Funny mock-anti-Brown campaign ad (hat tip: Ace):
[NOTE: He looks pretty good even with his glasses on, doesn’t he?]
[ADDENDUM: Here’s the latest real Scott Brown ad (hat tip: Hillbuzz). I couldn’t resist (“and the dogs, too!”):
New health care “reform” compromises stink
Right now we’re not just watching sausage being made—it’s excrement that’s in the works.
Read about the compromises being considered in an attempt to put a bit of room freshener on the stinking pile of garbage that health care “reform” has become.
I don’t usually use such strong language. But I think it appropriate in this case, which involves the possible exemption of unions from the excise tax on all other “cadillac” health plans. Even the commenters at the ultra-liberal TPM are not pleased by that one:
And that’s supposed to make the taxed non-union middle-class workers happy?
This is a tax on the middle-class. Obama has broken a huge campaign promise. The Republican will and should campaign on that theme. It is a fact. It is true.
Politics ain’t beanbag, and most people realize that. But most people would like to see at least a modicum of integrity, from their own side as well as the other one, even if it’s only the appearance of integrity.
The topic of health care and what to do about it is the subject here. But the real subject is the process we are seeing—which indicates that our government has lost all sense of decency and fair play, and is not even trying to hide it.
Martha Coakley and the child molesters
Just for a moment, forget about how compelling a candidate Scott Brown is. And forget about how nice it would be to have a Republican senator from Massachusetts, and a 41st vote against Obamacare.
Forget? Why?
Because, even if those things were not true, Martha Coakley should be defeated anyway, because of her record.
Most of Coakley’s professional experience has been as a prosecutor in Middlesex County, part of it as Chief of the Child Abuse Prosecution Unit, and some as DA. Compare and contrast the following four cases of child molestation with which Coakley was associated, and I think you’ll see what I’m talking about:
(1) In 2005 Somerville police officer Keith Winfield was strongly suspected of raping and genitally burning his 23-month-old niece with a hot curling iron. As DA, Coakley headed a unit that investigated without taking action at first, and later allowed him to be released on personal recognizance with no cash bail. Winfield ultimately was prosecuted by Coakley’s successor as DA and given two life sentences. And remember, the details of this story critical of Coakley appeared in the ultra-liberal Boston Globe (note the angry tone of the comments to the piece, as well).
(2) In 2008 a father punched out a janitor in a Market Basket supermarket because he found the employee reaching in under a bathroom stall in the men’s room to touch the leg of the man’s 4-year old child while the boy was urinating. The illegal alien janitor was charged with indecent assault (he later no showed at his hearing), but the boy’s father was also charged with assault. Coakley’s comment on a radio show? “We really discourage people from self-help.”
(3) Coakley was originally lax in prosecuting the man who ended up being one of the most notorious of the Catholic priest child abusers, Father Geoghan. In her defense in this case, however, is the fact that at the time the evidence first came into her hands (mid-90s), such cases were very difficult to prosecute. Read the whole thing for the rather complex details.
(4) But Coakley’s worst performance by far came in connection with the Fells Acres day care child abuse case (please read the entire link to get a flavor of the situation). Gerald (“Tookie”) Amirault, along with his elderly mother and sister, had been convicted during the day care child sex abuse scare of the 80s. But he was widely known to be innocent by the time Coakley came on the scene as DA, and his mother and sister had been freed years before.
Gerald had received a unanimous recommendation from the parole board for his release. But in 2001 Coakley lobbied that he be kept in prison, and she was successful. As a result, an innocent man was kept behind bars for another three full years to add to the fifteen he had already served.
If you read the message and comment boards for articles about Coakley, you will note the rage that still exists among locals towards Coakley for her treatment of Gerald Amirault.
Why did she do it? After all, she had not been his original prosecutor, so she wasn’t protecting her own decisions. Most likely, she was determined to defend the actions of her predecessor Scott Harshbarger, as well as reputation of the DA’s office, and to shore up her own creds as tough on crime and child abusers. Unfortunately, for that object lesson Coakley ruthlessly and despicably picked a man known to be innocent.
If you take a look at the history of the Fells Acre case, I think the original prosecutors can probably be forgiven. In the climate of the times, the widespread idea was that children always tell the truth and cannot be unduly influenced by the sort of leading questions the therapists used when interviewing them in the Fells Acres case. Now that we know the opposite to be true—that very young children are highly suggestible in such situations—almost all jurisdictions have put into place restrictions on such methods, and have trained special forensic units to be in charge of the children’s interrogations.
But by the time Coakley was blocking Gerald Amirault’s clemency, all of this was known. Her decision reflected a cold-blooded, small-minded, self-centered devotion to her own advancement at the expense of an innocent man. Let’s hope it backfires on her ambitions now.
Haiti: at least…
…it’s warm there. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if this had occurred in a cold climate during winter? On top of all the other problems, people would be freezing to death.
