Stop Bein' Greedy

Bobby Rush on the floor of the House looked like DMX in the video for "Stop Bein' Greedy."  It is so typical for a Chicago legislator to resort to cheap theatrics.  Which may explain why Illinois is the most broke state in the union.  "Two glowin' red eyes/everything else is black."

A liberal legal blog now bemoans the fact that unelected SC justices are poised to overturn a democratically created law.  Which is a fine objection, had the same liberals been consistant enough to feel the same way about courts overturning laws (pornography, traditional marriage, etc.) that their opponents created.  The fact of the matter is that liberals are fine with courts overturning democratically created laws, so long as those laws are "prudish," "heterosexist," or "patriachal."  The same people that created a constitutional right to privacy out of thin air now object to the Supreme Court they have used to their own ends since the FDR years.  "Y'all have eaten long enough now/stop bein' greedy."

Kicking and Screaming, Part Two

Nicholas Hahn claims that being a good executive won Romney the Catholic vote.  Mr. Hahn also says Santorum caught "Potomac fever," whatever that is.  Well, Mr. Hahn, if being a Catholic means loving good executives, they must be mightily displeased with the ecclesiastical politicians calling themselves bishops.  The bishops put their weight behind Obamacare only to have the Contraceptive Mandate shoved down their throats.  If Santorum has Potomac fever, what disease do the other presidential candidates have?  After all, if wanting public office is wrong, then Mitt the Shit and Newt Gingerich have the same defect.  Estase has already given up on 2012.  He voted for Santorum, and the rest of the Illinois GOP chose someone who forced Catholic hospitals to hand out Plan B.  Mitt then lied about it, claiming that this provision of Romneycare was voluntary when it wasn't.  Like Lisa Graas, I see absolutely no difference between Obama and Romney when it comes to freedom for the Catholic Church, and if the Catholic vote went with Romney, that shows how stupid Catholics are. Petasus tip to Kresta in the Morning.

My thought is that if the water is too poisoned between Romney and Santorum for the latter to be his VP, Romney might gain some creditablity as a pro-lifer (where he has none now) by making Michele Bachmann his VP.  I might actually give a damn about whether or not Romney wins in that case.

Update: Justice Stephen Bryer sees nothing wrong with the government forcing people to buy burial insurance.  The 1930s threw most of the freedom to make contracts out the window--vide Wickard v. Filburn, the Social Security Act.  The 30s also were the decade that killed Common Law, and replaced it with an infinitely flexible constitution.

Reading the Riot Act About Burke

The following is from The House of Commons in the Eighteenth Century by P.D.G. Thomas (Oxford, 1971):

His{Hartley} rising always operated like a Dinner Bell. One day, that he had thus wearied out the Patience of his Audience, having nearly cleared out a very full House which was reduced from three hundred to about eighty persons, half asleep;  just at a time when he was expected to close, he unexpectedly moved that the Riot Act should be read, as a document necessary to elucidate, or to prove some of his foregoing assertions.  Burke, who sat close by him. . . laid hold of Hartley by the coat, "The Riot Act! my dear friend, the Riot Act!  To what purpose!  Don't you see that the mob is already completely dispersed?"(p221)

That Burke was a natural target for interruptions can be seen from Wraxall's pen-portrait of him in action:  'Burke constantly wore spectacles.  His enunciation was vehement, rapid, and never checked by any Embarrassment:  for his Ideas outran his Powers of Utterance, and he drew from an exhaustless Source.  But his Irish Accent, which was as strong as if he had never quitted the Banks of the Shannon, diminished to the Ear, the enchanting Effect of his Eloquence on the Mind.  The dazzling oratory of Edmund Burke, adorned with metaphors and similes, makes magnificent prose:  but it must often have been incomprehensible to a large part of his audience.  He spoke too long as well as too fast, and it was part of his practice to speak late in debates.  He lacked the personal or social stature to command respect.  His views were often predictable, and usually unpopular with the majority of members present.  Attempts to stop him were therefore frequent, and sometimes mentioned by Burke himself.  On 10 December 1770 he made this comment during his speech:  'I must address myself to some gentlemen, and I will do it with humility, that they have a disposition, when any gentleman gets up, they don't choose to hear speak, to endeavor the best they can, to drown him with noise, and clamour.  I never knew it was formed into a regular system till today.' Later in the same session Burke reported to Rockingham that on 13 February 1771 he had 'waited for the general reply, until after twelve;  a detachment of Macaronies endeavored to prevent me from speaking, but they did not succeed.'  During his speech Burke remarked, 'I am very glad that the House is full;  but there is another point not so easy to gain--a patient attendance, a very full and patient House.'  Even age and experience did not give Burke immunity from such treatment.  Carl Moritz noted this incident during a speech by him on 9 July 1782 in praise of the recently deceased Lord Rockingham:  'As he did not meet with sufficient attention, and heard much talking and many murmors, he said, with much vehemence and a sense of injured merit, "this is not treatment for so old a Member of Parliament as I am, and I will be heard!"  On which there was immediately a most profound silence.(p225-226).

