Originally published by TMR Legal Editor, Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Charlotte Law and Civil Rights Examiner for Examiner.com

As previously reported, your truly filed an intra-galactic defamation lawsuit on behalf of Milky Way star, The Sun (my client, pictured right) against former vice-president and Peter Finch in the movie “Network” impersonator, Al Gore in 2006.

[All remaining documentary links may be accessed at the original Examiner.com article.)

The case has been litigated for over two years but is now coming to a head due to yet another surprise witness, confirmation of global cooling over the past decade, President-Elect Barack Obama’s promise of public works jobs, Charlotte’s desperate need for highway improvements and the peril the NBA Bobcats’ Time Warner Cable Arena may be in, should Gore be right. (Gore also said Earth was “in the balance” 20 years ago and that Outer Banks would be no more ten years ago if we didn’t eschew edison’s bulbs and the internal combustion engine 15 years ago.)

First, a re-cap of the litigation:

The Sun claims responsibility for all significant warming of Planet Earth. Gore claims that Homo Sapiens are threatening the survival of Man and Planet Earth herself through Man’s own planetary warming devices. Cow flatulence advocates are considering intervening as a third party to the action.

In a surprise move in 2007, The Sun has listed a fellow parishioner of Gore’s in the Church of Man-Made Global Warming (MMGW) as a witness against Gore.

The witness was former President Bill Clinton who made the rounds of the cable and network news shows in the Winter of 2005-6 and repeated what he and his Church considers a MMGW “scare” line that actually supports The Sun’s claim of slander.

Bill Clinton warned that Manhattan Island could lose 50 feet in the next 50 years due to the warming activities of Man. Madison Square Garden is more than 50 feet from the East and Hudson Rivers.

The Sun’s discovery findings show that half the Eastern Seaboard was under the Atlantic Ocean for thousands of years before the first Chevrolet exhausted its first fume into the Earth’s atomosphere. The main piece of evidence is a bank of sharks’ teeth in Columbia, South Carolina.

Columbia is over 150 miles from The Atlantic.

The Sun proposes to depose the former President under Oath in hopes of using the testimony to move for summary judgment on liability and a trial only on the amount of damages to the planet’s reputation.

Negotiations have stalled on the meaning of the word “is” and where the Knicks will play.

Now comes new evidence:

CNN Meteorologist: Manmade Global Warming Theory ‘Arrogant’
Network’s second meteorologist to challenge notion man can alter climate.

Witness: CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers

“You know, to think that we could affect weather all that much is pretty arrogant,” Myers said. “Mother Nature is so big, the world is so big, the oceans are so big – I think we’re going to die from a lack of fresh water or we’re going to die from ocean acidification before we die from global warming, for sure.”

“But this is like, you know you said – in your career – my career has been 22 years long,” Myers said. “That’s a good career in TV, but talking about climate – it’s like having a car for three days and saying, ‘This is a great car.’ Well, yeah – it was for three days, but maybe in days five, six and seven it won’t be so good. And that’s what we’re doing here.”

“We have 100 years worth of data, not millions of years that the world’s been around,” Myers continued.

Witness: Dr. Jay Lehr

“If we go back really, in recorded human history, in the 13th Century, we were probably 7 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than we are now and it was a very prosperous time for mankind,” Lehr said. “If go back to the Revolutionary War 300 years ago, it was very, very cold. We’ve been warming out of that cold spell from the Revolutionary War period and now we’re back into a cooling cycle.”

Lehr suggested the earth is presently entering a cooling cycle – a result of nature, not man.

“The last 10 years have been quite cool,” Lehr continued. “And right now, I think we’re going into cooling rather than warming and that should be a much greater concern for humankind. But, all we can do is adapt. It is the sun that does it, not man.”

Obama/Democratic Party policies threaten the Bobcats’ Arena

Obama promises to “save or create” three million jobs. (Given that over 154 million jobs now exist, we shudder to think that Obama would consider only saving three million quite ominous.) But given Obama’s far left greenie views, will his trial lawyer friends be the only ones that have jobs as they kill public works jobs to save snail darters or polar bears?

And if so, where will the Bobcats play? Or at least, the even close to the coast Tar Heels?

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

As I declared and predicted, almost alone in the conservative blogosphere, two weekends ago at TMR, Redstate, Race 4 2012, and Blog Talk Radio on TMR’s Aftermath and last weekend on Unusable Signals, most Republicans missed another opportunity to refute the 40+ year old liberal meme that we are racists and to exhibit the singular race obsession of the left and that Rush Limbaugh (pictured) would echo same almost verbatim when he returned to the golden EIB microphone yesterday.

Rush echos my claims (see bold excerpts below) that too many in the GOP exhibited their seemingly congenital fear of the liberal PC police and refutes the claims hurled against me on line and in general against Saltsman, Rush and the Shanklin parody, including those of Newt Gingrich, that the sending of the parody was a result of “poor judgment.”

I was lonely two weekends ago, but increasingly less so today, especially since Ken Blackwell’s reaction and subsequent reactions in his favor.

Of course, this concerns the more than a year old “Barack the Magic Negro” parody whose lyrics are taken verbatim from an LA Times column by a liberal Black Obama supporter. The parody exhibits the obsession of the left with race, especially including the claims by Al Sharpton and other liberal democrats early last year and in 2006 that Obama wasn’t “authentically black” enough, and the issue of race victimhood and class envy.

They took the occasion of somebody running for the RNC chairmanship sending out a CD that had this song on it to revive it anew, and frame it and cast it as they wanted it cast. The last person they wanted commenting on it was me because I’m the one who could have set it straight. Newt Gingrich couldn’t set it straight because Newt Gingrich was clueless about what this was all about. Instead, Newt Gingrich sends a note to the Drive-By Media saying, “This is wholly inappropriate. I can’t believe it! This is not how we reach out.”

So the truth of “Barack the ‘Magic Negro’” in this incident last week didn’t matter. Winning an argument over “Barack the ‘Magic Negro’” would not have mattered last week because this was about something totally different. It was not about “Barack the ‘Magic Negro.’” It was about the Drive-By Media and the Democrat Party once again being able to promote the myth that racism exists only on the Republican side of the aisle, when in fact all of the racism in the 2008 presidential campaign was found on the Democrat side of the aisle, and we laughed at it.

