Category: Politics

Two good reasons to vote for Kerry.

Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, widow of former Prime Minister Rajiv, will be the new Prime Minister of India according to all press reports:

“Ours is a coalition led by the Congress and every Congressman would like to see Sonia Gandhi as Prime Minister. Sonia Gandhi herself had said the people of the country will decide who will be the next PM and the results are obvious,” senior leader Ambika Soni said emphatically.

Leaders like Salman Khursheed and Mohsina Kidwai too pointed out that the mandate was clear — that “Sonia Gandhi’s foreign origin is not an issue” — and traditionally the leader of the single largest party is the PM in a coalition government. Of course officially, it will only be decided after consultations with the allies.

The party leaders are also clear that Sonia alone deserves the credit for the Congress’ stunning performance. Also, of course, Priyanka and Rahul Gandhi who “inspired the younger voter”, said Soni.

All the pundits and pollsters were wrong in their predictions that the pro-business BJP would retain control of the government, and Indians are reeling.

The details on Michael Moore’s Disney fraud are becoming so clear that even he can’t deny them any more:

Less than 24 hours after accusing the Walt Disney Company of pulling the plug on his latest documentary in a blatant attempt at political censorship, the rabble-rousing film-maker Michael Moore has admitted he knew a year ago that Disney had no intention of distributing it.

Meanwhile, the New York Times published an editorial bashing Disney instead of correcting its misstatement of the facts of the matter:

Give the Walt Disney Company a gold medal for cowardice for blocking its Miramax division from distributing a film that criticizes President Bush and his family. A company that ought to be championing free expression has instead chosen to censor a documentary that clearly falls within the bounds of acceptable political commentary.

Give that gold medal to the Times.

One of the keys to the Schwarzenegger Miracle in California was a group of moderate Republican businessmen called The New Majority. Here’s how they’re described by hidebound paleo-con adversaries:

“They’re for principle if possible, but winning at all cost,” said Larry Smith, a Newport Beach businessman who launched a conservative political-action committee to counter the New Majority. “We’re for winning if possible, but principle at all cost.”

Smith probably thinks he’s insulted them, but the first axiom of politics is that you have to win before you can govern. While the notion of “moderate activists” sounds oxymoronic, in the long run moderates have to get energized to take back both parties from the extremists if we’re to improve the way this nation is governed, and judging by Arnie’s 65% approval rating in California, we’re going to like the results.

Here’s an excellent article by Glenn Sacks on the LaMusga case, highlighting the struggle that Gary has undergone to be a father to his children:

According to the court testimony of her son?s kindergarten teacher, the boy told the teacher that “my dad lies in court…if you tell the judge…he could talk to you.” That?s funny because my daughter is in kindergarten right now and she?s the smartest little girl in the world but I can?t quite imagine her coming up with ideas like that on her own. Who could have put these ideas into Gary LaMusga?s five year old son?s head?

According to the testimony of the kindergarten teacher, she asked the boy this and the boy said that his mom told him these things. The same mother who has worked so hard to foster the relationship between her sons and their father.

The teacher also testified: “He spoke to me with a similar conversation…I finally sat down with him and told him that it was OK for him to love his daddy. I basically gave him permission to love his father. And he seemed brightened by that.”

Gee, like it?s a revelation–he can love his dad, too! Mom never allowed him to do that!

The teacher continued: “The next day that Gary had seen the kids he came to me the following morning and said ,?what did you say to him?…He was so happy. He just greeted me with open arms…we had one of the best evenings that we have had in a long time.? ”

This kind of behavior is so common it has a clinical name: parental alienation.

The kindergarten teacher’s testimony by itself should have been grounds for a change of custody from mom to dad, but in our bizarre legal system, it’s just barely enough to allow dad to spend tens of thousands of dollars on the outside chance that he can prevent his children from being carted off 2400 miles away to an area where mom can live comfortably off the child support without working, pushing this poison without interference.

BTW, Glenn Sacks has an interesting guest on his show Sunday, the obnoxious advice columnist and erstwhile blogger Amy Alkon. It’s my opinion that Alkon is a man-hater, but her friends say she’s an equal opportunity hater, down on children and feminists as well; if that’s the case, she’s at least got one thing right.

UPDATE: Alkon defends herself in the comments. The defense sounds good, but what has she got against baseball?

