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for the Obama/Pelosi/Reid agenda of higher taxes, more spending and bigger government.

At their convention in Utah earlier this month, Republicans dumped incumbent and TARP supporter Sen. Bob Bennett, who also co-sponsored a health care bill that smelled a lot like ObamaCare. In Arkansas, another TARP supporter, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, must go through a June runoff election against a Democrat who painted her as a buddy to Wall Street banks. Calling Lincoln “Bailout Blanche,” her opponent, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, attacked her for taking contributions from Wall Street firms that received bailouts. He called TARP a cozy “Washington and Wall Street” arrangement that allows financial firms to fill “their pockets with insider deals and stick Arkansas families with the bill.”

In March, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, lost her party’s nomination for governor. Her opponent, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, called her “Kay Bailout” over Hutchinson’s vote for TARP. A Republican libertarian won the GOP primary for Senate in Kentucky.

In Florida, Republicans dumped Gov. Charlie Crist in the primary race for Senate. Crist, in a photo used against him by his opponents, hugged President Barack Obama.

He supported the stimulus package. He also supported ObamaCare, a plan rejected by Florida voters, who, according to a Rasmussen poll, favor its repeal 62 percent to 33 percent. His Tea Party-backed opponent, Marco Rubio, former speaker of the Florida House, portrayed Crist as insufficiently fiscally conservative.

In Arizona, former Republican presidential candidate John McCain finds himself in a primary dogfight against former Rep. J.D. Hayworth. McCain did a 180 on “immigration reform” and now supports the new Arizona anti-illegal alien law. McCain famously “temporarily suspended” his presidential campaign during the Wall Street meltdown and voted for the widely unpopular bank bailouts.

The message is clear.

Obama and the Democrats misread the 2008 elections, misunderstood the mood of the people and pursued an agenda that voters neither expected nor wanted. Voters, unlike Democrats and many Republicans, reject the idea that financial firms deserve a taxpayer-paid rescue because they are “too big to fail.”

The No. 1 issue to voters remains the economy. Unemployment sits at nearly 10 percent. Voters think the stimulus either stimulated nothing or had no effect other than spending hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Two-thirds of those polled, according to the Pew Research Center, do not believe the stimulus created jobs. Seventy-nine percent of Republicans think it did nothing to create jobs. And only a slim majority of Democrats, 51 percent, think the stimulus helped to produce jobs.

On ObamaCare, Democrats assumed that after its passage, voters would gradually come around to supporting it. They haven’t. A recent Rasmussen poll of likely voters finds that 56 percent want it repealed, versus 39 percent who oppose repeal.

Voters see this administration as a bunch of leftist, redistribute-the-wealth, we-know-better-how-to-spend-your-money-and-run-your-lives-and-manage-your-businesses, smug busybodies. They see an administration that raised the debt and deficit in a year and a half to European-like levels that threaten present and future prosperity. They see an administration that believes fighting global warming takes precedence over jobs and productivity.

Tax revenues have plummeted, while government continues to grow. Banks and other companies that made bad bets or failed to effectively compete are propped up through bailouts that encourage future risky behavior.

People have been out of work for long periods of time. Homeowners are paying on homes worth less than their mortgages. There is a lot of hurt and pain and fear in the streets.

“We Are All Socialists Now,” said Newsweek in a cover story last year. “No,” say the voters. “We are not.”

Larry Elder is a syndicated radio talk show host and best-selling author. His latest book, “What’s Race Got to Do with It?” is available now. To find out more about Larry Elder, visit his Web page at www.WeveGotACountryToSave.com.

Pirates prowling the shores, kidnappings and abductions, the murdering of American citizens on our own soil.  A borderland in chaos, full scale anarchy, lawlessness and armed gangs ruling the borderlands.

Such a description certainly fits today with our border with Mexico.  Stories of murder, mayhem, abductions, drugs and trafficking fill the news on a daily basis.  The border area and the cities of Juarez, Tijuana and Nogales are war zones, the violence spreading across the border at a frightening rate.

But the description is not for today alone.  In the aftermath of the War of 1812, with the defeat of the British and New Orleans secure, only Spanish Florida remained out of American hands, the last European colony east of the Mississippi.

But Spain was weak, its once great Global Empire a faded memory as it struggled to hold on to its prize colonies in the Western Hemisphere.  Florida however, like most of Spain’s other colonies in the present day United States, was not considered significant.  Outside of a few military outposts and scattered missions, the disease infested swamps and marshlands were left uninhabited.

By the early 19^th century, Florida had become the home of ruffians, outlaws, buccaneers, runaway slaves, and Indian bandits.  The Spanish garrisons in Pensacola were hard pressed to protect their own settlers, much less patrol the anarchy on the border of the U.S.  By 1817, with Americans being attacked and murdered on our side of the border, the crisis had reached a boiling point.  It was one thing to have chaos across a border, but when it spilled over to our side, endangering American lives and property, it became a crisis that had to be dealt with.

Fortunately, America at that time had the strength of General Andrew Jackson, fresh off his victory at the Battle of New Orleans. He was a national hero.  Politicians in Washington, as is often the case, were hesitant and adverse to conflict, even in the case of protecting American lives.  But President James Monroe, sensing that something had to be done, gave orders to U.S. troops to chase raiders across the border.  Jackson took his cue, and within a short period of time, Florida was cleared of trouble. Spain meekly retreated and paved the way for annexation and later statehood for the territory.  Most critical, Americans were safe.

What is the lesson?  There are many and though history never runs a straight line to the present, we can draw from the parallels.  The first and most important lesson of course, is that the protection of American lives and property is paramount over any other consideration.  All options go on the table in the defense of protecting our citizens against harm.  Second, we should not be afraid, averse, or even hesitant to use force, including military force to interdict, across the border if necessary, those committing crimes against American sovereignty.

If the Mexican government cannot control the border, much as the Spanish government could not control Florida in 1817, it is incumbent on the Federal Government of the United States to take whatever steps are necessary to curb the violence.  And let’s call this what it is.  When foreign nationals with weapons cross a border and murder, destroy property and kidnap Americans, that is an invasion.  We have every right to defend ourselves; now the only relevant question is where has America’s pride gone when we don’t care enough for protecting Americans from violence being committed across an international border.  That is singly the Federal Government’s responsibility.

Does this mean we should invade northern Mexico?  Probably not yet, but we do need to militarize the border and prepare for whatever actions become necessary.  As history shows, the precedent is there.

America can and should not stand by and allow a lawless borderland to continue.  The drug cartels have taken control of the border and murdered thousands of Mexicans and now that violence has come north.  Call it what you want, but it is a war.  And if Mexico won’t or can’t fight this war, we will.  If we can send hundreds of thousands of American troops to protect the life and liberty of Iraqis, Afghans, Vietnamese, Koreans, Bosnians, and millions of others, then we can surely do the same for our own American citizens.

It is time to heed the call of Andrew Jackson. “The conduct of this banditti is such as will not be tolerated by our government, and if not put down by Spanish authority will compel us in self-defense to destroy them.”  Such were the words given by Jackson to the Spanish Governor at Pensacola.  Such words should have been spoken by our President instead of the cowardly and treacherous apology that he gave President Calderon last week in Washington and his arrogant elitist blather about shopping for ice cream cones.  Has he forgotten the oath that he took just a year and a half ago?

A message needs to be sent to Washington and to Mexico City.  American lives deserved to be protected from foreign invasion.  It is the one duty of the Federal Government above all others.  It is time this warning is heeded.

You might think that being a Supreme Court justice would be the top of the line job for someone in the legal profession. But, many Supreme Court decisions suggest that too many justices are not satisfied with their role, and seek more sweeping powers as supreme policy-makers, grand second-guessers or philosopher-kings.

The latest example of this is the recent Supreme Court decision in the case of Graham versus Florida. The issue was whether the Constitution permitted a state to impose a sentence of life without the possibility of parole when the criminal was a youthful offender. The Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 that this was a violation of the Constitution.

If your copy of the Constitution doesn’t say anything about youthful offenders, do not worry that you have a defective copy. There is no such statement in the Constitution. What the justices cited as the alleged basis for their decision was the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments.”

Since 37 out of the 50 states permit sentences of life without the possibility of parole, such a sentence is not unusual. How about cruel? If it is cruel, then why is it OK to impose that sentence on people who are not youthful?

The case of Graham versus Florida involved a 16-year-old repeat offender, who was convicted of a home invasion robbery while on probation from a previous felony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The Supreme Court then over-ruled that decision.

The role of an appellate court is not to simply second-guess the decision of the trial judge and jury, much less usurp the responsibility of legislatures to make social policy. But the pretense of applying the Constitution gives appellate judges the power to do both.

The bolder justices go further, citing practices in other countries as supporting their decisions that are supposedly based on the Constitution of the United States. If justices can pick and choose which legal principles and practices they will follow, from the many widely varying principles and practices in countries around the world, then they can find a basis for doing just about anything they feel like doing.

