LAT opinion piece on the burger ban

There's a good opinion piece on the South L.A. fast food ban (discussed earlier here and here) in the Los Angeles Times today. Local talk radio host Joe Hicks gets right to the point:

[City Council member Jan] Perry and her colleagues seem to believe that the only way to save people from themselves is to have government slap food from the hands of poor black and brown residents in her district. There is no disagreement that obesity and diabetes are a disproportionate problem in the South L.A. neighborhoods her moratorium targets. However, the culprit for this problem is not as clear as she and her allies would have us believe. The prevailing attitude at City Hall seems to be that government has an answer for all things. It does not, and government's intrusions into the daily lives of citizens as well as constant meddling in the affairs of business often cause more harm than good.

Hicks gives Perry some credit for supporting the opening of a nonunion Fresh & Easy grocery store in the neighborhood, but there's more FAIL there, as "union and community activists have done everything they could to prevent the store from opening." You. Just. Can't. Win.

(Via the comments here.)

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Obama and Edwards:No Child All Children Left Behind

Education party my ass...

So have Juliette at Baldilocks trying to raise money for a bunch of Kenyan kids who were stood up by Our Lord and Savior, and then I see this.  Seems John Edwards also had some school kids that he needed to let down. 

For those that may not remember, Silky launched a scholarship program in 2005, called "College for Everyone", which was supposed to give scholarships to students who might not otherwise be able to afford to go.  It received wide publicity and praise from the press and elsewhere. 

As you can see in the Newsbusters link, Silky declared in a press release that this program would eventually give millions of students scholarships that would pay for one year of their college education if they went to a public colleges and universities.  The press is touting Silky's program for what it did for local schools in North Carolina, but a lot of North Carolina parents and students are disappointed that the program is being cancelled.   The press is trying to deflect criticism of Edwards by claiming that it was only meant to be a three year program.  I'm calling BS, you don't announce you'll be creating a scholarship program that'll pay for a year of college for millions of students on a three year program.

Note to prominent Democrats, if you're going to promise children and their families all this great charitable aid, you may want to, oh, I dunno, follow through?  Kinda makes you look like a total dick when you don't keep your promise.

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 01:34 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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Rep. Klein's campaign is scared of Lt. Col. Allen West

According to John Gizzi at Human Events, Rep. Ron Klein's recent behavior after a Zionist Organization of America event shows that the his campaign is scared of the challenge presented by Lt. Col. Allen West:

Last Thursday (July 24th), the president of the Zionist Organization of America, one of America’s the most respected of Jewish-American organizations, called ZOA South Florida organization chairman Alan Bergstein and gave him an ultimatum: stop his volunteer work for West or resign from his ZOA post. According to the West campaign, “it was made clear to Bergstein that Ron Klein was necessary to pass congressional legislation important to ZOA and to Israel. ZOA has an obligation to its membership to ensure that their issues are considered, so the national office clearly felt it had no choice but to deliver the message to Mr. Bergstein.”

Think about it for a minute, experts: if Klein is sending a signal for someone to do give an ultimatum to a campaign volunteer for West, does it not follow that he is somewhat concerned about the Republican challenger?

These strong-arm tactics are typical of hard-core liberals like Rep. Ron Klein. However, they failed to see the unintended consequences of their actions:

And Bergstein? Upset that (in his words) “a Jewish congressman has to threaten Israel and world Jewry by whining over one person’s activities, Bergstein chose the better part of valor, resigned his position with ZOA, and will work hard on the West campaign.

Classic. If you are in the area (coastal Palm Beach and Broward counties) make sure to sign up to volunteer for Lt. Col. Allen West's campaign. Not in the area? You can still send a few bucks his way.

***Cross-posted at Down the Ticket***

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Richardson to Clintons: You'll take me back, won't you???

Maybe.  He's going to try and help the Clintons pay off the debts owed by her campaign.  He's either doing it because he's helping Our Lord and Savior (because that money has to come from somewhere, and it'll come from Democrats, which means less for him), or maybe he's been cast our of the First Son of Chicago Church.