The biggest screw-up in family law in a generation was corrected by the California Supreme Court yesterday, in the Marriage of LaMusga case. The court ruled that a long-distance moveaway by a custodial parent may not be in the child’s best interests, depending on all the circumstances. Now this doesn’t sound like much (it’s pretty much common sense, isn’t it?), but it has tremendous importance in light the standard that it replaces, the Burgess rule that the custodial parent has a presumptive right to move and that’s all there is to it. The feminist groups are screaming like pigs over it; mom’s attorney said “This is the worst day for children in the history of California;” notorious lobbyist and law professor Carol Bruch said “this is a tragic day for children, a tragic day for the rule of law and a tragic day for scholarship.”

Burgess was a dishonest opinion, denying the fact that a long-distance move is a “significant change of circumstance” in most cases, which it had to do in order to expand the moveway right practically to infinity (once made, custody orders remain in force until a “change of circumstance” takes place warranting a re-examination; Burgess took that possibility off the table.)

The author of Burgess was the now-deceased but then doddering old fool Stanley Mosk, who was replaced by the author of this opinion, Justice Carlos Moreno, the Gray Davis appointment. As checkered as Gray’s legacy is to California, he obviously did well in appointing Moreno, but then again, he had good help.

See Rough&Tumble for news accounts:

Child Custody Rights Refined — A divorced parent’s freedom to move away is limited. The state Supreme Court says a child’s welfare is paramount in disputes. Maura Dolan in the Los Angeles Times Bob Egelko in the San Francisco Chronicle Claire Cooper in the Sacramento Bee Michelle Quinn in the San Jose Mercury AP’s David Kravets in the Oakland Tribune — 4/30/04

and see the court’s opinion for all the details, including the saucy dissent by Justice Kennard, the drunk driver.

From The Australian:

Documents found in Iraq’s old ministry of oil reveal that hundreds of prominent individuals received vouchers to buy Iraqi oil at cut-rate prices and sell it on the open market — at tremendous, often seven-figure, profits.

Those named include not just Sevan but a vast array of Russian politicians, close friends of French President Jacques Chirac (including France’s former minister of the interior), British Labour MP George Galloway, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter and, closer to home, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

In short, it’s a who’s who list of high-profile anti-war and anti-sanctions voices, all revealed to be shills for Saddam.

All we are saying is Give Peace a Chance (to line my pockets!)

A reader emailed this to me:

API Report

The Associated Press reports that New York junior Senator Hillary Clinton narrowly escaped injury in the aircraft that she was piloting when she was forced to make an emergency landing in Southern Texas because of bad weather.

National Transportation Safety Board officials have issued a preliminary determination that pilot error contributed to the accident, and that the senator was flying in IFR conditions while only having obtained a VFR, single engine land rating. The absence of a post-crash fire was likely due to insufficient fuel on board. No one on the ground was injured.

Pictures taken at the scene show the extent of damage to Senator Clinton’s aircraft. (click for photo).

I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief now.

The evil California Prison Guards’ union has invented a new form of comment spamming. See the comment by Jeff DiCello of Santa Rosa, CA on Patio Pundit: Jill responds and Mossback’s Progress: Everybody’s an expert and Preston Line Staff’s voice.

I say we give him the chair.

The original is here, and DiCello apparently stole it.

George Monbiot has written a delightfully hysterical account of the religious right’s influence on American foreign policy, standard issue for the muesli-eating snobs who go to Guardian breakfasts to bask in their supremacy to cowboy America, but I much prefer Mark Steyn’s account of the influence of bonker-mindedeness on the Left:

In 1968, in his best-selling book The Population Bomb, scientist Paul Ehrlich declared: “In the 1970s the world will undergo famines — hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.”

In 1972, in their influential landmark study The Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome announced that the world would run out of gold by 1981, of mercury by 1985, tin by 1987, zinc by 1990, petroleum by 1992, and copper, lead, and gas by 1993.

In 1977, Jimmy Carter, President of the United States (incredible as it may seem), confidently predicted that “we could use up all of the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade.”

Now, in 2002, with enough oil for a century and a half, the planet awash in cut-price minerals, and less global famine, starvation and malnutrition than ever before, the end of the world has had to be rescheduled.

Happy Earth Day, everyone.