We parodied it with “Barack the ‘Magic Negro.’” It also illustrated that there was this bit of analysis from some Republicans saying, “Well, this is not the way to reach out to minorities. This is harmful.” This is 2007! Look, you Republicans better understand something. You had the candidate you wanted. You had the moderate who was gonna go out and get the Hispanics. You had the candidate who was gonna go get minorities. You had a moderate who was going to say, “The Republican Party is not what it’s always been,” and look what happened. You tanked, and the Republican Party tanked because it’s afraid to use the blueprint for landslide success, which is called Reaganism — and Reaganism is simply freedom. Reaganism is conservatism.

Reaganism is not beating the Soviets. Reaganism is not just tax cuts. Reaganism is about individual liberty. That’s what conservatism is. Conservatism is devotion to the founding of this country, the entrustment of the individual, working among other individuals to make this the greatest country on earth based on freedom, ambition, capability, and desire. It has nothing to do with specifics on issues. Reaganism, conservatism doesn’t need to be “redefined.” It doesn’t need to be rebranded. It needs to be used, and the Republican Party refuses to use it! There’s a simple way to reach any American. There is a simple way to reach minorities, Hispanics, women, gays, straights. There is a simple way to do it. You look at ‘em as human beings. You don’t look at them as victims like the Democrats do. You don’t look at them as people of color or gender or orientation.

You look at them as Americans and you campaign on the basis that this is what you are going to have to do to make this and keep this the greatest country on earth. You campaign on the notion that your prosperity and the country’s prosperity are intertwined. You campaign on the notion that our objective is to make life more prosperous, safer, and healthier for everybody. Not that we want government to do more for everybody and contribute more and more to this notion that more and more Americans are victims and incompetent, incapable of doing for themselves. We don’t want to live on this class envy business.

At any rate, that opportunity was squandered during the 2008 presidential campaign, squandered in the 2006 midterms, squandered during the “Barack the ‘Magic Negro’” controversy, all because our side remains petrified of itself.

Read it all, as he also goes line by line with the parody and explains the factual bases for all its words and devices.

Gamecock hopes that next time such opportunities present themselves that more Republicans and especially conservatives will not retreat in fear from the PC police like they did this time and have so many times since I left the Democrat Party in 2000, imagining that they can make the Drive-bys like them by adopting the neutered castrati tone of the left in vague rhetoric denouncing “poor judgment” when what they do is affirm the false memes of the left against the right. Or dismiss matters as puny by focusing on the particular players as an avoidance technique.

Rather, they should seize opportunities to boldly advance the truth of the left’s obsession with race and victimhood and the truth that the GOP is not racist. Americans hate the political correctness of the left.

This was exhibited in spades on C-Span’s Washington Journal when a republican official that took the wimpy Newt position and was bombarded with callers that denounced the republicans and boldly defended the parody, Rush Limbaugh and Chip Saltsman.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Yours truly was interviewed today by Charlotte’s public radio station concerning a Democrat state legislator’s impending second attempt to pass a statewide smoking ban.

Originally published by Mike “gamecock” DeVine as Charlotte Law and Civil Rights Examiner for Examiner.com

It seems we have made a name for ourselves (excerpts below) as Law and Civil Rights Examiner in championing the rights of private property owners against the mob of non-smokers unsatisfied with a free market that provides 65% of all restaurants as smoke-free.

This morning, we advised Julie Rose, reporter from Charlotte’s WFAE 90.7 FM of our continuing opposition to a statewide smoking ban on the following grounds:

* No one has a right to eat at a privately-owned restaurant
* Hence, no one has the right to insist upon air that is aesthetically pleasing to them
* Claims that second-hand smoke is dangerous to one’s health is a crock
* Unpleasant smells and coughing are not health concerns
* If second-hand smoke were truly a health hazard to employees, the law could require face masks
* Coal miners and Textile plant workers wear face masks
* We don’t ban coal mining and textile plants
* Nanny-staters don’t want to be waited on by waiters wearing masks

We did advise WFAE that we would favor repeal of the pre-emption law passed in 1993 that prohibits cities and towns in North Carolina from passing local smoking bans. Obviously, we do agree that government has the right to pass health and safety regulations that apply to private business, but we would say that given the lack of evidence of any significant harm to health from second hand smoke (and obvious common sense), that such a ban should be deemed a “taking” under the just compensation clause requiring the government to justly compensate the property owner for costs of compliance and lost income.

This is a brazen power grab by the non-smoking majority. They prefer to eat in a smoke-free environment, so all restaurants must cater to their preference. Never mind that the free market continues to create smoke-free restaurants at an amazing clip without aid from legislators.

Do not misunderstand. Despite my skepticism of the dangers of second-hand smoke, my sympathies extend to Holliman, and all other who have lost loved ones to tobacco-induced cancer. I lost a grandfather (age 73) and my father (age 65), both life-long smokers, to lung cancer.

They chose to smoke, despite the warning labels, and died from it. That’s no reason to restrict the freedom that ensured they lived as long as they did.

Besides, since our own Sir Walter Raleigh (pictured above) made tobacco a cash crop over 400 years ago, it has provided politicians an east tax target. Maybe that fact will keep us free.

Remainder of column and all links may be found here, at Examiner.com

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report

I’m asking.

But it seems to me that freely elected Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari (pictured) and the unelected former leader, Pervez Musharraf, should be applauded.

Consider their about face after 911 and that, no matter public reports of their efforts against terrorists, we haven’t been attacked again. But my main proffers of evidence are the following:

Pakistan police detain founder of group blamed for Mumbai terror

The founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, which has been blamed for the Mumbai attacks in India, has been detained by Pakistani authorities, according to his spokesman.

It is understood Hafiz Mohammad Saeed is being held in his house in eastern Pakistan.

And this:

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry says it has swapped a list of nuclear facilities with India, as part of an agreement prohibiting attacks on such installations.

The countries have routinely exchanged these lists on the first day of the year since 1992, under an agreement signed two decades ago.

Thursday’s exchange was carried out as normal, despite tensions from November’s deadly attacks in Mumbai by suspected Pakistani militants.

On Wednesday, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told U.S. President George Bush by phone that any Pakistani involved in the attacks would be dealt with sternly.

But India’s home minister, P. Chidambaram, said Pakistan “is in a state of denial” about the possible involvement of its citizens in the violence.

Earlier Wednesday, U.S. media reported that a leader of the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba admitted he helped plan the Mumbai attacks.

Pakistani authorities arrested militant leader Zarah Shah in December under intense international pressure to crack down on his group.

Pakistan closes US supply route to hit militants

Pakistan suspended truck shipments of U.S. military supplies through the famed Khyber Pass on Tuesday after launching an offensive against militants who are trying to cripple Washington’s war on a resurgent Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.

The U.S. military said a temporary closure of the key supply line was not a problem, and praised the campaign in the rugged hills of northwestern Pakistan where al-Qaeda leaders — including Osama bin Laden — are believed hiding.