That’s small comfort, though, considering the scope of the disaster. The United States is in the forefront of relief efforts, but this is a grim and overwhelming task.
Some say that we shall never know and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer day, and some say, on the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God
””-Thornton Wilder, The Bridge of San Luis Rey
[NOTE: Here’s some relief information if you would like to donate.]
[ADDENDUM: Here’s some speculation on why Haiti has been so poor.]
Non-shocker of the day: Boston Globe endorses Coakley
As inevitably as death and taxes, the Boston Globe has come out for Martha Coakley for Senator from Massachusetts.
What’s far more interesting than the completely expected endorsement is the way the paper did it: tepidly. The editors could barely muster up an ounce of energy for the job. What a lackluster writeup! It reads as though it took them every ounce of spin they possessed in order to find some semi-nice things to say about Coakley, and some semi-bad things to say about Brown. They barely made it, and to do so they had to leave out a host of negatives about Coakley, some of them previously covered in the pages of their own paper.
But best of all are the comments. A locustlike swarm of Brown supporters seems to have descended on the Globe to feed off its rotting carcass.
Here’s an idea: get Joe Kennedy to drop out of the race
[UPDATE: I got word from a commenter that Kennedy’s campaign manager, Dave Galusi, had written back to him that Kennedy is forbidden by law to drop out. Perhaps a better tack, then, would be to write to Galusi (dave@joekennedyforsenate.com) asking that Kennedy endorse Brown. E-mail to Kennedy himself is not getting through.]
Those of you who’ve been following the increasingly close Coakley vs. Brown special election in Massachusetts may not have heard there’s a third party candidate, an Independent libertarian named Joe Kennedy. He could be the spoiler in the race, drawing enough votes from Brown to allow Coakley to go to the Senate.
I’ve been mulling that one over, and I’ve come to the conclusion that flooding Kennedy’s office and email address with calls for him to drop out of the race wouldn’t be a bad thing. Not that he’s likely to do so, of course.
Third-party candidates tend to be purists who don’t think the perfect is the enemy of the good. But Kennedy got into this race when he didn’t see himself as a spoiler. Brown didn’t seem to have a chance back then, and Kennedy probably saw the campaign as a way to get his own message heard in a larger forum.
But now things have changed. And if there’s even a miniscule chance of getting Kennedy to withdraw, it’s worth a try.
Here’s the contact info. And here are some of the most important addresses and phone numbers:
Joe Kennedy: joe@joekennedyforsenate.com
His campaign manager Dave Galusi: dave@joekennedyforsenate.com
Press and events: Press & Events: 617.899.0846
Fund Raising: 907.250.5503
Address: Committee to Elect Joe Kennedy
P.O. Box 368
Needham Heights, MA 02494
Here’s Kennedy’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Joe-Kennedy-For-Senate/141067507133
And Twitter: http://twitter.com/joek4Senate
[NOTE: And please spread the word. Volume is important.]
[ADDENDUM: And Queen Coakley shows her elitest bona fides by dissing Fenway and its fans.]
Haiti devastated by earthquake—and more
As if tiny Haiti didn’t have it bad enough, now it has been hit by an earthquake of magnitude 7.0. Buildings in Haiti are flimsy even without a temblor, and many have fallen, with extremely high casualties very likely. Communication is so poor we don’t know what the death toll might be, but it looks very bad.
Haiti has had a bad time of it almost since its beginning. Violence, corruption, poverty, thy name is Haiti, and it’s been that way for centuries.
Haiti is a very beautiful country, as I know from personal experience. I was there for a single day on a trip with my parents at the age of fourteen, during the rule of corrupt dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. I well remember the island’s exotic, lush vegetation; its attractive people, the graceful women going to market with huge loads on their heads; the green mountain that constituted its landscape; and the grinding poverty that was everywhere visible.
We don’t ordinarily think of the Caribbean as a huge center for earthquake activity, but they occur there with some frequency and severity. Jamaica, for example, was once the home of a large and flourishing city of 6,000 known as Port Royal, destroyed by an earthquake and subsequent landslide and tsunami in 1692, during which the bulk of the city virtually slid into the sea.
This 2005 article describes the considerable risk of earthquake in the Caribbean:
With nearly twenty million people now living in this tourist region and a major earthquake occurring on average every 50 years, scientists say it is not a question of if it will happen but when…In a new study published December 24, 2004 in the Journal of Geophysical Research from the American Geophysical Union, geologists…report a heightened earthquake risk of the Septentrional fault zone, which cuts through the highly populated region of the Cibao valley in the Dominican Republic…In addition, they caution, the geologically active offshore Puerto Rico and Hispaniola trenches are capable of producing earthquakes of magnitude 7.5 and higher…The Hispaniola Trench parallels the north coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti…The island of Hispaniola faces a double risk: an earthquake from the Septentrional fault on the island itself as the plates move past each other, and an earthquake deep in the earth in the subduction zone on which the island sits.