The whole Clinton campaign debt issue could get interesting if they don't get enough donors to pay it off, and it could become a real weight on the Democrats.  Thus far attempts to raise funds to pay that debt down haven't been real successful. 

(h/t)

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 04:36 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Your Wednesday afternoon dose of pure, unbridled terror

This dovetails nicely with the American Thinker's choices for Cabinet officials in a John McCain administration. Anyway, on to the terror:

Among them: Sen. Hillary Clinton as head of Health and Human Services. Her allies suggest she might be interested if the job were elevated to the top tier of agencies and if she were allowed to push healthcare reform. Other names: Sen. John Kerry as secretary of state, former Sen. Tom Daschle as White House chief of staff.

Make sure to head to the link for a few more names.  On one hand, most of the names make me wince, but anything that gets Senators-for-Life Hillary Clinton and John Kerry out of Congress is good in my book. 

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Obama picks up key endorsement

It looks like yet another entertainment industry figure is backing Barack, though in this instance, he might not really want the support:

Today The Times' eagle-eyed Harriet Ryan spotted Phil Spector, the famous rock entrepreneur and infamous date, showing up for a court hearing in Los Angeles wearing a very obvious "Barack Obama Rocks" pin.

Spector, you may recall, has some continuing legal troubles having to do with an actress, Lana Clarkson, turning up dead in his house after a date five years ago.

Spector says she shot herself. The prosecution suggests otherwise. A jury could not decide.

So a second second-degree murder trial is set to begin on Sept. 29, pending a higher court ruling on the presiding judge. Meanwhile, Spector and every one of those "hairs" on his head is behind Barack.

Actually, this could be a big deal for Obama. I mean, from what I've heard, the all-important murder suspect vote is still up in the air.  And he'd better snap them up quick, too, before they join the non-voting felons bloc.  After all, those guys only vote about half of the time.

(h/t)

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Obama's Plan To Lower Gas Prices

"Fast track alternative fuel sources"*

I'd just like to point out that it is impossible to fast track an undiscovered or unproven technology.  In order to fast track something, it must be known what and how that thing is to be done.  Currently, there is not a single alternative fuel source that can meet even 25% of our current fuel needs at even twice the price. 

Sorry, Obama.  You're fucking retarded on energy policy.  You sounded a lot smarter before you started mentioning specifics. 

* - Wisconsin is obviously a battleground state because I get McCain/Obama commercials in every break.  I tried to find this commercial (a response to McCain's "Pump" commercial) online but couldn't locate it.  The other methods he recommends to lower gas prices are requiring higher mileage and going after speculators, whatever the fuck that means.   It's like listening to a blind guy explain the color scheme for his new house.

Update: Wrong word has been fixed.  Problem with my brain remains.

Posted by: Moron Pundit at 06:10 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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More on LA dingbat Jan Perry's fascist food policies

You remember the post we did at doubleplusundead on the "Food Apartheid", and LA Councilwoman Jan Perry's efforts to ban fast food joints in South Central LA, primarily in minority neighborhoods, right?  I talked about the potentially destructive economic consequences this could have on neighborhoods, and the destruction of opportunities for people in those economically depressed South Central neighborhoods.  Well, Jan Perry won, a one year ban on construction of new fast food restaurants in South Central was indeed passed. 

I have to agree with Steve at Hog on Ice's excellent post (h/t), this really is a creepy, racist and disturbing ban.  These LA legislators are basically saying minorities are too damn stupid to eat properly and take care of themselves, so the government simply has to take control over their lives and decide what they eat.  That's insulting, and I find it sad that there isn't a huge outcry over this in California, and an even bigger one in the communities this ban targets. 

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 02:42 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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NJ State Legislator is a Creepy Perv. Guess Which Party?

Don't be shocked. The AP actually reported the political party in the fourth paragraph.

A New Jersey legislator resigned Monday amid reports that he's under investigation for suspected possession of child pornography.

The clerk of the Assembly received a one-sentence letter from Assemblyman Neil Cohen just before 9:30 a.m. Monday.