Edmund Burke was not always popular with his contemporaries, and it is nearly certain that the superficial over at Fox News would have zero use for an Edmund Burke today.

I Coulda Been a Contender!

First article of illogic:  The claim that if polls show that religious freedom isn't at issue with the Contraceptive Mandate, that no such problem exists.  I am sure that if you ran a poll on racial justice in Mississippi in 1920, the poll would have shown that black people there were treated just fine.  Civil rights by opinion poll, anyone?

Second article of illogic: The other blogger, who supports Ron Paul, who called Rick Santorum a crazy right wing extremist.  OK, people, you need to get your story straight.  Either Santorum is a big government Republican, or he is a right wing extremist.  You cannot have it both ways.  By the way, Ron Paul has an isolationist, Pat Buchanan foreign policy, so I think most people would consider him a strong contender for right wing extremist of the current election cycle.

Gutting the Catholic Church

Gary Gutting, philosophy professor at Notre Dame, says that since Catholics often contracept, the Catholic Church no longer teaches that contraception is wrong.  Which sort of implies that any sin, if practiced commonly enough, ceases to be a sin.  How I long for Ralph McInerny to come back from the dead and beat some sense into this guy!  Petasus tip to Cardinal Newman Society.

ATTENTION WAL-MART!  You need to stop selling Jane Fonda workout videos--now!  Sam Walton would spin in his grave if he knew Hanoi Jane was being peddled in his store.  The following is from Robert Coram's book American Patriot:The Life and Wars of Bud Day,
While near Hanoi, Fonda put on the helmet of a Vietnamese soldier and sang antiwar songs.  She sat in the gunner's seat of a AAA battery to "encourage" North Vietnamese soldiers fighting against "American imperialist air raiders."  She made numerous broadcasts over Radio Hanoi--broadcasts the POWs were forced to listen to over "CBS" {Camp Bull Shit} as she denounced Richard Nixon as a "true killer" and lamented his "crimes" against the Vietnamese and said he was "lying" when he said the war was winding down.  Over "CBS" the guards played a tape of Fonda and a group of women outside an army base in New Jersey singing a song called "Fuck the Army." 

Fonda came to Hoa Lo and met with seven POWs.  One of them, Navy lieutenant commander David Hoffman, was tortured until he agreed to appear.  (McCain says he was "knocked around" in an unsuccessful effort to make him meet with Fonda.)  Among the POWs who showed up voluntarily were Lieutenant Colonel Edison Miller {collaborator of the infamous "Bob and Ed Show" the camp inmates were forced to listen to} of the Marines and Commander Walter Eugene Wilber of the Navy.

The legal definition of "treason" includes a phrase about providing "aid and comfort to the enemy." Bud Day and, for that matter, almost all of the POWs say that Fonda had done just that and should have been tried for treason.

They would never forgive her.

Nor should Wal-Mart.

Petasus tip to Gateway Pundit.  They actually have the temerity to cast Hanoi Jane as Nancy Reagan.  Hollywood is shameless.

BEAR TO THE RIGHT

BEAR TO THE RIGHT
Aminoff really outdid himself here.  I especially liked his comment about the KKK, which also was aligned with labor unions in the Herrin, IL riot in 1924.  The people who act as though the Klan was somehow unlinked with Democrats are revisionists, although it is unfortunately true that Governor Len Small coddled the Klan in those same 1920s.

