Nevada LP Senate candidate shot by police

Via LRC, this sad story:

I was pulled over for driving straight through an intersection in a right turn only lane. I did signal for my lane changes to the left.

After exiting the vehicle at the officer’s request, I was standing with my back to the vehicle. The car’s open door was to my right. My hands were raised above my head. I was calmly speaking to the cop attempting to talk my way out of being taken to jail over an unpaid High Occupancy Vehicle ticket.

With my hands raised above my head, the cop shot me with a taser in the chest.

Duensing has a heart condition, so he freaked, pulled the electrodes, and ran.

Various figures have been discussing whether Jim was “resisting arrest”. What they haven’t addressed is this: why did the cop taze Duensing, presuming this is an accurate account of what happened? He wasn’t going anywhere or being threatening. They knew who he was. And in the midst of all kinds of finger pointing, this was one of the few commenters to nail it:

Brian S // Nov 2, 2009 at 3:35 pm

Let’s not lose sight of the real issue here – the cops shot a senatorial candidate multiple times, immediately before an election. How coincidental can this be, really?

I wish Jim a speedy recovery.

Bye, Dede

This isn’t so much about the Scozzafava suspension, as about Ace’s reaction to it.
He contrasts Limbaugh’s pragmatism with Beck’s purism (Glenn, not Billy…who really is a purist), and sides with Limbaugh. As usual with slaves of the Duopoly, he misses the point.

The Hoffman thing is a fluke, because it happened in one of the few states with a functional 3rd party system, because of the possibility of multi-line candidacy. It’s not going to happen somewhere like Ohio. Nobody was insisting on ideological purity in a Republican; a bunch of people just decided to vote ideology instead of party, in a rare situation where that was possible.

The way forward is not to arguable about successful electoral strategies within the Duopoly. That’s a non-starter, because the battle will always be about power instead of ideology. What we need is a free and open electoral system in this country, and instead of lobbying for short-term goals, Republicans and Democrats both need to work for a system where every party plays by the same rules. If a minor party needs 40K petition signatures to get on the ballot, so do the Democrats. If they can lose ballot access by getting too few votes, so can the Republicans. And get multi-line like in NY (you know, that right of free association?) Now, that will be a hard sell, because it isn’t in the interest of the Duopoly to do it. but if we make it in the interests of the individual politicians to make it happen, it could happen. At that point, with a lively spectrum of options, the Left will “split the vote” as often as the Right, and pragmatic, “what’s in it for me” voters will be choosing different folks from we ideologues.

O noes! O-flags!

WND is all up in arms because folks are selling flags that look like the American flag, except that in the blue field there’s a picture of Obama in place of the stars. In some jurisdictions, it might even be against the law! Oh horrors…

Is it “the American flag” without the stars? What if there’s one fewer stripe? If Obama flags are illegal, what about Threeper/Nyberg flags? Do WND and its readers want to go there?

Do I think that Obama Flags are tacky as hell, and an insult to the country? Yes. So what? If the flag is worth dying for, it means free expression, even at the expense of the flag…and if it doesn’t mean that, why die for the flag? Do I think it’s un-American for the neo-conner WND and Atlas Shrugs to incite eBay to corporate censorship? Yes.

Let’s remember the primary practical purpose of a flag: to distinguish friend from foe. The Obama flag is eminently suited to that purpose. I would encourage Obama-worshippers to fly it in front of their homes, high, often, and proudly.

“Stonegate”

I’m sorry, but Breitbart’s site is flushing a lot of its newly-won credibility down the tubes with this one.

OK, “Bite me, Jew boy” is on the face of it an ethnic slur. So would be an email saying “Bite me, nigga” sent from Kanye West to Barack Obama.

We’ve known about the racism of the Left for a long time. This is mighty trivial stuff, and it’s only intense hatred of the MSM that had them bring it out at all. Give it a rest, boys; there are bigger fish to fry.

Some Trig Trufers are more equal than others

Do I care if Andrew Sullivan burns one on MY  land? No

Do I think it’s objectively a Good Thing if Andrew Sullivan’s (or anyone else’s) $125 marijuana ticket is cancelled? Yes.

Is it right that Andrew Sullivan gets his ticket cancelled because “it would have resulted in an “adverse effect” on an unspecified “immigration status” that Sullivan, a British citizen, is applying for.”? And that nobody else does?

