Rant: Kevin Williamson is still lying about race

I was extremely pissed off last year about Kevin Williamson's lying piece about how the GOP was so great on civil rights and the Dems (all of them mentioned by name) were horrible.

Well, Williamson has another one. It's not as bad this time because it contains an interesting story about Goldwater helping with desegregation--and all these stories are worth knowing... when they are actually true. But Williamson isn't content to tell the true tales of the good GOP, he must bash each and every Democrat. So Lyndon Johnson isn't the president who pushed for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. No, he "was gutting anti-lynching laws and assuring Democrats that he would offer those 'uppity Negroes' 'just enough to quiet them down.'"

The gospel according to Williamson is that Dems never did anything to help blacks gain their civil rights. AND THAT IS A CONTEMPTIBLE LIE. Did I ever say that I HATE LIES? I think I did.

The good news is that lies aren't winning elections so much anymore. That is wonderful--that the lies aren't winning. So you liars out there, your days are numbered. Whatever you try to hide, it ain't going to stay hidden.

Hat tip: Bernstein and The American Prospect

Hey Kevin, I found some missing Democrats.

Image: wikipedia.org

Short: Strong black voter turnout

Whites apparently forgot to "take back our country" in the 2012 election. After many years of turning out in the highest proportional numbers of all racial groups, they were finally bested by black voter turnout:

I guess the pundits who said that whites stayed home are partially right. Compared to their usual high turnout, whites didn't do as well, whereas blacks turned out more than ever. I hadn't believed the complaint that whites were demoralized, and therefore they stayed home in record numbers, but it appears to be true to some extent. However, whites still poll above their weight--so not a sign of generalized malaise.

GOP campaign operatives are still moaning that they woulda won had they matched their 2004 numbers. I think they should let go of 2004 because that's a holy grail they probably won't repeat in a presidential election year.

It also looks as if the voter suppression efforts in Florida and Ohio backfired, which are lovely just desserts. Democrats take note! All parties take note!

Caveat: This data is based on exit polling, which isn't the best methodology. However, it's all we have. If you're interested in the topic, it's worth wading through the source article.

"White voters also outperformed their eligible vote share, but not at the levels seen in years past... As recently as 2004, whites typically outperformed their eligible vote share by at least 2 percentage points." -- Fox News

... however voter deception or self-deception is an expected part of the game.

Image: theblaze.com

Update 5/9/13. Another good article at HuffPo.

What's the story on Miranda rights?

OK, I'm a couple days late on this, but I had an interesting realization that I want to share. If I'm just slow, you don't have to spare my feelings.

My first reaction to the Miranda rights complaints concerning the Boston bomber was:

"Of course he already knows his Miranda rights. There's no loss in reading them to him."

Sometime on Saturday or Sunday I finally realized that the issue isn't just informing him of his rights. It's an issue of respecting his Miranda rights. Luckily, there's the public safety exception (dating from 1980), so the police can question him without violating due process.

But I got to thinking, how often are the rights violated anyway? I'm pretty sure I've read about cases of suspects refusing to talk, asking for lawyers, and the police ignore it and continue questioning them.

So what would the FBI (if they're in charge) do if Tsarnaev invoked his rights? Would they just continue questioning him? Under the exception, they could, and I think that's fair. But what if he still refused to talk? How far would they go in disrespecting his rights?

Here's what I'm guessing: When Lindsay Graham says the bomber shouldn't be read his Miranda rights, what he really means if that the interrogation can and should proceed with no protections at all. Days-long interrogation--fine. Sleep deprivation--fine. No lawyer--that's a no-brainer. A beat-down--sure, if he's not talking. Water-boarding--maybe Graham is fine with that too. Torture--that's OK as long as you call it "enhanced interrogation."

Miranda is code... as with so many other political issues. Pro-Miranda means "no torture." Anti-Miranda means "torture is a go."