Fake Issues: 1996 and 2012

State Senator Judy Eason McIntyre poses with a sign saying "If I wanted government in my womb I'd F**k a Senator" at a rally against the Oklahoma personhood bill.  Ha ha. If I wanted government in my church, I would vote for Mitt Romney.

Petasus tip to the Clue Batting Cage.  Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill is now claiming that she is supporting the Contraceptive Mandate and opposing the Blunt Amendment because she wants to reduce the number of abortions.  Hilarious!  And I'm sure that's why Dick Durbin, Kirsten Gillibrand, and all the rest of the pro-aborts want to make the Church violate her own teachings too!  It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that Obama and the liberals have made birth control the star issue of the 2012 election, and want to pretend that anyone who doesn't want government to force the Catholic Church to pay for contraceptives really wants no one to have contraceptives at all, would it?  Just like how the liberals made cigarettes the fake issue of 1996, and kept acting as though Bob Dole's whole raison d'etre was to make elementary schools hand them out like candy?  No, changing the subject from real to fake issues is never a liberal tactic!

Ask Pepsi to stop contracting with Senomyx!

Restore-DC-Catholicism: Some Thoughts Regarding The Archdiocese's Disgusting Treatment Of Father Guarnizo

Restore-DC-Catholicism: Some Thoughts Regarding The Archdiocese's Disgusting Treatment Of Father Guarnizo
In addition to this link, Estase includes the following quote from Mark Steyn's NR column entitled "The Church of Big Government":   The Catholic hierarchy's fawning indulgence of the Beltway's abortion zealots and serial annullers is not reciprocated:  The Church of Government punishes apostasy ever more zealously.  The state no longer criminalizes a belief in transubstantiation, mainly because most people have no idea what that is.  But they know what sex is, and, if the price of Pierre Trudeau's assertion that "the state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation" is that the state has to take an ever larger place in the churches and colleges and hospitals and insurance agencies and small businesses of the nation, they're cool with that.  North of the border, motoring around the once-Catholic bastion of Quebec, you'll pass every couple of miles one of the province's many, many churches, and invariably out front you'll see a prominant billboard bearing the slogan "Notre patrimoine religieux-c'est sacre!"  "Our religious heritage-it's sacred!"  Which translated from the statist code-speak means:"Our religious heritage-it's over!"  But it's left every Quebec community with a lot of big, prominantly positioned buildings, and not all of them can be, as Montreal's Saint-Jean de la Croix and Couvent de Marie Reparatrice were, converted int luxury three-quarter-million-dollar condos.  So to prevent them from decaying into downtown eyesores, there's a government-funded program to preserve them as spiffy-looking husks.

Apparently, Cardinal Wuerl wishes for his diocese to be like these Canadian Catholics-- a quaint and accomodating anachronism.  Steve Kellmeyer blogged last week http://www.skellmeyer.blogspot.com/ "Snips and Snails and Rattlesnake Tails" that the only reason American Cardinals are upset about the Contraception Mandate is because it means none of them will have any chance at being Pope now.  The treatment of this parish priest lends support to this theory.

George Neumyer at The American Spectator says Fr. Thomas Reese, a Jesuit (insert joke here) called for Wuerl to send Fr. Guarnizo to the Gulag.  Cardinal Wuerl is influential in Rome, and according to Neumyer, he reports unfavorable press to the Vatican.  Mommy, make the mean people stop saying bad things about me!  Waaah!  This is the kind of guy the Pope gave a red hat to!

Freedom From Religion Foundation Trots Out Bertie

The Freedom From Religion Foundation thinks Contraception is like using an umbrella(?), says liberal Catholics are "better" than their "antidiluvian, ignorant" church, and trots out pacifist commie philosopher Bertie Russell in a vitriolic ad aimed at getting liberal Catholics to leave.  Frankly, any stupid enough to fall for this should have left long before. Petasus tip to Gateway Pundit

McCaskill Rejects Blunt Amendment

Putative moderate, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, joined with radical liberals like Dick Durbin and Kirsten Gillibrand in supporting the Contraception Mandate by rejecting the Blunt Amendment.  Senator McCaskill represents a state which would reject the kind of politics she espouses if she were up front and honest about who she is, which is emphatically not a moderate.

HEK 293:  Pepsi Cola--Now featuring the great taste of aborted baby!