So, Pakistan’s government is going after Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda as Washington desires and has captured the leader of the terrorist group suspected in the Mumbai terror attacks.

Thank you Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari. And my sympathies to you in the loss of your wife, Benazir Bhutto, at the hands of terrorists.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report

The Palestinian people are a death cult.

Three generations have been raised to view Jews an blood drinking animals that should be eliminated. Israel offered them a separate state and half of Jerusalem in 2000. They rejected it. Israel gave them Gaza. They held elections and chose to be governed by terrorists that has waged war against Israel from Gaza.

Parents of suicide bombers as young as the pictured baby are featured on Palestinian TV as heroes. I’ll never forget the celebration of a Palestinian teen that blew up herself and a Pizza Hut in Tel Aviv.

Such parents are peeved now that their children may die in their rocket launcher laden homes instead of a Pizza Hut with scores of young Israelis that just ordered pepperoni and extra cheese.

Do I have to repeat that to convey the depths of sickness in their culture?

These people are sick.

There can be no peace until they get their minds concentrated. The only way that will happen is after utter and devastating defeat. This is the lesson of history.

Israel has always been capable of delivering utter and devastating defeat but has never done so. Now, they say that this is all out war.

But is it?

I think not, because I know what all out war is, and it requires no ground assault.

The United States faced a death cult after Pearl Harbor. Millions of lived were saved thanks to the courage of President Truman to be willing to concentrate the minds of the Japanese people with two atom bombs. We did that to avoid a ground assault.

It took two bombs, so sick were the Japanese people in their death cult.

Israel doesn’t need to use nuclear weapons. They can deliver the blow with conventional weapons from the air. But they are not willing to do it.

Therefore, Israel is failing its people. Not too long in the future, this operation will end, and not far in the future, more Israelis will die at the hands of Palestinians again.

It will take more than removing rocket launchers and capturing and killing some Hamas leaders. The sickness of the whole people is deep. Radical surgery is required.

But what about the moderates, you may ask? Just saw one on CNN. She is an apologist for the radicals. Reminds me of the “good” slave owner in Uncle Tom’s Cabin that enabled the brutish Simon Legree.

I’ll never forget a Palestinian barber whose barber shop was destroyed the last time Hamas waged war against Israel, soon after the clarifying elections. He said that next time he would vote for those that wouldn’t cause his barber shop to be bombed. But there aren’t enough of his kind in the death cult.

We know what Lincoln had to do, that Sherman foresaw, to end that one.

20 years later, more Southerners volunteered for the Spanish-American War than any others. The Japanese love baseball.

Israel, want some good neighbors?

Concentrate their minds.

We are all supposed to get a pink glow of good feeling inside because Israel goes to such lengths to limit enemy casualties.

I don’t get that feeling because the duty of Israel’s government is to protect their people and their half measures the last 40 years have not done that and a full measure of devastation would save more lives in the long run and bring actual peace.

Concentrate the Palestinian mind.

Bomb the hell out of them.

Its the right thing to do.

Unless you do, we will all be back for this re-run in a few years, again.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report

[Gamecock does not consider the mere winning of an election to qualify one for person of the year. The "Politician of the Year" award is reserved for election winners. The person of the year is the individual whose actual accomplishments had the greatest impact on the lives of the most people during the year.]

Man of the Year:
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson

Runners Up: Red Chairman Ben Bernanke, General David Petraeous, President George W. Bush and Cheif Justice of the United States John Roberts

President Bush has been our man of the year most years since 2001 due to his actions in keeping us safe since 911; economic policies that softened the tech bubble and 911 recession and that gave us many years of prosperity; and in liberating over 50 million people from tyranny in Iraq and Afghanistan. The latter task was mostly accomplished last year, with this year and the next few being mostly mop up operations in Iraq and keeping terror havens unsafe in Afghanistan.

Given that the US economy is (was?) mostly governed by the private enterprise of millions, we would rarely consider Treasury Secretaries or individual entrepreneurs for the award unless they have a great impact thru technology or policy.

Bill Gates comes to mind from many years ago.

This year is another such exception where the actions of one man has had and will have in the future a great impact on millions of people here and abroad. His actions were in response to a veritable Econ-911 when bank to bank loans threatened to cease around, ironically, September 11, 2008. Lehman Brothers began to disintegrate the next day with these events coming on the heels of the Bear Stearns debacle months earlier and a year long housing and credit crunch crisis.

Enter Henry Paulson (pictured with Bernanke) to center stage with a series of weekend bailouts of individual firms and a $700B bailout of banks designed to prevent the collapse of the banking system and unclog the banks lending arteries. After many zigs and zags and some $7+Trillion later in equity buy-ins with banks and guaranteed loan bailouts in conjunction with the FED, the financial system stands and some mortgage re-fis loans are being made.

But at what price to our free market system and possible future infaltion, not to mention opening the door for an Obama-Dem dominated government that prefers government to private eneterprise?

Time will tell, but what the time in 2008 already told was that, for good or for ill, the person whose actions had the greatest impact were those of Henry Paulson.

Politician of the Year:

President-Elect Barack Obama

Runners-Up: Bobby Jindal and Sarah Palin

Worst Political Move:

Hillary Clinton’s failure to organize and compete in caucus states.

Best Political Theatre:

Vladamir Putin leaving the Beijing Olympics to direct the invasion of Georgia while President Bush led beach volleyball chears.

Most Underrated:

President Bush for sending in the Armed Forces of the United States by air and sea to Georgian ports and Tiblisi airport and the Secretary of State on the ground in Georgia, Poland and Unkraine to disabuse Russia of any notion that the West would be so intimidated that Russia could hope to gain more land than slivers in Ossetia.

Most Dishonest:

Tie: The Drive-By Media coverage of Obama and Obama’s statements concerning his knowledge of the views of Reverand Jeremiah Wright.

Most Honest:

The Reverand Jeremiah Wright stuck to his views even from under Obama’s bus.

Fifteen Minutes of Fame:

Obama’s brother living in hut in Kenya.

Best Idea:

Senator Bob Corker’s (R-TN) amendments to the proposed Detroit Auto bailout bill that would have required major re-structuring by Ford, GM and Chrysler.

Worst Idea:

Tie: Union card check, higher energy taxes, cap and trade, the banning of Edison’s light bulb and the Interior Department’s decision to put the polar bear on the endangered species list.

Most Over Reported Story:

Alleged man made global warming.

Most Under Reported Story:

Actual non-man made global cooling.

Biggest Government Waste:

The budgets of EPA and the Interior Department.