Image: monstersinmotion.com

Oddities in the Boston Bombing

I can't wait until the FBI starts releasing information from the computers of the Tsarnaev brothers. Because right now their motivation defies my ability to understand. On the surface, you can say that it's jihad. Leaving it at that level of detail isn't particularly satisfying because it doesn't help us understand why these guys and not the other immigrants and refugees who also happen to be Muslims.

If Tamorlan hated Americans, why did he marry an American girl? Why didn't having a baby girl with this American girl stop him from thinking it was OK to blow the legs off other regular American women and children? As I said, it's odd.

I think the logic of these bombers is going to defy reason even when the details are known. That's not unusual. Few people nail down their motivations with unimpeachable logic. I think the two most likely explanations are:

• Anger against the US for being involved in wars against various Muslim groups and in various Muslim countries. Many Muslims can't abide the deaths of Muslims at the hands of infidels, much like Americans bristle at the deaths of Americans not caused by our own citizens. [Rule: You're allowed to murder your own, but no one else is.]
• They hoped to achieve a kind of glory, with attendant monetary reward and perhaps a good living situation in a Muslim country. [This is most likely, in my opinion.]

One explanation I think is unlikely is that they were an al Queda sleeper cell. They had good knowledge of Boston, but their explosives were below the standards of most bombings. They also seem not to have had organized support to get them out of town or out of the country. Their plan depended solely on not being identified. They might have gotten away with it because they did very much blend in with the backpack-carrying and cap-wearing young audience.

It's disappointing that these two men who lived in this country for 10 years gained no love for it. So many who come to the US do love it here. Others don't love it, but acknowledge definite superior aspects over their home country. I haven't known any immigrant who wanted to blow up a group of spectators.

**********************************************************

Boy was I in a warm, fuzzy place, thinking that so many immigrants love the US. I don't really know that. I do know that many people harbor a lot of anger that gets directed at various targets, like schools, coworkers, the other political party, unfair bosses, the federal government, the prosecutor who humiliated them, illegals, the kids in the next hood, marxists succeeding at ruining this country, etc. I wonder that we don't have mass shootings and bombings every single day. But somehow we don't. Divine intervention, perhaps?

Image: usnews.com

Our favored terrorists

It's a strange phenomenon. Leftists seemed to hope the Boston bombers weren't Islamist terrorists. Their preferred villains are white supremacists or anti-government militia types. Rightists want the bombers to be Muslim.

This is curious. I can understand why you don't want the perpetrator to be in a group you identify with, but why does it happen when group identification isn't the issue? There's so much space between conservatives and any militia that would bomb a parade, why should they care?

Why? Because... it's the narrative! Who is going to win the narrative, who is going to get the better narrative out of the event. If it was Muslim terrorists, the conservatives can say that we shouldn't have all these Muslim immigrants, and look at what the tolerance gets us. Or maybe they say something else--I really can't speak for the conservatives because I've never been one.

If it was a militia type/white supremacist, the liberals could talk about how the subtle racism in conservatives (dehumanizing welfare recipients, bashing government programs) fosters the much more virulent, violent distrust of government, blah, blah, blah.

I have an idea. Let's not score points over terrorism. Let's not be gleeful that the other side will have mud on their faces. By all means we should talk about how it happened, what sort of preventive steps we could take. But let's refrain from hoping a certain group is responsible. I wish none of them had executed those acts. No narrative is worth those lives and limbs.

Image: fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com

Extras. Parade of yech:

• Salon: Let's hope the bomber's white.
• RedState: Salon is sick.
• Washington Times: Bombings will continue until we find solutions (that the author neglects to list).
• Atlantic Wire: Anti-Muslims are making hay.

Abortion doctor blame game

I remember well when the grisly story of the Philadelphia abortion clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell broke in 2011. My main source for news, NPR, didn't sugarcoat the story of the doctor who performed late-stage abortions, killing the babies who were born alive. His clientele was largely poor blacks and immigrant women. His facilities were horribly unhygienic. Unsurprisingly, no one rose to his defense.

Fast-forward to now (April 2013). A cause celebre among the conservative media is that the MSM is covering up this story. Um, how?

