Act Like You Know, RICO

I glossed over this story yesterday, but wanted to come back to it today.

What essentially happened is that just about every Chicago gang-banger on parole or probation was forced by their POs to go to a meeting where Chicago Police Chief Jody Weis got on his knees and begged them to behave.

He also said that if they misbehaved, that the local, state and Federal authorities were “going to come down on them with all the firepower we have.”  <Zell Miller> With spitballs? </Zell Miller>  J-Fed also said that “we’re focusing on group responsibility.”  Sorry, Jody.  That’s been illegal since 1964.

The main point of the article is that the U.S. Attorneys are mulling the use of RICO statutes to send gang-bangers to Federal prison, based on the fact that their gang is a corrupt organization.  Fine, in theory, except that it’s got two big Everests ahead of it:  (1)  Black and Hispanic street gangs don’t really keep good records that a Federal prosecutor can subpoena to prove who is and isn’t part of the gang, and (2)  Even with competent jurors, and even if the defendants are part of corrupt organizations with credible paper trails, RICO is as hard as the hell known as the Southside to prove.  Obviously, even a Federal trial in Chicago and against a ChiCongo gang’s thugs will have black jurors.

Oh, and one more thing?  The U.S. Attorney in Chicago whose office would file those RICO charges?  That would be one Patrick Fitzfong, who is batting a stellar .042 against Rod Blagojevich.

UPDATE 8 PM: From the CST’s version of this story:

When one of those gangs is involved in a killing, sources said, authorities plan to make their leaders’ lives miserable, doing everything from towing their cars for parking violations, to ramping up parole visits, to pulling them over repeatedly for traffic stops.

Everything indeed……except for arresting them for murder.  BTW, Second City Cop, hardly a friend of black gang-bangers, is right when he says about this part that:

Gee, let’s just get it on the public record that we are suspending Constitutional protections and engaging in an organized campaign of harassment against certain individuals based on their past or suspected criminal records. We certainly hope every officer involved in this public record disaster has their house in trust.

Yeah, especially in a city like Chicago, whose judicial system loves to hang cops out to dry even when they did nothing wrong.  Imagine how much worse it will be when the cops’ behavior truly enters the gray area.

Read further down in SCC’s article and the comments, and you’ll find out that this very same kind of “negotiation” and begging in the 1960s practically created the Jesse Jackson Rainbow/PUSH empire, because the CPD gave Jackson legitimacy by “negotiating” with him when he would have otherwise been one of a million nobody/street agitators in that city.  J-Fed has probably gone and created another five Jesse Jacksons.

UPDATE 9/2: The first fruits of J-Fed’s open mouth insert foot:  Current and former gang bangers hold a press conference denouncing the idle threats, and the media show up and cover them like they’re some sort of legitimate organization.

UPDATE 9/3: A CPD officer (guess), has links to the press conferencing gang-bangers.

Feh, You Learn Something New Every Day

5:

Daniel Boone Bridge repairs require closure for two weekends in September, could affect Mizzou travel

(snip)

The closures are expected to impact all drivers traveling from Chesterfield to St. Charles County those weekends, in particular fans heading to Mizzou home games against McNeese State and San Diego State.

I had no clue there were so many McNeese State and San Diego State alums and fans in St. Louis City and County.

Today’s Headlines (8th Cousins In Love Again)

NYP:  Obama calls former President George W. Bush ahead of Iraq speech

Obama needed permission from Bush, who in turn needed permission from Dick Cheney.

BBC:  India growth rate rises to 8.8%

Congratulate “Mark” and “Sharon” the next time you need to call customer service.

The National (UAE):  There is no struggle between Islam and America, imam says

As late as nine years ago, I might have believed you.

Tuesday’s Tidbits

*  While Beckapalooza wasn’t much to write home about, Sharpton’s “counter-rally” was nothing more than pure astroturf.

*  Oh joy.  If the same low-IQ students have near perfect attendance, and their low-IQ parents attend PTO conferences regularly, to meet their low-IQ Harris-Stowe “graduate” teachers who are teaching their low-IQ children, the parents will get some straight cash homey.

Thankfully, it’s not your straight cash, homey.  At least I hope it’s not.  Then again, I’ll write this today, and tomorrow I’ll find out this foundation is awash in Federal or state grant money.  Then I’ll look like an ass.

*  CST has this profile about the former tech entrepreneur turned CPD officer after 9/11 who is spearheading the CPD’s Racial Profiling By Any Other Name effort.  In it, we find out that he was amazed that cops do push-ups, are interested in firearms and ammunition, and engage in foot chases of criminal suspects.

What this means is that Mr. Goldstein was Captain Oblivious before and is Captain Obvious now.

*  Strange Maps has its first new post in a very long time.  It’s about French settlements on the North American continent whose real estate parcels were thin and long, especially in the river bottoms.  This was the way it was near (what would become) St. Louis, too, but I’m surprised none of the people who have left comments have come up with the real reason:  It had to do with Indians.  They had the bad habit of attacking white settlers, and if you had big farm fields in two dimensions, you were pretty much all by yourself up against an army of attacking Indians.  The French deliberately put farmers on thin strips so that men working in the field would almost always be close to other men working their fields, due to the narrow dimension of length.  So that means when the Indians popped up over the horizon, there was enough time for the settlers to gather together to defend the house, as the Under Armour commercials would say.