Cohen said his resignation is effective immediately, but he did not offer any explanation.Cohen has not been charged with a crime.

Colleagues who use the same legislative district office as the 57-year-old Democratic lawmaker said last week that they told law enforcement authorities about images of child pornography found on his computer.

No word from Cohen. He's still in the hospital for psychiatric treatment.

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What do Montana and San Francisco have in common?

Turns out it's Nancy Pelosi.

Seriously, at the Obama campaign thought that would be a good idea?

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 12:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Transatlantic "inartful" statement may prove to be a distraction

As we all know, half of Barack Obama's family is from Kenya.  (I mean, that's why we conservatives are terrified of him, right?)  It seems that when he couldn't get out of politician mode, and started making promises he didn't intend to keep to the locals:

He told the assembled press, local politicians (who included current Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga), and students: "Hopefully I can provide some assistance in the future to this school and all that it can be." He then turned to the school's principal, Yuanita Obiero, and assured her and her teachers: "I know you are working very hard and struggling to bring up this school, but I have said I will assist the school and I will do so."

Obiero says that although Obama did not explicitly use the word "financial" to qualify the nature of the assistance he was offering, "there was no doubt among us [teachers] that is what he meant. We interpreted his words as meaning he would help fund the school, either personally or by raising sponsors or both, in order to give our school desperately-needed modern facilities and a facelift". She added that 10 of the school's 144 pupils are Obama's relatives. Obiero was not the only one to think that the US Senator from Illinois, who had recently acquired a $1.65 million house in Chicago, would cough up. Obama's own grandmother Sarah confidently told reporters before his visit: "When he comes down here, he will change the face of the school and, believe me, our poverty in Kogelo will be a thing of the past."

Obama would like to care for the poor of Kenya, but not if it only costs him.  We need to all feel the hardship that poverty has wrought in Africa and truly embrace our common world citizenship.  I'm sure that once he is elected president, Obama will make us all pay for his neglected personal promise allow us to reap the benefits of our common world citizenship by having Americans present the school with a mandatory donation from the federal government.

If only Kenyans knew that "all Obama statements have expiration dates.  All of them."

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 12:39 PM | Comments (12) | Add Comment
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Meanwhile, In The World Of Evil Dictators

Iran has announced a new series of public executions. What did some of these miscreants do?

...being a public nuisance while drunk and being involved in illegal relationships -- relationships between men and women who are not married to each other.

.
Now those bastards have gone too far!

And Cuba tells everybody that things are going to get tougher than usual.

"As much as we desire to resolve all of our problems, we can't spend more than we have," Castro said under a slight drizzle on a humid night. "To make the best of what we have, it is indispensable to save on everything, most importantly fuel."

Wait! They allowed people to have fuel before?

Posted by: eddiebear at 08:19 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Harry spreads the word

Awwwwww...the MSM isn't doing exactly what Dingy Harry wants them to do, so he turned to a slightly more reliable Spirit Squad:

On Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid criticized the Washington press corps for failing to report what he believes is unprecedented Republican obstruction.

So Friday afternoon, Reid reached out to the liberal blogosphere.

"You need to keep doing the job you're doing, but you need to move on," Reid said in a Webcast hosted by a handful of progressive bloggers. "We need your help to push back against the Republican harangue ... that we're not allowing votes" on oil drilling amendments.

The Webcast was hosted by meetthebloggers and included bloggers from HuffingtonPost, OpenLeft and thesmogblog.com.

Yeah, that'll get the message out to the middle-of-the-road general public. Because independent voters in swing states make up such a huge part of the HuffPo's readership.

Last year, Mary Katherine Ham went to a mall somewhere and asked a bunch of random people about whether or not they were familiar with various pundits who actually have regular print and teevee gigs, and was met with a lot of hemming and hawing. None of them knew who the hell she was talking about.  What are the odds that those people have ever even heard of thesmogblog.com? Hell, I've never even heard of that blog, and I'm the kind of dork who spends entirely too much time on the Internets reading about politics.  Seriously, my own family finds it insufferable sometimes.

But, anyway, you go, Harry. Preach to that choir!

