Reminder: I will be liveblogging the Texas Senate debate here tomorrow at 7 PM. Feel free to drop by for insightful commentary, snarky asides, and no doubt a veritable cavalcade of deeply embarrassing typos.
Now this week’s Senate race news:
George Will Makes the Case for Drug Legalization
April 12th, 2012Or, to be more specific, George Will summarizes the same case made in Mark Kleiman, Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken’s Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know. It focuses on the sheer economic idiocy of continuing the War on Drugs:
A $200 transaction can cost society $100,000 for a three-year sentence. And imprisoning large numbers of dealers produces an army of people who, emerging from prison with blighted employment prospects, can only deal drugs. Which is why, although a few years ago Washington, D.C., dealers earned an average of $30 an hour, today they earn less than the federal minimum wage ($7.25).
I oppose the War on Drugs for reasons of general principles (it’s not the purpose of government to save people from themselves), the specific application of constitutional federalism (the Commerce Clause should not apply to the regulation of drugs manufactured and sold within the confines of a single state), and for reasons of budgetary philosophy (making drugs illegal has expanded the size and power of the federal government while increasing the budget deficit; legalizing, regulating and taxing drugs would reduce both the deficit and the harm to individuals and society). Frankly, I’d be for the immediate legalization of methamphetamine tomorrow if it meant we could stop ID-ing people with colds trying to buy Sudafed.
There has been slow but steady progress in the conservative movement for saner drugs laws, from William F. Buckley arguing for the decriminalization of marijuana, to National Review declaring that “The War on Drugs is Lost” in 1996, to Republican Presidential candidates like Ron Paul and Gary Johnson (who, like Paul once did, bolted for a doomed Libertarian Party run) making the same case.
Despite growing sentiment, almost no legislative headway has been made on the issue because there’s no consensus in the Republican Party (or the American people) for that change. When an initiative for the total legalization of marijuana fails in California (though poor wording helped contribute to the defeat), where can it succeed? But the lack of a consensus for legalization is no reason to avoid fighting for saner laws at the state or national level or trimming funding for the DEA.
Another question is how come we never hear anything about legalization from the supposedly pro-freedom Democratic leadership? If Obama, an admitted recreational drug user in his youth, has ever made a speech as President supporting legalization or decriminalization of any drugs, it’s evaded my attention. Indeed, not only does he not support decriminalization, he’s actively hostile to the idea.
George Will thinks more seriously and clearly than Barack Obama on the issue of drug legalization. Then again, the first ten words in the preceding sentence are pretty much true all the time,,,
Ted Cruz Raises $1.3 million in Q1, Dewhurst $1.6 million
April 12th, 2012The Ted Cruz campaign announced that they raised $1.3 million in campaign funding in Q1, which is up $200,000 from his Q4 numbers. I was a bit disappointed in his Q4 numbers, thinking he should have had more of a bump from his National Review cover appearance, but his Q1 number is actually more impressive, given how long this campaign has dragged on, indicating that the Cruz campaign is still building momentum.
David Dewhurst raised raised $1.66 million in Q1, which was slightly up from the $1.54 million he raised in Q4. Dewhurst, as most predicted, continues to lead the money race, but not by as much as anticipated.
Now the big question is how much of Dewhurst’s own money he dropped in for Q1…and how much he’ll drop in for Q2.
Liveblogging the Texas Senate Debate Friday, April 13, 7 PM
April 11th, 2012I’m livebloggiong the debate here.
This is announcement that I will be attempting to liveblog the Texas Senate debate happening this Friday, April 13, at 7 PM CDT.
Some of the things I’ll be looking at most keenly:
As for Senate debate drinking games, sip every time:
Chug when:
Some Texas Counties Have More Registered Voters Than Vote-Eligable Citizens
April 9th, 2012According to this article in the Houston Chronicle, “Sixteen small counties across Texas appear to have more registered voters on their rolls as of 2010 than qualified citizens of voting age.”
In a completely unrelated story, the Obama Administration opposes Texas’ voter ID act. I’m sure this is a highly principled stand that has nothing to do with making it easier for illegal aliens to vote.
Interestingly, six of those sixteen counties (Brooks, Culberson, Duval, Kenedy, Maverick, Presidio) were among the 28 Texas counties Obama won in 2008.
As the icing on top of the voter fraud cake, here’s James O’Keefe (who you may know from such classics as ACORN’s Hardest Working Pimp) obtaining Eric Holder’s ballot.
And the cherry? “I’ll be back faster than you can say furious.”