*  More like Aisle WIN.  I need a few more of those picnics, to be quite honest.

I understand why the batteries are there, in order to power those “toys.”  I also understand the Excedrin — That’s there for the S&M freaks.

*  Sorry, Tiki.  There’s no PR-ing yourself out of this one.

AFAIC, justice came when the Giants won the Super Bowl the season after you retired.  Ultimate slap in the face.

*  Carl Paladino, the candidate for NYS-GOV-R who wants to repurpose abandoned state prisons to become life skills centers for welfare recipients, has probably chimed in with the best explanation thus far about the controversy over Obama’s religious faith.  I’ll let you read it for yourself, but I’ll give you a hint before hand:  Black velvet in that slow Southern style.  A new religion that’ll bring you to your knees…

Today’s 48th State Stack of Stuff

*  The Sue-Me State:  Now DOJ is suing the Maricopa County Junior College district for doing is job too well when it comes to preventing illegal aliens from gaining employment.

*  Sheriff, don’t be hatin’ on vermin.  It, unlike the UN, has it uses.

About that — The more I think about it, the more I think this State Department report to the UN didn’t come from Obama, it came from HRC.  And it came from HRC because she’s trying to get in on the Hispandering bandwagon herself.  The signs are all clear — She’s gonna challenge Obama in the primaries.

Monday’s Headlines

Daily Mail:  Obama pledges Gulf Coast recovery on anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

“If they put in golf courses and ice cream stands, Michelle, the kids and I are so there.”

NYP:  Union makes State Senate Democrats return Walmart money

New York’s Democrats:  “A Wal-Mart anywhere is a threat to civilization everywhere.”  Scream it loud and proud from atop the Ground Zero Mosque.

P-D:  Chicago warns gang leaders to stop violence

And if they don’t stop, they run the risk of getting another warning.

Monday’s Stuff

*  NexMedia takes up Paris Hilton:

Did you catch what I caught?  Paris Hilton left the Wynn hotel in Vegas with her b/f, they got into the Escalade, one of the two or both were smoking weed, and the Vegas cop smelled the pot smoke.

Paris HILTON, at the WYNN?  Hello, your last name is HILTON, you should be at the HILTON in Vegas.

*  The first man teacher I ever had for a subject matter in school (i.e. not gym) was black, that being instrumental music in middle school.  My first calculus teacher was a black man, as was my second calculus teacher, or rather, the instructor who taught the highest level math classes at the JC where I took my second calculus course, as my high school didn’t offer it.  Seems to me there are plenty of black men who are teachers or instructors or professors — They seem to have the luxury of teaching in situations where they have good students.  Then again, any teacher would benefit from a classroom full of quality students.

*  Here’s the exact mirror opposite of Vincent Richardson:  This one was 21 in reality, and wanted to live like he was 14.  Richardson was just the opposite — 14 in reality, but wanted to live like he was 21, or at least the minimum age to be a Chicago cop.

Why can nobody can tell the difference between 14 and 21 anymore?  “The infantilization of the black man in America.”  Talk about words I could write…

*  It’s the order of the day in the UK:  Left-wing extremists protest conservatives, and wind up attacking the police.  It happens so often that I ought to have its own category on this blog.

*  I joked about it during the Vancouver Olympics, and it’s apparently no joke for the next Games in London the summer after next:  No more real guns in the events that require them.

Kumbaya My Diversity, Kumbaya (Today’s Immigration Stack of Stuff)

*  There’s black-immigrant bing-banging starting up in St. Louis.  It’s mainly in neighborhoods around the corner of Page and Skinker.  And no, I don’t think holding hands and singing songs is going to stop it.

*  This is actually the literal definition of “decimation,” i.e. lopping off ten percent of something for some reason.  But when it comes to Mexico and corrupt cops, you’d have to do something closer to whatever the word is for getting rid of 90%.

Rhetorical Question for Sam Adams, Mayor of Portland, Oregon

There are numerous incorporated municipalities in the state of Oregon.  There are lots of gun owners, both legal and illegal, in all those cities.  So why is your city the only one in the state that wants to have and enforce gun laws tougher than the state’s in general, and in spite of state pre-emption statutes?  What is it about Portland that makes guns behave so badly?

In related news, the NYT admits that Chicago’s pre-McDonald handgun laws were rarely enforced and virtually a dead letter.  Now, will the NYT apply their own (sensible, for once) logic to its own city?

Sunday Wrap-Up

*  “Boyfriend of the boy’s mother.”  Like I have said in this space, you’ll read this kind of story often.

*  Bryce Harper is onto something:  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  I get the feeling he’ll be driving the same 2000 Toyota Tacoma when he retires from baseball.  Toyota trucks do last quite awhile, IF you take care of them.  That and what else would you expect a 17-year old precociously-enrolled college student to drive?  A Rolls Royce?

Now, he COULD learn how to ease off on the eye black.

*  Leadgate?  I think the NRA was behind it, some way, some how.  As you should know by now, because you are smart enough to read this blog on a regular basis, the NRA (God Love It) is really nothing more than the lobbying arm for the domsetic small arms industry.  Ammo prices shot way up after Obama won, but in recent weeks and months, they’ve been going back down.  I was wondering what trick was going to be turned in order to drive demand and therefore prices back up.