Posted by: Sean M. at 03:56 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Can we choose failure?

I saw a number of blogs link to a statement that Powerline had yesterday, in which McCain finally started hammering Obama on his surge idiocy. Let's hope McCain continues to hammer Captain Bullshit on one of his only frank and honest stances:

Senator Obama said this week that even knowing what he knows today that he still would have opposed the surge. In retrospect, given the opportunity to choose between failure and success, he chooses failure. I cannot conceive of a Commander in Chief making that choice.

Look, I even came up with a graphic Maverick can use:



Unfortunately, around half of the country wants him to make that choice.

Posted by: Sean M. at 05:23 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Citizen of the World: No American flag, please!

For his press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Sen. Obama had a strange, but predictable request:

"Nicolas Sarkozy's advisers received only one demand from the team of the Democratic candidate: no American flag for the press conference, because it's a candidate being received, not the president of the United States."

Yeah, because we wouldn't want people to get the impression that he already thinks he's president or anything.

Of course, I can't be expected to understand the nuance of this request, as I'm not a "citizen of the world" and I only know one language, but it just strikes me as a bit odd.  Especially when only 37% of the folks back home (you know, the ones who can actually vote for him) find him to be very patriotic. 

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 06:56 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Demented Elf's Chimpeachment hearing started today

Moonbats in the crowd looked on and cheered as the wackier of the Democrats in the House ranted about the Chimperor.  Will this be cathartic for the Nutroots or will it just fuel their craziness even more?

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 01:56 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Obama faithful declares holy war on racist infidel for bumper sticker

A member of Barack Obama's flock saw a truck with this bumper sticker blaspheming His Holy Name,

So she did what any faithful servant of He Who Is would do.  She followed the infidel in the truck home, blocked his truck in the driveway, then got into a shouting match with him, called the sticker and the guy racist and threatened his life.  Then she was arrested. 

What other group of people do we know of that threatens people's lives over a blasphemous cartoon graphic?  Hmmm...oh, right,

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 08:18 PM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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Better than you

A Democratic Congressional candidate may want to represent Ohioans, but she doesn't, ya know, want to be seen with them:

Democratic congressional candidate Mary Jo Kilroy sent a look-alike to rural parade.Much like Saddam Hussein, Ohio 15th congressional district Democratic candidate Mary Jo Kilroy uses body doubles when she tires of having to deal with all of the little people she intends to represent.

Such was the case last week when Kilroy sent her campaign body double to represent her at the Plain City Steam Thresher parade. Apparently the Amish-dominated city was too tough a crowd for Kilroy to handle. Matt Naugle broke the story this morning on his much-watched Ohio political blog, NaugBlog, complete with video of her stand-in's performance captured by the Ohio Republican Party.

We wouldn't want Kilroy to get her hands dirty by actually getting close to the proletariat.  She doesn't have to do that.  She belongs to the party of the Little People^tm.

(h/t)

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Yes, it is real

He truly does want to heal the world.



(h/t)

Posted by: It's Vintage, Duh at 12:23 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Dork: McCain can't be president, he's not tech savvy enough to run a computer!!!

Some poindexter at PCMag is arguing that because McCain doesn't know how to work a computer, it should disqualify him as president.  Really dude?

Should McCain sit down and learn a few basics on how to run a computer(assuming he isn't just goofing on his age when he makes those comments)?  Yeah, probably wouldn't be a bad idea, considering how central they've become to American life, to our economy, and to our national security. 

But to argue the guy isn't tech savvy enough to run the country is asinine, does this doofus have any idea how technically challenging it is to fly a fighter?  It can't be easy, and I'd bet a hell of a lot more difficult than operating a PC.  Landing a plane onto a carrier is itself extremely challenging on it's own, and McCain used to do that.  To argue the guy isn't tech savvy enough to run the nation is ridiculous, he is tech savvy enough, just not the kind of tech savvy this guy thinks he should be.  There are plenty of legitimate criticisms of McCain, that he can't run a PC isn't one of them. 

Posted by: doubleplusundead at 10:30 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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