Patterico's Pontifications

7/12/2010

Racial Epithets

Filed under: Race — DRJ @ 6:19 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Apparently Jesse Jackson thinks LeBron James is a multi-millionaire slave:

“Shortly after James announced his decision last week, [Cleveland Cavalier owner Dan] Gilbert fired off an incendiary letter to Cleveland’s fans, ripping the 25-year-old and promising to deliver a title before James wins one. He called James’ decision “cowardly” and later told The Associated Press he believes James quit during a handful of Cavaliers playoff games.
***
Jackson said Gilbert’s comments were “mean, arrogant and presumptuous.”

“He speaks as an owner of LeBron and not the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers,” the reverend said in a release from his Chicago-based civil rights group, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition. “His feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave. This is an owner employee relationship — between business partners — and LeBron honored his contract.”

Meanwhile, the NAACP is set to condemn as racist the Tea Party movement for harboring “racist elements that are a threat to our democracy.”

Post-racial America: Denounce first, worry about proof later.

— DRJ

Senator Landrieu Responds to New Moratorium

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 4:41 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Louisiana Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu responds to the Obama Administration’s new offshore drilling moratorium [emphasis in original]:

About an hour ago, Secretary Salazar announced ‘new deepwater drilling suspensions.’ Unfortunately, this new plan does not address many of the concerns expressed by the experts, the court system, and families and businesses along the Gulf Coast.

“I am particularly alarmed by the Department of the Interior’s continued insistence that allowing deepwater drilling to move forward ‘would pose a threat of serious, irreparable, or immediate harm or damage to the marine, coastal, and human environment.’ That claim contradicts testimony given by drilling experts and ignores the history of oil and gas operations in the Gulf.

“If this Commission and our nation are to learn the right lessons from the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, we must put this accident into perspective. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, more than 42,000 wells have been drilled in the Gulf from 1947 to 2009, producing 16.5 billion barrels of oil. It is important to note that in the last 10 years, non-hurricane related spills only totaled about 7,000 barrels. Right now, this rouge well in the Gulf is gushing an entire decades’ worth of oil spills every six hours. While more effective regulations and greater transparency are a must, the record is clear that the Deepwater Horizon accident is the exception rather than the rule.

“As residents of this working coast, we want – as much as anyone – for this drilling to be safe for our people and our environment. But we also know full well what a prolonged suspension of deepwater drilling until November 30th will mean for hundreds of oil service companies, other small businesses, and families across the region. In today’s announcement, the Administration has left the door open to resume drilling operations sooner, but Gulf Coast businesses and investors still lack the certainty they need to move forward with future plans.

“Whether you call it a moratorium, a suspension, or a pause, the result will still be a substantial loss of jobs. Even the revised moratorium will force thousands of hard-working Louisianians and others along the Gulf Coast into the unemployment lines.

“I strongly urge this Commission to take the quick and decisive action to recommend immediately lifting the moratorium to save our businesses, our economy and our way of life.

“Secretary Salazar’s announcement today seems to indicate the new suspensions require the collection and analysis of key evidence before deepwater drilling can start again. The work of your Commission will be a critical element of that process, which means the Commission must complete its work in a more expedited manner.

“We know what these suspensions will do to Gulf Coast families and to our economy. Yet, it seems that the Administration has ignored this data and failed to conduct its own economic analysis.

“Please consider that idling the 33 deepwater rigs currently permitted to drill in the deepwater Gulf would immediately impact employment for as many as 46,000 crewmen, deck hands, engineers, welders, ROV operators, caterers, helicopter pilots, and others who operate and service these vessels.

“That is the equivalent of laying off every firefighter and police officer in Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

“According to the Gulf Economic Survival Team, the drilling suspension is expected to result in the loss of between 3,000 to 6,000 Louisiana jobs in the first two to three weeks; 10,000 jobs within a few months; and some 20,000 existing and potential new jobs if this Commission takes longer than six months to conduct your reviews and write your report. Keep in mind that those figures only describe the impacts to Louisiana – neighboring states will also be impacted.

“In addition, according to the Gulf Economic Survival Team, long-term job loss in Louisiana could reach 120,000 by 2014. I’d like to repeat that: 120,000 people out of work in Louisiana alone. That is not something we can survive or tolerate. We cannot simply close down the offshore oil and gas sector without devastating economic impacts.
***
“I urge this Commission to consider the economic damage and irreversible consequences of this deepwater moratorium on the Gulf Coast. We all want to find out how something so tragic could have happened. And, we all want to ensure nothing like this ever happens again. We just cannot afford to cripple the Gulf Coast region’s economy to do it.”

Landrieu to Obama and the MMS, the short version: Your lies will cripple the Gulf economy.

— DRJ

MMS Reissues Drilling Moratorium

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 3:17 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

The Houston Chronicle reports the Obama Administration will reissue a nearly identical offshore drilling moratorium that was previously overturned by a Louisiana federal district court and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals:

“According to a summary of the new order obtained by Hearst Newspapers and the Houston Chronicle, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s new ban — technically a suspension of deep-water drilling activities — would apply until Nov. 30, unless he decides to lift it earlier. The Interior Department is citing its authority under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act in imposing the four-month suspension.

In effect, the new suspension is largely a repeat of the May 30 order that halted drilling on 33 deep-water projects in the Gulf of Mexico — even though it is written with new nuance and detail.”

It isn’t just the Macondo project that is doomed. This will impact the entire Gulf Coast economy.

— DRJ

Happy Birthday, Leviticus

Filed under: General — DRJ @ 3:12 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Happy Birthday to commenter and Jury poster Leviticus, who I think turns 21-years-old today.

— DRJ

Felons for Franken: An Election Preview?

Filed under: Obama — DRJ @ 2:51 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

A Minnesota study says convicted felons may have provided the deciding margin in Senator Al Franken’s win over Norm Coleman:

“The six-month election recount that turned former “Saturday Night Live” comedian Al Franken into a U.S. senator may have been decided by convicted felons who voted illegally in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.”

No wonder Obama’s Voting Rights Division has no interest in purging the dead and ineligible from the voting rolls.

— DRJ

Swiss Deny Polanski Extradition Request; Director Is a Free Man

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 7:07 am



I have told people privately for some time that this would happen. But I didn’t think the reasoning would be this transparently ridiculous:

The justice ministry of Switzerland said on Monday that it had denied a request to extradite the director Roman Polanski to the United States, where he has been a fugitive since 1978 after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl, and that he was no longer under house arrest.

In rejecting the extradition request from the United States, the Swiss ministry cited two factors: first, the Swiss said, the U.S. had failed to provide the records of a January hearing in Los Angeles County Superior Court that would have shown the judge in charge of the Polanski case in 1977 agreed that “the 42 days of detention spent by Roman Polanski in the psychiatric unit of a Californian prison represented the whole term of imprisonment he was condemned to.”

Second, the Swiss said, when Mr. Polanski traveled in September 2009 to the Zurich Film Festival where he was arrested as he arrived at the airport, he did so in “good faith” that “the journey would not entail any legal disadvantages for him.” The Swiss justice ministry noted that Mr. Polanski had been staying regularly in Switzerland since 2006, and though “he was registered in the Swiss registry of wanted persons, he was never controlled by the Swiss authorities.”

The judge never agreed that 42 days would be his entire sentence. At most, he said that 48 additional days (on top of the original 42) would be the full sentence — if Polanski agreed to certain illegal conditions that he never agreed to.

As for his good faith belief he would not be arrested: so what?

He plied a 13 year-old with drugs and anally raped her, and was confined to a Swiss chalet.

Travesty.


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