*  Of course, most of the media got this story all wrong.  But, knock on wood, one St. Louis MSM source got the story right.

I imagine this policy came from the days when the Federal judiciary was most insane and fruit about ordering public schools around in terms of racial integration, i.e. the 1970s.  It got so bad that a Federal judge in the Cleveland, Ohio circuit ordered a Cleveland high school to have a quota of whites for the basketball team and of blacks for the baseball team.

*  Obama’s approval ratings are still high among blacks, Muslims, the media and other assorted screwballs.

*  I didn’t talk about MO-8 in my preview or review of the primaries earlier this month, but Howard Dean is apparently interested in the district.  That’s because MO-8 includes Rush Limbaugh’s home town of Cape Girardeau.  Trouble is, the district is now so big and encompasses so much of southern Missouri that it almost extends all the way to Branson.  Whatever House district would serve that area in the next decade will be even bigger if MO loses a seat at reapportionment.

Anyway, Dean thinks that Tommy Sowers has a chance.  Sowers has a few media buys on St. Louis radio, even though St. Francois and Washington Counties, (at that, the northern portions thereof), are the only areas of the St. Louis media market broadcast range that is in MO-8.  I agree with Dean that Sowers is doing exactly what he needs to do to topple the weasely open borders advocate in the person of Jo Ann Emerson, and he actually has a chance to win……if it’s two or four years ago.  But this is this year, when he hasn’t a chance in hell.

Today’s 48th State Stack of Stuff

*  Boys and girls, this is what we call “throwing stones from glass houses.”

*  HRC’s report to the UN about human rights abuses in the United States does cite SB 1070 and equates racial profiling.  Meanwhile, Tom Sell’s saga was not listed as an example of human rights abuses in the U.S.

Glenn Beck’s Faith

I watched Glenn Beck’s little get together this morning, and before that, I watched C-SPAN’s “pre-game” coverage.  Man, I tell you, those were four hours of my life I’ll never get back.  I let that schizophrenic pseudo-pious neo-con bullshit kill some of my brain cells, when I could have done that with perfectly good whiskey.  Then again, maybe it was worth my time, because it encapsulated everything that’s wrong with lamestream conservatism and the Repugnican Party.  If this is all we’ve got to go up against Obama, then we might as well lower our pants and let the communists rape us mercilessly.

I don’t know where to start or end, or whether even to start, so I guess I’ll just run down a few bullet points, as seems to be my habit on this medium these days.  James Edwards can handle the tour de force commentary.

*  Ralph Reed, who ran the Christian Coalition (into the ground) in the 1990s, was the guest on C-SPAN’s pre-game show.  Near the end of his part and the beginning of the rally, Reed said that he encountered an Afghan man in D.C., who was taken aback, and not in a positive way, that people would actually protest their President.  (Of course, this Beck rally wasn’t really that).  Now, does a good neo-con sicko like Reed have the ability to put the obvious two and the other obvious two together to make the obvious four?  There’s no turning these people in their own country into a democratic republic, no matter how many troops you deploy and no matter how much money you spend/waste.  Yeah, we should be “in” Afghanistan, but only to kill people and break things.  As far as that goes, we should have been done by now.

*  Al Sharpton supposedly held a counter-rally.  We knew that was going to happen, and I was expecting to see footage from the counter-rally, where black civil rights leaders denounced “white privilege.”  I just didn’t expect to to come from the rally itself.

*  About that:  This niece of MLK that was a feature speaker — She’s no conservative.  The only reason she’s running around with lamestream conservatives like Beck is because she’s on the outs with the rest of the King family, and it’s all got to do with money.

*  Does Glenn Beck not realize that real freedom and Martin Luther King’s vision on that very soil of 47 years ago are diametric opposites?  We lost a whole lot of freedom pursuing MLK’s Dream.  Ironically, one of the major bloggers associated with this event today advised people to go nowhere near D.C. neighborhoods and public transit stops that are associated with the people who we just had to extend civil rights to in the last generation.  Oh yeah, pander to blacks, but just don’t travel anywhere near them.  (UPDATE:  Said blogger is a big-time Democrat donor.  This article is wrong in stating that Arizona’s Jim Kolbe was the only openly homosexual Republican in the House at the time that Majors made his donation — There was also Mark Foley.)

*  Beck implied that MLK/CRM were entirely on the side of the angels, while the opponents were nothing more than moronic knuckle-dragging bigots.  I regret to inform you, Mr. Beck, but there was a lot of resistance to the CRM in the 1950s and 60s on the intellectual and cerebral level.  As loath as this publication would be to admit it today, half the anti-CRA intellectuals of those years worked for National Review.  At least two states in the South declared a certain day on the calendar to be “Race and Reason Day,” titled after Carleton Putnam’s book.

*  Just what does Glenn Beck want?  Best I can tell is that he advocates God.  That’s a really brave stand to make, Glenn.  He went on and on about how we’re all supposed to have this unity between churches, synagogues and mosques.  (Gonna make it harder for him to be against the G0M, isn’t it?)  I certainly believe in God, but I also know there are people who believe that there isn’t any such being, and there are people who are unsure whether there is or isn’t such a being.  I also fully recognize that atheists and agnostics have civil liberties and civil rights.