This too goes counter to the very basis of American government, as a system in which “We the people” ultimately govern ourselves through representatives of our own choosing and the officials appointed by them.

Once appellate judges are free to base their rulings on what people do in India, Egypt or Germany, Americans are no longer a self-governing people.

As if to add a touch of farce to lighten the tragedy of the dismantling of the Constitution, Supreme Court justices on opposing sides of the case of Graham versus Florida cited statistics seeking to show that there was national consensus for or against life sentences without the possibility of parole.

Appellate courts, including the Supreme Court, are not institutions equipped to make policy judgments like that. Legislatures exist to make policy judgments— and to be voted out of office if these policy judgments turn out to produce results that the electorate do not want. But there are no such corrective mechanisms in place if Supreme Court justices misjudge.

Finally, there is the old, moth-eaten argument cited by Justice John Paul Stevens, that the society is evolving and therefore the interpretation of the Constitution must evolve with it.

Nobody— from the moment that the Constitution was adopted in the 18th century to the present— has ever denied that societies evolve, and that their laws must evolve to meet changing circumstances. But, unless Justice Stevens is either stupid or dishonest, he cannot leap from a need for laws to change to the conclusion that it is judges who must be the ones to make those changes.

Just saying the magic word “change” does not justify judges grabbing the power to make whatever changes they please in the law. There are, after all, two other branches of the federal government, specifically charged with legislative and executive responsibilities and powers, not to mention the Constitutional Amendment process.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

More on this story. "Pakistan detainees proud of role in NYC bomb case," by Asif Shahzad and Kathy Gannon for Associated Press, May 22 (thanks to Davida):

ISLAMABAD - Two men detained in Pakistan for alleged links to the attempted Times Square bombing have admitted playing a role in the botched attack and are unrepentant, with one angrily accusing interrogators of "siding with the infidels," a senior intelligence official said Saturday.

The pair are among six men officials say have been detained in Pakistan for alleged ties to Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American arrested in the United States two days after the failed May 1 attack in New York. Like Shahzad, the detainees are all members of their country's urban elite, including several who were educated in the United States.

Details about the six were released late Friday, though officials have not said when they were detained. Five were picked up in the capital, Islamabad, and one is co-owner of a swish catering company that the U.S. Embassy said was suspected of ties to terrorist groups.

The intelligence official, part of the team questioning the men, cited the two suspects as saying they did not do anything wrong and "proudly" describing Shahzad as their friend.

The official said one of the suspects had even accused his interrogators of "siding with the infidels."

One of the suspects, identified as Shoaib Mughal, is alleged to be a go-between for Shahzad and Pakistani Taliban in their hide-outs close the Afghan border. He was running a large computer dealership in Islamabad before his detention, said the intelligence official who -- like most operatives in spy agencies around the world -- did not give his name.

The other suspect, identified only by his first name Shahid, is alleged to have helped arrange money for Shahzad. He has an MBA from the U.S. and apparently knew Shahzad from his time there....

Among those detained in Pakistan was Salman Ashraf Khan, the co-owner of the upscale Hanif Rajput Catering Service. Two other suspects "wanted him to help bomb a big gathering of foreigners" whose event his company was catering, the Pakistani intelligence officer said.

Khan's father said Saturday he was baffled by the accusations because his son is a successful businessman who lived happily as a student in the U.S. for four years. The younger Khan studied hotel management in Florida and computer science in Houston, returning to Pakistan in 2001 to take over the family business.

"How can a man who is so much involved in this business be accused for such an activity, which only a wild animal can think about?" Rana Ashraf Khan said in a telephone interview.

"He might have differences about whatever has been going on in our region for the last 10 or 11 years, we all have differences," Khan said. "(But he had) no feelings against the United States at all. He lived there happily, he studied there."...

So did Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Also detained was a former major who bought his way out of the army because of a "disagreement with its policies," said the intelligence official.

The ex-major is from Rawalpindi, where the army headquarters is situated. Last week, an army spokesman denied anyone connected to the army was arrested in the probe, saying only a retired major had been arrested on disciplinary grounds and was being investigated.

The link to the army is noteworthy because of the Pakistani military's past support for Islamist militants in Afghanistan and Kashmir, and Shazad's family ties to the air force. It was unclear whether the suspect's alleged ties to Shahzad were ongoing when he still served.

For months now, speculation has been rife that the Tea Party movement and the grassroots revolt against big-government that it represents poses a real threat to political incumbents of both parties. Yesterday’s primary election results have transformed such speculation into political reality.

In Kentucky, the Tea-Party backed candidate, Rand Paul, the son of libertarian Texas Congressman Ron Paul, won a convincing victory over Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Greyson. Greyson enjoyed the support of the GOP establishment, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConell, but Paul had the Tea Party insurgents on his side. Unapologetically embracing the Tea Partiers, Paul ran on a straightforward small-government platform, calling for a balanced federal budget, a reduced national debt, and an end to government bailouts and subsidies for private industries and interests. In the end, he won by a comfortable margin.

Rand Paul’s victory is only the latest example of the Tea Partiers successfully gate-crashing the official Republican camp. In Utah earlier this month, voters in the Republican nomination convention heeded the Tea Party movement’s urging to dump Sen. Bob Bennett. Dooming Bennett was his support for several big-government initiatives, most prominently the Troubled Asset Relief Program bank bailout. Florida Gov. Charlie Crist has also met with the wrath of the Tea Partiers, whose opposition forced him surrender the Republican mantle to Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio in favor of an independent run. Polls suggest he faces an uphill struggle.

While the Tea Parties have had their greatest impact on Republican primary races, Democrats have also born the brunt of the anti-incumbent backlash. In Pennsylvania last night, Republican defector Sen. Arlen Specter lost the state’s Democratic primary to two-term Rep. Joe Sestak, effectively ending his political career. Even in the absence of anti-incumbent sentiment, Specter’s was a tall order: He had to convince voters that his political conversion was a matter of principle rather than, as was apparent to all, pure political expedience. It was an obvious fiction that not even President Obama, who campaigned for Specter and even cut radio and television ads on his behalf, could make credible.

Even here, though, the Tea Party, or at least its brand of anti-Washington angst, made its presence felt. In his victory speech, Sestak sounded like nothing so much as a Tea Party candidate, as he hailed his win as a triumph “over the establishment, over the status quo, even over Washington, D.C.” Of course, it’s a bit rich for a Democrat to style himself as an opponent of Washington, where after all Democrats control both houses of Congress. But such is the national mood that even the party in charge must distance itself from any association with leadership.

Arlen Specter meanwhile is not the only political veteran on the Democratic side, however recent his affiliation, to find himself out of a job for too-close a connection with Washington’s failures. In West Virginia last week, 14-term Democratic Rep. Alan Mollohan became the first House member in 2010 to lose a reelection bid. Although he lost to a fellow Democrat, key in Mollohan’s defeat was his support for the Obama administration’s health care overhaul. It is a sign of perilous times ahead for the party that, even in a Democratic primary, support for the Democratic administration’s signature legislative initiative has become a political death warrant.

Still, that does not yet make the Tea Party and its small-government vision kingmaker in political races. While the influence of the Tea Partiers has obviously been important, the usual primary season caveats apply. Primary elections tend to draw a more ideologically motivated cohort of voters, and it remains to be seen whether the Tea Party will be a significant factor in the fall’s elections races. And yet it is becoming increasingly implausible to claim, as many in the prestige media have, that the Tea Party and the backlash against big government are fringe phenomena. As Rand Paul declared in his victory speech last night: “I have a message from the Tea Party. We’ve come to take our government back.” They will soon have their chance.

The heart of the proposed “American Power Act,” aka: the Kerry-Lieberman bill, is a national cap-and-trade program aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, we’re already well down the road to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and, whether one thinks that such efforts are horribly misguided (as I do) or desperately needed (as Al Gore does), one cannot help but wonder: Why would anyone propose something like Kerry-Lieberman at all?

There have been a number of state and regional initiatives put into place over the last few years that will have a marked effect on both the amount of greenhouse gases emitted in the United States and on our economy. Three regional programs, the Western Climate Initiative on the west coast, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the northeast and the Midwest Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord have, or soon will, establish greenhouse gas reduction mandates that cover twenty three states, including very populous ones like New York, California and Illinois. In addition, twenty four states have adopted Renewable Portfolio Standards that require ever-increasing amounts of electricity generated in those states to come from renewable sources that do not introduce additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

All told, thirty four states are participating in the big three regional initiatives described above, or have adopted Renewable Portfolio Standards, or both. That translates into seventy six per cent of the population already being committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The Kerry-Lieberman bill envisions a seventeen percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, but an analysis of what has been and will be implemented suggests that we would achieve the same reduction – if not more – simply by allowing the states to follow through on what has been promised. So, at the risk of repeating myself: why propose Kerry-Lieberman at all?

