Right Side of the Rainbow

Barack Obama has more money, more favorable media and a better organization than John McCain; Obama is also running in an environment agreeable to Democrats.

And yet no non-partisan poll has ever put Obama at or above 50%. In fact, according to Gallup, McCain now leads Obama by four points among likely voters, or at least he did as of Monday.

Why can’t Obama put McCain away?

During the Republican primaries, many of us wrote McCain off. We not only hoped he wouldn’t win, we also thought he couldn’t win. We were wrong. Now many say McCain can’t win the general election. Maybe they’re wrong too.

Meanwhile, the Republican Party remains as corrupt as ever, all but guaranteeing that the Democrats’ congressional majority will grow, regardless of what happens in the presidential race.

Posted by Paul at 5:30 PM | Permalink

And had he gone to a meeting of secular liberals rather than religious ones, they would have obliged him.

Posted by Paul at 5:15 PM | Permalink

Because people often want their political enemies in prison, you could get 100,000 signatures on a petition to prosecute just about anyone. Humans, especially liberals, are nasty that way. Fortunately, in America we don’t prosecute by petition.

Posted by Paul at 8:30 AM | Permalink

If you must pray at the city council meeting, the Fourth Circuit wants your god to remain nameless.

Posted by Paul at 5:35 PM | Permalink

Louisiana has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to rehear a case in which a five-justice majority held that the constitution prevents child rapists from being put to death.

Though the court rarely grants a petition for rehearing, it should do so here. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the court concluded that a national consensus had formed against the execution of child rapists. But in reaching that conclusion, the court mischaracterized federal law. Specifically, the court said that Congress had not made child rape a death-eligible offense (slip op at 12). But as Louisiana notes, the court was wrong. Section 552 of the National Defense Authorization Act provides that service members convicted of child rape may be sentenced to death.

Posted by Paul at 7:45 PM | Permalink

The House Armed Services Committee holds a hearing tomorrow. Is the public ready? Apparently, yes:

Changing attitudes are seen in polls such as one by The Washington Post, published Saturday, showing that 75% favor allowing gays to serve openly, up from 44% in 1993.

Posted by Paul at 12:25 PM | Permalink

The GOP faces a dim future: “This year, according to the Post-ABC poll, 44 percent of those under 30 call themselves Democrats, and only 18 percent identify as Republicans.”

Posted by Paul at 12:15 PM | Permalink

Is it just me, or do you also get sick of the whining?

Sad to say, but what [Michelle] Obama has undergone, though it’s on a national stage and on a much more prominent scale, is nothing new to professional African American women.

Get a grip, woman. Criticism and caricature are nothing new to anyone who participates in politics.

Added:

It’s true, exactly 20 years after graduating from Harvard Law School, [Michelle Obama is] still complaining about her tuition payments, even while living in a $1.65 million house and with a household income that puts her firmly in the top 1 percent of U.S. families.

“The couple’s combined salaries were more than $430,000 in 2006, according to their tax return,” reported Los Angeles Times writer Robin Abcarian in February. “In addition, Barack Obama earned $551,000 in book royalties.”

In 2007, the year prior to Mrs. Obama’s perpetual bellyaching on the campaign trail about her tuition bill, Barack Obama was paid $4 million in book royalties, as reported on his financial disclosure report in June.

Posted by Paul at 11:45 AM | Permalink

But she didn’t go to jail for exercising her freedom of speech. She went to jail for cursing at a judge, behavior that isn’t covered by freedom of speech.

For the same reason that you can’t walk into a theatre and yell “fire!,” you can’t walk into a courtroom and yell “asshole!” Our speech is always subject to regulations of time, place and manner. It could hardly be otherwise.

Posted by Paul at 11:45 AM | Permalink

In Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court wrote: “In sum, we hold that the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.” [Slip Op at 64; bold added. See also Slip Op at 56, describing the District’s statute as requiring “that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock at all times, rendering it inoperable.” Italics added.]

Despite the clarity of the court’s holding, the District has decided to retain its requirement that handguns be trigger locked. Accordingly, residents of the District should lawyer up.

Posted by Paul at 8:05 PM | Permalink

I stood in line for three hours to get this phone. And then, to activate it, I spent another two and a half hours trying to access the iTunes store, which is buckling under the weight of today’s traffic. But I got it done.

Get yours. You’ll love it.

Posted by Paul at 2:55 PM | Permalink

Attention fellow Mac enthusiasts!

In preparation for Friday’s launch of iPhone3G, Apple has begun the transition from .Mac to MobileMe. I took this screen shot, which shows .Mac offline, at 11:11 p.m. CT.

MobileMe will offer push email, push contacts and push calendar.

Update at 9:30 p.m. July 10: Evidently Apple is having trouble migrating .Mac to MobileMe, as MobileMe has been online today only in spurts. It makes you wonder: Did Apple abandon OSX for Vista?

Posted by Paul at 11:25 PM | Permalink

When your house is on fire, it’s too late to buy fire insurance:

If Senator John McCain’s radical plan for remaking American health care is to work, he will have to find a way to cover people like Chaim Benamor, 52, a self-employed renovator in this Baltimore suburb. Mr. Benamor never found it necessary to buy insurance before having a mild heart attack last year and now, 13 years shy of Medicare, has little hope of doing so.

The heart attack left Mr. Benamor with a $17,000 hospital bill, $400 in monthly prescription costs and a desperate need for insurance.

No, Mr. Benamor does not need insurance. He needs help paying his bills.

Insurance, properly understood, is a gamble. It reflects risk-taking by both the policy carrier and the policy holder. If the filing of a claim is certain, rather than merely possible, you don’t have a gamble. Instead, you have either a case of fraud or a need for charity.

Posted by Paul at 5:15 PM | Permalink

Moral vanity in children is expensive.

Posted by Paul at 8:50 PM | Permalink

The Washington Post calls on the court to correct a mistake.

Of course, the justices were never actually interested in the national consensus; they were interested only in the consensus among themselves. So admitting they were wrong about the law is a moot point.

Posted by Paul at 2:30 PM | Permalink

Do people know that the word handgun is not inconsistent with the word semiautomatic? Or that most of the handguns Americans own are semiautomatics? Reports like this one make me wonder.

True, all handguns aren’t semiautomatics. Some are revolvers. But many people seem to think that semiautomatic means Uzi or AK-47. It doesn’t.

I own four handguns, including two Glocks. All are semiautomatics. Except for the sights, which I replaced with ones that illuminate in the dark, my Glocks are standard issue sidearms that you’ll find in any gun store in the country. They’re the sort of gun that Americans ordinarily keep for self-defense.

Posted by Paul at 6:15 PM | Permalink

A federal appeals court says an anti-abortion group may display near public schools images of aborted fetuses: “The government cannot silence messages simply because they cause discomfort, fear or even anger.”

Posted by Paul at 12:05 AM | Permalink