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Monday, January 5, 2009
Ron Paul: ‘Palestinians are in a concentration camp’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Forget Cynthia McKinney on her skiff. This video on Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip by Ron Paul, the former Republican presidential candidate, is likely to stir up a deal of dust:
The six-minute clip was first posted on Campaign for Liberty, a Libertarian web site. Here’s the most incendiary quote:
“There is no benefit for us to be involved in this fight over there. This thing is an entire mess.
“The Palestinians are in like a concentration camp. They have a few small missiles, but it’s so minor compared to the firepower of Israel, who has nuclear weapons. And they can turn off all the food and all the water….And yet we are going to have to accept some of the moral responsibility for this.”
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GPB to rebroadcast Griffin Bell documentary
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Georgia Public Broadcasting just announced that it would re-broadcast at 7 p.m. Wednesday a 30-minute documentary on the late Griffin Bell that first aired in 2006.
If you can’t wait, click here to watch it.
Bell, who served as attorney general for his South Georgia neighbor Jimmy Carter, died Monday morning. He was 90.
His specialty lay in conducting internal, page-turning investigations for big companies in trouble: E.F. Hutton, after its financial scandal; Exxon, after the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska; Dow Corning, after silicone breast implants were linked to health risks. Pro bono, he obtained the release from Nicaragua of Eugene Hasenfus, a mercenary captured after his Contra supply plane was shot down.
“That’s the fun of being a lawyer, to take something that’s really complicated and decide what to do with it, how to resolve it,” Bell said in a 2006 interview.
Bell’s political involvement spanned a wide arc, from his stint as an unpaid adviser to Georgia Gov. Ernest Vandiver in 1959, to his role as friend and sometimes lawyer to both Presidents Bush. Working with Vandiver in 1960, he came up with the idea for the Sibley Commission, which is credited with defusing racial tensions and enabling Georgia to peacefully desegregate its public schools.
The New York Times adds this observation of Bell’s place in history:
Mr. Bell’s political star ascended farther when he co-managed John F. Kennedy’s campaign in Georgia and delivered a bigger majority even than Massachusetts did. Kennedy rewarded him in 1961 with a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which in those days covered the whole Southeast.
Civil rights cases figured heavily on the court’s docket in the 1960s, and Judge Bell was handed a momentous one after just two months on the bench. In it, a panel that he led ruled that Georgia’s longstanding “county unit system” of primary voting unconstitutionally denied fair representation to the state’s growing cities, with their large concentrations of black voters. The decision broke the grip of white rural party barons on the state’s politics.
Associated Press photo: Bell tips his hat to reporters shortly after his nomination as attorney general in 1977, in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
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Holster that gun bill, says Cagle
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Just got out of a meeting that Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle held with the state Capitol press corps.
The lieutenant governor was emphatic about one issue in particular. A bill to expand the public areas in which a permitted, concealed weapon can be carried will be going nowhere.
State Sen. Mitch Seabaugh (R-Sharpsburg) has been working on the measure to revamp the state code so as to permit concealed weapons licensees to pack heat in churches and on university campuses.
“Let me be very clear. I have no appetite for it,” Cagle said.
Last year, the Legislature finally passed a watered-down bill that permitted employees to keep guns in cars parked on company lots, pushed by the National Rifle Association. But two years of battle have taken their toll.
Cagle wants a respite. “We dealt with this issue last year. I think people should be content with where we are,” he said.
The lieutenant governor became a bit flustered when Shannon McCaffrey, the Associated Press reporter, asked Cagle whether he supported an effort by state Rep. Jack Murphy (R-Cumming) to help close the state’s budget deficit by taxing strip club patrons.
Murphy would like to funnel the money to child abuse programs and other services for young people who are caught up in child prostitution or other forms of sexual exploitation.
Cagle stammered, then wondered out loud — in jest, possibly — what people actually do at these establishments.
Bible study, reporters assured him.
Ultimately, Cagle said he’d oppose a strip club tax, on the grounds that he’s not in favor of any tax increases — anywhere.
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The rod-and-reel view from Wall Street
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Wall Street Journal puts a skeptical eye on Gov. Sonny Perdue’s “Go Fish” program today, noting cuts to education and the elimination of a state-operated home for veterans.
Read the entire piece here, but these are a few choice paragraphs:
It’s also unclear just how much fishing tournaments can boost the Georgia economy. The American Sportfishing Association concedes that most of the annual economic impact on the state comes from purchases of normal boats and other everyday fishing that doesn’t require the big new ramps under construction.
Some fishermen worry that falling water levels are exposing sunken terrain and obstructions that may make the state’s lakes too dangerous for visiting anglers. “There’s a lot of things you could hit if you don’t know where you’re going,” said Bill Vanderford, who runs the oldest freshwater fishing-guide service in the state and is an inductee of the national Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame.
Mr. Perdue, a veterinarian by training, is impatient with all the criticism of Go Fish. The funds were allocated before the current crisis began and the proceeds of the bonds already sold can’t legally be redirected to other purposes, he said. The construction activity also will generate jobs.
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Barr on federal marriage law: It’s time for a divorce
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As a Georgia congressman from Marietta, Bob Barr considered the Defense of Marriage Act, which he sponsored, to be one of the highlights of his career.
But explaining the measure before crowds as a Libertarian candidate for president has caused Barr to reconsider. This is what he writes today in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times:
In effect, DOMA’s language reflects one-way federalism: It protects only those states that don’t want to accept a same-sex marriage granted by another state. Moreover, the heterosexual definition of marriage for purposes of federal laws - including, immigration, Social Security survivor rights and veteran’s benefits - has become a de facto club used to limit, if not thwart, the ability of a state to choose to recognize same-sex unions.
Even more so now than in 1996, I believe we need to reduce federal power over the lives of the citizenry and over the prerogatives of the states. It truly is time to get the federal government out of the marriage business. In law and policy, such decisions should be left to the people themselves.
In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, “Decisions about marriage should be left to the states.” He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.
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