It’s important to note that one provision of the proposed bill specifically eliminates the three regional programs that are currently in place and forbids states to implement new cap and trade programs. This effectively forces the sixteen states that have heretofore refused to play along with global-warming hysteria into playing the game. Those states include: some big energy-producers – Alaska, Wyoming, Louisiana, Oklahoma and West Virginia; most of the south – Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida; and four other mavericks Idaho, Nebraska, Kansas and Indiana. These sixteen states have refused to participate in a regional program or to implement any form of Renewable Portfolio Standards. Yet, Kerry-Lieberman would force them to get on the bus, whether they like it or not.

Call me a cynic, but I can see a couple of reasons why Democrats are going back to the cap and trade well once again, despite the public’s increasing rejection of alarmist global warming theories and despite the existence of so many greenhouse gas reduction programs across the country already. For one, there is the problem of the south. With three exceptions (North Carolina, Virginia and Texas – and the Lone Star State’s foray into reducing greenhouse gases has been somewhat tepid) there is little support to fight global warming in the old Confederacy. If Congress doesn’t step in and current state and regional plans were to play out, the inevitable result will be that energy will remain much more affordable south of the Mason-Dixon line as time goes on as compared to the rest of the nation and, economically at least, the South will indeed rise again.

The other compelling reason for the federal government to assume control of on-going greenhouse gas reductions efforts is, of course, money. Left unchecked, the states that are already involved in running or creating cap and trade schemes would control the billions upon billions of dollars that funnel through such programs. Can’t have that, now can we? A national cap and trade program may not be any more effective than the regional approaches, but it does allow the nanny-state to decide who gets what and when. Most importantly, a national program will fund the coffers of big government and that is ultimately more important than anything else.

A couple of other features of Kerry-Lieberman deserve a bit of attention. Petroleum refiners would be required to participate in the program, but they wouldn’t be allowed to actually make trades with respect to the fuel they produce. Rather, they would pay a set fee for allowances (an “allowance” is the trading unit in a cap and trade program) in proportion to the amount of fuel they produce and this fee will be paid directly to the government. This is what we used to call a tax, specifically a tax on gasoline, diesel fuel and other refined products, but under Kerry-Lieberman it’s all part of a trading program.

And then there’s the issue of offsets. Under a cap and trade scheme, emitters of greenhouse gases must hold one ton of allowances for each ton of greenhouse gases that they have actually emitted. Some of those allowances are distributed by the government. Any shortfall must be purchased from the market, unless the emission source can find “offsets” that reduce or eliminate the requirement to purchase additional allowances.

So what’s an offset? It’s any project that reduces, or is perceived to reduce, greenhouse gas emissions beyond the level that would otherwise be legally required. Collecting and destroying excess methane emissions from landfills is a classic example. It’s self-apparent that offsets are incredibly valuable in any cap and trade program. Kerry-Lieberman puts the decision on what is and what is not an eligible offset in the hands of a new bureaucratic structure. No doubt Senators Kerry and Lieberman believe this is a reasonable and fair approach. However, history tells us that bureaucrats are notoriously unreliable when it comes to dealing with powerful interests who are savvy enough to package snake oil the right way.

For example, there are many organizations who are currently selling speculative greenhouse gas offsets under the grand-sounding label of “avoided deforestation.” Essentially, this translates into holding trees hostage. These groups, some of which control hundreds of thousands of acres worth of timberland, want power companies to pay them big bucks in order to promise not to cut those trees down, not that they have the slightest intention of harvesting them in the first place. Whereas the equally-flawed House cap and trade bill, Waxman-Markey, didn’t envision allowing scams like “avoided deforestation” in the picture, Kerry-Lieberman opens the door to these schemes, by putting the ultimate decision into the hands of nameless, faceless bureaucrats.

There is some good to be found within the American Power Act, particularly as it addresses the need for more nuclear power plants. But, most of this proposal consists of a tired response to a tired, old and increasingly discredited fantasy of a problem. The House’s version of cap and trade, Waxman-Markey, was declared “dead on arrival” at the Senate. The same should hold true here. Kerry-Lieberman is a flawed, extreme over-reaction to a problem that does not exist.

[Editors’ note: This is a transcript of a speech delivered by Senator Jim DeMint at the David Horowitz Freedom Center’s recent Santa Barbara Retreat. To watch the video of the speech, click here.]

Jim DeMint: David, thank you so much.  Gosh, it’s so encouraging to me to see all of you here.

I wish I could tell you how important it is when people come together, particularly conservatives.  David makes an excellent point — that conservatives are out there working, raising families — I mean, they don’t have time to do this kind of stuff.  It’s only people who want to control our lives who come together.  But when people do it, I know it’s a sacrifice.  And for you to come together, create that critical mass, it’s so encouraging to me.  I mean, so many of you have said thank you to me tonight.  But I’m really here to thank you.

One of the things I figured out long ago, after I came to the House, is I really have no power at all, unless the people on the outside are with me.  And what’s happened over the last year has helped me realize it doesn’t take a majority inside of Congress, if we have the majority outside.  And I’m really encouraged about what I’m seeing.

And I’m not really here to just talk to you.  I’m here to stand with you and to thank you.  David, thank you for your organization.  Thank you for all of you who support what he’s doing.  It’s great to see him when he’s in D.C., just continuing to rattle cages, get people’s attention.  It’s really important to be an advocate for the things that we’re working on.

I didn’t know he was going to introduce me before dinner; I thought I was going to get something to eat.

But on my way to the — back to L.A., I’m going to stop by McDonalds.  And I recommend it to all of you.

Because they’ve got a new Obama Value Meal that I hope you’ll all try.  It’s really great, really.  The new Obama Value Meal — you can order anything you want, and the guy behind you has to pay for it.

It’s a dream come true.

I know a lot of you are discouraged when David speaks — and I find myself doing it — kind of describing what’s happening in Washington.  People are really discouraged.  So we have to look for the silver lining and the good news.  And there is some good news.  As I left Washington this week, the global climate change scientists announced that they had found out how to lower global temperatures five degrees.  And all we have to do is to get Obama to stop talking for one week, — just one week, and the global temperatures go down.

But I’m really not all that partisan.

We shouldn’t have fun at Obama’s expense tonight.  And I hope you won’t do that.  Unless you think he’s having a whole lot of fun at our expense, right?

So I think we probably should.

But we can work together.  We can work together on things like the environment.  I’ve been trying to do that.  This week is Earth Day.  I felt a little guilty burning all the fossil fuels on the jet on the way out here to speak to you.  But I guess since Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer do that every week, I shouldn’t feel that guilty.

But just to make up for things a little bit, I invited some endangered species to fly with me on the airplane on the way out here.  I invited all the Democrats who voted for that healthcare bill.

But it’s great to be in Reagan country.  I know some of you came with us today to the Reagan Ranch.  And I have to tell you, it was a profound experience for me.  I’ve never been there before.  We were at the Reagan Center in Santa Barbara in the morning.  Had a group come I got to speak to for breakfast, a lot of college students.  Really inspiring for me just to be around people, and realizing that even here in California there are people, likeminded, who really care about our country, love freedom.

So don’t underestimate any state.  It makes me mad when someone says, DeMint, you don’t understand that some states, you can’t elect a conservative candidate.  But I’m going to help do everything I can this election to prove that a good, commonsense conservative can be elected in any state in this country.  And I believe it’s going to happen.

But to be at the Reagan Ranch — and a lot of you were there today — and to see the simplicity that Reagan loved, and just to be outdoors, to work with his hands; to kind of sense his humanity, being there — it was a profound experience.  Because I never got a chance to meet him.  And so, all I know of Ronald Reagan is he was this incredible leader, a principled person with character and integrity.  He was focused and really changed the direction of our country.

Because, you know, the direction after Jimmy Carter, four years of Jimmy Carter, was not unlike what we’re looking at right now.  Except this is Jimmy Carter on steroids, that what we’re dealing with now.  But when Reagan came in with his optimism and his principled conservatism, you know, I just think of him as a leader that’s just so far out of the range of where I am that it’s — then to go to his ranch and to realize he loves the things I do.  I love to be alone with my wife.  I love to work with my hands, I love to build things, I love my workshop.  And you think, he was a man like us.  And it’s kind of hard to pull that together, that this person who changed the course of history in a lot of ways is like us.

I’ve heard a lot that there are really no great people in the world, there are only average people who do great things.  I still believe that Reagan is the exception to that.  But all of us can do great things.  And what I hope you’ll understand is that there are few of us in elected office.  But the real power in this country is outside of Washington.  And what we’ve seen over the last year is people really exercise that power.

And I keep telling people who thank me, I’m powerless.  There’s just a few people — David’s right — there are literally just a handful of people, if that many, in the Senate who are going to stand up and fight for the principles that they say they believe in.  But what happens when people come to Washington, or go to local rallies — Tea Parties, town halls — it emboldens those people who don’t have the courage but share the beliefs.  And they become more courageous, because the people are behind them.  And I think that’s what we’re seeing happen all across the country.