Best Government Spending:

CIA, FBI, Gitmo, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard

Best Conservative Website and Master

The Minority Report with The HinzSight Report and the design work and daily content provided by Steve Foley

Best Conservative Writers

Mark Steyn, Erick Erickson and Dave Hinz

Best Chicken:

Tie: Gamecock and Foghorn Leghorn

Happy New Year!

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

DeVine Gamecock’s Cockstradamus alter ego (pictured) went into a semi-retirement sabbatical about a month before Election Day due to his observation from the Roost that predictions at that point were being used by fellow conservatives to demoralize the GOP.

Originally published by Legal Editor, Mike “gamecock” DeVine at Examiner.com

Cock-a-doodle-do! The World’s greatest Chicken seer is back, just in time for 2009 clairvoyance.

Last year we predicted the launch of the FNC “Huckabee” show; that neither Huckabee nor McCain would be addressed as “President-Elect; that the Congressional moratorium on offshore oil drilling would expire and that the Celtics would play the Lakers in the NBA Finals.

In 2009, FNC will launch a new show hosted by Michael Steele; Congress will re-institute oil drilling restrictions and the Celtics will face the Suns in the NBA finals.

Ken Blackwell will be elected RNC chair.

Unemployment will top 10%; inflation will top 6%; the prime rate will top 5%; and regular unleaded will top $2.20/gallon.

The Roberts-Alito court will reverse at least two O’Connor Establishment Clause precedents; limit punitive damage awards in tobacco cases (good for North Carolina); deny liability in “light” cigarette cases (more good news for North Carolina); and President Obama will be caught on film puffing on a Kool outside the Oval Office (huge good news for North Carolina!).

Unions will not see “card check” enacted into law.

Neither comprehensive health care reform nor cap and trade legislation will be passed during the Hundred Days.

Obama first promised to create 2 million jobs in two years, then said he would create or “save” three million. Currently, over 154 million Americans are employed. We do not believe that even the disastrous policies of Obama and the Democrats will force more than 151 million out of work. At the end of 2009 and even 2010, much more than three million jobs will have been “saved”.

Obama will “save” more than 145 million jobs but he will “create” more jobs for lawyers than non-lawyers thanks to his greenism.

Rahm Emmanuel will not be Chief of Staff past the date of December 31, 2009.

Obama will scale back his promised tax cuts in the First Hundred Days, but the Oceans will be lower after the First 300 Days.

Oklahoma will beat Florida in the BCS Bowl.

The Carolina Panthers will defeat the Colts in the Super Bowl.

Tar Heels win March Madness.

Suns play Celtics in NBA Finals.

Yankees do not play in the World Series.

Hillary persuades Turkey and Syria to withdraw from Iraqi Kurdistan.

The Earth has been cooling for a decade. Obama will reap the benefit and change his name to Moses.

Rooster never misses a dawn.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer and Examiner.com columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

For more info: Link will be provided later for all of the DeVine Gamecock’s 2008 Awards which include: Man of the Year (Paulson), Politician of the Year (Obama), Most Underrated (Bush), etc. at The Minority Report

I supported Michael Steele, Ken Blackwell and Katon Dawson for RNC chair, in that order, before current chairman Mike Duncan “blew the whistle” on a non-story about Chip Saltsman, which whistle.

I think no less of Steele or Dawson now, but I think much more of Blackwell (pictured), and I already thought much of him. He is much more advanced into the content of character, color blind America Martin Luther King, Jr. dreamed of and that I have lived in for more than 20 years of adulthood thanks to the progress in the South.

Blackwell also understands an opportunity to discredit a false liberal lie against Republicans as racists that dare not address race in humor or parody when he sees one. Blackwell has done what gamecock has been begging for, for years since his conservative epiphany (brought about in part by false liberal Democrat Party and MSM false allegations of racism against Republicans, and that I have especially been begging for here at Redstate for days since this story broke.

Blackwell understands, as do I and Rush, that the message of the parody is that it is the left that is race-obsessed; that it is vital for Republicans to smack down that lie; that it is vital that Republicans and conservatives insist upon playing by the same humor, parody and other rules the left enjoys; and that there is no “Liberal Meme” super bowl or debate scheduled so that if we are ever going to combat this huge issue, we must do so in the real world when opportunities, no matter how imperfect, resent themselves.

Gamecock now endorses Ken Blackwell for RNC Chairman. (And for Steele to replace Huckabee on Fox!, although we like his show too.)

Adam Graham writes a brilliant piece on this news at Race 4 2012. Excerpts below. Read it all.

Ken Blackwell issued the following statement on this matter:

Unfortunately, there is hypersensitivity in the press regarding matters of race. This is in large measure due to President-Elect Obama being the first African-American elected president. I don’t think any of the concerns that have been expressed in the media about any of the other candidates for RNC chairman should disqualify them. When looked at in the proper context, these concerns are minimal. All of my competitors for this leadership post are fine people.

Chip Saltsman sent a CD by Paul Shanklin that was a compilation of parodies, many of which appeared on the Rush Limbaugh program including the Limbaugh favorite, “Barack: The Magic Negro.”

Numerous myths are floating around about this. This is not a CD that Saltsman “compiled” as one news report said as if Saltsman burned the CD of his favorite songs. “Barack: The Magic Negro” was not even the title track of Paul Shanklin’s CD. It was smack in the middle of the CD at Track 16.

Paul Shanklin didn’t coin the term “Magic Negro.” It was African American writer David Ehrenstein, writing for the LA Times who first referred to Obama as a “Magic Negro” in March 2007 and suggested he was a less authentic Black person than Al Sharpton or Snoop Dogg. Saltsman has correctly pointed out that Ehrenstein’s original piece was not criticized. The song is not so much a riff on Obama as it is Ehrenstein’s column and Al Sharpton.

Mike Duncan and Saul Anuzis: The incumbent RNC Chairman screamed outrage” at the top of his lungs, as did Saul Anuzis. Declared Duncan, “I am shocked and appalled that anyone would think this is appropriate as it clearly does not move us in the right direction.

Shocked and appalled? Which is worse? That Saltsman sent out a CD with the song on it privately to 168 members of the RNC, or that the biggest conservative talk show in America has played the song, about 1,000 times? Either Duncan is so incredibly out of touch with the grassroots of the party that neither he nor anyone on his staff with good sense knows what’s happening on the Rush Limbaugh program, or he’s saved his outrage for now like a good hypocrite. Take your pick, or maybe it’s a combination of both.