*  There were a couple of Vietnam vets featured prominently.  Sarah Palin featured one just before MLK’s niece spoke.  The irony of that is that the real MLK was opposed to the Vietnam War, and ramped up his vocal criticism in the latter few years of his life.  MLK’s two big problems with the Vietnam War were:  (1) It was hurting communists, and (2) The cost was “supposedly taking resources” away from social welfare spending.  There were right-wing JBS-style neutralitarians who were opposed to the War in Vietnam, but MLK was not one of them.

*  On to the local angle:  Tony LaRussa wouldn’t know “honor” if it hit him on the head like a ton of bricks.  Turn on 1380 AM at 2 PM on weekdays to find out why.

*  Ironically, Beck went on and on about how it’s so wrong for kids to turn screen actors and cartoons into heroes, rightly stating that real heroes are regular human beings who do the right thing when doing so is personally hurtful, then gives his hero award to a baseball player.

*  Oh, and one more thing?  Glenn Beck certainly has a lot of faith in Albert Pujols.  (BTW, that “Pujols Family Foundation” of his?  Nothing more than a fancy way to shield his baseball and endorsement earnings from income taxes.  Ever notice that every professional athlete has one of these “foundations?”  A lot of politicians do, too, such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, the same types who want the “rich” to pay more in taxes.  Now you know why.  Sure, you have to give a few dimes to charity every once in awhile.)  He better pray to the God in which he has so much faith that Pujols isn’t ‘roiding.  (Which I think he has in the past.  Don’t tell me “no positive test.”  There is no test for HGH.)  If he his, then Beck will be just one in a very long line of people and institutions whose credibility is shot in the direction opposite God.

Look Who’s Talking, Hu

AP:  Japan senior lawmaker: Americans are simple-minded

Japanese men and women are so bigoted in this way that you’ll see “simple minded Americans” as a constant meme in all their future anime cartoons.

AFP:  Wired youth forget how to write in China and Japan

Who wants to remember thousands of characters?

Daily Mail:  ‘The only thing I could move was my eyelids’: Gas engineer who developed Locked-in syndrome amazes doctors with incredible recovery

Better locked in than locked out, I suppose.

5:  Former Missouri State Sen. Jeff Smith released from prison

On the other hand, sex for Miss Smith is going to be a little harder to come by.

CNS:  2 Terrorism Suspects Appear in Court in Canada

They could face up to two years of therapy if convicted on all charges.

Thursday’s Stuff

*  There’s currently a big food fight between Joe Farah/WND and Ann Coulter.  Over what, I don’t know, but in spite of it all, and in spite of WND prominently telling its side of the story and bashing her on its own front page, they’re still carrying Ann Coulter’s weekly column.

*  Yep, the “serial stabber” is back in Michigan, and the media whitewash is now complete.  Remember when this was a white racist serial killer?

*  Open warfare between the NEA and Obama?  It might be just me, but I think there’s going to be a lot of open warfare within the left wing, especially in 2011 if the Republicans gain back control of one or both houses of Congress.  But, even if that doesn’t happen, there still might be open warfare (of the verbal variety) between similar groups in the same hustle.  More on that when I make the predictions for next year at the end of this year.

*  I won’t make you wait so long for this prediction for 2011:  They’re gonna hit you up for a new tax measure or bond measure either to renovate the Dome, or to build a new football stadium.  Charles Jaco is dropping the obvious hints right now.

Self-Flagellation of the Left

Russ Carnahan and the Ground Zero Mosque.  In both instances, they were trying to blame the violence on righties.  That is, until someone did the requisite five minutes of work necessary to uncover the truth.

Why Michael Bloomberg Is So Gung-Ho For the Ground Zero Mosque

Follow the money.  You’ll find the other end on the Arabian peninsula.

Find Alternate Routes (Today’s Headlines)

5:  Phish Fall Tour 2010 dates announced

Now you know which routes between which cities to avoid on which days.

CNS:  Contestant From Mexico Is the New Miss Universe

Mexicans praying that particular universe doesn’t adopt an SB 1070.

WNYW-Fox-5 NYC:  Girls Bugged Teachers’ Staff Room

I bet this is a school that gives its students bugged laptops.  Turnabout is fair play.

Justice News Flash:  Minneapolis Civil Rights Lawsuit: Settlement Awards 7 Zombies $165,000

How dare you call them “zombies.”  I prefer the more politically correct term “Al Franken voters.”

AP Video:  Sinkhole swallows Ga. fast food restaurant

Good sinkhole.

The Atlantic:  Bush Campaign Chief and Former RNC Chair Ken Mehlman: I’m Gay

So a former Bush campaign chief and a former RNC chairman is gay.  I don’t fault him at all for being gay.  Absolutely not.

Wednesday’s Stuff (So Late That It Was Almost Thursday’s)

*  I gleaned over this story from Portland, Oregon in yesterday’s headlines, but something jumped out at me.  It’s the story about the Mayor of Portland, one Sam Adams, wanting more gun control:

It is why Adams believes his proposed changes to city code – such as barring those with gun charges from high-crime areas and making not reporting a lost gun a crime – could solve the problem.

So “those with gun charges” (read: black and Hispanic thugs) are “barred from high-crime areas” (read: black ghettos and Hispanic barrios).  Where are they supposed to live, then?  Answer:  This is a round about route to forced integration of neighborhoods.

