by Alex Gimarc                                Mon., August 17, 2009

Interesting Items 8/17 -

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy -

In this issue:

1. Census
2. AARP
3. Sheila
4. Joker
5. Kensington
6. Caribou
7. Death Panels

1. Census. Many conservatives have been wondering how the democrat majority in congress and the Obama WH were going to tweak the 2010 census to guarantee their reelection for the next several decades. The WSJ ran an opinion piece on August 9 by John Baker and Elliot Stonecipher entitled “Our Unconstitutional Census” that describes the problem nicely. The leftist solution, created by the C arter administration for the 1980 census is to produce census forms that make no distinction between legal citizens and illegals. Basically, this counts every single illegal (who will respond to the census taker) as a citizen. Afterwards, congressional districts are apportioned based on those totals. This has given California as many as nine congressional seats that they don’t deserve; and Texas as many as four more congressional seats that they don’t deserve. The writers make the argument that apportioning congressional districts using numbers based on legal and illegal residents of each state is unconstitutional. Once the challenges to these artificially inflated census totals hit the court room, all the Obama administration will have to do is ask the court to order another census – which the presiding judges will likely not be willing to do. An early solution would be to st art the lawsuits early and often, challenging the assumptions of the 2010 census, and forcing census takers to st art asking the question: “Are you a legal resident of the United States?” I don’t have a lot of confidence that will happen either, especially since the democrat congressional majorities have gotten away with this for the last 30 years.

2. AARP. President Obama, in full campaign mode last week was traveling and speaking nationwide in support of the faltering ObamaCare legislation. He was speaking off the cuff without the teleprompter, which gave him the opportunity to commit Truth in public. During one event, he said that the elderly ought to be supporting ObamaCare, as the AARP was fully on board. This triggered an interesting set of reactions. Conservative commentators immediately went into “gotcha” mode, painting it as yet another non-scripted gaffe. I am not so sure it was a gaffe, as I believe that the AARP and WH have indeed reached an agreement where the AARP stays for the most p art out of the debate until the legislation is passed. And given that the AARP leadership has swung hard left over the course of the last 30 years, and are full Beltway insiders, I do believe the leadership is taking the organization in a direction that the general membership does not want to go. The general membership is strongly, vociferously, viscerally against ObamaCare. They have been lighting up the phone lines, e-mail, fax machines, and other forms of communications to AARP headqu arters demanding the organization come out strongly against ObamaCare. The AARP has been mostly silent – playing the plausible deniability game. Obama’s “gaffe” is very likely not a gaffe at all; rather it is an inadvertent expression of truth in public.

3. Sheila. Sheila Jackson Lee (D, TX) is a living example of the type of garbage that comes out of racially gerrymandered districts; infesting one such district in Houston. She held a carefully scripted Town Hall meeting last week which was notable for two events that ended up on You Tube. The first was a young woman, who claimed to be a primary care pediatric physician, who spoke in glowing terms about the ObamaCare legislation. It turns out that she was a student at the University of Houston who was an Obama delegate last year. She was invited to the event by another Obama campaign worker who was a local Che Guevara acolyte (anyone else remember the photo of the Che Guevara flag in the Houston Obama campaign office last year?). This fraud was uncovered by attendees and the Houston Chronicle after the event. Given the ability of the Saul Alinsky adherents on the left to do things and say things that aren’t real, this sort of thing is not unexpected. The second thing that Congressman Lee did during the event was taking a cell phone call while a constituent was asking her a question. The constituent was still talking when Lee picked up her cellphone, answered it, and st arted having a conversation. The entire sorry, disrespectful affair is also on You Tube. I do expect Lee to see a lot of versions of that video clip during her campaign next year for reelection. We will hope that a reasonable candidate files to run against her and is successful.

4. Joker. One of the reasons that Obama won last year was that among the young and trendy, he was viewed a hip, cool and with it. The bloom appears to be off that p articular rose with the young. Last April in LA, a poster of Obama’s face made up to look like Heath Ledger’s Joker character in the movie “Batman Begins.” At the bottom of the poster is the word “SOCIALISM” in large block letters. The poster has gone viral since then in LA, very, very liberal LA and is showing up everywhere. It has also been making the rounds of anti-Obama web sties, bloggers, and other venues over the last several months. Given that Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was as an absolutely evil agent of anarchy, you can see how this would be a problem for those on the left. Things have gotten sufficiently serious with this poster that the state-run media reaction has been to st art referring to it as racist – which is a clear indication that it is working. Message to the left: when you have lost the young, you have lost everything. Just ask McCain.

5. Kensington. The Kensington mine in Southeast Alaska got their final go-ahead from the Army Corps of Engineers to st art operations last week. This mine was subject of a SCOTUS decision that affirmed its ability to dump mine tailings into a lake on the property as long as the mine did remediation after operations ceased. Local greens have long fought the mine. When this mine is in full operations, we will see 300 new high paying jobs created in Southcentral. Congratulations to Coeur Alaska.

6. Caribou. On the Fourth of July weekend in 2008, eight hunters near Point Hope, Alaska gunned down over 100 caribou, wasting the meat of over 40 animals. Alaska State Troopers investigated the shootings over the course of eight months, eventually identifying the young men and recommending prosecution. None of the village elders in the community were any help during the investigation and there is no indication that the village has done anything to discipline or punish the hunters. Two weeks ago, the North Slope Borough announced it would be donating $7,000 per hunter to assist with their defense. At the same time, we got the typical defense attorney rot about subsistence, native rights, old ways, tradition, the meat was bad, the dog ate my homework, and other garbage you would expect out defense attorneys. As this trial is going to take place in Point Hope, I expect the young men to get off without a conviction. To contrast this expected outcome: if a group of eight young non-Natives had gunned down 100 caribou over a long weekend and wasted the meat, they would all be spending a very long time in jail – deservedly so. The rural – urban divide up here has been mostly quiet since our last democrat governor was stirring up the racial divisions between natives and everyone else. Should the village elders of Point Hope not step up and do the right thing with these clowns, they will rightfully be viewed as simply another group of Americans who believe the law applies to everyone except them and their neighbors.

7. Death Panels. Section 1233 of HR 3200, the Waxman version of ObamaCare, provides for end of life counseling by physicians. There is no written penalty for the patient to refuse the counseling. There is however financial incentive for the physician to provide such counseling and initiate the discussion. This provision has been hotly contested, its existence denied by everyone on the left and many on the right, but it does exist. Last week former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin referred to this counseling as Death Panels, prompting a flat denial from senior US Senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowski. Murkowski was raked over the coals by Limbaugh late in the week for her statement. On the other hand, Palin’s somewhat over the top description of this counseling as Death Panels did get the appropriate response, with an announcement by Max Baucus (D, MT) late in the week that there would be no Death Panels in the senate version of the legislation. Question for the defenders: If there were no Death Panels, why are they now being removed from the legislation?

More later –

           - AG

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.