As for Saul Anuzis, he said, “Just as important, anything that paints the GOP as being motivated in our criticism of President-elect Obama by anything other than a difference in philosophy does a disservice to our party.” Only the title of the CD paints this picture. While others haven’t listened to the song, Anuzis, as someone who actually has a copy of the CD, really has no excuse for not knowing what the song’s about. And again, where was this outrage when this was playing non-stop on Rush.

My brother has often told me that conservatives need an answer to the Daily Show, a satirical counterpunch to Jon Stewart.

This story is an illustration of why that is unlikely to happen. While I’ll admit that Shanklin’s parody was beyond the pale, the decision of some on the right to act as if he burned a cross on an African American’s lawn illustrates why there’s a satire deficit. Those who attempt satire on the right are either idiots who think being offensive for its own sake is hilarious, or they’re so banal in their satire they offend no one and entertain no one.

Satirists on the left can get away with far more on the right even with their own side. On Obama’s visit to Germany, Jon Stewart remarked that seeing hundreds of thousands of screaming Germans cheering for a Charismatic leader “gives me goosesteps-I mean goosebumps.” Try making that type of joke on the right and you’ll be drowned in press releases from conservatives calling for you to be imprisoned.

Conservatives need to develop some sense of proportionality.

Blackwell unites the party with this defense of Saltsman, Rush (pictured) and the parody, either expliciely or be implication.

Dittoheads everywhere are happier now, especially given that El Rushbo was on vacation when this story broke last week and is still on vacation through this week. Ken Blackwell has defended our conservative leader. That courageous act, coupled with his already sterling credentials satisfied Gamecock that he is the best man to lead the party for the next four years.

Thank you Ken and God bless you.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report

Barack Hussein Obama has repeatedly declared his desire to sign a huge economic stimulus package soon after taking the Oath of Office as the 44th President of the United States on “Day One.”

The Speaker of the House and Senate majority leader have promised to oblige their fellow Democrat with just such a bill to sign on that day, January 20, 2009, the day the Constitution of the United States and its non-Messiah citizens refer to as Inauguration Day.

Under ordinary circumstances a minority party would expect legislation anathema to their principles and policy preferences, but, given the extra-ordinarily dangerous financial crisis since the Econ-911 last September; the now 13-month long recession; and dire prospects for at least 6-12 more, a Republican minority should expect and even expect to support some kind of stimulus bill and even some Keynesian proposals like accelerated public works.

But the fictitious “Office of the President-Elect” makes clear that the Obama administration will seek fundamental change and call it “stimulus” lest they “waste” a crisis opportunity, e.g. health care and education reform even on Day One.

It is not clear that even a Franken-enhanced majority could push through such fundamental changes that quickly, but just in case, the GOP must make their Day One a fortnight earlier when the 111th Congress convenes.

Rush Limbaugh-led conservatives in both parties showed, in the Summer of 2007, that they could mobilize Americans to stop illegal alien amnesty legislation favored by both the leadership of both parties, given the time to educate citizens concerning the threat.

Republicans must begin dividing Democrats down being this coming January 6. They must propose a Supply Side stimulus of tax and regulation reductions that worked for Coolidge, Kennedy and Reagan and remind of the failure of government spending to end recessions and depressions under Hoover, FDR and Carter. Republicans must loudly insist upon hearings before enacting potentially permanent reforms as fundamental as socialized health care and which affect so large a portion of the economy. We must insist that any Day One stimulus be confined to public works and the middle class tax cuts the Democratic nominee repeatedly promised.

There are indications that President Obama may delay some of his middle-class tax cuts and accelerate tax hikes amidst divisions between his advisors. It seems the best we can hope for from former Clinton free market Treasury Secretary Larry Summers is a two summer delay in tax hikes on the wealthy, i.e. the impending expiration of the Bush tax cuts that have kept Investors and non-lawyer Job Producers on strike since before the Housing/Credit crunch (see 2006, when it was clear that Democrats would take Congress).

David Axelrod makes clear that two summers is the absolute maximum extent of tax increase forbearance, fore the man that insisted that capital gains taxes must not be cut no matter the effect on revenues due to the “unfairness” of it. No! Taxes on the rich shall go up on the Obama Watch. Period, Paragraph! Next question?

Well, the next question was answered by Paul “Nobel Prize” Krugman, who, perhaps unwittingly, laid the foundational argument for a supply side stimulus:

A more plausible route to sustained recovery would be a drastic reduction in the U.S. trade deficit, which soared at the same time the housing bubble was inflating. By selling more to other countries and spending more of our own income on U.S.-produced goods, we could get to full employment without a boom in either consumption or investment spending.

But it will probably be a long time before the trade deficit comes down enough to make up for the bursting of the housing bubble. For one thing, export growth, after several good years, has stalled, partly because nervous international investors, rushing into assets they still consider safe, have driven the dollar up against other currencies — making U.S. production much less cost-competitive.

Maybe there is some hope, given the above, but it would likely be tried only after a year or so of recession.

In the meantime, the GOP can’t be seen as only a supply side Dr. No merely trying to sabotage the first Democrat president in 32 years to win a popular vote majority. In 2007, we showed that we could divide the Democrats and win even with a large minority of Republicans against conservatives on immigration.

There are even more Blue Dog Democrats now and many issues that unite more Republicans, that divide Democrats and that can divide Obama from his fellow Democrats, before through the FDR-like Hundred Days Obama promises and beyond.

Before addressing the particular issues ripe for Dem-dividing, you may ask why Republicans should hope to divide more than a few Blue Dogs from Obama and the rest of the Donkeys, much less divide a very Liberal Dem President from liberal Dem or Dem from Dem.

No President’s interests are precisely congruent to his party, and there are indications this President sees himself as above his party like an aloof Ike and that his real opposition are liberal Democrat egos in Congress. His choice of conservative evangelical preacher Rick Warren to pray at his Inaugural was a shot across the bow of the far left much as was his voters’ rejection of same sex marriage with the passage of Proposition 8 in California and similar acts in Arizona and Florida.

Speaking of Al Franken, does a President Obama really want to be tied at the hip with near filibuster-proof Democratic Party majorities, or would he be better positioned with some Republican cover?

Does a newly accountable Democratic Party want to put it all on the ideological line, especially during an expected deep recession?

Is it possible that labor union dominated Democrats could split over whether to be scabs crossing an Investor-Job Producer picket line?

Consider the prospect of the very real possibility of a 10% unemployment rate next year after the passage of a huge stimulus, in which the employment rates only rise for eco-lawyers intent on killing jobs to save polar bears.

Will the under- and unemployed blue collar followers of the Messiah appreciate the “lesson” of high energy prices after, much less before his “green” legislation produces or “saves” three million jobs as their standard of living is capped and they are forced to trade/barter for goods and services?

