Orca-Americans File Suit Against Sea World for Slavery

Oh brother:

A federal court is being asked to grant constitutional rights to five killer whales who perform at marine parks — an unprecedented and perhaps quixotic legal action that is nonetheless likely to stoke an ongoing, intense debate at America’s law schools over expansion of animal rights.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is accusing the SeaWorld parks of keeping five star-performer whales in conditions that violate the 13th Amendment ban on slavery. SeaWorld depicted the suit as baseless.

Here's a suggestion: Slavery or sushi, your choice, Shamu.

You know what's coming next. They'll be asking for reparations.

I guess the dolphins weren't allowed to join the lawsuit because they're not black.

What Are You Doing to Celebrate Fred Korematsu Day?

Whose day?  I asked the same the thing when I saw the press release, but I think the program probably tells you more about this day than anything:

BERKELEY, CA (1/30)- January 30th marks the first annual Fred Korematsu Day in California, the first day in U.S. history named after an Asian American. The Fred Korematsu Day bill, signed into California law in September 2010, honors an American civil rights hero from Oakland, CA who bravely resisted the government’s incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II.

Several hundred people are expected to attend the first annual Fred Korematsu Day celebration on Sunday at UC Berkeley’s Wheeler auditorium. The program, sponsored by the Korematsu Institute, includes:

- Keynote speaker Reverend Jesse Jackson

- Def Poetry Jam spoken word artist Beau Sia

- Karen Korematsu, daughter of Fred Korematsu

- California Assemblymember Warren Furutani (D – South Los Angeles) co-sponsor of the Fred Korematsu Day bill

- California Assemblymember Marty Block (D – San Diego), co-sponsor of the Fred Korematsu Day bill

- Speeches from students who attend schools named after Fred Korematsu

- A video message from Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, the first Muslim elected to U.S. Congress.

So, the keynote speaker is Jesse Jackson, a guy who's about as Asian as a taco, and a video will be presented from the first Muslim member of Congress. And the whole thing is taking place in Berkeley, so you know this has to be some sort of liberal Woodstock.

So, who was Fred Korematsu?

During World War II, Korematsu was a 23-year-old welder in Oakland, California who defied military orders that ultimately led to the evacuation and incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans. After he was arrested and convicted of defying the military’s incarceration order, he took his case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1944 upheld his conviction on the ground that the forced removal of Japanese Americans was justified due to “military necessity.” That decision has been widely condemned as one of the darkest chapters in American legal history.

After four decades of having to live with a “disloyalty” conviction on his record that limited him from securing full-time work, Korematsu filed suit to reopen his case on proof that the government, when arguing his case during the war, had suppressed, altered, and destroyed material evidence that contradicted the government’s claim of military necessity.In 1983, the Federal District Court for the Northern District of California granted his petition for a writ of error coram nobis (a notice of error) and overturned his conviction. It was a pivotal moment in civil rights history that helped lead to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, whereby the U.S. Government paid $20,000 to each survivor of the Japanese American incarceration camps.

So, he was the man responsible for the Japanese reparation payments, and that tells me why Jesse Jackson is involved. He has his own sights set on reparation payments.   I guess he's hoping a little of that old Korematsu magic will wear off on him.

Henry Louis Gates Kills the Argument For Slavery Reparations

The last time we saw Henry Louis Gates he was being arrested by Cambridge, MA cops who mistook him for a burglar as he broke into his own house. The ensuing flap became quite a mess when Obama accused the cops of "acting stupidly", and that resulted in the now famous "beer summit" at the White House.

Gates has also been seen lately as a commentator on the History Channel series "America, A Story of Us".

I didn't care much for Mr. Gates' race-card antics after his arrest. I though it was dishonest and disreputable to portray the actions of the cops in that situation as racist. That whole thing has long since blown over, but Mr. Gates is about to be thrust into a new controversy of his own making - he's coming out with a book that debunks the idea that whites are solely responsible for slavery and that as a result reparations are due to African-Americans.

From Pajamas Media:

Gates’ book — Tradition and the Black Atlantic – was also previewed in the New York Times. The review hit like passed gas in the middle of a hot Sunday Baptist church service to those who have made careers out of racial complaints.

Gates says that everybody is familiar with the role played in slavery by the United States and the colonial powers of Britain, France, Holland, Portugal, and Spain. But he adds that there has been “little discussion of the role Africans themselves played.”

Can the church say amen?

Gates argues that the role Africans played was “considerable” and included the very kingdoms in western and central Africa that are praised as examples of Africa’s historical greatness every February during “Black History Month” celebrations.