*  Speaking of guns, Dick Durbin loves ‘em all of a sudden.  Take a hint, Dick:  They want to go to a more 2nd Amendment-friendly state.

*  I can’t tell you what I know, for if I did, then that would necessarily beg how I know it.  And that would get a certain someone in some really deep trouble.  So I’ll just put it to you this way — If you knew what I knew, then you’d know how hypocritical Wash. U. is for coming out to keep the city earnings tax.  (If you happen to know who I am, and I think you’re trustworthy, I’ll tell you what I know.)

*  Here’s a way for the WaPo to boost its sagging subscription numbers for its dead tree and ink editions — Do what this woman wants.  That way, all the thugs in D.C. will buy the WaPo so they know which restaurants will be easy to knock back, and which ones won’t be easy.  (Yeah yeah, I know, assuming they know how to read, which isn’t a given.)

Mr. Campaign Finance Reform Bought Himself an Election

“Blogmeister, what went wrong yesterday?”

I think the answers are simple.  I don’t think Hayworth’s past career as a free government money-getter hurt him, because his campaign found similar services on McCain’s own official Senate website before he had them scrubbed.  I think the mendacity issue overall was a wash.  So I think it boils down to these simple reasons:

1.  M-O-N-E-Y.  $20 million vs $3 million.  Need I say more?  If you drank a Bud Light in Phoenix any time recently, you funded the McCain campaign.  (“John, this Bud’s for you!”)  That and the cheap labor lobby really opened the coffers.

2.  The power of incumbency.  It is virtually impossible for a U.S. Senator who has been elected to multiple Senate terms to be toppled in his or her own party’s primary.  So rare that I have not heard of an instance.  Don’t tell me Lisa Murkowski in AK yesterday, because she only won one term in her own right, and that was by a thin margin in 2004, just two years after her father, after having made the lateral move from Senate to Governor, appointed his daughter to take his place in the Senate.  Some incumbent Governors have been toppled in their own party’s primary, including at least two within the last decade (Holden, MO, 2004, and Gibbons, NV, 2010).  But those Governors were just finishing up their first term.

3.  AZ, like MO, has an open primary with no party registration.  Since there was virtually nothing going on the Democrat side, everything there being a foregone conclusion, I bet a lot of Hispanics took an R ballot to vote McCain.  (UPDATE:  Scratch that.  You have to register with a party or as an independent.  Registered Indies can take either a Republican, Democrat or Green Party ballot, but can’t choose a Libertarian Party ballot, for primary elections.  The person who e-mailed me describes AZ as a “semi-open primary” state.  So this part is a bonk.)

Still, even counting all this, McCain only got 56% of the vote, with Hayworth and some other guy I’ve never heard of taking the rest.  It is pretty pitiful that a four-term incumbent Senator who was the party nominee for President just two short years ago can’t even get four-sevenths of his own party’s votes in his own state for another Senate term.

One object lesson I took from yesterday is that James Edwards’s theory is ultimately right about McCain and his Presidential campaign — These last few months clearly shows that he has fight left in him, even if he has to fake it and be deceitful and mendacious.  So the reason he didn’t do the same versus Barack Obama two years ago is purely because of fear of the R-word.

I looked over the county data (didn’t take too long, AZ only has 18 counties), and McCain won all of them, with Hayworth coming the closest (3% margin) in Apache County, in the northeast/north central part of the state, the county which had Bill Cooper’s old stomping grounds.  The rest of the counties were almost consistent in their big McCain margins, though in Arizona politics, it’s almost entirely a matter of Maricopa, Pinal and Pima equaling the state.  I was expecting Hayworth to do better the closer you got to the border, but that wasn’t so — I thought at first that this was almost proof of Hispanic meddling in this vote.

Also in AZ, John Shadegg is retiring from AZ-3, and Dan Quayle’s son won the primary to replace, and probably ergo the general election.  I don’t know enough about Ben Quayle, even though I wasn’t too fond of Dan Quayle.  I saw right through that faux-aw shucks I supposedly can’t spell potato shtick of his from the jump — Quayle was a Bildeberger, not so much because he was a blue-blooded elitist, but because he was an insipid suck-ass for said blue-blooded elitists.  Here’s hoping that the apple does fall far from the tree.  As it turns out, Dan Quayle actually spent much of his life in Arizona, in spite of his electoral fortunes being associated with Indiana.  DQ’s mother’s father once owned the Arizona Republic newspaper.

UPDATE 8/28: Here’s another simple theory about why McCain was able to hold on:  People still feel sorry for him because he was a POW.

As for my theory that no person who has ever been elected to multiple terms as a U.S. Senator has ever been defeated in his or her own party’s primary, a few people have e-mailed in the names Arlen Specter and Bob Bennett.  They’re special cases which don’t disprove my theory, because Specter won all five of his elected Senate terms as a Republican, then switched parties last year, and failed in his first attempt to win election to the Senate as a Democrat this year in the primaries.  As far as Bennett, Utah doesn’t use plebiscites for primaries, they use state party conventions to nominate candidates that are on the November ballot.

UPDATE 9/21: Joe Lieberman.  Multi-term (three) elected U.S. Senator, defeated in his own party’s primary (Ned Lamont) in 2006.  However, CT is permissive about primary losers running as independents, so that’s why Lieberman is still in the Senate today.  While Lieberman is technically an answer to my original question, I get the feeling he would have won that primary if it wasn’t widely known that he would be able to, and be likely to, run as an Indy.