What about the former miners of bankrupt coal companies?

Will Americans used to riding on horses appreciate being railroaded into unions because 50% plus one signed a card in public duress?

Will the increasing percentage of the population employed to take care of the health of retiring baby boomers appreciate the loss of their right to refuse to perform acts that violate their consciouses, not to mention libertarians’ loss of the personal autonomy of choosing Edison’s bulb or an SUV?

We suspect, like Mark Steyn, that a President Obama, before too little time remains before he is on the 2012 ballot, that he may wish to back off the dream of an America with merely 4% of the population, only consuming the 4% amount consumed by Kenya and Indonesia.

The opportunities for diving Democrats down to a manageable size will be legion. We must start the diving in eight days and not stop for more than a 1000. But we must also make sure that we are seen as part of the solution in Washington, lest we miss the boat when Americans bail themselves out through their own hard work. Be on the ready to make the distinctions between acts that will actually stimulate versus those driven by Obama’s desire for leftist “reforms.”

Americans promised jobs are going to ant good jobs and will not be content with flowery words for long.

In that regard, President Obama could do worse than take the advice of, none other than, John Maynard Keynes, given to FDR before the end of his first year as President:

“You are engaged on a double task, Recovery and Reform; — recovery from the slump and the passage of those business and social reforms which are long overdue. For the first, speed and quick results are essential. The second may be urgent, too; but haste will be injurious. … [E]ven wise and necessary Reform may, in some respects, impede and complicate Recovery. For it will upset the confidence of the business world and weaken their existing motives to action. … Now I am not clear, looking back over the last nine months, that the order of urgency between measures of Recovery and measures of Reform has been duly observed, or that the latter has not sometimes been mistaken for the former.”

FDR didn’t listen to Keynes, but he had the excuse that he couldn’t possible understand the lessons of the Great Depression.

BHO doesn’t have that excuse, even on Day One.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published by Mike gamecock DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority Report

Bank bailout bungling, commingling…but did it “work”?

The Carolina Panthers win ugly, but as 12-4 NFC South champions with a first round play-off bye, the key word in the opening phrase is “win.”

In his Inaugural address in late September, newly elected as the first President of the U.S. Economy, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson declared that the $700B TARP bill was needed to save the banking system and unclog its new loan issuing arteries. The bill was titled the “Troubled Asset Relief Program” and Paulson’s testimony urging its passage promised funds would be used to buy up bad mortgages, but the actual terms of the bill endowed the Treasury Secretary with near plenary powers and absolute discretion to preserve the economy (as if that were possible).

Yours truly was “commissioned” at the time to cover the financial meltdown and Paulson Panic Prevention Plan, and after much research and analysis that would fill a small Caroline Kennedy size book, I came out narrowly against the passage of the TARP/PPPP.

I favored a more narrowly focused plan favored by Steve Forbes and others supply side stimulus that would have also included suspension of mark-to-market accounting rules and the repeal of the criminalization of risk-taking capitalism/small business destruction Act a/k/a Sarbanes-Oxley. My four columns written in the wake of the crisis and soon after passage of TARP from September 18-October 9 may be found here at page 4 of my archives.

Since then, Paulson actually heeded some of my advice, i.e. to take action that would maximize the likelihood that new loans would be issued rather than rescue bad mortgages. What Paulson decided to do was to buy equity in Banks, which shores up there balance sheets, which capital forms the basis for new loans at a 10/1 ration, generally.

As an aside, let be debunk the notion that the banks can or even should, report to Congress how they have spent the “TARP” money. Money is fungible. The money transferred is equity money that is part of the total capital of the banks and meant to be so. This is not a case akin to the commingling of personal versus business funds by a small business owner trying to protect assets from a divorce property settlement.

Congress should have thought of this before they passed TARP and, quite frankly, the maintenance of privacy in the banks’ private transactions helps to prevent another socialism/nationalization line.

Also, since the September 2008 Econ-911, Vice-President of the U.S. Economy/Chairman of the Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke has produced an alphabet soup of loan guarantee programs which, together with TARP’s $350B spent so far with the AIG and other “bailouts” added together, add up to possibly upwards of $7 Trillion in U.S. taxpayer funds at risk. Most experts believe most of this money is not at risk, but most do fear the inflationary effect of same once the recession ends. Bernanke, a student of the Great Depression, apparently thinks he can finesse the situation. God help us.

But back to the PPPP, which was devised because banks were unwilling to make loans to other banks in mid-September. The housing recession was in its 11th month and very few mortgages were being re-financed much less new loans issued.

Fast-forward to late December: The banking system did not fail. Bank to bank loans are being made. Mortgages are being refinanced at very high volume since a drop in interest rates in November.

Could all of the above been accomplished absent any action by government in September? No

But could it have been accomplished with a plan differing in kind and scope than the one Paulson and Bernanke have wrought? Probably.

No doubt that PPPP prevented panic in an arbitrary way.

But judging their actions by the stated goals, their way has “worked”, given a narrow definition of “worked.”

I have argued that the American people were in for hard times for the next year or two, at least, in my previous articles (see above links) and so, did not expect for investors to come off their strike due to the FED and TARP. For that, I think we will have to pay the piper for past excess and pass a supply-side stimulus plan.

Therefore, my purpose in this column is a narrow defense of Paulson and Bernanke on the accomplishment of the stated goals thus far. My own business has picked up, given that much of my work is tied to loan turn downs. For that I am thankful.

But for the un-clogged bank loan arteries to flow in greater volume after all the re-fis by sterling credit risks, investors willing and able to apply for loans will be required. For that to happen will require turning the American people loose to bail themselves out, and, unfortunately, much damage control by government gurus to undo the dame they did that led to the need for TARP/FED and from the “cure” of TARP/FED itself.

For now though, like the Panthers, they have “won ugly,” but, unlike Carolina, they don’t get a “bye.”

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The HinzSight Report at TMR.

Looking at my pile of printed out internet and newspaper article equivalent to Rush Limbaugh’s stack of stuff, marked up as fodder for my own dead-tree columns, blogs and book instead of a radio show, I am reminded of the movie, “Paper Chase”.

That title and movie best captured my experience in Law School that any other picture I have seen over the years. Why? Because learning the law, and how to think like a lawyer, i.e. discern the facts relevant to the case from the infinite number of facts available, requires reading every word available. After one class of subjugation to the Socratic method, one then learns that it is necessary to write down many facts and study them. It seems at times that one reads War and Peace to re-write war!