How did this African involvement in the slave trade work?

Gates references the historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University — who estimate that 90 percent of the slaves shipped to the New World were captured and enslaved by Africans before being sold to European traders and commercial agents.

In essence, the slave trade would have been impossible on the scale it occurred without African business partners.

Scolding advocates for reparations — like Congressman John Conyers and Randall Robinson — ignore these inconvenient truths. But as my friend Larry Elder likes to say:

Facts to a liberal is like Kryptonite to Superman.

But facts are persistent things, and Gates points out that the belief that Europeans alone are responsible is a fantasy. This view is a romanticized version promoting the notion that Africans were somehow just “kidnapped” by evil white men — the version promoted in the old television series Roots. The truth is, however, that slavery was a highly lucrative business for European traders and African sellers alike.

Though it may be new to reparation advocates, none of this information is new to anyone who’s honestly examined slavery.

There's a lot more at the link.

The book is due out in August and I've included a link for anyone who wants to pre-order it. I'm guessing Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton won't be first in line to get their copies.

Most CA District Attorneys Oppose Obama Judicial Nominee

Why? Because he's another lefty nut that Obama seems to gravitate to:

Forty-two of California's 58 county district attorneys are opposing President Obama's nomination of Goodwin Liu to the federal appeals court in San Francisco, saying they believe the UC Berkeley law professor is hostile to the death penalty.

In a letter to leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the prosecutors attacked a paper Liu coauthored in 2005 that criticized death penalty decisions by Samuel Alito, then President George W. Bush's nominee for the Supreme Court.

The paper did not state its authors' views of the death penalty, but said Alito's opinions "show a disturbing tendency to tolerate serious errors in capital proceedings." The district attorneys said Liu's critique shows he would vote as a judge to overturn nearly every death sentence.

The document "demonstrates beyond serious question that his views on criminal law, capital punishment and the role of the federal courts in second-guessing state decisions are fully aligned" with an appeals court that is "far out of the judicial mainstream," the prosecutors said.

They included two Bay Area district attorneys, Ed Berberian of Marin County and David Paulson of Solano County.

In response, the White House released a letter from the state's prison guards union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, saying Liu would "further the cause of justice and follow the law and Constitution for all parties ... including crime victims and peace officers."

The dueling messages continued a partisan battle for public opinion over Liu's nomination to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

The 39-year-old professor has drawn rave reviews from academic colleagues and the American Bar Association. But conservatives have branded him a liberal activist and criticized his support for affirmative action, same-sex marriage and the view that constitutional rights evolve over time.

As I understand it Liu is also a big fan of reparations for slavery, and that should disqualify him all by itself.

Many fear that this guy is being groomed to be the first Asian on the Supreme Court. Like the "Wise Latina" it will be hard for the GOP to oppose a racial first no matter how wacky his political leanings. A little time on the already crazy Ninth Circuit court would enhance his resume just in time for a future Supreme Court opening.

Health Care Reform is Part of Reparations for Slavery

At least that's what Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina thinks. Newsbusters has the transcript from an interview with Chris Matthews:

JAMES CLYBURN: Well, I think that Congressman Cohen's resolution that was unanimously passed by the House offered an apology, but it went into talking about how we ought to go about rectifying some of the current effects of that past discrimination. And that's what we're doing today as we roll out this working draft of our health care bill.

. . . .

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yeah, I think reparations make sense. I just wonder if we're ever going to figure out how to do it. Mr. Clyburn, do you have a clear sense of what's the appropriate, if you were the president right now and had the congress 100% behind you, what would you do?

CLYBURN: What I would do is exactly what we're attempting to do with this legislation, energy legislation, health legislation. I would look at ways that we can programatically and with new policy, address these inequities and make concerted efforts to do things that would make up for them and eliminate the disparities. That's what I would do. We're talking about addressing inequities, disparities that exist in the health care in our communities. That's the kind of thing that we ought to be doing.

So, we need to destroy the private health insurance industry because they're a convenient scapegoat for slavery and discrimination. And we need to dramatically increase government debt (and subsequently taxes) to make up for sins of the past.

This has got to be stopped.

Who's Going to Apologize to Me?