HELL NO!!

Really, send the sumbitch back to England. Rachel Lucas tells me that people can actually blog from there. And he’d find it much more comfortable.

Bristol’s babbydaddy blathers BS

First, let’s stipulate: Levi Johnston has no credibility. That being said, some of what he has to say misses the point.

There wasn’t much parenting in that house. Sarah doesn’t cook, Todd doesn’t cook—the kids would do it all themselves: cook, clean, do the laundry, and get ready for school. Most of the time Bristol would help her youngest sister with her homework, and I’d barbecue chicken or steak on the grill.

Big families work that way, especially families where children are actually expected to grow up and take care of themselves in the world.

Sarah told me she had a great idea: we would keep it a secret—nobody would know that Bristol was pregnant. …I think Sarah wanted to make Bristol look good, and she didn’t want people to know that her 17-year-old daughter was going to have a kid.

Well, duh, in proper families of my generation (even those not involved in politics), out-of-wedlock pregnancy was something you kept as quiet as possible, because it was physical proof of immorality. All this proves is that the Palins have more class and decency than Levi Johnston…who is just another hick jock who knocked up his girlfriend. And if his girlfriend hadn’t been the daughter of the Governor of Alaska, nobody would care. You’d think, Levi, for the sake of one you once professed to love, that you would shut your piehole, because every time you open it, you confirm again what a horrible lapse of taste Bristol had in letting you inside of her.

UPDATE: Now he’s talking about posing nude. And they say that now he’s a gay icon. I don’t understand why; I thought gays were attracted to men.

Libtard line of the week

But the idea that God’s tears over Ted’s passing caused rain in Manhattan might just take the cake. From libtalker Stephanie Miller’s program, here’s the exclusive transcript and clip:

STEPHANIE MILLER (28:25): Perhaps God crying over ah Senator Ted Kennedy, I think you’ve seen the pictures; it’s been a sad day. It’s been a sad week for liberals in America.

I guess that’s better than the “God needed another angel in Heaven” gambit. (That’s for babies; “God needed another cum-spewing boozehound” doesn’t have the same ring.). But “andycanuck” in the comments really bitchslapped it:

There was yellow rain in NYC yesterday?

We need a Godwin’s Law for 9/11

mattizcoop It feels a bit like 9/11 on Martha’s Vineyard. End-of-summer weather is achingly beautiful but the mood is melancholy because of Teddy

Yes, Teddy Kennedy being dead feels like watching the towers crumbling over and over again. It feels like being stuck on a bus in Public Square because TPTB are afraid to run the Rapid underneath Terminal Tower, even though the parking spot is within fry distance of any jet hitting Terminal Tower. Ted dead is like being able to get no info through the Internet because everyone in the country is doing the same thing. It’s like living near an airport and not hearing any planes for 3 days, then freaking when you finally do. It’s like worrying about NYC friends. And that’s just how it was for somebody safe in the Flyover.

If Kennedy dying really were like 9/11, it would have been sudden. And his Senate seat would be empty for years.

I don’t know who Matt Cooper is — besides a dickwad — but Kathryn Jean Lopez seems to assume I know.

Bedwetter travel writer: don’t let the door to Arizona hit you on the way out

Arthur Frommer (the name means “pious” in German) has decided that the state of Arizona is just too nasty and dangerous to enter, because the people there are allowed to carry guns in public, oh the horror! You’d think he could deal with it, given that Uncle Sam himself trained Frommer in their use. But that was pre-AR15, and he doesn’t seem to have realized that the civilian-use version is not auto-fire and thus not in any accurate sense an “assault rifle”. And those civilians were carrying somewhat in proximity to Frommer’s Lord, which only compounds the horror.

“I am not yet certain whether I would advocate a travel boycott by others of the state of Arizona,” he says, thus advocating a boycott while giving himself plausible deniability. Well, “I am not yet certain whether I would advocate a boycott of certain travel writers.” But if Frommer actually thinks that AZ is more dangerous than NYC (where he has lived, and perhaps lives now), one has to question the accuracy of any information on personal safety that he would give to a traveller. And Arizona is, I’m sure, better off without anyone who would follow his advice.

Shorter form: “Thou shalt not steal”

Gary North takes the heretic Jim Wallis to the woodshed on his attempt to make government healthcare a creed of the Church.