You know, Reagan began as an activist.  He was an actor, he was a Democrat.  In 1961 — a lot of us forget this; I didn’t really know this — he was leader of Operation Coffee Cup.  And the whole purpose of that was to stop the enactment of Medicare.  And he was warning people that people who believe in statism, believe in socialism, often use medicine.  And socialized medicine is a way to begin that process of totally socializing a country.  And he said we don’t want socialized medicine.  He made a 20-minute recording that he sent all over the country, to coffee shops, where it was played to explain to people how bad this was, what it would become.

Because it sounded benign — oh, let’s just help elderly people have healthcare.  Yeah, that sounds good.  But look what Medicare’s become.  It’s the only option anyone in this room is going to have when they retire.  And we’re not paying doctors enough to see Medicare patients.  They don’t want to see you coming if you’re on Medicare.  And we’re in a trap now, where we can’t buy our own health insurance for retirement.  Because now, everyone is on government healthcare when they retire.  It’s a little bit scary.

But Reagan was an activist before he was in elected office — ’61, almost 20 years before he became President.  And it’s pretty amazing; it should encourage all of you.

And it should sound familiar.  We want to stop socialism.  We’ve gone from coffee shops to Tea Parties.  But what we’re seeing is the same type of awakening in America that I think Reagan was stirring up even back in the 1960s.  We don’t want socialism.  And what we hear from the Tea Parties, what we hear from you tonight, what people are saying all over the country, is to stop the spending, stop the borrowing, stop creating more debt for our children and grandchildren, and stop the government takeovers.

It’s not real complicated.  It comes back to that limited-government, constitutional idea.  And people just keep saying, What about the Constitution?  This is not a radical idea.  It’s not a rightwing idea.  There’s nothing radical about don’t spend more than you bring in.  There’s nothing radical about honoring our oath of office.  The only oath of office that we take — as President, as congressmen, as senators, as judges — is, I swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.

The greatest enemies to the Constitution today are domestic.  And most of them are in the United States Congress or in the White House right now.  And it’s not because they’re bad people.  It would be easier if they were bad people.  They’re good people, and they believe they’re doing the right thing.  But they have a very different worldview than all of us do, as far as what works.

You know, my perspective is not really political.  I didn’t ever run for anything in my life until I was 47 years old.  I had four children and a wife.  None of them liked politics or knew anything about it.  Two children in the high school, two in middle school.  I had my own business, which I had for 15 years.  I did marketing and strategic planning.  I was a volunteer in the United Way, the Chamber of Commerce, the School for the Deaf and Blind, — on so many boards that my employees at the company that I owned had an intervention and presented me with a T-shirt that said “just say no”.

Because that’s what I saw work, is people working together locally.  I didn’t know who was Republican or Democrat.  I thought there were normal people, and then there were politicians.  I didn’t want anything to do with politicians.  And I still feel that way.

So I’m kind of a fish out of water in Washington right now.  But I believe in the private sector.  And that’s the perspective I brought to Washington — a worldview that I had seen what works.  I had seen, if [you have] a commitment to family, a commitment to community and church — working together, volunteering, having charitable activities in all areas — that we could make a difference.

And a lot of the things we were working on were problems that were created by bad government policy — broken families from welfare, unwed births, juvenile delinquency, drug use, and a lot of drugs being bought with welfare money.

If you just follow the trail, a lot of the destruction of our society that the volunteerism was dealing with was caused by well-intended, but just lousy, federal policy, to a point when I was 47 years old, never running for anything, and I signed up to run for the United States Congress.  I’d been to Washington one time in my life.  And I didn’t expect to win; no one else did, either.  So it was one of those situations, after I won — now what do I do?

And you know, I found out I was a conservative after I got there.  But “conservative” to me is just believing in and remembering, preserving those things that work.

You know, we’re not on two sides of theoretical arguments here.  We’re not just arguing about a political theory, as conservatives.  This is facts about history, about what made this country great. There’s no question that America is unique, not because of our people — our people came from all over the world — not because of our geography, but because of the principles and the ideals — the principles of a limited government and a big people — individual responsibility, free markets, Judeo-Christian values, and just a private sector that works like Adam Smith talked about — that invisible hand that just is — Obama doesn’t understand.

He’s never been in a business.  None of his cabinet has.  They’ve never signed the front of a paycheck.  They don’t know what it means to take a risk and create jobs.  But they think they do.  They think they know it better than we do.  We have different worldviews.

You know, Reagan would be stunned today if he looked at where we are.  And while we don’t want to be pessimistic, it is important to recognize that we’re in a very different place in our country’s history than we’ve ever been.  And we have to have a sense of urgency.

In the world’s greatest bastion of freedom, today, the federal government owns the largest auto companies in America, the largest insurance company in America, the largest mortgage company in America.  They’ve just completed the takeover of healthcare.  They control our education system.  They control our whole energy sector.  They control our transportation infrastructure.  The federal agencies, like the EPA, are involved with almost every area of our economic activity.  There are people coming through my office every day saying, We can’t do business, because we don’t know what they’re going to do.

The FCC is trying to regulate the Internets.  The courts told them they couldn’t, and they’re still presenting rules to regulate an Internet that’s working without their help.  The Interior Department — we’ve intercepted memos where they’re trying to figure out how to take over more federal land.

I mean, it’s pretty amazing what they’re talking about doing.  And the judges are out of control.  You know, last week, a judge said that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.  And Presidents since George Washington have been calling on our nation to pray.  And since our Constitutional Convention, it was clear that if a sparrow doesn’t fall without God’s notice, a nation is not going to rise without His help.

We can’t forget those principles that made this country great.  And we’re not talking theory.  We’re talking fact, and truth.  And that’s what’s on our side, and that we need to go boldly.

The problem we have now, as David’s pointed out — that in spite of the clear sense of urgency, even though it’s obvious, anyone who’s been in business, if you look at a balance sheet and see the kind of debt that we have as a country, and see that there is no foreseeable way to even pay the interest on that debt within the next 10 years; to see that we’re still dealing with congressmen and senators that almost every week are passing a new spending program, but then talking about our unsustainable debt — they’re saying, We’ve got to do something, but I still need $1 million for my local museum; I still need $500,000 for this bridge, or this pothole.  We’ve got challenges in Washington that we’re going to change this November.

I think I would go home and give up if it weren’t for one thing.  And that’s really you, and people like you, all over the country, who are not in elected office but are saying enough’s enough.  What can I do?  How can I help?  That’s what I hear everywhere.  Everywhere I go, people grab my hand, and they’ll just say, What can I do?  And they say, I’ve never been involved with politics.  And, you know, 40 percent of the Tea Party people are Democrats and Independents.  This is not a partisan thing; this is commonsense — we can’t keep spending more than we’re bringing in.  How can we stop it?

The exciting thing for me, the optimistic thing, is that I’ve never seen anything in my lifetime where Americans were so engaged, where they’re seeking more information, at a time when we can actually inform them.  Only a few years ago, if I was doing something like the immigration fight, I wouldn’t have had a chance.  Because I couldn’t convince my colleagues to fight this thing.  It makes no sense to have immigration reform without border control.  It’s just a bunch of nonsense, if people can come and go.

I had five people in the United States Senate who were helping.  Five people.  And only a few years before, the only thing I could’ve done is a press release and hope the New York Times or NBC would pick it up.  And they wouldn’t.  But now, we have an opportunity — in a free country, in a free media — to go to radio talk shows, to go to blogs, to go to Fox News, to use the whole web and websites that we create to get millions of people involved almost overnight, to — as Reagan said, if they don’t see the light, make them feel the heat.

And that’s what I’ve been doing the last couple years.  They won’t listen.  You can’t convince them.  But you can scare them.  And when people start calling and e-mailing, and the computer servers crash because of so many people e-mailing, and when the phone systems crash, you know, you just want to go out and rejoice in front of the Capitol — I’m not in a minority here.

I’m with millions of Americans who are going to take this place if we don’t  and one of the finest moments I’ve had in the Senate is — and this was a Republican, in one of our Republican conferences, the week of this big immigration vote — where they told me — Jim Bunning, who’s a friend of mine, said, Jim, you’re going to get run over like a train.  I mean, no way you’re going to win this thing.  And one of the Republicans stood up in conference.  He was so tired of local radio talk shows and everything just blasting him for being for this amnesty bill.  And he said, I will not be intimidated by the American people.

He did, he said it.  I won’t give you his name, but he is retiring this time.  But what happened to him?  I’ll tell you.

He was intimidated.  You know, when we pushed it over 41 votes, which meant they could not do what they were trying to do, he went down, and he voted against the thing that he said he would not vote against.  And we ended up getting a majority of something they told me I wouldn’t get 15 votes on.  And it wasn’t because of me.  It was because the American people stood up and said no.

And when you know that can happen, it emboldened us.  I mean, we’ve done the same thing with the moratorium on drilling.  I didn’t even bother to talk to my colleagues.  I just went straight to the media and the Internet and the blogs, and we got the moratorium lifted.  The Obama Administration’s still dragging their feet.  But what we’ve seen is the power of the people.  And that’s what this country was founded on — that we can have freedom if the people are vigilant.  This is a government of and for and by the people.  And if the people stand up, we can take it back.

