THIS Should Get Interesting

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THIS Should Get Interesting

This year’s $uperBowl®©™ ads will apparently (unless someone successfully sues to get it yanked, or CBS caves under pressure) include a message not seen before among the scantily-clad, beer-swilling, job-seeking multitudes we’re used to seeing on Game Day:

Focus on the Family, the Colorado-based Christian group led by James Dobson, is paying big bucks — perhaps $3.2 million — for a 30-second spot featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tebow and his mother, Pam.

In 1987, pregnant Pam Tebow and her husband, Bob, were in the Philippines as missionaries when she contracted dysentery. Doctors believed that the disease would result in the death of her baby and that a fruitless childbirth might kill her too.

But mother and son survived. After years of home schooling, Tim Tebow went on to become 240 pounds of All-Southeastern Conference, football-slinging whoopass with Bible verses written on his cheeks.

The point of the ad isn’t to pass a bill or defeat a candidate who believes women have a right to elective abortions, but to encourage women to “choose life” when faced with desperate options.

The reaction has already begun:

News of the ad had a predictably Pavlovian effect on the Left. Since the spot combines many of the elements that the “educated class” most detests about America — frank expressions of Christianity, pro-life advocacy, home-schoolers, football hero worship and the South — they were incensed that cash-strapped CBS would take Focus on the Family’s money.

Jehmu Greene, head of the Women’s Media Center, is leading a drive to punish CBS for airing the ad, which she claims is “sexist.”

Here’s your QotD:

A little decoding is necessary here.

In terms of Super Bowl ads, “sexist” is code for “anti-abortion.” But “sexist” does not apply to parading women around in their underpants to sell beer.

Got it?

You know, Alinski’s Rules for Radicals works no matter what side of the aisle you’re on! RTWT. Especially note this, about the recent Supreme Court Citizen’s United v. FEC decision:

The Supreme Court decision means that anyone who can get the dough together can try to influence the outcome of elections.

That’s exactly right.

And, Of Course, It’s All the Republican’s Fault

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And, Of Course, It’s All the Republican’s Fault

The Real State of the Union: Fear.

This fear is extremely broad-based. It is not limited to social class nor to domestic or foreign policies. Banks are not lending, companies are not hiring, because they are afraid of what Obama will do next. Both are afraid of onerous taxes, including new health care burdens, and the banks fear new regulations and the consequences of the recently declared war on evil bankers by the president. Seniors are afraid they will be deprived of medical treatment. Juniors are afraid they are going to be forced to buy health insurance they don’t think they need. Across the board, Americans are afraid they’re not going to find work, and won’t be able to afford a house. And, as the Massachusetts vote showed, Americans are worried about threats from abroad, worried about Iran, afraid of terrorist attacks, and afraid the Obama Administration doesn’t take all this seriously enough.

If we proles would just shut up, sit down, and let our betters lead us, we’d be in Utopia in no time!

Spewage Warning

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Spewage Warning

Reader Phil B., my Brit expat reader now living in New Zealand, sent me a link to the latest “Hitler learns of . . .” video. This is a meme that just keeps on giving, but this one is one of the better (and timely) efforts IMHO. As Phil warned,

All food and drink at least 6 feet away from the computer, please …

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v99/smallestminority/HitlerFindsOutScottBrownWon.flv
The original YouTube link is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4aQCiRjvZY

Edited to add:

We Live in the Presence of Greatness

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We Live in the Presence of Greatness

Quote of the Day:

It’s 1974. No legal academic is thinking seriously of the Second Amendment; there is just a vague belief that it has something to do with the National Guard.

The NRA has about 600,000 members, and has no ILA. One person, as I recall, handles all political and legal affairs. The Cincinnati revolt that would create the modern NRA lies in the future (it came in 1977, arising out of problems revealed in 1976). Harlon Carter is enjoying retirement in Green Valley AZ, where he can shoot rifles out his back window. Neal Knox is a magazine editor in Prescott. I’m a law student.

That was how it stood, 36 years ago. Glad that I lived to see Heller, and now McDonald.

— David Hardy, Of Arms and the Law – Trip back in the time machine

Thank you David. I’m glad you helped get us here. On to McDonald v. Chicago!

Quote of the Day – NRA Overreach Edition

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Quote of the Day – NRA Overreach* Edition

The NRA, the same people who tried to derail Parker v. D.C. (which later became D.C. v. Heller) has announced that the Supreme Court has granted their motion to allow them to participate in the upcoming oral argument of McDonald v. Chicago. The email I received this morning states:

“We are pleased with the Court’s decision to grant our motion,” said Chris W. Cox, NRA’s chief lobbyist. “NRA’s solitary goal in McDonald is to ensure that that our fundamental, individual right to keep and bear arms applies to all law-abiding Americans, regardless of the state in which they live. We are hopeful that the Court will share our view that the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment clearly intended to apply the Second Amendment to the States.”

It goes on to say that the NRA will be represented by former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement.

According to The Volokh Conspiracy, there’s been a little exchange between Clement and Heller litigator Alan Gura:

The end of the (Blog of Legal Times) post includes some interesting commentary by both Clement and Gura. First, Clement comments:

“I think the grant of the NRA’s motion may signal that the Court is interested in ensuring that all the avenues to incorporation, including the due process clause, are fully explored at the argument. Of course, I look forward to working with Alan.”

Gura responds, showing his typical civility and grace:

“The suggestion that I wouldn’t present all the arguments to the Court was uncalled for. I hope that this time Paul understands that handgun bans are unconstitutional.“

As the BLT notes, the dig against Clement reflects the brief he filed as Solicitor General in 2007 arguing on behalf of the United States that the D.C. handgun ban was not necessarily unconstitutional.

The bolded portion is today’s QotD. Give ’em hell Alan!

(* In the interests of full disclosure, I am a Patron member of the NRA. That’s two steps above Life and one below Benefactor. But I hardly think they walk on water and their farts don’t stink.)

They’re Dropping Like Leaves

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Just damn. Robert B. Parker has died, and I just found out about it. Last year we lost Michael Crichton.

I have said that three authors bear primary responsibility for my socio-political outlook: Robert A. Heinlein, John D. MacDonald, and Robert B. Parker. These three men wrote books about how men ought to behave – Heinlein in damned near everything, MacDonald with his Travis McGee series, and Parker with his Spenser books. I’ve enjoyed Parker’s other works, but I’ve collected every one of the Spenser series so far (one more is due out this year), even the later ones of questionable quality. Like David and Jerry, I believe his best work was An Early Autumn, the one Spenser novel I got my wife to read, and she said she liked.

Damn, no more Spenser, no more Hawk, no more Belsen, Quirk, Sunny Randall, Jesse Stone.

Just damn. Another good storyteller gone.

UPDATE: In a related bit, Roberta X points, via Alger, to where SciFi author Sarah A. Hoyt waxes eloquent on Robert Anson Heinlein and his effect on her life. Ms. Hoyt is one of those who is an American because she thinks she’s American:

…more important than his themes or his political inclinations, or his preoccupation of the moment was his determination that the human mind should be free…free to examine and discover. Free to know. Free to find the truth. Which is why I perceived him—first in rejection, and later in embrace—as the quintessential American writer. His values were—always—of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. The primacy of the individual over the state or the church or the coercive group. It could be argued that having been educated in Heinlein I had to become an American citizen. In fact, had become one, in all but name and law long before I landed on these shores.

Welcome, Ms. Hoyt, and to all the others out there who are “willing to give up what you used to be in order to be one of us.”