Minority Report

Now that’s a double entendre.

Prison Planet:

Pre-Crime Technology To Be Used In Washington D.C.

Law enforcement agencies in Washington D.C. have begun to use technology that they say can predict when crimes will be committed and who will commit them, before they actually happen.

The Minority Report like pre-crime software has been developed by Richard Berk, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Previous incarnations of the software, already being used in Baltimore and Philadelphia were limited to predictions of murders by and among parolees and offenders on probation.

According to a report by ABC News, however, the latest version, to be implemented in Washington D.C., can predict other future crimes as well.

“When a person goes on probation or parole they are supervised by an officer. The question that officer has to answer is ‘what level of supervision do you provide?’” Berk told ABC News, intimating that the program could have a bearing on the length of sentences and/or bail amounts.

The technology sifts through a database of thousands of crimes and uses algorithms and different variables, such as geographical location, criminal records and ages of previous offenders, to come up with predictions of where, when, and how a crime could possibly be committed and by who.

Alex Jones et al. are too worried in this instance.  When this system winds up reporting too many minorities, the community organizers will scream racism.  Then it will be jettisoned.

Fun With Headlines, Education Edition

5:  Barack Obama Elementary opens in Maryland

It cost way too much to build, it will cost way too much to operate, and will get virtually no results.  It has the perfect name.

5:  Carondelet Leadership Academy opens in South St. Louis

Funny, everything I read about it suggest that it’s a school.

Bloomberg:  California Delays $2.9 Billion School, County Payments Amid Budget Impasse

What’s the big holdup?  Five schools in L.A. are waiting to get built.

NYP:  NY to receive at least $350M in Race to the Top win

Win what?  A fraction of a new school?

NYP:  [NYS] HS test ‘slams’ Christianity, lauds Islam

Why shouldn’t it?  Go to lower Manhattan — You’ll find a lot of Islam but no Christianity.

P-D:  Jobs crisis leaves ‘hole’ in black neighborhoods

They have nothing to worry about now on the job front, especially if their Ebonics isn’t rusty.

Slashdot:  Windows 95 Turns 15

To commemorate the anniversary, 83-year old Keith Richards will sing “Start Me Up.”

Daily Mail:  Now even Neighbourhood Watch stickers are deemed an ‘elf and safety hazard

The biggest saftey hazards in the kind of neighborhoods that have neighborhood watch stickers is that the stickers can peel off over time and hit you on the head when they fall.  The neighborhoods that really need the neighborhood watch, nobody saw nuttin’ when the cops come a’quizzin.

KATU-ABC-2 Portland, Ore.:  Can Sam Adams pass his Portland gun initiatives?

I don’t know if he can, but his beer will still be a lot more popular.

Tuesday’s Tidbits

*  Murdered as a teenager, spent a dozen years in prison, and now is back in the sling again.  Too bad for that, because if Detroit was any indication, Mr. Shaw was well on his way to being on the Board of Police Commissioners.

Or, he wasn’t.  The reason that lunacy in Detroit could never happen in St. Louis?  Two words:  State control.  Not even the kookiest Democrat Governor this state’s body politic could produce would put a convicted murderer on the BOPC.  So, instead of St. Louis getting local control of the SLPD, Michigan should get state control of Detroit’s Department.

*  Maybe I was wrong about David Paterson being the best the NYS body politic could produce for a Governor.  Carl Paladino, a Buffalo businessman, and someone who was heretofore a long shot against Rick Lazio in NYS-GOV-R on September 14, is telling the state’s welfare recipients to hit the showers.

The only half-baked part of his plan is that a prison, either a current or abandoned one, doesn’t conjure up the most “hygenic” of images.  Also, it says that Paladino “had trained troops from inner-city communities during his years in the Army and was familiar with their needs.”  I was not aware that the personal hygiene needs of black men and women in central cities was all that much different from anyone else in any other place.

*  It’s not that nobody likes a do-gooder because their behavior is “selfless,” it’s that most of ‘em want to “do good” with your money and give it to people that usually hate you, all under the aegis of their own tax evasion scheme charitable foundation.

*  All Ye Nations Rise:  Chesterfield Mayor John Nations is the new CEO of Metro Transit.

Maybe he’s qualified for the job, but what is the wisdom of putting a man who is the mayor of an upper middle class to upper class new money St. Louis suburb with hardly any blacks and hardly any public transit at the helm of a transit agency that hires and serves mainly blacks in the City and certain inner ring (read: black) suburbs?

*  How did a nightclub at a suburban St. Louis casino fail?  Glory be, the P-D gives us the truth:

The club this year tried to cater to African-American patrons with the urban-themed 5 Star Fridays. This switch caused some resentment.

“A lot of clubs will only open their doors to African-American patrons when they are on their way out, and it’s not just Home,” event promoter Sharee “Mocha Latte” Galvin said. “It’s something they all do because they know the African-American market will spend a lot of money, and it’s a quick fix. I felt they were on their way out when they started 5 Star Fridays.”

***

Prediction About to Come True?

I’ve predicted in this medium numerous times in the recent past that some countries in Europe that had previously jettisoned the death penalty will quietly bring it back, with race being the naked emperor strutting about.