But I can tell you this.  The Senate is the last place that’s going to change.  We’re not going to change the Senate until we change the people who are there.

And what I’ve tried to do over the last year — and this has not gone over real well with my colleagues — is to get involved with primary races all over the country.  We’ve had an established system where we have the Senate Committee — they go out and find candidates and recruit them, and give them money, and they bring them here.  But I’ve noticed that those candidates don’t share the same philosophy that I do.

They endorsed Arlen Specter when he announced he was going to run, when he was still a Republican.  I went to tell Arlen, man to man, Arlen, I’m going to support Pat Toomey in a primary against you.  Arlen didn’t take that really well.  And he left the party.  But I mean, I don’t think it was because of me.  It was because Arlen was not running on principles; it was about the numbers.  And he saw the numbers — that he could not win a primary against Pat Toomey, so he switched parties.  And now Pat Toomey’s ahead in the primary.  Because Pat Toomey is a principled conservative.

All of us have leadership PACs.  And the whole idea, [or] just to endear you to your colleagues.  You give money to them when they’re running, they give money to you.  I’m not using my PAC that way.  I’m using my PAC to go out and support people in primaries who are running against the establishment picks, using it to help Pat Toomey.

Our party went out and recruited Charlie Crist in Florida to run as a senator — most popular governor in the country, the one who they said could raise money.  And that would make it easier for the Senate Committee, because they wouldn’t have to spend as much money.  But Charlie had indicated, by a lot of his votes and actions, that he was not going to help us control spending and earmarks and debt.  He actually had a big embrace of Obama in supporting the stimulus plan.  And he’s a good guy.

But a young man named Marco Rubio came to my office.  He couldn’t get an appointment with the Senate Committee.  And he talked to me about his passion for our country and our freedom.  He talked to me about his parents, who lost their country.  They were Cubans; they lost their country.  And I sat there listening to this guy.

And I don’t fall for much after being in politics for awhile.  But, you know, I just felt my eyes [watering].  This guy wanted to fight for freedom.  He believed in our Constitution.  He was willing to stand up to Republicans.  I endorsed Marco Rubio and did everything we could to raise money, try to focus some attention on him, so that the people of Florida would know there was an alternative.  And it wasn’t me; it was the people of Florida, who are hungry to fight for freedom and to save their country.

And he started 30 points behind.  He’s 25 points ahead.

Now, Governor Crist is not going to win the primary.  The question — he’s going to drop out; is he going to run as an independent?  But Marco Rubio is going to be the next Senator from Florida.

But this is because America is engaged.  I tell you, I’ve endorsed people before.  It doesn’t make that much difference.  But I’m seeing now that if we can shine a little light on a good candidate, if we can help raise a little money — and what I’m doing with my PAC, instead of giving it to a bunch — 50 different candidates, I’m running some radio ads.  I’m running some blog ads to raise money.

We’ve raised over $300,000 for Marco.  And he’s now on the national stage. And he’s the kind of voice we need.  This guy’s 38 years old.  That’s the kind of person we need in the Senate right now.  You know, and my colleagues have not accepted it well.  They got mad at me after I endorsed Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, but — and I said something that made it worse, which is kind of my tradition.  I said, I would rather have 30 Republicans who believe in the principles of freedom than 60 who do not believe in anything at all.

You know, to me, that sounds like a no-brainer.  But a lot of our leadership kept telling me it’s about numbers.  We’ve got to win.  But I know what winning does.

I came into the United States Senate with 55 Republicans, George Bush in the White House, a large majority of Republicans in the House.  And we did not do what we promised.  It was all about earmarks.  It was all about spending.  It was pretending about reform.  But the things we campaign on — a tax reform, a fix in Social Security, a fix in healthcare — there was no energy for that.  And you know, there’s only so long you can sit on the sidelines and watch that.

I’m not going to ask Americans to trust the Republican Party again until I’ve done everything I can to make sure that if we are given that trust, if we are given the majority, that we’re going to do what we say we’re going to do.  And I believe that we are.  What I’m seeing from the House of Representatives — they passed a — just in the Republicans, a one-year moratorium on earmarks.

Now that may seem like a small thing to you.  But after observing that for the 11 years I’ve been in the House and the Senate, I’ve realized that it is an inherent conflict of interest to come to Washington believing your job is to take money home to your state, to get as much money as you can out of that Federal Treasury and bring it home.

There’s a conflict between that idea and taking an oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution that prescribes a very limited federal government.

I have no righteousness, because I am a recovering earmark.  I followed Fritz Hollings and Strom Thurmond in South Carolina.  And the whole idea was, oh, we’re losing our seniority, we’re not going to get our money.  That’s not why we go.  I don’t go to get money for South Carolina.  South Carolina needs a lot of money; we’re a poor state.  But with over 500 congressmen and senators who believe it’s their job to get money for their states, the result of that is a country that is in debt so far that we’re about to destroy this gift that we’ve been given by previous generations, who’ve given so much blood and sacrifice for what we’ve got.  We’re nearly $14 trillion in debt.

And when I introduced a moratorium, one-year moratorium on earmarks in the Senate a few weeks ago, 15 Republicans voted against me.  They were appropriators.  They’re the ones who hand out the candy.  It’s the source of their power.

But I think you’re going to see some of them lose.  Some of them are being challenged.  Senator Bob Bennett in Utah — he’s a friend of mine, and this makes it hard.  But he’s been an opponent of stopping earmarks and stopping the culture of spending.  And he’s got an opponent in Mike Lee, in Utah, who’s running on constitutional, limited government.  He’s going to refuse to take earmarks.  He’s going to fight for those principles of freedom.  I haven’t gotten engaged officially in the race.  But it looks like we’re going to lose a senator because America is engaged.

The same thing happened — Kay Bailey Hutchison, the senator, went home and ran a governor’s race on bringing home the bacon.  She got 30 percent of the vote.

People have caught on, just as my grandson a few weeks ago held up a piece of bacon.  He held up a piece of bacon.  He said, This used to be a pig.

You know, and the first thing that came to mind is I want to hold up earmarks and say, This used to be a country.  I mean, something dies when you create that bacon.  And that’s what’s happening in Washington right now.

But the Senate Conservatives Fund, for those of you who want to help, is senateconservatives.com.  And it’s got candidates listed on there that — and some of you may pick other candidates.  But we’ve picked Ken Buck in Colorado.  He’s running against the establishment candidate, a good person, Jane Norton.  But she realized, because the grassroots got behind Ken, she couldn’t even go to the convention.  You had to get 30 percent to get on the ballot.  So she refused to go.  She’s going to try to get signatures to get on the ballot.

But Ken’s a guy who just refuses earmarks, believes in the Constitution.  He’s out talking about those basic principles.  People are coming to him.

You know, in Indiana, it’s hard for me again.  I’ve got two former colleagues — Dan Coats, a former senator; John Hostettler, former Congressman — great guys.  But I think America’s ready for new faces in Washington.  There’s a 32-year-old, fourth-generation farmer, businessman, who brought his wife and kids and sat in my office.  Pointed at his kids.  Said, I’m going to fight for my kids.  I don’t like this debt, I don’t like what they’re doing to my country.  Help me fight for these kids.

And I endorse Marlin Stutzman, in Indiana.  And the primary’s just 10 days away.  We put it on the Senate Conservative site.  Said help us help this guy who is third place now, in this five-way primary.  And we’ve raised about $135,000 in two and a half days from people all over the country, who said let’s try.  Let’s try.

And I know a lot of you in this room in California probably have different candidates.  But you know, I talked to Chuck DeVore.  Chuck DeVore believes in the Constitution.  He’s been part of the military, he’s fought for our — or believes in our freedom.  And we have other candidates, obviously, who are Republicans.  But I know one thing — he’s battle-tested as an assemblyman.  He’s fought spending here in California, which is very unpopular.  If he does win, I know he’s going to stand with me.

And that’s a chance I’d rather take.

And I’m not saying the other candidates aren’t fine.  But they’re saying the same thing about Chuck that they said about me when I was running for the Senate.  They said, DeMint, you can’t win.  You’re a good guy, believe the right — but you can’t win.

I’m not counting the people of California out.  We’ve got some congressional races, we’ve got some of those running for Congress here [tonight].  I don’t think the people of California want to bankrupt our country.  I don’t think they want to give up on freedom.  I don’t think they just want their handout for more from the federal government.  I think if we go out and tell them the truth, and appeal to them, that California will set the pace, like they do so many other times.  I think a conservative can win in California if they tell the truth.  Because more and more Americans know we can’t keep spending more than we’re bringing in.

