Kerry’s Hypocrisy; Clinton’s Stupidity

Ann Coulter, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Republicans

Libertarians take issue with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for his many transgressions, but stupidity should not be considered one of them. Whatever he did in office, Kissinger never displayed the unadulterated dumbness of a Hillary Clinton and her even dumber replacement, John Kerry.

As to the former’s dumb credentials, a jocular Ann Coulter relayed that one of the Clintons’ professors at Yale said the following about the couple and Clarence Thomas, all of whom he taught: “I had them all. One was smart. One was really smart. And one was dumb.” “I think we know who the dumb one was,” grinned Ms. Coulter.

Alas, there is nobody of Henry Kissinger’s caliber in office to put the likes of Kerry in his place (Marie Barf’s stupidity would have caused Kissinger to keel over). About the secretary’s admonitions to the Republicans for writing their “Dear Ayatollah” letter, let me say this: Pot. Kettle. Black. A principle that applies in reverse, of course: Every single thing the Republicans accuse Obama and his minions of can be said about their head honchos as well.

According to Newsmax, “Kerry [huffed to ] the Senate Armed Services that he was in ‘utter disbelief’ about the GOP letter to the Iranian leaders.

“During my 29 years here in the Senate I never heard of nor even heard of it being proposed anything comparable to this. If I had, I can tell you, no matter what the issue and no matter who was president, I would’ve certainly rejected it.”
“No one is questioning anybody’s right to dissent,” he added, according to the Caller.
“Any senator can go to the floor any day and raise any of the questions that were raised. You write to the leaders in the middle of a negotiation — particularly the leaders that they have criticized other people for even engaging with or writing to — to write then and suggest they were going to give a constitutional lesson, which by the way was absolutely incorrect, is quite stunning.

But back in 1985, “Kerry and then-Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin had visited Nicaragua … to make a deal with the Sandinista government even though President Ronald Reagan at the time was determined to overthrow the government with the help of the Nicaraguan rebels, the contras.”

Kerry supported a deal that would see the Sandinista government agree to a cease-fire and restore civil liberties in exchange for the United States ceasing to support the contras.
“If the United States is serious about peace, this is a great opportunity,” Kerry said at the time …

“But Kissinger,” recounts Newsmax, “blasted Kerry on ‘Face the Nation,’ saying: ‘He’s not secretary of state, and if the Nicaraguans want to make an offer, they ought to make it in diplomatic channels. We can’t be negotiating with our own country and the Nicaraguans simultaneously. My own view is that what we want from the Nicaraguans is the removal of foreign military and intelligence advisers.'”

Incidentally, Kerry’s 1985 initiative seems more agreeable to the libertarian than President Ronald Reagan’s. I thanked Nancy Pelosi for pursuing the same diplomacy with Syrian President Bashar Assad, in 2007:

The White House is furious that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has traveled to meet with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus. Assad is not the only Middle-East leader Pelosi is speaking to. Nor was she the first American politician to pop in on Assad. Speaker Pelosi was preceded by a Republican posse.
That diplomacy can be presented as dangerous is a credit to the Bush administration’s success in inoculating the American public against civilized, rational conduct in international affairs. The Constitution is the other spot of bother the administration has helped obliterate from the American collective conscience.
As the Independent Institute’s Ivan Eland, points out, “The framers wanted the Congress to be the dominant branch in foreign policy, as with most other aspects of governance.” “The Congress was given the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, declare war, raise and support armies, provide and maintain a navy, regulate the armed forces, organize, arm, and discipline the militia, and call them forth to resist invasions.”

It is not Kerry’s 1985 initiative that disgusts, but his present-day hypocrisy and indignation that are repugnant.

Cameron Todd Willingham & The Witchdoctors Who Killed Him

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Law, Pseudoscience

As it has been practiced for decades, arson investigations were more voodoo than science, and “arson sleuths” were often dabblers; “old-timers” who lay claim to a “a body of wisdom,” passed down from one old timer to the next arson investigator. The problem? An innocent individual, Cameron Todd Willingham, was “executed for the arson murder of his three young daughters,” in Texas, in 2004, based on this hocus-pocus.

Many arson investigators, it turned out, had only a high-school education. In most states, in order to be certified, investigators had to take a forty-hour course on fire investigation, and pass a written exam. Often, the bulk of an investigator’s training came on the job, learning from “old-timers” in the field, who passed down a body of wisdom about the telltale signs of arson, even though a study in 1977 warned that there was nothing in “the scientific literature to substantiate their validity.”

In 1992, the National Fire Protection Association, which promotes fire prevention and safety, published its first scientifically based guidelines to arson investigation. Still, many arson investigators believed that what they did was more an art than a science—a blend of experience and intuition. In 1997, the International Association of Arson Investigators filed a legal brief arguing that arson sleuths should not be bound by a 1993 Supreme Court decision requiring experts who testified at trials to adhere to the scientific method. What arson sleuths did, the brief claimed, was “less scientific.” By 2000, after the courts had rejected such claims, arson investigators increasingly recognized the scientific method, but there remained great variance in the field, with many practitioners still relying on the unverified techniques that had been used for generations. “People investigated fire largely with a flat-earth approach,” Hurst told me. “It looks like arson—therefore, it’s arson.” He went on, “My view is you have to have a scientific basis. Otherwise, it’s no different than witch-hunting.”