Roger Clegg writes today about the Senate's apology for slavery and Jim Crow laws, and echoes some thoughts that I expressed as well as Roger Hedgecock. We join the essay in progress:

But no white today is or ever was a slaveholder; no black today is or ever was a slave. What’s the point of one apologizing to the other? Everyone has an ancestor who was wronged by someone else’s ancestor; there is no point in trying to find a thread for each present day misfortune in an individual’s life that can be followed back through the decades to a particular misdeed; and anyone’s poverty today likely has many causes. Some old, some recent, some other people’s fault, someone’s own.

We are told that this apology will help to bring closure, enabling us to move on. The resolution says the apology “will help bind the wounds of the Nation that are rooted in slavery and can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help the people of the United States understand the past … so they can move forward and seek reconciliation, justice, and harmony for all people of the United States.”

Nonsense — and that is not the apology’s intent. The idea is to reopen wounds, to keep grievance alive, to keep white people on the hook. Thus, the resolution says that racism “became enmeshed in the social fabric of the United States,” “the vestiges of Jim Crow continue to this day,” and “African-Americans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow laws.”

The trouble with the apology is that it is designed to make whites feel guilty and to urge blacks to think of themselves as victims. Neither emotion is valid in 2009, and both are bad for race relations. In particular, the last thing an African American needs in 2009 is an excuse to fail. An obsession with past wrongs, to the extent that present opportunity and future promise are ignored or slighted, is a bad thing. A great strength of Americans is that we are forward-looking.

The best we can hope for is that the apology won’t matter much. It will be soon forgotten. Some activists will point to it as a justification for reparations, surely. Just as surely, that won’t happen. And individual white people will go about their business, and individual black people will be left with the same choice they’ve had for years: embrace self-reliance and responsibility, or fail and blame it on others.

This whole exercise is meaningless, except to the people who will next push for reparations payments so that people who never owned slaves or participated in racist laws can pay people who never were slaves or were victims of racist laws.

Reparations Should Be Paid by Democrats

Radio host for former San Diego Mayor Roger Hedgecock says if reparations for slavery are to be paid, they should be paid by Democrats:

The U.S. Senate voted unanimously last week to adopt a resolution apologizing for slavery.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, lead sponsor of the resolution, said, "You wonder why we didn't do it 100 years ago. It is important to have a collective response to a collective injustice."

Only after decades of public education ignoring and distorting U.S. history can such a huge lie be said with a straight face.

Senator, you didn't do it 100 years ago because 100 years ago you Democrats were enforcing Jim Crow segregation laws, poll taxes to keep blacks from voting, and riding around in sheets and pointy hats just in case blacks didn't get the message.

You say "It's important to have a collective response" because you want to bury the origins, purposes, and historical practices of your own party.

The worst part is, Republicans in the Senate let you get away with it.

Principled Republicans knowing their history would have authored a resolution reciting the facts that the Republican Party was formed, among other reasons, to oppose slavery and that the Republican Party and its first President Abraham Lincoln responded to Southern, Democrat-led secession with a successful war that preserved the union and freed the slaves.

After Lincoln's assassination (by a Democrat), the Republican-led Congress (over the objections of the Democratic Party minority) amended the Constitution to confirm the liberation of the slaves (13th Amendment: slavery abolished), and the 14th Amendment (freed slaves are citizens equal to all citizens), and the15th Amendment (right to vote guaranteed to freed slaves).

Southern Democrats spent the next 100 years trying to keep freed slaves down with segregation laws, poll taxes to deny the right to vote, and lynching to enforce the social order. The KKK was formed by a Democrat; no Republican has ever been a member of the KKK. This is the heritage of the Democratic Party.

In fact, the Democratic Party was formed in the first place to defend and expand slavery.

There's a lot more of the history of the Democratic Party and slavery in the remaining part of Roger's column.

Senate Apologizes for Slavery

The next domino in the chain leading to reparations has fallen:

The Senate today apologized for slavery.

A little late, some may say.

But it is a historic gesture, nonetheless, at a time when a nation that once condoned the enslavement of workers and sanctioned racial discrimination for many decades afterward has seated its first African-American president and its first African-American attorney general, President Barack Obama and A.G. Eric Holder Jr.

This non-binding resolution apologizing for slavery and racial segregation also was long-sought. Iowa's Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) first introduced the measure years ago. He wanted to see it passed today, on the eve of Juneteenth - a day that marks the end of the Civil War and release of African Americans from slavery.

The Senate voted unanimously.

The House is expected to act soon, with a celebration planned next month in the Rotunda of a Capitol built with slave labor.

The resolution carries a disclaimer warning that nothing about this act supports or authorizes any reparations.

