In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn’t do everything she can for him, because he is white. Eventually, her basic humanity informs that this white man is poor and needs help. But she decides that he should get help from “one of his own kind”. She refers him to a white lawyer.To the extent the original clip and Breitbart's description portrayed Sherrod as having engaged in a racist act in the past, such implication literally was true, as Sherrod admits. The actions people in the Obama administration took, and the conclusions the media drew from that literal truth may have been unfair and precipitous, but that does not make the clip defamatory.
Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam. The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong. But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right. In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.Predictably, the surprising announcement has set off a fury of "first they came for" statements from the left-wing bloggers who usually act in sympathy with the ADL - except when it comes to Israel. The schism between pro-Israel Jews and Israel-meh Jews has been exposed in full force.
The new survey by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research shows Reid and Angle neck and neck. The Senate majority leader would win 43 percent and Angle 42 percent of support from likely Nevada voters if the election were held now. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points on the statewide telephone survey of 625 registered voters taken Monday through Wednesday.Reid is viewed unfavorably by 51%, versus 47% for Angle.A July 12-14 Mason-Dixon poll showed Reid 7 points ahead of Angle, 44-37. It was the best showing for the four-term incumbent -- and the worst for Angle -- in a head-to-head matchup, according to a series of surveys for the Review-Journal since last year.
I have not watched any clips of Obama on The View.
Despite its name, membership in the liberal online community Journolist wasn’t limited to journalists. Present among the bloggers, reporters and editors were a number of professional political operatives, including top White House economic advisors, key Obama political appointees, and Democratic campaign veterans. Some left government to join Journolist. Others took the opposite route. A few contributed to Journolist from their perches in politics. At times, it became difficult to tell who was supposed to be covering policy and who was trying to make it.Brent Bozell has 20 questions for The Washington Post about its knowledge of and involvement with the Journolist.Two of the administration’s chief economic advisors, Jared Bernstein, the vice president’s top economist, and Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, were members of Journolist until they began working officially for Obama.
Ilan Goldenberg, now an advisor on Middle East policy at the Pentagon, was a member until he joined the administration. Moira Whelan left Journolist to work at the Department of Homeland Security .
Anne-Marie Slaughter left to work at the State Department. Former Journolist member Ben Brandzel is now a top staffer at Organizing for America, the political arm of the Obama White House.
Josh Orton, a former spokesman for Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NM)[sic - should be NV], became Obama’s deputy director of new media during the 2008 presidential campaign. After the election, he joined Journolist.
In which Washington, D.C. area parking garage will the entire Journolist archive be handed over to us?
But 48% of the state’s voters have a Very Unfavorable view of Reid. Forty-one percent (41%) say the same of Angle. Overall, 55% have at least a somewhat unfavorable opinion of Reid and 56% view Angle at least somewhat unfavorably.Likely voters also self-identify significantly more conservative than liberal:
Forty-five percent (45%) of Nevada’s Likely Voters consider themselves at least somewhat conservative and 24% consider themselves at least somewhat liberal. Those figures include 18% who are Very Conservative and 6% who are Very Liberal.Yet likely voters view Reid overwhelmingly as liberal, which puts him out of touch ideologically with the electorate:
Sixty-two percent (62%) describe the longtime Democratic senator as a liberal, and 50% characterize his views as extreme. Forty-one percent (41%) put Reid in the mainstream.Reid's relentless attacks, supported by a sympathetic mainstream media and active left-wing blogosphere, have increased Angle's negatives.Angle, who is seen as a conservative by 81% of the state’s voters, is viewed as holding extreme views by 58%. Thirty-seven percent (37%) see the GOP nominee in the mainstream.
Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 55% consider Reid’s views extreme while 52% say the same about Angle.What these numbers show is what everyone knew. Harry Reid was able to take advantage of a superior campaign machine and deep pockets in the several weeks after the primary, but Reid remains very unpopular.
Assuming the Angle campaign gets onto better footing and starts getting its ads on television, this race can still be won.I particularly like this observation from the otherwise gloomy Jim Geraghty:
One big reason Reid is in trouble is that the agenda he’s working to enact in Washington is the opposite of what Nevadans want.The Rasmussen poll, coming after the best six weeks Harry Reid ever will have, may mark the high water mark for Reid, unless he can move the 48% of likely voters who still strongly dislike him.
A judge has blocked the most controversial sections of Arizona's new immigration law from taking effect Thursday, handing a major legal victory to opponents of the crackdown.The decision was a surprise to me in that it struck the provision -- which was most controversial -- as to checking immigration status of persons already arrested or stopped for some other offense if there were a reasonable suspicion that the person was in the country illegally.
The law will still take effect Thursday, but without many of the provisions that angered opponents—including sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws. The judge also put on hold a part of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places.
The Court first addresses the second sentence of Section 2(B): “Any person who is arrested shall have the person’s immigration status determined before the person is released.”The result of this statutory interpretation was that the Court found the procedure -- as written -- to interfere with the federal immigration scheme:
Arizona advances that the proper interpretation of this sentence is “that only where a reasonable suspicion exists that a person arrested is an alien and is unlawfully present in the United States must the person’s immigration status be determined before the person is released.” (Defs.’ Resp. to Pl.’s Mot. (“Defs.’ Resp.”) at 10.) Arizona goes on to state, “[T]he Arizona Legislature could not have intended to compel Arizona’s law enforcement officers to determine and verify the immigration status of every single person arrested – even for United States citizens and when there is absolutely no reason to believe the person is unlawfully present in the country.” (Id.)
The Court cannot interpret this provision as Arizona suggests. Before the passage of H.B. 2162, the first sentence of Section 2(B) of the original S.B. 1070 began, “For any lawful contact” rather than “For any lawful stop, detention or arrest.” (Compare original S.B. 1070 § 2(B) with H.B. 2162 § 3(B).) The second sentence w s identical in the original version and as modified by H.B. 2162. It is not a logical interpretation of the Arizona Legislature’s intent to state that it originally intended the first two sentences of Section 2(B) to be read as Section 2(B) are clearly independent of one another. Therefore, it does not follow logically that by changing “any lawful contact” to “any lawful stop, detention or arrest” in the first sentence, the Arizona Legislature intended to alter the meaning of the second sentence in any way. If that had been the Legislature’s intent, it could easily have modified the second sentence accordingly."
Thus, an increase in the number of requests for determinations of immigration status, such as is likely to result from the mandatory requirement that Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies check the immigration status of any person who is arrested, will divert resources from the federal government’s other responsibilities and priorities.The Court also opined on potential 4th Amendment issues with the law, and used that as a second basis for the decision (at p. 16):
Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked. Given the large number of people who are technically “arrested” but never booked into jail or perhaps even transported to a law enforcement facility, detention time for this category of arrestee will certainly be extended during an immigration status verification.Similar reasoning was used in striking the provisions as to status checks during stops (short of arrest).
A.R.S. § 13-2929: creating a separate crime for a person in violation of a criminal offense to transport or harbor an unlawfully present alien or encourage or induce an unlawfully present alien to come to or live in Arizonaand
A.R.S. § 28-3511: amending the provisions for the removal or impoundment of a vehicle to permit impoundment of vehicles used in the transporting or harboring of unlawfully present aliens[Note to readers: The analysis above has been adjusted from the original as time permitted a more complete reading of the decision]
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