So the Senate Conservatives Fund is just kind of my midlife crisis in the Senate.  And it’s making a difference.  We’re not going to win every race, because in every race, we pick an underdog.  But what I hope happens is that this November is going to be an earthquake election.  It appears to be happening, where Americans are looking for someone who will stand up and fight for what they believe is right — people who’ve never been involved with politics, people who are Democrats — we’ll call them Reagan Democrats — independents all over the country.  Let’s don’t count out any Americans.  We’ve got a big party if we really are willing to fight for freedom.

People criticize me because they say, DeMint, we need a big tent as Republicans.  And I say, Have you looked at the polls?  Forty percent of Americans sympathize with the Tea Parties.  Another 20 percent say they’re Republicans.  I think that’s 60 percent.  That’s a big enough party for me, in a country like this.

So let’s embrace the passion, the ideals of these.  Because Tea Parties are Americans.  And those who show up for rallies are just the tip of the iceberg.  You know, there are soccer moms and dads, who are never going to go to a rally.  But they’re just saying, Yeah.  Yeah, get those guys, yeah, stick it to ‘em.

They really are.  This a big movement in America.  This is an American awakening.  And I hope my party will embrace that.  And I know if we do that we will re-earn the trust of the American people, that we will take back the majority.  And when we do, we’ll prove that that trust was well-founded.

You know, Reagan said that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.  And that’s true.  Every generation has to fight for freedom.  And many times, it’s on the battlefield, where we shed blood.  But many times, it’s at the ballot box.  In America, we settle our differences with our voices and our votes, and sometimes our feet.  And I think what we’re going to see over the next few months is Americans demonstrating that this is their government, that they have had enough, and that they are going to stand up.  The country does not belong to politicians; it belongs to the people.  And they’re going to show that this –

Let me end where I started.  Just remember, the power is in your hands.  You’ve thanked me for fighting.  But the fact is I have very little power, unless there are millions of people out across America.  And if you just share what you believe with others, you support organizations, like you’re doing here; tell a friend, tell a family member, get people registered to vote.  Just encourage people.  This is not about political ideology.  This is not about partisanship.  This is about the survival of our country.

We’re close to a tipping point.  We’re right on the edge of a cliff.  If we don’t have an earthquake election that turns things back, it will be too late.  I mean, this is not hyperbole; I’m not exaggerating.  You have to look at the balance sheet.  Unless we turn things around — unless we repeal this healthcare bill, it’s going to destroy healthcare, it’s going to bankrupt our country.  Unless we stop what they’re trying to do with cap and trade, with card check — it’s an agenda that is so radical that historians probably won’t be able to believe what we’ve allowed to happen, if we do.

My goal is to minimize the damage, until November, inside the Senate — hold, stop everything I can — until then.

But then, in November is when you speak, and when people all over the country like you speak.  And I hope it’s the loudest shout that we’ve ever heard in America — that people speak so loudly that the Democrats and the Republicans and everyone are stunned.  I hope Republicans are stunned in all the primaries.

And just this next month, in May, you’ve got a non-establishment candidate in Kentucky, Rand Paul, running.  You’ve got Marlin Stutzman in Indiana.  You’ve got a primary opponent against an incumbent senator in Utah.  I think the more we see a stunning display of American activism, the more opportunities we’re going to have in November.

I’m really thankful for the opportunity to speak to you, and the profound experience I had just looking at the Reagan Ranch today, in realizing that we never know who God has called to do something miraculous.  Reagan probably had no idea when he was acting that he would be President of the United States.  He was just an activist who cared.  And he became more and more informed.  And he realized what made this country great.  All of you in the room have done that.  And out of this room, I hope there’ll come congressmen and senators, and people who are active in all aspects of American life.  And you already are.  Many of you are, or you wouldn’t be here tonight.

I’m honored to be here.  You’ve made me more and more encouraged.  You’ve empowered me.  You’ve made me — you’ve given me the energy I need to go back in the fray next week.  And I’m hoping in November that we can see we’ve got an environment that we can turn this thing around and create the America, again, that we all love and believe in.  Thank you so much, [everyone].

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Joseph Yeager, the author of the new book, Intellectual Assault: Academic Anti-Americanism and the Distortion of 9/11. He holds a Ph.D. in medieval Russian history from the University of Missouri. He is a member of the National Association of Scholars’ Argus Project, a watchdog group which keeps an eye on excesses and abuses in academia.

FP: Joseph Yeager, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

What inspired you to write your book?

Yeager: I was inspired by curiosity, Jamie, and a certain knowing suspicion.

Soon after 9/11 the professors and academic administrators began making their presence felt among the commentariat. Their sudden ubiquity was due partially to the media which understandably solicited opinions from experts about the tragedy, but it was also due to the egomania of a people who believe they are smarter than everybody else and thus deserve to be heard.

And what I heard was frankly quite disgusting. I’m sure your remember it well: America was to blame for 9/11; the terrorists and the society from which they sprang were actually righteous victims of American aggression; America is actually a terrorist state, so by what right may we punish the Taliban and al-Qaeda, ad nauseum.

These outrageous statements from the academics filled me with a desire to see if such views were outliers which received an airing precisely because they were so odious, or if they were the coin of the academic realm. As I suspected, and as my book makes clear, the academic anti-Americanism we witnessed after 9/11 is closer to being the rule than the exception on America’s campuses.

FP: So what is the prevalence of anti-Americanism in academia?

Yeager: For my book I did in-depth research on every single college and university website in American academia. I printed literally thousands of documents containing opinions about 9/11 from the faculty and administration. And while I did encounter a handful of academics who expressed sensible views about 9/11, and a fair share of others whose views might be characterized as cautiously critical of the terrorists and the Islamo-Arab world, the undoubted preponderance of opinion was that the United States was at fault and that the people of the Islamo-Arab world were victims meriting sympathy. The contours of this anti-Americanism are far more multifaceted than that statement suggests, but it does get to the heart of the matter. And based upon my research I suspect that perhaps two thirds of the academics, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, are basically anti-American.

FP: Does academic anti-Americanism vary significantly from state to state, region to region?

Yeager: Very little, Jamie. As I point out in my book, academia should be thought of as an anti-American archipelago. College and university campuses are essentially islands of Leftist radicalism in a great ocean of moderation and common sense. Moreover, these islands are closely linked to one another by a shared culture that is transmitted to future professors and administrators during their undergraduate and especially graduate years. Newly minted Ph.D.s go thither to California and Maine, Florida and Washington, Missouri and Wyoming, and they reinforce and replicate the anti-Americanism and Leftism they’ve swallowed throughout their years as students. Consequently, a tenured professor at Princeton will have far more in common with an instructor at Northern Arizona than he will with a pizza maker in Trenton; the Vice Provost at South Alabama will share more with the President of Stanford than he will with a physician in Birmingham. The surrounding political culture really has very little effect on the mental world of the university.

FP: How is 9/11 a lens through which we can understand academic anti-Americanism?

Yeager: The 9/11 attacks are so important for understanding academia precisely because they put the professors on the defensive for a change. Hence, the terrorists were constituents of academia. They were non-white, they were not Christians or Jews, they were from Third World nations and they were from parts of the globe that are comparatively impoverished, even if the actual terrorists themselves were anything but poor.

And these constituents of academia managed to unite American citizens, at least temporarily, in a conviction that the terrorists were evil and that they and their supporters had to be destroyed by military force. The academics were of course, aghast. How could Americans be so filled with hate? How could they rebel against pet academic nostrums such as “conflict resolution” and out-and-out pacifism? Did they not learn anything from the Vietnam War?

But most interestingly I believe the academics felt that the very notion of “diversity” was under siege. The terrorists were in no uncertain terms exemplars of diversity. And suddenly Americans were turning a gimlet eye on Islam and the Islamo-Arab world. They were also questioning the wisdom of easily acquired student visas, and open-door immigration policies.

This was too much for academia to stand. Believing their diversity ox was being gored, the professors and administrators sallied forth to defend the bearers of diversity and to attack Americans as rubes and racists. They even constructed a totally fallacious backlash by common Americans against Muslims and Arab-Americans where none existed. Rather than mass pogroms against these minorities, there were very isolated hate crimes which quickly petered out. My book deals with these issues in some depth.

FP: What is the biggest problem in US higher education?

Yeager: Believe it or not, Leftist propagandizing in the classroom, and even overt discrimination against conservatives on campus are not the biggest problems. Far more significant is the relatively subtle but ceaseless skewing of virtually every field in the social sciences and humanities to the left.

Because these fields are so ideologically unbalanced, so lacking in views emanating from anywhere on the political spectrum other than the far left, there is an inevitable drift of scholarship leftward. Liberal and Leftist assumptions about scholarly issues and problems, liberal and Leftist points of departure and ways of looking at the world are never even questioned. Indeed, the research questions which serve as the basis of scholarly projects almost inevitably stem from a liberal/Left foundation.

And how could they not? There are simply not enough centrists and conservatives in academia to even illuminate the liberal/Left bias, let alone to raise a din that would inspire greater self awareness among the majority scholars.

What results is a lifeless intellectual universe where poor scholarship is produced and indeed, the distinction between scholarship and propaganda is blurred. American students are thus getting a pathetic excuse for an education, and are paying ever more for this woeful product.