Harrumph:

Death penalty for murders involving sexual abuse could return in Switzerland

Switzerland could reintroduce the death penalty 70 years after it was abolished after its government paved the way for a referendum on the controversial issue today.

Campaigners have been given permission to start collecting signatures in support of their bid to reinstate capital punishment for killings involving sexual abuse.

If they achieve 100,000 signatures from the country’s population of 7.6m, a popular vote will be held.

(snip)

The group now has until Feb. 24, 2012, to collect the 100,000 signatures needed.

***

It’s a Shit Stream

McAllen (Tex.) Monitor:

Police: San Juan teen randomly kidnapped, found in Reynosa

SAN JUAN —Police reunited a teenage woman with her family Monday afternoon, nearly 19 hours after she was abducted, blindfolded and dumped in a Reynosa field.

The 18-year-old woman, whose name was not disclosed by police, was walking to a friend’s house about 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

A black van pulled up alongside her and three men hopped out, San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said. They snatched the girl, blindfolded her and took her to Reynosa.

The kidnappers began calling the woman’s family demanding ransom money.

(snip)

The girl had no idea where she was, Gonzalez said, and because she was in another country, officers could not go there directly to pick her up.

“The only thing that prevented us from going out there and helping her was that river,” the chief said.

“That river” (really, a drainage ditch) didn’t hinder the kidnappers very much.  Nor does it seem to prevent lots of illegal aliens who make their way across it every day.

Iowa’s Diversity Isn’t Its Strength

“Beat Whitey Day” at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines.

Here’s an idea, Iowa:  Put the state fair in a part of the state that’s not near any ghetto.

I’ll lay odds that the Des Moines black ghetto in question grew out of some dippy “resettlement” program, where the do-gooder white liberal politicians and white liberal do-gooder dorks in “charitable” and “religious” organizations brought in thug ghetto blacks from Chicago so they can have a “better environment.”  (UPDATE:  Looks like I was right.)  Not unlike the same plan floated (and ultimately implemented on a smaller scale) in Dubuque, Iowa about 20 years ago — Except there, there was some opposition to this plan, and this gave Oprah and Phil Donahue a chance to rant about those K-people that wear nothing but loose-fitting light colored clothing.

Grin and Bear ‘Em — Today’s Headlines

Ben Maller:  NBA player has shotgun wedding

He certainly has, if Gilbert Arenas is his best man.

Fan House:  FBI Tracked Alabama Football in ‘Bear’ Bryant Era, Documents Show

Those Auburn fans, I tell ya — They’ll do anything to gain an edge.

The Smoking Gun:  Justice Department Seeks Ebonics Experts

How bout that.  The DOJ is single-handedly going to cause the black unemployment rate to plummet.

Daily Beast:  How Did I Have a Stroke in My 20s?

Let’s see.  You regularly exercise your thumbs, and you maintain a well-balanced diet, a triple cheeseburger in each hand.

NYT:  Gym Mixes Vodka With Fitness

I’ve done the bourbon/fitness mix, and it’s not all that bad.

Monday’s Other Stuff

*  Circumlocution for non-white, pure and simple.

*  $578 million.  You’re reading it right.  The most expensive school in America to build just opened where the Ambassador Hotel of RFK assassination fame once stood, and it set the LAUSD back more than a half gigabuck.

The AP gets close to some sound logic further down in the article, but still can’t bring itself to state that if you put the same low IQ blacks and Hispanics (mainly Hispanics, this is LA, after all) in an expensive building, you’ll get the same dismal results.  If shiny new buildings and no amenity left unbuilt did the trick, then Kansas City would be the best public school district on Earth.

Give a consortium of home-schoolers $578 million, and see the results they would get.

*  Ah, for the good old days, when parents of newly minted college freshmen wanted to get away from their children even more so than the other way around.  They wanted to hurry home and enjoy their new spa room.

*  Shall Inherit:  Kendrick Meek is abandoning FL-17 to run for the Senate, though his name is largely unheard over the Rubio-Crist brouhaha.  But FL-17 is coming open, and one of the many Democrat candidates in tomorrow’s primary, a Haitian-American, was robbed at gunpoint over the weekend.  In passing, the article states that she is one of FOUR Haitian-Americans in that primary for that seat.  Meaning the district, which is North Miami up to Hollywood, excluding the beaches in the area, and has a CPVI of D+34, (among the most reliable Democrat ratings), must be becoming nothing more than a suburb of Port-au-Prince.

*  It SHOULD have killed you once, and that would have been fair enough.  But it needed to have killed you 270 times in order to get fair retribution.

*  Again, the evidence that Labour’s immigration treachery, which was typified by Gordon Brown’s “bigoted woman” comment, dearly cost Labour and Brown the election back in May is very solid.  However, that’s a straw dog — It might have “cost” Labour, but it only served to send to Number 10 the neo-liberal David Cameron, in coalition with the real liberal Nick Clegg.  Not that we’ll ever know, but the BNP almost quadrupled its share in England’s constituencies over five years ago, and from what I saw, many of the biggest gains for the BNP came in safe to moderately safe Labour areas.  So while it “cost” Labour the election, it didn’t accrue to the benefit of immigration restriction, for now.  But if electoral reform happens, then I can easily see BNP shares in Labour-safe districts going even higher.