But what can a poverty-stricken, disorganized country like Haiti do about such warnings? Nothing. It already had more than enough to worry about, and precious little money and organizational ability with which to do it. This is a terrible blow to a people who have already suffered more than most. If you’re the praying sort, now might be a good time to do so.
Humanitarian aid is already streaming in, and there will be more. But Haiti has always been a broken country, even before the earthquake. And once countries are so broken, can all the king’s horses and all the king’s men ever put them together again?
[ADDENDUM: Richard Fernandez reflects.]
Coakley would fit right in
If Sarah Palin had said what Martha Coakley did, it would be headline news everywhere, and Saturday Night Live would devote at least one program to it, maybe several.
Here’s the quote from Coakley’s debate with Brown:
“I think we have done what we are going to be able to do in Afghanistan. I think that we should plan an exit strategy. Yes. I’m not sure there is a way to succeed. If the goal was and the mission in Afghanistan was to go in because we believed that the Taliban was giving harbor to terrorists. We supported that. I supported that. They’re gone. They’re not there anymore.
Coakley has never held national office, but she’s also never held any office except Middlesex DA and Attorney General for the state of Massachusetts. I would imagine that her background on foreign affairs is abominable, and unlike Sarah Palin she’s probably not felt the need to bone up because Coakley did not foresee a high level of scrutiny in this race. But even for an intelligent layperson with a modicum of interest in the foreign policy of the US for the last couple of years, her level of ignorance is shocking.
Coakley’s treatment of subsequent questions about her Afghanistan/Taliban response is congruent with the current “transparent” climate in Washington, however:
A reporter asked Coakley about that [Taliban] claim after a Capitol Hill fundraiser on Tuesday. “Do you stand by that remark?” he asked.
Coakely, standing before a small cluster of reporters and cameras, listened to the question, then quickly looked in a different direction.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did anybody else have a question?”
Coakley then went on to mention, in response to the next question;
We are facing a candidate from Massachusetts who is being supportive by extreme right groups including many Republican groups who are pouring money into Massachusetts attacking my record and distorting my record. I’m doing everything that I need to be competitive in this race.
It’s almost comical that Coakley accuses others of “distorting her record” while at the same time she distorts who those others are. Much of Brown’s support is from independents, as her polling must tell her, not “extreme right groups.” Much of it is from individuals and small donors rather than groups, as she also must know. And as for distorting the record, it’s Coakley who has tried to do that to Brown, in a fairly egregious manner (i.e. she flagrantly lied about it; see this).
I hope Coakley never gets a chance to sit in Ted Kennedy’s seat—or anyone else’s seat—in the United States Senate. But if she does, unfortunately she’ll fit right in.
[ADDENDUM: Here’s some video of a Weekly Standard reporter getting roughed up while trying to question Coakley (hat tip: Bill West).
Michael Meehan, Boston Democrat and Obama appointee, was the shover to reporter John McCormack’s shovee. And—no surprise—Democratic spokesperson Eric Schultz says it’s all a Republican dirty trick. Nothing to see here, move right along.
Here’s a thought-provoking comment to the “Republican dirty tricks” article above (can’t do a link, but it came in today at 11:29 AM):
The new tone in Washington DC, ”¦good old fashion Chicago thuggery. Physically attack a reporter if you do not like their line of questions, and then blame it in the opposition. These bullies have the balls to cry foul and blame this on GOP dirty politics. The GOP had nothing to do with this Democratic staffer, Bostonian, and Obama appointee to the Broadcasting Board of Governors shoving that reporter to the ground. This is the stuff of Saul Alinsky. These liberal thugs if they cannot whine their way of their dirty deeds, then shift the focus of their dirty deed and blame the opposition. This is truly pathetic. Can you imagine if a GOP staffer had shoved a reporter to the ground? The fact is the liberals are being who they always have been; they have just taken things up a notch since Obama has been elected, because they have been emboldened by this president’s thugocracy that is operating out of the White House.]
It takes a lot to kill a strong man
Pound for pound, Joe Rollino was one of the strongest men who ever lived. Five-foot five inches tall, weighing between 125 and 150 for most of his life, he set records for all sorts of muscular feats: lifted 475 pounds with his teeth, 635 pounds with a single finger, and a whopping 3,200 pounds with his back. He had a varied career as a boxer, longshoreman, and performer at Coney Island.
Rollino was born in 1905, but still walked five miles every single day. Here’s a photo of Joe at a party for his 103rd birthday, an event at which he entertained the guests by bending quarters with his thumb:
But alas, death must come to all, whether weak or strong—and so it came to Joe Rollino, at age 104. But not in the way you might expect.