It might seem non-productive to some, but centuries of experience and even new technology haven’t reduced these piles appreciably, at least not for those that pass final exams, pass the bar and actually win cases in front of juries.

And oh yes, the virtual stack of stuff I stare at on my documents, above the paper pile, if printed, would dwarf the pile printed out for immediate use. God knows that had this geek that wants to know it all had internet as a child, I may never have left the house.

Wanting to get out as many columns from all the loose ends before the beginning of the year, including those that relate to year-end reviews and Cockstradamus predictions, in addition to the required columns I am now happily paid to do each and every day, I run across some rare of late these days wisdom from Christian, Southerner and Palin-basher Kathleen Parker in a column about a “Facebook Nightmare” world where anything one says or does can be “news” :

All of the above would be nonsense except that almost nothing any longer is. Nonsense is the new standard for controversy; and even party shenanigans qualify.

Puritans and prohibitionists would adore our brave new world of shutterbug infamy. The fact is, no one’s having fun anymore, especially in the nation’s capital, where one can’t afford to let the tongue slip or risk being caught in the cross hairs of a cell camera.

Political veterans have learned, sometimes the hard way. This new generation — the Obama cohort — needs to review The Rules. Smart grown-ups in Washington don’t get drunk in public. A glass of wine is a prop that rarely gets drained.

At a small, private dinner recently, where wine flowed freely (and no one took pictures), conversation turned to the day when politicos and others routinely enjoyed three-martini lunches. How did they do that? Not just the drinking, but the escape from scrutiny?

It was all about time. In low-tech America, people had time to sober up. There was no e-mail light blinking to demand your immediate attention, no insistent cell phones blasting “Fur Elise” into one’s pocket or purse; no 24/7 news producers demanding instant responses to urgent claims and counterclaims. Several hours — or even a few days — could pass before anyone had to Do Something.

Yes, its all about time. I have had a saying of my own for years, probably constructed after voice mail reduced deniability, and that is that after the invention of the washing machine, all future technology has actually placed greater stress burdens on us than they relieved. Many devices are, or more likely were, originally sold with a pitch that they would free up more personal time by making work more efficiently done.

Poppycock!

All we have done is cram more work into the 24-hours we have per day and no invention will ever give us more that 24.

The closest we came was Leap Day.

How was your February 29th? My stack of stuff just got higher.

Now, the loose ends gamecock will publish (I have to put this kind of pressure on myself) before Jan 2, 2009:

At TMR

…but did it “work”: (Paulson Bailout Post-Mortem)

Splitting the Dems on:

CNN testifies for The Sun vs. Gore

Will Summers only prevent tax hikes for two summers

Obama jobs program for trial lawyers only: the 4% solution

Krugman “gaffe” argues for supply side stimulus

Forget Card Check, Cap & Trade, Bankrupt Coal, Parker SUVs?

Finally Frank(en) Democratic Party accountability

Liberals as Firemen vs Pants on Fire

At Examiner.com and TMR:

End of the Year awards incl Man of the Year

Cockstradamus on 2009

Charlotte Law Year in Review

Civil Rights Year in Review (incl the Overlawyered War)

P.S. You should also see the client legal work and research stack of stuff!

No justice, no peace.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Democrats and, especially fellow republicans in the Palmetto State may wish they could “join Elizabeth” to avoid this chief executive’s wrath.

Originally published by Mike gamecock DeVine as Legal Editor for The Minority Report

Of course, I am referring to South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (pictured) as a reverse Fred Sanford, who, when backed into a corner by his lies, resorted to fake heart attacks for sympathy as he shouted at the sky to his late wife, “Elizabeth, I’m comin’ to join ya!”

By contrast, Governor Sanford regularly exposes the Republican majority in his state for their incompetence and love for bigger government. For conservatives, he shows us how we should seize opportunities, even at Christmas:

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Three of South Carolina’s leading Republican lawmakers slammed Gov. Mark Sanford on Monday for his reluctance to accept federal money that would keep unemployment benefits for the state’s jobless from drying up at the end of the year.

“I’ve been in the Senate 28 years,” Sen. Hugh Leatherman, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. “Never have I seen a more heartless and cruel act by a governor. … I call upon him to end this reign of emotional trauma and request the loans.”

In the interest of full disclosure when I read the above and the whole AP article, I began my research intending to slam Sanford as the “flake” I often referred to him as when he refused federal dollars for projects in his coastal congressional district, when he served in the House years ago.

I was a Democrat then, but even now am not a big opponent of earmarks given their paltry sum as opposed to massive budget busting entitlements; the usefulness of earmarks for bargaining on larger issues; and my selfishness for my, relatively-speaking, poor native state. My ambivalence for Sanford on the latter was increased by his recent WSJ eschewings of bailouts for states.

But after reading Sanford (and Gov. Perry of Texas) above, and especially his unfiltered by the Associated drive-by Press strategy explanation below, I have changed my mind and now see his actions as fitting into my proposed strategy for the GOP to stop being the Stupid Party and seize opportunities to expose liberalism that hurts liberty and business:

In simplest form, our state is running out of money to pay unemployment benefits, and our office has been drawn into the debate because it’s up to us to request a band-aid loan of sorts so that these checks can continue being issued.

Here are my reservations:

A loan without reforming our unemployment benefits system will mean one thing down the road — a tax increase on businesses. According to the non-partisan Tax Foundation, our state is roughly in the middle of the pack on our business tax climate, except when it comes to unemployment taxes — where we rank ninth-highest in the country, our least business-friendly tax ranking.

So we have simply asked for two things before we sign off on the loan.
One, we’re calling for an independent audit of the ESC.

Since beginning to highlight this issue, we’ve had a number of former ESC employees raise issues to us about the operations of the agency. For example, in order to be eligible for benefits, a person needs to be “actively seeking employment.” We’ve been told that some interpret that to mean making just one phone call in a week to qualify as “seeking employment.” In a 40-hour work week, it doesn’t seem like one five-minute phone call should qualify you as looking for work.

We’ve also been told that some companies are essentially taking advantage of the system, and use the unemployment benefits as a sort of taxpayer-funded furlough. These are the kinds of things an audit could uncover, and in the process help avert a tax increase.

Two, we’re asking for better information sharing from the ESC.

We’ve heard that one of the reasons data can’t be shared effectively is because the agency is operating on a cumbersome, inefficient, and decades-old mainframe computer system. Yet rather than use recent funding increases to upgrade that system to better-serve the people of this state, the money was instead spent on new construction of facilities. I’m a firm believer in fixing what you have before you take on new commitments, but unfortunately too many in government don’t seem to feel that way.