"In the nearly 150 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, America has taken serious and sincere steps to heal the deep wounds of one of history's greatest crimes against humanity,'' Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said today. " This resolution is another one of those steps.''

So, a group of people who never owned slaves has apologized to a group of people who never were slaves. Your government in action.

Although the resolution carries a disclaimer, it is the next step toward reparations...I guarantee it.

Fred Impresses the Hillary Crowd

The folks at Hillbuzz, a very pro-Hillary/anti-Obama site, were pretty impressed with Fred Thompson and learned a thing or two about John McCain:

Wow. Fred Thompson gave a great speech. We didn’t know a lot of that about McCain.

The guy’s a real American hero.

It gets easier to support McCain every day.

What that tells me is McCain has got to play up his biography a little more to get the attention of those voters who haven't been paying attention to McCain up until now.

UPDATE: Video of Fred Thompson's speech is here.

Obamessiah Claims to Oppose Slavery Reparations

Yesterday Barack Obama found himself heckled at a campaign stop for the first time by a group of people angry that he wasn't groveling to the black community enough. Today there's word that he claims to oppose slavery reparations, something that I'm sure those protesters favored.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama opposes offering reparations to the descendants of slaves, putting him at odds with some black groups and leaders.

The man with a serious chance to become the nation's first black president argues that government should instead combat the legacy of slavery by improving schools, health care and the economy for all.

"I have said in the past - and I'll repeat again - that the best reparations we can provide are good schools in the inner city and jobs for people who are unemployed," the Illinois Democrat said recently.

Some two dozen members of Congress are co-sponsors of legislation to create a commission that would study reparations - that is, payments and programs to make up for the damage done by slavery.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People supports the legislation, too. Cities around the country, including Obama's home of Chicago, have endorsed the idea, and so has a major union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Obama has worked to be seen as someone who will bring people together, not divide them into various interest groups with checklists of demands. Supporting reparations could undermine that image and make him appear to be pandering to black voters.

"Let's not be naive. Sen. Obama is running for president of the United States, and so he is in a constant battle to save his political life," said Kibibi Tyehimba, co-chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America. "In light of the demographics of this country, I don't think it's realistic to expect him to do anything other than what he's done."

But this is not a position Obama adopted just for the presidential campaign. He voiced the same concerns about reparations during his successful run for the Senate in 2004.

There's enough flexibility in the term "reparations" that Obama can oppose them and still have plenty of common ground with supporters.

The NAACP says reparations could take the form of government programs to help struggling people of all races. Efforts to improve schools in the inner city could also aid students in the mountains of West Virginia, said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau.

The reality is this country has been paying billions of dollars in reparations for decades but hasn't gotten any credit for it. The only thing we haven't done is actually write a check to every black person with "sorry about that slavery thing" on the memo line. The Civil Right Act, the Voting Rights Act, and the War on Poverty, all created in the 60's, have poured billions of dollars into inner city communities and rural poverty pockets with little apparent result. We're told today that it's still not enough.

Obama will never lose the black voters with opposition to reparations because they're too wrapped up in skin color to care about policy, but he might lose some of the guilty white liberal enthusiasm that he's gotten so far. They'll still probably vote for him, but they'll do it without, as Chris Matthews described it, that "shiver up their leg".

Get Out Your Checkbooks - House Issues Apology for Slavery

There's no time to act on oil drilling or any of America's pressing problems because the House of Representative is too busy groveling to dead people:

WASHINGTON — The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation laws.

"Today represents a milestone in our nation's efforts to remedy the ills of our past," said Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus.

The resolution, passed by voice vote, was the work of Tennessee Democrat Steve Cohen, the only white lawmaker to represent a majority black district. Cohen faces a formidable black challenger in a primary face-off next week.

Congress has issued apologies before — to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II and to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in 1893. In 2005, the Senate apologized for failing to pass anti-lynching laws.

Next comes reparations, without a doubt. More thoughts on this issue in a previous post here.

And what sayeth the Obamessiah?

"I consistently believe that when it comes to whether it's Native Americans or African-American issues or reparations, the most important thing for the U.S. government to do is not just offer words, but offer deeds."

Reparations are coming, folks. Get out your checkbooks.

And while Congress is in the mood to apologize, where's my apology for $4 a gallon gasoline since Congress won't allow us to drill for oil on our own land? Where's my apology for Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, Chuckie Schumer, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, and many dozens of other fools who have been elected to Congress? Where's my apology for a Democratic Party that's so vacuous that they'd nominate Barack Obama to be president?