FP: So what can be done about all of this?

Yeager: As long as Americans are essentially apathetic about what goes on in academia the problem will only worsen. American citizens must recognize the seriousness of this situation and they must do something about it. And make no mistake, they have the power to make a difference.

Money, as always and everywhere, is the lifeblood of academia. Cut off the money supply and the academic power brokers will take notice and make changes. Concerned citizens should write their state representatives demanding accountability in academia on pain of voting for challengers should the incumbents not apply the heat. Alumni should cease donating money to their alma maters and make clear why they are no longer giving. Small businesses and corporations could help the cause as well by no longer requiring college degrees for work that can be done by high school graduates. The use of bachelor’s degrees as a winnowing device simply funnels a steady supply of students (and money) to the very people who would like to see this country crash and burn. The professors and administrators don’t much care for Americans; why should we continue to provision their sumptuous gravy train, with no strings attached?

FP: Joseph Yeager, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

For those of you with better things to do–and that’s virtually all of you–Keith Olbermann has this segment on his show called “Tea Time.” The intent, as far as I can understand it, is to mock and ridicule Tea Party members–definitely the road less taken at MSNBC and yet another reason why Olbermann has become a household name, at least in his own household.

The segment opens with sound of a whistling tea-kettle, presumably lifted from a Spike Jones album, that should properly alert you to the rib-tickling, cutting-edge humor you are about to experience. In the unlikely event the comedic subtlety eludes you, the various smirks and self-congratulatory chuckles that punctuate the segment will quickly provide clues as to when to laugh.

Last night’s intended victim was Dan Finnelly (who according to Olbermann isn’t the Tea Party candidate, but I guess you can’t let a good sound effect go to waste) who is trying for the Republican nomination for Florida’s 8th district–the one currently represented by that paragon of rational discourse Alan Grayson.

Olbermann’s essential beef seems to be that Finnelly advocates some kind of rational screening policy at airports. This leads Olbermann to to apply both the “R” word and the “P” word, then respond to Finnely’s clearly self-effacing joke with a zinger of his own.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
Finnelly:  Does this look like a terrorist or this?  It‘s time to stop this political correctness and the invasion of our privacy.  Let‘s face it.  If the good-looking ripped guy without much hair was flying airplanes into the Twin Towers, I‘d have no problem being pulled out of line at the airport.
(END VIDEO CLIP)

So … clearly the less-than-ripped, balding Finnelly is poking a little fun at himself while making a larger point. Olbermann however sees another rich vein of humor to be mined.

OLBERMANN:  Wait.  Who‘s the good-looking ripped guy?  Oh, ripped as if, you know, he sounds completely ripped, get him away from open flames?

You know, as lightening quick as that riposte was, I am betting it was extemporaneous. For sheer Churchillian brilliance you have to go all the way back to Dug the Dog in “UP” to find its equal.

To be fair, Olbermann is frequently funny, but it’s almost always unintentional. In this very segment he refers, straight-faced, to the idea we should stop wasting time and resources frisking Norwegian grandmothers as “racist madness.” It doesn’t get much funnier than that.

In what has to be the final nail in Arizona’s coffin, comedian Paul Rodriguez (to whom we all thrilled in Beverly Hills Chihuahua) has canceled his engagement at the the Wild Horse Pass Resort in Chandler, Arizona. Similar announcements are pending from others in the Latino entertainment community, raising the very real possibility that every Holiday Inn in the greater Phoenix area will soon run out of  Ritchie Valens tribute acts.

Some body blows you just never recover from.

This is the latest salvo from Keith Olbermann (CUE SOUND OF CORK LEAVING POP GUN — I know Keith is fond of cheesy sound-effects) who, in a frenetic attempt to keep up with the other kids in the MSM, has led with the Arizona Immigration Law story for five straight days now. In the absence of a major incident (which he and his confreres are doing their level best to whip up) Keith is now down to comedians and disgruntled Chicago Cubs fans, which amounts to the same thing. Presumably, once he’s exhausted that vein, he’ll bring on someone who can channel Ricardo Montalbán.

Rodriguez, who to the best of my knowledge also refuses to play Sun City, expressed himself thus:

We, those of us, we are not for illegal immigration.  Our protest is that this law is too broad.  This law—would Montana pass this same thing, to restrict Canadians coming over?  What is an illegal alien look like?  Is the police going to have the power to stop someone for anything, for any particular reason?

I read it, paragraph “E,” it says that a law officer, without a warrant, can stop you, if he suspects you are in this country illegally.

First, as a Canadian immigrant I deeply resent Paul’s egregious smear of the fifteen border-recognition-challenged Canadians (we call them ice-backs) who were only looking for a better life in the Badlands. It is probable that if the US passes any law against Canadian visitors it will be to prohibit plus-sized Quebecois men from wearing those little thongs on Florida beaches, but I digress.

More substantively, while it is great that Rodriguez read the law, it would have been better if he had taken some time to comprehend it. The reason that there is a paragraph “E” is there are four paragraphs that precede it, including “B” that stipulates “lawful contact” (as others like Byron York have determined, is typically something like a traffic stop). “E” has nothing to do with stopping anyone, and is implicitly dependent on “B.” But don’t take my word for it, Paul, read the law again.

Having cleared up the legal issues  Rodriguez moves on to some breathtakingly original perspectives on life in post-racial America.

We‘re not going to allow this to become second class citizens. Every time there‘s an economic pinch, Hispanics, Mexican-Americans to be more precise, we‘re the whipping boys.  That ain‘t going to happen.  We‘re more numerous than African-Americans.  You‘ve got to remember, many of us have status in this country and we‘re going to speak up when we can.

And if that doesn’t work, no casino lounge is safe. Consider yourself warned.

Having decried the numerous human rights abuses doubtless already occurring in Arizona, Rodriguez appears to pine for the firm-but-fair policies of kinder, gentler regimes.

They‘re being attracted—look, if we can—if North Korea and South Korea can have an airtight border with nobody crossing over there, and I‘m not saying to those extremes, grenades and stuff like that, or bombs or landmines or anything like that, but if they can have an airtight border, we certainly have the technology to do that here. They won‘t do it simply because there are too many interests in Washington, D.C. that don‘t want the Democrats or the Republicans to get together.

I’m not sure grenades and bombs are such a bad idea, but, leave that aside for the moment. Rodriguez actually stumbles onto a good point here. The federal government should secure our borders and there are definitely forces in Washington working to prevent that. (Paul and I would probably disagree as to what those forces are but that’s a song for another set.)  That said, in the absence of federal action what would he have Arizona do?

Perhaps while he’s sorting this out he could benefit from the observations that a younger Hispanic comedian offered a few years ago.

I feel that if you’re in America illegally, you’ve got two options: You fix your status and get legit, or leave. We should be more in favor of deportation than the non-Latinos, but my brothers don’t feel like that.

What part of illegal don’t they understand? Think about it: Both political parties are talking about reform, but that’s just what it is – talk. We’re a nation of immigrants, but there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things.

-  Plain talk with comedian Paul Rodriguez – Dallas News – April 19, 2007

]]> http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/04/30/az-lounge-act-boycott-the-horror-meltdown-with-keith-olbermann-part-42/feed/ 0 http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/29/hollywood%e2%80%99s-green-hypocrisy/ http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/29/hollywood%e2%80%99s-green-hypocrisy/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:06:38 +0000 Rich Trzupek http://frontpagemag.com/?p=59150

In the wake of the success of James Cameron’s paean to Gaia-worship, Avatar, the Hollywood heavyweight has been given an even bigger forum to spread his version of environmental dogma. It’s always ironic when a member of the jet-set wags a finger at the masses, warning us proles to clean up our acts and pursue “sustainable” lives. It would be fitting if some rich conservative fellow bought Tinsel Town’s iconic sign on the hill and added a few words, so that it would read: “Hollywood – Home of Hypocrisy.”

There are exceptions of course. Ed Begley, Jr. actually walks the walk and that seems to work for him. One can respect Begley’s commitment, even if it’s ultimately a pretty pointless exercise. For the most part though, green Hollywood is all about the “do as I say, not as I do” school of thought. Sure, they’ll throw a bone to the tree-huggers now and again, in the form of a nice donation to the right cause, or perhaps by appearing in a public-service ad. Leonardo DeCaprio hops on his bike to peddle around Manhattan, when he’s not hopping on a jet to ply his trade at some far-off location, and Cameron Diaz is proud to let the world know that she lets her waste products accumulate for a cycle or two before she finally flushes. Why the world needed to be informed of the latter, I do not know.