On September 7, 2009, the New Yorker’s David Grann wrote a lengthy expose, “Trial by Fire,” in which he asked, “Did Texas execute an innocent man?”

On March 9, this year, Maurice Possley, of The Marshall Project, all but confirmed that yes, Texas executed an innocent man.

Read the horror story of Cameron Todd Willingham, who “insisted upon his innocence in the deaths of his children and refused an offer to plead guilty in return for a life sentence.”

And the update.

UPDATED: The Farce Of ‘Black Arrests’ In Ferguson

Crime, Propaganda, Pseudoscience, Race

Ann Coulter channels Steve Sailer, who compared the arrest rates of blacks in various left wing precincts like the “People’s Republic of Santa Monica, CA”: “the black arrest rate in Santa Monica is three times as high as the black arrest rate in Ferguson, Mo.”

More than three times higher:

More Steve Sailer.

UPDATE (3/16): Facebook Thread:

Myron Robert Pauli: 631/1000 – that’s 63% of the entire black population although probably many are the “usual suspects” getting arrested multiple times per year! Still an enormous number. Pretty high even for whities. The arrest rate in North Dakota (evil Republican state with lots of gun owners) is 24/1000 – although apparently the oil boom is bringing in more crime. Utah also has low crime but the crime rate does not correlate that much with RED (Idaho and Utah) vs BLUE (Vermont, Maine, and Minnesota have low crime) as much as the absence of a certain population which perhaps Steven Sailer can point out – see enclosed picture.

Myron Robert Pauli: … and the District of Columbia is # 1 … with Ward 8 being the most criminal in DC (interesting fact is that a certain research lab in Ward 8 has more patents than the rest of the Department of Defense put together – but that Lab has a barbed wire fence and guards – presumably to keep the “Russians” out!!) … – just don’t get lost can have your car break down if you are coming to visit Naval Research Lab! Still, it seems rather odd that gun-friendly Idaho has lower crime than such as a paradise as the District of Columbia with its anti-gun laws… after all, don’t we get taught that guns cause crime????!!!

Michael Savage On Hillary Saga, Selma & A Soulless President

Barack Obama, Conservatism, English, Hillary Clinton

Michael Savage read my mind. I’ve been ruminating on the visceral hatred the liberal media harbor for Hillary Clinton, and have come to Savage’s excellent conclusion: “It’s because they want Elizabeth Warren to run. To them, Hillary isn’t liberal enough.”

“Savage added ominously, ‘If you think Hillary is bad, Elizabeth Warren is even worse.'”

To this I would add only that the media took the same tack with Barack Obama, once they anointed him as their man. The exact dynamics were at play, showcasing that while there was a “red/blue split in the Democratic Party that had become a gash”; there is no such schism in the media.

This from the June, 2008 column, “Mindless Monolith: Media Pick Obama”:

The top Democratic dogs finally got their way: Senator Clinton, who lost her party’s delegates but won the people, will concede the Democratic nomination. Media pack animals are also on top of the world.
From the AP’s Charles Babington to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to Wolf Blitzer and his “best political team on television”: They had all worked their hearts out for Obama. …
… By now the red/blue split in the Democratic Party had become a gash. Clinton was getting the red, Reagan Democrats—seniors, whites, blue collar and rural voters. “Barack Obama,” in the words of another veteran news guy, the always-edifying William Schneider, “was winning the blue Democrats: young voters, upscale urban professionals, well-educated liberals and African-Americans.”
Red versus blue meant left versus right. Those who own guns voted for Hillary; those who don’t, and think you should not, voted for Obama. One more thing: Because they’re older, more blue collar, and more conservative …

Also via Kathy Shaidle’s WND, TALK RADIO WATCH column comes an overview of the rest of what the talkers on the right said this week. Kathy, no doubt, mined the best of the week. Other than Savage, there is nothing new, interesting or important in anything said by this lot. See for yourself.

Savage’s thoughts on Obama’s Selma speech are also insightful, contrast as they do with the milquetoast assessment at National Review. OK, not milquetoast, but fawning. If anything, NR writer Quin Hillyer—who echoes Chris Cillizza’s sentiments on the Selma speech—is the fine writer he claims Obama is. The paragraph Hillyer excerpts is vintage Obama in its hackneyed simplicity.

Back to Savage on Selma and on a soulless man (courtesy of Kathy): “’Obama’s Selma speech was a new low point in the American presidency,’ Savage said at the top of the week. Comparing it to ‘classic Soviet propaganda,’ he went on to say, ‘I’ve diagnosed what’s wrong with this man and his presidency: Obama doesn’t have a scintilla of forgiveness in his soul.’”