If we're going to start issuing meaningless apologies, I'm sure there are lots of aggrieved groups out there who deserve one just as much.

UPDATE: Scrappleface adds his unique touch to the story:

House Sorry for Slavery, Jim Crow, Affirmative Action
By Scott Ott on slavery

(2008-07-30) — The U.S. House of Representatives Tuesday formally apologized for the U.S. government role in slavery and the Jim Crow laws which legalized segregation for a century after the emancipation of slaves in 1865.

In addition to the apology for “the misdeeds committed against African-Americans” who were held in bondage and lived under segregation, the House also voted to end Affirmative Action policies which “treat black people as if they’re not as capable, intelligent or resourceful as those of other races.”

The legislation ends government discrimination in granting contracts to black-owned firms, as well as “the scourge of demeaning bias” in college admissions and hiring.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus hailed the elimination of “this last vestige of institutionalized prejudice,” and announced the dissolution of the Caucus “now that Congress has fulfilled the Founders’ promise of equality of opportunity under law.”

If it had happened that way I might have actually supported it.

House Has No Time for Oil Drilling but Will Take Up White Guilt Resolution

What is going on in the House of Representatives? Have the inmates completely taken over the asylum? With energy prices at near record levels San Fran Nan can't seem to find the time to allow a vote on the one energy solution that has the most promise and could generate positive results in the nearest term (oil drilling), but does have time to allow mock impeachment hearings and now what I'm calling "The White Guilt Resolution":

The House is scheduled to take up a resolution (H.Res.194) next week "apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans."

The non-binding resolution was introduced by Rep. Steve Cohen (Tenn.), a white Democrat who represents a majority African-American district in Memphis. Early in 2007, Cohen expressed interest in joining the Congressional Black Caucus but later backed away from that idea. The CBC's PAC has actually donated money to an African-American Democrat challenging Cohen, but he has received re-election backing from Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and some other prominent black lawmakers.

The resolution, which was introduced at the beginning of the 110th Congress, makes no mention of reparations, but it does state that black Americans "continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow--long after both systems were formally abolished...."

The resolution also acknowledges that an apology an apology "cannot erase the past, but confession of the wrongs committed can speed racial healing and reconciliation and help Americans confront the ghosts of their past."

Cohen's resolution, which will be taken up under suspension, meaning it must receive a two-thirds vote in order to pass. The resolution has 120 co-sponsors.

Folks, here's something else you can look forward to in a government run by Democrats - reparations for slavery. That's the only reason a resolution like this is being offered, because once the government "apologizes" you know that will not be enough to satisfy the terminally-aggrieved racemonger crowd (that and the fact that this is a cheap political stunt by a white congressman in a heavily black district who is trying to appease the home crowd). The next demand will be reparations in which millions of Americans who had nothing to do with slavery will be forced to pay their hard-earned dollars to millions of blacks who also had nothing to do with slavery, or at best are many generations removed from anyone involved.

Slavery was a stain on humanity, no doubt. But if we're going to have a legitimate discussion of the impact of slavery on today's black Americans, there's one question that nobody seems to want to ask: Where would those people be today had slavery not brought some of their ancestors to this land? Would their branch of the family tree even exist today, or would it have been cut off at some point in the past by disease, famine or tribal wars? Where would they rather be living, in the land of opportunity and freedom, or in a land where disease, poverty, tyrannical leaders, civil wars, attacks by wild animals and other threats are part of daily life? The poorest of black Americans live in conditions light years better than most of the people on the African continent. Assuming their branch of the family tree survived to 2008, would they rather find themselves in America, or sitting in a mud hut somewhere swatting flies with the tail of whatever they killed for lunch? Should they be demanding payments from Americans who had nothing to do with their ancestor's plight, or should they be on their knees thanking God they're here and not in their family's homeland?

Let's see if Congress wants to have that debate.

By the way, if you're suffering from White Guilt I have good news for you. Economics professor and occasional Rush Limbaugh substitute host Professor Walter E. Williams ("Black by popular demand") has an official "Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon Granted to All Persons of European Descent" that you can download free by clicking on the image below. Maybe it will make you feel better.

Apologizing to the Injuns

With skyrocketing gas prices, a falling dollar, and any number of other issues facing the country, here's what your Congress is working on:

On February 26, the Senate passed a “Resolution of Apology to Native Peoples of the United States.” It is now pending in the House of Representatives.