Back to James Cameron. The environmental activist recently said that it’s his duty to spread the green word and save a “dying planet.” How would James Cameron accomplish that? Well, it certainly wouldn’t involve economic growth or anything. Here’s what he told MSN in a recent interview:

“The solution to any one of these problems is interrelated to the solution to all of them, and it’s very simple: we have to stop population growth and we have to stop industrial growth. And this is not gonna happen. It’s so heretical to everybody trying to recover from a recession economy – ‘we have to stimulate growth!’ Well, yeah. Except that’s what’s gonna kill this planet. And until we get that through our skulls, all of the good causes and all of the fundraising and the little band-aids that we keep sticking over problems are not really going to make a difference.”

Got that? A recession might be bad for you, but it’s great for the planet. Imagine all the good that would come of a full-blown depression! If the analysts who fear that the out of control government spending and the unsustainable debt that the current administration is accumulating will lead to the collapse of the American economy are right, Barack Obama may go down in history as the man who saved the planet, at least in James Cameron’s world. Perhaps that’s the master plan. It makes as much sense as anything else.

Not that Cameron has much to worry about if the sort of economic upheaval he advocates actually occurs. When you live in a six bedroom, 8,300 square foot Malibu mansion that set you back a cool $3.5 million and you know people who are willing to front $500 million so you can make a flick featuring Smurfs on steroids, you’re pretty much good to go.

But then there’s hardly much that’s green about the industry that provides guys like Cameron with their lavish lifestyles to begin with. The film industry could serve as the poster child for an unsustainable, ultimately unproductive business model that contributes nothing substantive to either the planet or its populace. Has anyone ever measured the “carbon footprint” of a Hollywood flick? After you added in all of the transportation hits; the resources needed to feed, house and entertain the cast and crew; the energy needed to make, distribute and advertise a flick; and the energy expended by the public to get to theaters to view it, I suspect the results of such an analysis would be stunning. Hollywood is ultimately a parasite feeding on an economy that Cameron says is too darn big too begin with. Logically then, shouldn’t we cauterize the parasite before we start carving up the body?

Cameron’s arguments are clearly silly and hypocritical in the extreme. Avatar is one more example of the tired old “harmony with nature” and “noble savage” nonsense that sounds great in the abstract, but never survives any sort of in-depth scrutiny. In the absence of a green nirvana that does not exist and never has existed, environmental activists like Cameron try to create one out of whole cloth and the irony is that the only way they can bring their vision to life is to utilize the kind of modern technology and science that supposedly threatens the planet in the first place. You can’t film the environmentalist’s paradise that Cameron brought to the big screen on location, even with the aid of a time machine, because such a place does not, has not and will never exist.

But then, man has had to turn to technology to extol the wonders of nature many times before. Perhaps the most ironic example of that phenomenon is the “Tree of Life,” located at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The 14-story centerpiece of Disney’s Animal Kingdom could not be grown – no such tree actually exists – so it had to be built, using an old oil rig as its skeleton. It’s “leaves” are made of a high-tech plastic: polyvinylidine fluoride. So, if you want to highlight the wonders of nature and the need to turn away from our greedy, technologically dependent ways, there’s no better means of accomplishing that end than to utilize modern technology. That truism applies whether you’re a money-grubbing Hollywood heavyweight or whether you’re a greedy capitalist running a theme park. Sure, at one level, it might seem like you’re biting the hand that feeds you. But when you know what’s best for everybody else, you don’t lose much sleep worrying about little things like hypocrisy.

CAIR should return any money raised via this campaign of defamation, intimidation, and libel. Will they? I wouldn't hold my breath.

Here is WND's story on CAIR's crushing defeat and the victory of the freedom of speech and religious liberty. Kudos to WND, one of the very few media outlets with the courage to tell this story and the wit to realize its important implications.

"'Leaving Islam' ads return to Miami buses: 'This is a huge victory on the constitutional issues,'" from World Net Daily, April 22:

Bus ads offering support to Muslims wanting to leave Islam that were censored just days ago by the Miami-Dade Transit agency because of complaints from Muslims are being returned to the streets, this time in even greater numbers.

The ads are the work of Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs and Robert Spencer of JihadWatch through the Stop Islamization of America initiative.

The transit agency decided to censor the ads after a complaint was filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

On the Stop Islamization website, a statement said, "Not only will [Freedom Defense Initiative] and SIOA's buses be going back up, but another 20 will be added to the existing [campaign]."

"This is a huge victory on the constitutional issues. This is the work of SIOA. Have you joined our Facebook group yet? ... Robert and I want to roll this out nationwide. We have no big money, big donors. ... We are two people fighting with all the gusto we can muster."...

Read it all.

Despite the important free speech aspects of this story, and despite the fact that the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacists of CAIR have never before been dealt such a defeat, the mainstream media (including the allegedly conservative media) is -- not surprisingly -- ignoring the story of the restoration of our SIOA bus ads, with the notable exception of CNS News.

Join SIOA here.

We are taking the bus ad campaign nationwide. Help us pay for the ads -- and the lawyers -- by contributing. Use the "Contribute to Jihad Watch" button on the upper right sidebar.

"Activists Claim Free Speech Victory As 'Leaving Islam' Ads Return to Buses," by Patrick Goodenough for CNS News, April 22:

(CNSNews.com) - A public transit authority in Florida has reversed a decision to take down banner advertisements on buses that offer help to Muslims wanting to leave their faith. Activists are hailing the move as a victory for free speech and religious freedom.

Not only will the ten originally planned ads appear on Miami-Dade Transit buses in coming days, but an additional 20 ads will be run at no extra cost.

The decision came after the group initiating the ad campaign threatened a lawsuit, claiming breach of contract and violation of First Amendment rights.

It was confirmed in an agreement signed on Wednesday, according to lawyer David Yerushalmi, whose firm prepared a federal complaint together with the Thomas More Law Center.

The bus company pulled the ads last week less than 48 hours after they had gone up, after a controversial Islamic pressure group complained that they promoted "anti-Islam bigotry."

Produced by an organization called Stop the Islamization of America (SIOA), the ads alluded to the difficulties faced by Muslims wanting to leave Islam.

Under Islamic law, or shari'a, any Muslim who abandons his faith is guilty of apostasy, an offense that leading scholars have taught is punishable by death.

"Fatwa on your head?" the ads' tagline read. "Is your community or family threatening you? Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!" The ads also give the URL of a Web site offering resources for people who have abandoned Islam or are thinking about doing so.

Their appearance triggered protests from the South Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Its director, Muhammed Malik, said the issue of apostasy was being used as "a smoke-screen to promote anti-Islam bigotry and attempt to marginalize American Muslims."

Following the CAIR complaints, a Miami-Dade Transit spokeswoman told Florida media that the authority decided to remove the ads after reviewing them and determining that they might be offensive. An outside company, CBS Outdoor, had sold the ad space and the ads had not been routinely reviewed at the outset.

Yerushalmi said he had been ready to go to federal court this week to apply for a temporary restraining order, but that during a teleconference with the Miami-Dade County Attorney's office, "the county attorneys conceded the ads should not have been pulled."

The lawyer then negotiated a retraction of the earlier contract termination with CBS Outdoor. "The ads are expected to go back up by early next week."

Miami-Dade Transit did not respond to queries Wednesday.

The driving forces behind SIOA and a related group, the Freedom Defense Initiative, are Pamela Geller of the Atlas Shrugs Web site, and Jihad Watch director and author Robert Spencer.

When they launched the campaign last week, Geller and Spencer said it marked "the first time anyone has offered public help to those who are threatened under Islam's apostasy law. In the Land of the Free, government and law enforcement should be on this. But they aren't. So we are. It is time for free citizens to stand for freedom - or lose it."

SIOA has cited cases like that of Rifqa Bary, the teenage girl of Sri Lankan origin who converted to Christianity from Islam and then fled from her Ohio home to Florida last year, claiming in an affidavit that her father had threatened to kill her because of her conversion. [...]

CAIR did not respond Wednesday to queries sent to its South Florida chapter office and to Malik's personal email address. [...]

Heh.

In one Hadith (the Sahih al-Bukhari) Mohammed commands, "Any [Muslim] person who has changed his religion, kill him," and in another (Imam Malik's Muwatta) Mohammed specifies that the form of execution should be beheading.

CAIR's stated position on the subject, outlined in a statement last year, is that "faith imposed by force is not true belief, but coercion."

The statement included several Koranic references to back up that assertion, including the "no compulsion in religion" one, but said nothing about the various Hadith relating to death for apostasy.

Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Mauritania are some of the countries where people have been formally accused or found guilty of apostasy.

Apostasy laws typically give an accused person three days to reflect before being condemned. "If he does not repent within this time limit, he is to be condemned to death as an apostate and his property will be confiscated by the Treasury," states Mauritania's criminal code.

In Afghanistan, a Christian convert named Abdul Rahman was sentenced to death in 2006 for apostasy, but after the U.S. and other Western countries with military forces deployed there put pressure on the Karzai administration, he was freed and allowed to seek asylum abroad.

Even in countries where conversions are not punishable by law, apostates often face hostility or violence at the hands of relatives, communities or Islamist radicals. The Barnabas Fund, a British-based charity working among Christian minorities in the Islamic world, says Muslims who change religions often face "a lifetime of fear."