Ground Zero Mosque Stack of Stuff

*  G0M Imam’s wife:  Opposition = Anti-Semitism.

Oh sure, no reason I shouldn’t trust the opinion of a woman whose husband has clear and strong links to a Middle Eastern terrorist group that wants to delete the world’s only Jewish state from the map.

Yesterday, opposition = segregation.  Today, it’s A-S.  I wonder what insulting adjective the mosque supporters will pull out of their asses tomorrow — They are running out if they’ve blown through both seg and A-S right off the bat.

And since it’s Anti-Semitic to oppose the G0M, does this mean the ADL is now Anti-Semitic?

*  CHT has an interesting take.  I fully agree that the G0M issue is really a question of immigration, mostly agree that it’s a result of empire building, but don’t really agree with this part:

Now, you can zone against the building of such mosques but you would have to do so in a politics so brutal and raw that you virtually be prepared for the onslaught of opprobrium that will be heaped upon you.

Except that this “opprobrium onslaught” wouldn’t work if we weren’t so damned concerned about consistency and ideological rectitude, and so damned worried about the logical fallacy of slippery slopes and gas chambers.

Duh-Day Wrap-Up

*  Drudge has this story featured prominently this weekend, about <Duh> forty-five year-old stainless steel showing signs of rust and decay. </Duh>

*  Rush mentioned this Bill McClellan story late last week, about the uncle-nephew tuckpointing team team that OSHA is harassing mercilessly.  I think what’s going on is that Obama’s OHSA is trying to rush as many white tuckpointing businesses out of business to open a void for Hispanics.

*  Let’s see.  We’ve got:  (1) New teachers, (2) More days in school every week, (3) More hours in school every day, (4) More weeks in school every year, and (5) A new principal.  But they’ve still got the same low-IQ black students.  So nothing will change.  The new principal essentially re-hashed the F. Scott Fitzgerald quote about doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result being the essence of insanity.  Maybe she ought to read it again.

*  In a survey about the influence of illegal drugs and gangs in elementary, middle and secondary education, we find out that the gap between public schools and private/parochial schools is at an all-time high.  Well duh.  Need I spell it out for you?  R-A-C-E.  Public, black and Hispanic.  Private, white.

*  One can read “Cadillac Escalade” in this story.  So you know right off the bat it’s bad news.

*  NOW they tell us.  After they just had to wreck Bridgeton to build a new runway for an airport that will never be important again.

*  A Chicago bank known for its “social activism” and one that has clear links to the Obama White House has failed.

I’m…….shocked……so shocked.

*  Before Obama tries to force Fannie and Freddie to forgive mortgage principal amounts, or at least before you give him credit for his doing so if he does so, you might want to read this:  His first save-your-house program has turned out to be a big flop.

*  Long after the final vuvuzela has gone quiet…South Africa has returned to its usual day-to-day existence as a third world dump.  I’m of the opinion that this is the way it was all along even through the World Cup — The only reason we tend not to think so is that the media plastered over the bad news so well that not even the usual reliable alternate sources could see the truth.

*  Speaking of third world dumps, Haiti’s judiciary has rejected the Presidential candidacy of Wyclef Jean, as he has not lived in Haiti for quite awhile.  UN peacekeepers are expecting youth riots, which should tell you why neither Wyclef Jean nor anyone else can really solve Haiti’s problems.

And some headlines.

Gateway Pundit:  Illegal Penis Pump Ring Brought Down in Florida

This really helps the legal penis pump industry, by saving its reputation.

Ben Maller:  Clemens: In time we’ll get to have our say

I’ll believe you then as much as I believe you now.

Daily Mail:  Afghan police recruits forced to train with wooden rifles – after shooting themselves in the foot (literally)

So the training schedule has been pushed back yet again:  Laser tag by 2012, paintball guns by 2014.

NYP:  A New York Tragedy, age 12:  A young girl is arrested for dealing crack in Queens — a city is shocked

Three words:  Ground Zero Mosque.  Object lesson:  Nothing should shock them anymore.

5:  Madison County Child Abduction Response Team needs volunteers

So does the border, but you don’t see the media begging for warm bodies, do you?

P-D:  Woman drowns after getting trapped in Ill. manhole

Tragedy and grammatical irony, all rolled into one.

P-D:  Ohio man drowns at Lake of the Ozarks

Strict rule:  Drowning in Missouri lakes is a job reserved for Missourians.

Today’s 48th State Stack of Stuff

*  Cheech comes out for legalized weed, and against Arizona’s SB 1070.  (That he is for weed and against Arizona isn’t mere coincidence, it’s causation.)  We’re anxiously awaiting Chong to chime in with his opinions.

*  Good news from Kansas City.  But the third to the last paragraph is contradictory, because if they were illegal aliens, they couldn’t have had visas.

*  Likewise, an FBI agent was caught with her hand in the illegal alien jar.

Funny, with a name like Schlotsky’s Deli, you’d think it would be the official place of employment for the SWPL crowd.

*  Another argument against trying to get citizenship, to add to the fact that he can vote now as an illegal alien, but would be denied the franchise as a legal alien, and wouldn’t get it back until he becomes a full citizen — I’m sure the same is true for some welfare benefits.

Remember, at least three million illegal aliens voted in November 2000.