It takes a lot to kill a strongman; even extreme old age wasn’t enough to fell Mr. Rollino. He was struck down by a minivan on one of his daily walks, and suffered injuries that proved to be fatal.
What an original. What a life. RIP, Joe Rollino.
Coakley attacks, Brown responds
An interesting contrast in approaches.
First Coakley, in traditional negative-ad style:
Nothing in there about why Coakley is good, only about why she thinks Brown would be bad. Coakley doesn’t even appear in the ad, nor do we hear her voice, except in the boilerpate intro in which she says her name and that she approved the ad. It attempts to tar Brown with the worn-out “Bush-Cheney” brush, even though all his elective experience so far has been local.
In contrast, here’s Brown’s response. Note the use of the candidate himself, speaking in his kitchen, directly addressing the voter:
Brown uses his own personal attractiveness to advantage. And by the word “attractiveness,” I don’t just mean the physical. He has a manner that is exceptionally telegenic and reads very well, smooth and relaxed but not slick. He’s sincere without being overly dramatic, and he knows how to deliver the proletarian touch without overdoing it. Most importantly, he understands the current populist sentiment of disgust with business as usual and Washington as usual, and is able to harness this in his message of independence—and yes, of change.
It would be a very good thing for the country if he were to win. But even if he doesn’t, my prediction is that he has some sort of national political future ahead of him.
Although he may have to leave Massachusettes to get there.
[ADDENDUM: Oh, and by the way—here’s a dissection of one of the flagrant lies in the Coakley ad.]
[ADDENDUM II: The Boston Herald reminds us that it was only because the Democrats of Massachusetts didn’t want Massachusetts Republican Governor Mitt Romney appointing a Kerry successor in 2004 that the law was changed in the first place by the Massachusetts legislature. That same law change is what has allowed Scott Brown to run for the “Kennedy seat” in the first place. Otherwise, Massachusetts Democrat Governor Deval Patrick could have just appointed a Democratic hack as Kennedy’s successor and we wouldn’t be having any special election now. As it was, because of Kennedy’s death the Massachusetts legislature hastily amended the law it had voted in a few years ago, in order to allow Patrick to appoint interim Kennedy successor Kirk, so that the Democrats could reach the magical 60 votes in the Senate and vote in Reidcare.
It’s pretty convoluted, and pretty ironic.]
It’s easy to forget…
…about Obama’s foreign policy in the midst of such pressing domestic issues. But John Bolton is here to remind us, and it’s not a pretty picture.
[ADDENDUM: This should also be a big, big story, although health care reform seems to be dwarfing just about everything right now.]
Earth’s a distant second to the world of “Avatar”
In my “Avatar” post, I wrote:
[The movie] fits in so nicely with the current notions of many of the AGW and PETA folks””that humans (especially of the first-world variety) are the scourge of an otherwise wonderful earth””that it makes me think the idea of humankind as a cancer on the planet has gone mainstream.
Well, I wasn’t too far off. CNN reports (hat tip: Artfldgr) that a number of “Avatar” moviegoers writing on an “Avatar” forum page are having post-Pandora letdown. Among them is Sweden’s Ivar Hill, a 17-year-old who writes:
“When I woke up this morning after watching Avatar for the first time yesterday, the world seemed … gray. It was like my whole life, everything I’ve done and worked for, lost its meaning,” Hill wrote on the forum. “It just seems so … meaningless. I still don’t really see any reason to keep … doing things at all. I live in a dying world.”
Well, Ivar does live in Sweden in the wintertime, and it’s pretty dark and cold this time of year. But still, this is an extreme reaction. Ivar added, when reached by CNN via e-mail:
“One can say my depression was twofold: I was depressed because I really wanted to live in Pandora, which seemed like such a perfect place, but I was also depressed and disgusted with the sight of our world, what we have done to Earth. I so much wanted to escape reality.
Hill is not alone. Some fans have even contemplated suicide, fantasizing that they will be reborn on Pandora. Others [emphasis mine] “have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality.”
[NOTE: And because we just can’t seem to leave well enough alone, now the movie is being charged with racism. Not because it’s against the human race, either, a point I asserted in my earlier post on the subject. And not because it’s against the white race, although the majority of the white people in it are villains in comparison to the noble blue Na’vi.
No; apparently it’s racist because a white man is a hero who saves the blue people—even though most of the other white characters are villains, all the blue ones are good and participate in their own “saving,” and the white hero inhabits a blue body for most of the movie and at the end of the movie decides [spoiler alert!] to permanently go over to the blue side.]
[ADDENDUM: As if that’s not enough, in another outbreak of bizarre and convoluted racism, ex-governor Ron Blagojevitch is accused of racism—for calling himself black: “blacker than Barack Obama” is the actual quote. Or is it that he’s calling Obama white?
You can’t make this stuff up. At least, I can’t.]