LinkSwarm for April 9, 2012
April 9th, 2012A LinkSwarm to start your day with:
RIP: Artist Thomas Kinkade, Dead at 54
April 8th, 2012Painter Thomas Kinkade has died at age 54. Kinkade was the extraordinarily popular “artist of light” who managed to turn himself into a franchise, opening up mall stores to sell reproductions of his paintings.
This was the sort of thing he did:
Pleasant enough, but not my cup of tea. Then again, I’m not really into landscape paintings per se, and the small amount of art I do have on my walls tends to come out of the science fiction and fantasy genre (like this Ned Dameron piece for Stephen King’s Dark Tower series). But the main reason I’m bringing up his death here is his position on the fault line of the culture wars, because Kinkade was absolutely despised by bi-coastal liberal urban elites. I can think of few things more unfashionable for a Manhattanite than declaring that they love Thomas Kinkade’s work. Personally I have a hard time thinking of any art work I hate enough to dedicate an entire blog to tearing it down, but Kinkade seemed to bring out the same instinctual, irrational loathing in them that Sarah Palin does.
There are likely several reasons he’s so loathed. Part of it is the fact that he was a technically competent, representational artist who strove to make his paintings pretty in an age which devalues all of those attributes in comparison to “authenticity.” Part of it was his success, his ability to sell signed reproductions of work he touched up with highlights for tens of thousands of dollars that no doubt infuriated starving artists in lofts across Greenwich Village.
But most of all, I think Thomas Kinkade was hated because he was liked by the wrong kinds of people. He was a favorite of the loathsome Lumpenproletariat of flyover country, the people who had the bad taste to work with their hands, live in Suburbia, believe in God and vote Republican. (Kinkade himself was not shy about professing his Christian beliefs, which probably infuriated his critics all the more.)
Here’s a fine example: “Kinkade and the culture that supports him… same thing as Bush. Same thing as Enron. Crooks masquerading as religious men… fool the masses of totally ignorant and self-absorbed Christians… and make millions.”
Many hated Kinkade overtly for having different personal or artistic values than them, but some probably hated him just because everyone else hated him; they hated Kinkade because all their hip friends hated Kinkade in the same way they all read The New York Times and voted for Obama. It’s just what’s expected of them.
Texas Senate Race Update for April 5, 2012
April 5th, 2012Expect things to be a little slow for the Easter weekend:
And Still More ObamaCare Hearings Follow-Up
April 4th, 2012First, the ubiquitous Richard Epstein, on why Justice Kennedy’s million dollar question might restore our understanding of the Commerce Clause to the pre-NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin and Wickard v. Filburn reading that held sway from the founding of the United States to the imposition of the New Deal.
Second, Ramesh Ponnuru examines Dmeocrats’ magical thinking that the overturning of ObamaCare would lead inevitably to a groundswell of support for a single payer system (presumably including a mass march on Washington by Americans of all walks of life coming together, firsts clinched high and singing “The Internationale”):
Reality-check time: When Obamacare became law, Democrats had more power in Washington than at any time since the Carter administration in the 1970s. They had the presidency and lopsided majorities in both houses of Congress. Because conservative Democrats have declined in numbers, it was probably the most liberal Congress since 1965-66. They were still barely able to pass the law. And that was with important medical industries either neutralized or in favor of the legislation, which they would not be in the case of single payer.
More Support for the “Rick Perry Hopped Up on Goofballs” Theory
April 3rd, 2012After Rick Perry’s disastrous fall campaign, I floated the idea that he was still hopped up on goofballs (i.e, taking serious pain medication) following his back operation.
Well now comes word that there’s at least some supporting evidence in the form of Inside the Circus, a book on the 2012 Republican Presidential race. Caveat the first: The Perry camp is hotly denying it. Caveat the second: One of the co-authors is Evan “Obama is a sort of God” Thomas. Caveat the third: The last third of the Chron piece is given over to to professional Perry-hater James Moore to do his usual bashing. Caveat the fourth: The excerpted bit the Chron uses is actually pretty weak sauce unless there are more like it in the book.
Still, the theory nicely explains why Perry, who has been a sharp and relentless campaigner in his state races, floundered so badly at the national level. Indeed, it explains it so neatly that I wonder why the Perry campaign is so insistent in denying it, since it’s much more flattering to him than the liberal “Perry blew it at the national level because he’s a moron that just happened to have kicked our asses repeatedly for the last decade” theory.
On the other hand, maybe they deny it so insistently because it’s not true, no matter how convenient an explanation. And bloggers (myself included) should always be somewhat suspicious of a story that fits our preconceptions a little too neatly…