First it makes “findings,” one of which is that “the policies of the Federal Government toward Indian tribes and the breaking of covenants with Indian tribes have contributed to the severe social ills and economic troubles in many Native communities today.” No mention, of course, of more proximate causes, like off-the-chart rates of alcoholism and illegitimacy. And, of course, government efforts “to assimilate” Indians, rather than the reservation system, is criticized.

But then follows the really juicy part, the “Acknowledgment and Apology.” It reads:


The United States, acting through Congress—

(1) recognizes the special legal and political relationship Indian tribes have with the United States and the solemn covenant with the land we share;

(2) commends and honors Native Peoples for the thousands of years that they have stewarded and protected this land;

(3) recognizes that there have been years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes;

(4) apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States;

(5) expresses its regret for the ramifications of former wrongs and its commitment to build on the positive relationships of the past and present to move toward a brighter future where all the people of this land live reconciled as brothers and sisters, and harmoniously steward and protect this land together;

(6) urges the President to acknowledge the wrongs of the United States against Indian tribes in the history of the United States in order to bring healing to this land; and

(7) commends the State governments that have begun reconciliation efforts with recognized Indian tribes located in their boundaries and encourages all State governments similarly to work toward reconciling relationships with Indian tribes within their boundaries.

First of all, I'm one of the "people of the United State" and I haven't got anything to apologize for. The only things I've ever done to Indians is drop quarters in their slot machines. Maybe they should apologize to me.

Secondly, the moment this becomes law there will be an immediate move for reparations. It's not enough that we've given them privileges that are unavailable to us palefaces, such as casino ownership, but you just know some Dem congresspaleface will introduce a bill to give them all government funds, thus ensuring their votes for future Dem congresspalefaces. It will probably be more than $24 dollars in beads, but the effect will be the same.

There's just no end to liberal guilt in this country. In the words of Barack Obama: "Get over it!".

Watch Out For the Angry White Man

HolyCoast Dad sent me a link to an excellent article on an overlooked voting group - the Angry White Men:

There is a great amount of interest in this year’s presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates — a woman and an African-American — while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party’s nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn’t looking for anything from anyone — just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords — “disenfranchised,” “marginalized” and “voiceless” — don’t resonate with him. “Press ‘one’ for English” is a curse-word to him. He’s used to picking up the tab, whether it’s the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a “living document” open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he’s willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn’t bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina — he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

While all that is true (and there's more in the article), this last part should be a warning to the Democrats:

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don’t pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It’s not that she is a woman. It’s that she is who she is. It’s the liberal victim groups she panders to, the “poor me” attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

This is the one voting group that turns out in big numbers in every election, and yet no candidate attempts to deal with their political wishes, while at the same time pandering to every other special interest group that comes along. They do so at their peril.

Could Reparations for Missionaries Be Next?

Gateway Pundit has this interesting story:

The descendants of cannibals in Papua New Guinea, held a ceremony of reconciliation, attended by thousands,where they said sorry for their forefathers' actions. Their forefathers killed and ate four Fijian missionaries in 1878.

The missionaries in a group of Methodist ministers and teachers who arrived in 1875 to spread Christianity.

We know from past experience in the U.S. that apologies are not enough. How long will it be before the descendents demand reparation payments for the sins of headhunting forefathers?

The YouTube Debate

I didn't watch the Dem YouTube debate, but I have been reviewing the questions as posted on CNN.com and there are some interesting ones - probably better than you'll find from most journalists. Here's a sample broadly categorized. The links do not go to the candidate's answers (unfortunately).

Category 1 - Typical liberal touchy-feely crap:

Question #1615: Say one good and one bad thing about the candidate to your left.

Question #1075: Would you be willing to get paid minimum wage?

Question #119: How do you get Americans to conserve more energy?

Question #234: People want to know if Al Gore’s gonna run again. Does that hurt y’all’s feelings?
Question #963: Who was your favorite teacher and why?

Question #977: What would you do to help the children of Darfur?

Question #992: Why is it acceptable to use religion to deny gay Americans their full and equal rights?

Question #548: Would you allow two women to get married?


Category 2 - Good questions worthy of a debate, and questions that no journalist would probably ask:

Question #1699: What is your position on gun control?

Question #50: What does ‘in God we trust’ mean to you?

Question #1276: If Sen. Clinton is elected president, does anyone have a problem with the same two families being in charge of the government for 28 consecutive years?

Question #1625: Does your health care program cover undocumented workers?

Question #932: Will Democrats raise taxes?

Question #577: Why isn’t there a standardized way to vote?

Question #8: What do you think of nuclear power?

Question #694: Would you agree to meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?

