Come visit us at our new web site: www.interestingitems.org Leave your thoughts, comments and opinions. We look forward to hearing from you. Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Interesting Items 5/07 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue: 1. Paulians 2. Julia 3. Warren 4. Redistricting 5. Unemployment 6. Fireworks 7. Pelosi 1. Paulians. A week ago, the Paulians hijacked the Alaska Republican State convention. I wrote an extended piece about the festivities in the Northern Right and cross-posted it in Red County. They coordinated their action vie e-mail, text message and Twitter tweets. You can read one e-mail inadvertently sent Thursday night to everyone registered at the link here. It was a particularly incendiary e-mail, and was denied all around. But they did everything they were told to do during the convention, leading most to believe it was real. Attempts to trace the header stopped at the gmail wall. They were as well organized as democrats. They acted like the Occupy crowd, booing Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski off the stage at the Friday night banquet. They also heckled and booed her guest, Senator John Barrasso (R, WY) as he did the senatorial routine saying good things about Lisa. The Paulian Floor Manager apologized to Murkowski from the floor of the convention Saturday afternoon, which was one of the few decent things he did that weekend. She responded with a few remarks. She was not a happy lady. Throughout all of this, the Paulians said little about defeating democrats. Instead their efforts were focused on disqualifying the entire slate of Alaska delegates to the national convention and replacing them all with Ron Paul delegates. The presidential preference poll held up here in March split the 24 delegates from Alaska as 8 for Romney, who won the vote, 8 for Santorum, 6 for Ron Paul and 2 for Gingrich. Ron Paul got about 24% of the total vote, something that irritated them to no end. The Paulians are still busily trying to rewrite party rules after the fact to allow them to reopen the delegate list. They submitted 54 self nominations for delegates to attend the national convention – 24 primary, 24 alternates, and 6 spares. None of the other campaign lists have more than the number of their allotted share of primary delegates, alternates and a few spares. Clearly the Ron Paul people intend to replace the entire list of Alaska delegates to the national convention. The new Party Chair, who is an ardent Ron Paul supporter, has the ability to stop this, but is silent on the point, which tells me he is in support. The ultimate goal of the Ron Paul people appears to be to do enough of this nationwide so as to nominate him from the floor of the national convention. To date, they have done this in dozens of states. It is an interesting strategy, as it does involve work at the grass roots level – which is a Good Thing in politics. After all, the day does go to those who will simply show up. On the other hand, tweaking party rules after the fact to deny fellow Republicans who voted in primary elections their rightful allocations of delegates is bad, bad politics, and once again, something we would expect from democrats and the unions that support them. Just because you can do something does not mean you should, as people have very long memories and really get angry at those who would disenfranchise them. 2. Julia. The Obama campaign unveiled yet another campaign tool last week. This one was a web based set of slides contrasting the life of a woman named Julia under Obama against her life under Romney and the Republicans. The slide show detailed the cradle to grave, intense federal involvement in everything she wanted to do from a child to after her retirement. There was no husband. There was a single child. It was a sad, lonely life, completely dependent on democrat largess and handouts. The story was instantly mocked, ridiculed and laughed at by conservatives across the internet. Iowahawk did the best job in Julia’s Circle of Life. The sharp response to an obvious attempt by the Obama campaign to continue the War on Women issue indicates that it is not working all that well. For the right to go instantly into laughter and ridicule bodes very well for Our Side of this discussion. Good show, all. 3. Warren . Democrat candidate for US Senate from Massachusetts , Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren did not have a very good week. It was discovered that she used the diversity card on her way to the top law school in the nation, and had used it for over a decade on her journey through academia. She claimed to be 1/32 Cherokee and checked the Native American box in the application form. Of course, this gave her the advantage when being considered by the politically correct hiring shops. She quit using the claimed minority status after she was ensconced at Harvard. Warren is running against Scott Brown (R, MA) and was thought to be the democrats’ best shot at retaking the seat. But she turned out to be such an in your face, nasty, unpleasant harpy that she is neither sympathetic nor positive. Scott Brown is reacting to the self-immolation by moving to the center during the campaign. Warren is in deep, deep trouble. We hope she continues to obfuscate, claim victimhood status, and hide behind her sex as a vehicle to no longer answer questions about falsely claiming to be Native American. This whole episode demonstrates the complete corruption of the race industry in hiring. It goes no small way toward demonstrating the corruption in hiring in academia. It is long past time to remove race as a consideration for everything, and taking the individual initiative by refusing to fill the little racial selection boxes is the first thing to do. 4. Redistricting. The Alaska Courts have managed to turn what was a pretty decent redrawing of district lines here in Alaska into a complete mess. The problem is that what is interpreted in the State Constitution for drawing legislative districts is in conflict with what the feds will allow – which sets up a very nice do-loop. The Redistricting Board wrote the new lines based on federal requirements while hewing as close to state requirements as possible. They were hauled to court based on two districts in the interior. The lower courts found that the new lines were not constitutional according to state law. It was appealed to the state Supreme Court which ordered that the Board redraw the lines according to state law and then change them to reflect the federal rules, which is what the Board did. They are now back in court, with the lower court once again throwing out the new map for the same reason they did in the first place. It is clear the courts do not know what they are doing, which is one of the problems in seating liberals on the Bench. And every day they screw around with this, is another day closer to the state primary election in August. In that election, we have 59 of 60 legislators up for election. And they need districts to campaign in. 5. Unemployment. The latest unemployment numbers out last week had the national U3 rate down to 8.1%. Of course, the easiest way to drive down that number is to simply remove people from the work force, which appears to be what the Obama administration is doing. Obama taxes, rules and regulations have so destroyed the ability of businesses to create new jobs that people are stepping out of the workforce every day. Last weeks’ number had the labor participation rate at a 30-year low of fewer than 64%. The U6 unemployment number (which included part timers who want full time employment and those who have quit looking for work) remained steady at 14.5%. Total employment last month fell by another 165,000. Teen age unemployment still sits at 25%. It is going to be difficult to build a new economy by chasing people out of the work force as fast as humanly possible. 6. Fireworks. The Minnesota legislature attempted to repeal a total ban on fireworks in Minnesota last week. The legislation as vetoed by Mark Dayton (D) as too dangerous to life, limb and property. Welcome to the new and growing Nanny State . We will see if the legislature has the moxie to override this idiotic veto. As an interesting counter to Dayton ’s argument, sales and use of firearms in Minnesota is strong and popular. No danger, that. 7. Pelosi. Allahpundit in Hot Air Tuesday wrote of Nancy Pelosi’s duplicity regarding waterboarding. She was among congressional leaders briefed on the interrogation technique in 2002. But in 2009 under media pressure, she changed her story and claimed that she had been misled by the CIA. The story falls out of a new book by CIA counter terrorism Chief Jose Rodriguez. Pelosi is a liar. Which is why she is in the right party. - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776. 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