Well, don't you know that his trial is going on right now and the MSM isn't covering it? No, I didn't know that. I know that the Jody Arias trial is going on. She used to be a stunning blonde, but now she has dark straight hair, glasses, a mousy look, a terrible memory, and multiple versions of how her lover ended up dead. That's what I know about.

I suppose this shows that the MSM could transfer a fair amount of resources to covering other more important issues, such as Dr. Gosnell's trial, but that doesn't make it a cover-up.

The accusation of cover-up started with one reporter: Kirsten Powers of Fox News writing in USA Today on April 11. Then the chorus from like-minded conservative media outlets snowballed. What they don't mention is that the conservative media was hardly reporting on the trial either. HotAir started its trial coverage on April 9, not when the trial started in March. Breitbart's coverage is somewhat better, with spotty coverage in March, but the real explosion beginning on April 12.

It looks to me like no media outlets were covering the trial very well until Kirsten Powers cided the MSM, and just the MSM. No bias there.

She definitely had a good point. The trial deserves a lot of coverage, and it's now guaranteed to get it.

With the increased coverage comes an orgy of recriminations about who is responsible. Those being blamed include:

• Dr. Gosnell
• The staff at the clinic
• The radical pro-abortionists
• The Democratic elite
• The Pennsylvania Health Department
• The pro-abortion establishment leaning on the PA Health Department not to do inspections
• The PA governors who were afraid of the pro-abortion establishment, or maybe swing voter backlash
• The pro-life activists who demonstrated outside Gosnell's clinic but completely ineffective in finding out the women's stories or in shutting the clinic down
• The media for not covering stories that hurt the pro-abortion side
• The Hyde amendment for not providing free, early abortions for poor women

Yeah, right. It looks like some people have a few axes to grind, and the occasion of this trial is a good time to do it. I'll ignore the point scoring, but share a few interesting details.

The report from the grand jury that indicted Gosnell is very readable and fascinating. A few observations:

• Gosnell's staff contained mostly poor, under-educated local women, but there were also a few opportunists who should have known better. Among the staff was a 15-year-old high school girl. Within a few months, she was in charge of drug administration on many shifts.
• Gosnell worked one day a week at another abortion clinic. Also, one of his staffers was recommended by a Louisiana clinic owner. This makes me suspect there are other clinics out there that are in the same class as Gosnell's clinic.
• However, not all clinics are like this. Another former worker, who had reported Gosnell's clinic to health authorities, said she had worked at seven different abortion clinics and "she has never experienced an illegally run, unsanitary, and unethical facility such as the Women’s Medical Society operated by Dr. Gosnell" (p. 52). 

That is the only good news from this sordid story.

Image: bringingupbaby.com

Postscript. This isn't anywhere near full coverage of the complex topic of abortion. If there's a lot of interest, I'll set up some open threads.

Short: Guns and mental health

Finally, someone else is talking about tighter restrictions on gun purchases for those with mental health problems. Senators Toomey and Manchin, both strong proponents for gun rights, have a very center-right proposal that tries to improve the situation without infringing on gun ownership rights. How to do that?Strengthen the parts of the law that forbid sales to the wrong people.

That sounds eminently logical to me. In my opinion, this is likely to be more effective than more guns in schools and hoping someone carrying will be on site to stop a shooter. It definitely should be more palatable than an assault weapons ban.

But I'm wrong, it's not palatable. RedState is immediately against it. My God, they're empowering doctors to take away your gun rights. What if some pinko doctor decides you shouldn't have a gun. Even worse, what if lots of pinko doctors got to together and put hordes of red-blooded Americans on the list simply because they think anyone who wants a gun is unbalanced.

I agree that there is potential for abuse. Therefore doctors should be answerable when they refer a person for the restriction. But I thought we wanted to try to prevent disturbed people from buying guns. Do we still want to do this? Well, this is what it would look like.

Maybe, on second thought, Erick Erickson is fine with Jared Loughner and James Holmes buying guns. I'm still not.

Image: 199trust.com