Question #696: Sen. Clinton, how do you feel you’d be taken seriously in diplomatic relations with Arab states?

Question #185: Should women have to register for the draft when they turn 18?

Question #729: Sen. Gravel, you said all deaths in Vietnam were in vain. How do you expect to win where many people might be offended by this?

Question #2076: Hillary Clinton: Would you describe yourself as ‘liberal’?

Question #860: How would America be better with Rep. Kucinich as president?

Question #1675: What’s going to make you different?


Category 3 - Typical lefty fever swamp stuff:

Question #1252: Would a Democratic administration pay lip service to the extremely religious as much as the current one?

Question #394: How do we pull out now?

Question #2737: If you think race and class affected the response to Hurricane Katrina, what will you do to prevent that from happening in the future?

Question #995: Will African Americans ever get reparations for slavery?

Category 4 - Questions that had no business being included:

Question #534: I got a parking ticket last week. Can one of y’all pardon me?

Question #278: What’s the dirtiest little secret in Washington?

Question #1517: If you had to pick a Republican as your running mate, who would it be?

It's an interesting format, but I think they could screen the questions a little better to weed out the obvious nutbar stuff. I believe the GOP will do something similar in August, but I'll be the questions they get will be a lot more hostile.

The Natives Are Restless in North Dakota and New York

A reader from KHND Radio in Harvey, ND tipped me off to a story in his area in which the local Indian tribe has banned a person from entering the reservation because he was critical of the conditions there in an online blog post. Here's the story from the Grand Forks Herald:

The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa has banished someone from its reservation for the second time since creating an "exclusion code" in 2006.

But the banished individual this time is not a suspected drug dealer, high-risk sex offender, or someone who has committed a serious crime. He's an Internet blogger.

Friday, the Turtle Mountain tribal council banished North Dakota political blogger Rob Port from the reservation after a column critical of the reservation appeared in a state political magazine.

The tribal resolution says Port's column was "injurious to the peace and seriously threatens the general welfare, health, safety, political security and prosperity of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, its members, and other tribes in the state of North Dakota."

Port is under fire for a column that ran in the January issue of The Dakota Beacon, a political magazine published monthly in North Dakota. The column also appears on Port's blog.

Titled "The Appalling State of North Dakota Indian Reservations," the column stems from Port's daylong experience at the Turtle Mountain reservation, where he says he spent about 15 hours "going around neighborhoods and knocking on doors."

In his column, Port talks about the conditions of the homes he saw and the people he came into contact with while on the Turtle Mountain reservation.

He writes that living conditions on the reservation are "abhorrent" and continues with: "Most of us would probably consider living in a squalid apartment in a nasty housing complex a pretty serious consequence for not getting ahead in life, but it seems to me as though most of these Indians are perfectly content to live there. Probably because they don't know any better. They were likely raised in housing projects by their parents, who in turn were probably raised in housing projects themselves."

Port's column also calls for an end to reservations and "cradle-to-grave entitlements." "The safety net needs to be taken out from under Indians. The reservation system needs to end. . . . The time of tough love needs to begin, because that's the only way things are going to get better on these reservations."

Eight tribal council members voted to exclude Port from tribal lands. Tribal Chairman David "Doc" Brien signed the resolution into law Friday.

Rob Port has his incredulous reaction to the ban in this post at Say Anything. I'll bet if they had a casino at Turtle Mountain, like they do at every Indian reservation in California, those folks wouldn't be so anxious for this kind of bad publicity. Banning someone because of what they think may work for the Chippewa, but it's very unAmerican (though some Democrats are fond of doing that, too).

North Dakota isn't the only place where the natives are restless. New York's new governor, Eliot Spitzer, is having a battle of his own with the Seneca Indians of upstate New York. Spitzer wants the tribe to pay taxes on the gasoline and cigarettes the tribe sells tax-free to the public, which of course gives them a tremendous advantage over other retailers and takes millions out of the state's pocket (that part isn't so bad). In response, the Senecas are threatening to put up tollbooths on the New York State Thruway and charge every vehicle a fee for passing through the Seneca nation:

The Seneca Indian Nation said Thursday it will start charging the state a $1 toll for each vehicle that travels on the New York State Thruway in response to a proposal that would tax reservation sales of gasoline, cigarettes and other goods to non-Indian customers.

A stretch of the highway crosses the tribe's land in western New York.

"If New York state would just abide by their word and leave us alone, I think we'd get along much better," J.C. Seneca, co-chairman of the nation's Foreign Relations Committee, said Thursday.