The Governor then asks voters to call their state legislators demanding action. It is a shame that these fiscal matters come up at the end of the year when people are distracted by Christmas holidays that legislators can hide behind and appeal to for sympathy.

We think Sanford’s strategy is to use the need for the federal unemployment compensation loan to try and force conservative reforms and that he will, in the end, not let the unemployed miss a check, so we applaud his strategy and wish that more elected republicans across the nation and in Washington, D.C. would seize opportunities when voters are attentive.

Opportunities are coming during the weeks in January when Congress will be preparing that “sign on Day One” stimulus bill as well as more fundamental “reform” called “stimulus” during the First Hundred Days.

The GOP must be diligent to forge alliances with amenable democrats in the House and use the filibuster in the Senate, to force energy and health care legislation into hearings and/or other delays that We the People can use to shoot down socialism like we did illegal immigrant amnesty in 2007.

[Links above flesh out my proposed strategy to try and seize opportunities and split the Democrats in an economic crisis environment in which we must not be seen merely as Dr. No offering “only” a Supply-Side stimulus. I think such a stimulus of tax cuts and regulation cuts is the fastest way out of the current recession, which will be long no matter what, but just think that we have to have more of a strategy than supply-side. Obama may well resort to supply-side later, when his Keynesianism doesn’t work any better for him that it didn’t for Hoover, FDR, LBJ and Carter, but for now, we need to be savvy in how we respond to specific proposals, like public works and pre-packaged bankruptcies (see link above).]

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Aloha: Purpose driven Fitzmas and an Un-gay New Year

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report for submission at Examiner.com.

As Barack Obama dreams of a white-washed “Fitzmas” in Hawaii to replace White Christmas nightmares in Chicago, a mainstream Washington liberal echoes gay hate against traditional marriage Christians.

It seems Hope and Change is still best sought in the resurrected Christ that was born in a manger this date nearly two millennia ago. Merry Christmas!

Purpose Driven Unhappy New Year for Gay activists

With only 29 shopping days left until Christmas, this column documented the vicious hatred of many gay activists towards those against same-sex marriage in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 in California restoring the exclusivity of traditional marriage in the Golden State. Christians, and especially Mormons, were physically harassed and their property destroyed in numerous incidents in the Golden State and around the country.

We found the story ironic given the drive-by media meme that it is Christians that are the haters for merely wanting to preserve the 5000-year old marriage definition as between one man and one woman; that black and Latino Obama voters were the ones that put Prop 8 over the top; and that the gay activists tactics made a mockery of their self-comparison with Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dignified, Holy Scripture driven, non-violent Civil Rights Movement.

We also went out of our way to recognize the fact that the over-whelming majority of gays do not support the extreme acts we reported, and we still acknowledge that fact.

So, it was with some discomfort that we read a gay-rights driven denunciation of the President-Elect’s choice of main-stream evangelical, Southern Baptist pastor Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life (second in all-time book sales to The Holy Bible) to deliver the invocation prayer at his Inauguration, by a mainstream Washington liberal. Richard Cohen describes his gay sister’s cancellation of an Inaugural party due to the selection of Warren and then states:

I can understand Obama’s desire to embrace constituencies that have rejected him. Evangelicals are in that category and Warren is an important evangelical leader with whom, Obama said, “we’re not going to agree on every single issue.” He went on to say, “We can disagree without being disagreeable and then focus on those things that we hold in common as Americans.” Sounds nice.

But what we do not “hold in common” is the dehumanization of homosexuals. What we do not hold in common is the belief that gays are perverts who have chosen their sexual orientation on some sort of whim. What we do not hold in common is the exaltation of ignorance that has led and will lead to discrimination and violence.

Finally, what we do not hold in common is the categorization of a civil rights issue — the rights of gays to be treated equally — as some sort of cranky cultural difference. For that we need moral leadership, which, on this occasion, Obama has failed to provide. For some people, that’s nothing to celebrate.

There you have it. Americans, simply by opposing same-sex marriage: “de-humanize” homosexuals; believe they are all perverts; “exalt” ignorance and thus, aid and abet violence against them; and deny gays and lesbian their “civil rights.”

Nothing can make the New Year be happy for those with such notions. The irony is that, clearly, despite Obama’s protestations, our next President favors same-sex marriage. He is for all sorts of hate crimes, domestic partnerships and other legislation based on sexual preference. And, he opposed Proposition 8 which was designed to overturn an activist court ruling that made same-sex marriage legal.

But, the Cohen’s of the world that foment hatred of Christians with the lie that it is we that are intolerant, can’t even abide a prayer from someone that merely wants to tolerate a 5000 year old institutional definition that made civilization possible.

Pastor Warren has made clear that he and his church loves gays and has acted upon that love. Cohen does make some good points about Obama’s religious history in the column, so I do recommend reading the whole thing.

Merry white-washed Fitzmas

Prior to Christmas, our only comment on U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitgerald’s charges of vacant Obama senate seat selling by the President-Elect’s fellow democrat and Governor, was to suggest that the silence of Obama’s designate for Chief of Staff (COS) was deafening and that he would likely not serve one day as COS.

The din of Rahm Emanuel’s muteness continues in public, but given impending subpoenas, it appears same will end in private, if only to plead the Fifth. Given that he was the main public face of the pretentious “Office of the President-Elect” complete with the Tar Heel blue transmogrification of the Presidential seal and given that public faces include lips that need to move, we look forward to the naming a new COS-designate before MLK Day.

But the larger issues of this matter, and especially Obama’s attempt to white-wash the whole thing with a Christmas Eve’s eve dump of “internal investigation” findings, convince us that this viscerally more understandable scandal will make Clinton’s white water seem pale and shallow by comparison.

We note the lack of outrage from Mr. Cool in a circumstance that cries out for righteous indignation. His Governor, Blagojevich (who is constitutionally empowered to choose the next junior senator from the Land of Lincoln) is trying to sell the seat he held. He withdrew the name of his preferred pick for his appointed successor, right before Lawyer Fitz announced the charges, arguably before Blago had actually committed a crime. Coincidence?

We find that Obama didn’t tell us he had spoken to Blago about this matter, only to correct it after investigating himself? He changed pronouns from “I” to “we’ in an early vague news conference, famous for how few questions he would take, followed by one in which he instructed reporters not to “waste” questions.

Before Election Day, we suggested dangers citing the “Chicago Way” and how one would get “A Piece of the Action,” should that way come to The District.

Honolulu is as far as you can get from Chicago and still be in the USA, but when he says Aloha on his way back to the Lower Forty-Eight, Fitzmas may not yet be over.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson