American Politics Summed Up In One Image
Image by Graham Roumieu
H/T Boing Boing
Ever Heard Of The Posse Comitatus Act?
Read up on the Posse Comitatus Act here then read this article in the Army Times.
Our country has a professional full time military whose purpose it is to kill bad guys who threaten our nation from the outside. We have local law enforcement who are responsible for protecting citizens within our country. They are not to be mixed.
Does anyone find it creepy that the military now seems to be making it part of their full time mission to “help people at home”? I’d prefer not to have our full time military’s help here at home. If the governor wants to call out the guard in a local emergency that is one thing…but the army/airforce/marines? No thanks.
Maybe I deserve some mocking about my tin foil hat being too tight…but it is still very creepy to hear that our military is being prepared for use in American cities. That isn’t what it was meant for.
Hat Tip: The Agitator
“John McCain is a demagogic lunatic”*
George Will explains:
Channeling his inner Queen of Hearts, John McCain furiously, and apparently without even looking around at facts, said Chris Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, should be decapitated. This childish reflex provoked the Wall Street Journal to editorialize that “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.”
Hmmm…we’re given a election choice this November between lunatic McCain who regularly confuses hubris with logic and Obama who is benefiting politically from a poor economy and just can’t wait to socialize what little is left after Bush finishes with his foolish bail out scheme. A Mickey Mouse write-in candidacy is looking pretty good right now.
* The title quote comes from one of my heroes, Virginia Postrel
Orem’s Yard Police At It Again?
Last time they were arresting old ladies for not watering the lawn. Now the Orem City Police are after some gardener who is growing a single castor bean plant.
A startled homeowner got a visit from Orem Police Tuesday afternoon. They were interested in a plant that he was growing by his mailbox in the front yard. They were so interested that they put a call into Homeland Security. No, it wasn’t marijuana. It was a castor bean plant.
You can make some scary stuff with castor beans but the plants are legal in every state in the nation and in some areas of the country they’re ubiquitous.
Fuqua [the gardener] has a background in chemistry and is well aware that terrorists have used them to make Ricin. But he never dreamed that someone would think that he might be a terrorist.
He says with a laugh, “I’m not a terrorist, but I was terribly frightened when the call came in. I was terrorized (for) my humble little plant that’s over there in the corner.”
We are all safer for having the ever vigilant and hyper-responsive Orem City Police in our state.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia
She’s Been Teaching Kindergarten For 50 Years!
Congratulations to Mrs. Moon, my kindergarten teacher 30 years ago at Burton Elementary. You’ve been such an awesome teacher to so many students for so many years!
Thank you!
Sarah Palin
By far the best analysis of the current status of this years presidential election and Sarah Palin’s place in it comes from this comment at Irrational Optimism left by Utah Amicus‘ CraigJ:
Thanks for the interesting post.
No doubt she will be very popular with the moral-majority types. Her Coulteresque framing of the issues is clearly designed to shore up the Republican’s bread-and-butter base - give them something to be excited about. Now it will be up to McCain to go after the independents as a “maverick” who will shake up Washington. Can he deliver?
Obama and Biden already have an energized base of support because the core of the Democratic party is so sick of the Bush administration. Palin can’t functionally irritate the D’s any more than they already are so it makes perfect sense to just let her go bananas on Obama to garner support from her home team - as she did. The only risk for the R’s is that Obama may highlight Palin’s bulldog comments in their fundraising pieces.
As for the D’s play to the independents, Obama and Biden will probably keep the message focused on the failures of Bush/Cheney and demonstrate that McCain/Palin doesn’t offer anything new.
So…
McCain - “Maverick” play to I’s
Palin - Shore up R’s base
Obama/Biden - Unrelenting play to I’s in battleground states (like Colorado and Iowa).
Going after Palin will do nothing but energize the R base even more, hence Obama’s call to let it go. This won’t stop some astute D’s from venting - similar to the way you share your frustrations on your blog on occasion.
In the end it really comes down to McCain vs. Obama/Biden on the persuasion front. Palin will be a GOTV machine. Obama has an unprecedented grass-roots organization using the Internet that will bolster their GOTV efforts. Thanks Al Gore
I predict this is what we will see all the way through Nov. 4th.
Thank you Craig!