The move is the latest in a series of Seneca reactions to Gov. Eliot Spitzer's plan, which is expected to bring $200 million into the state.

Motorists wouldn't have to directly pay the tax. The tribe plans to send the state a monthly bill for the tolls based on the state Thruway Authority's usage figures. Seneca leaders looked into buying a set of toll booths that are being removed from a Buffalo highway, but were told they were not for sale.

The state is not inclined to pay the tribe's tolls.

This is another example of how these reparations plans can come back to bite you. Trying to make up for centuries of bad behavior toward Native Americans, modern politicians have done some dumb things, and California is at the forefront.

At the risk of being banned myself, I've been critical of the California agreements which have allowed every tribe with a couple of acres to build massive casinos. The tribes are no dummies, either. They've used the initiative process in California to vote themselves all kinds of perks that aren't available to anybody else. I can't build a casino, but they can. I can't allow smoking in a public building that I own, but the casinos can. It's just a matter of time before tribes will be able to take their billions in gambling earnings and buy land anywhere they want, declare it a reservation, and build a new casino in your backyard. They can't do that yet, but it's coming.

It's time to take another look at all these compacts and agreements to see if what made sense in the 1800's still makes sense today.

Dems Offer Reparations for Other Nation's War Crimes

In yet another example that the Dem congress clearly doesn't understand its role in our government, a bill has been offered to pay the citizens of Guam reparations for war crimes. Not our war crimes, but crimes committed by the Japanese. The details are at Gateway Pundit.

More information at RedState.

Uncle Barack's Cabin

We've already had Uncle Strom's Cabin and the revelation that some of Strom Thurmond's ancestors owned Al Sharpton's ancestors, and now there's news that at least one of Barack Obama's ancestors owned a couple of slaves of his own:

The Baltimore Sun says Sen. Barack Obama's ancestors owned slaves, adding another interesting twist to the presidential candidate's personal story.

"According to the research, one of Obama's great-great-great-great grandfathers, George Washington Overall, owned two slaves who were recorded in the 1850 census in Nelson County, Ky. The same records show that one of Obama's great-great-great-great-great-grandmothers, Mary Duvall, also owned two slaves."

An Obama spokesman did not dispute the information and said that the senator's ancestors "are representative of America."

Gee, I wonder which side of the family he was on? I guess the reparations crowd will need to get a check from Obama too.

Virginia is a Sorry State

I really don't understand what possible purpose is served by an apology issued 150 years after the grievance:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Meeting on the grounds of the former Confederate Capitol, the Virginia General Assembly voted unanimously Saturday to express "profound regret" for the state's role in slavery.

Sponsors of the resolution say they know of no other state that has apologized for slavery, although Missouri lawmakers are considering such a measure. The resolution does not carry the weight of law but sends an important symbolic message, supporters said.

"This session will be remembered for a lot of things, but 20 years hence I suspect one of those things will be the fact that we came together and passed this resolution," said Delegate A. Donald McEachin, a Democrat who sponsored it in the House of Delegates.

The resolution passed the House 96-0 and cleared the 40-member Senate on a unanimous voice vote. It does not require Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's approval.

The measure also expressed regret for "the exploitation of Native Americans."

The resolution was introduced as Virginia begins its celebration of the 400th anniversary of Jamestown, where the first Africans arrived in 1619. Richmond, home to a popular boulevard lined with statues of Confederate heroes, later became another point of arrival for Africans and a slave-trade hub.

Everybody who was wronged by slavery is long dead and gone. Maybe it helps them deal with guilt over something they had nothing to do with (and why in the world would they have such guilt??), but my honest opinion is that movements to issue apologies like this are nothing more than the opening round in a long-term war to gain reparations from the government. People who never experienced slavery, and who are several generations from anyone who did suffer, will nonetheless have their hands out looking for money from the government.

Interestingly, many of those people who will be demanding reparations for the harm caused to long gone family members have probably themselves actually benefitted from the slave trade. Had their ancestors not been brought to America hundreds of years ago, and assuming their branch in the family tree survived the famine, disease and tribal conflicts in their homelands, today they'd probably be sitting in a mud hut swatting flies with a wildebeast tail and eating whatever was the "catch-of-the-day". Their ancestors may have suffered great harm from slavery, but you'll never convince me that living in America today constitutes harm when compared to what life would be like in the old country.

By the way, when I visited Virginia in 2005 I had to sit in some pretty lousy traffic. Maybe they can work in an apology for that.