Remember Memo-gate? Particularly the memo about Miguel Estrada and how he was "especially dangerous" because he was Latino. This brought charges from the right of racism on the part of Democrats. I don't want to get into that fight again (suffice to say that the way I read it, the Democrats thought he was "especially dangerous" because the Republicans would use his nomination precisely to force Democrats to oppose him and charge them with racism. Which is why the Democrats thought he was so dangerous; that opposing him would forever be linked to the fact that he was Latino, and not for the extremism of his views, according to them.). The charge was that the Democrats were opposing him because of his race. The Democrats countered that the Republicans were using his race to make him more difficult to oppose because they, the Republicans, would charge that this was based on his race alone.

The Democrats position on this leapt into my brain when I read this post by World O'Crap. It details a "spam" letter she received from NewsMax about supporting Vernon Robinson for Congress in North Carolina. And why should the readers of NewsMax support Mr. Robinson? Well, because he is black!

"Right now you and I have a wonderful opportunity to advance a cause we both believe in - stemming the tide of illegal immigration into this country, and returning our national immigration policy to some semblance of sanity.

"How can we do this? By helping a man named Vernon Robinson get elected to the Congress. Vernon Robinson is a very conservative black City Councilman from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

[...]

"Think about it - if the only black Republican in Congress is an insistent supporter of immigration reform, it will become impossible for the Congressional leadership and the White House to keep putting the issue on the back burner. This is the opportunity we've been waiting for!"

So basically, you need to support Vernon Robinson because once a black guy speaks out on illegal immigration, it would become a major topic because why would anyone oppose a black congressman? You know, unless they are racist or something.

But the Republicans would never use race for political advantage, that's only something a Democrat would do.

If only the Democrats could have seen this coming...

So I start a new blog and then don't update it at all. Mostly, I use it as a launching pad to other blogs while I am at work. But today I will do my lame impression of instapundit.com, i.e. link to a bunch of stuff and basically not comment on it. So here you go.

Gene Healey has a good article on Cato about the Jose Padilla case and the danger of giving the President discretionary power to hold a prisoner essentially forever.

My good friend Popeyechicken writes about the torture in Iraq that everyone and their brother has blogged about (except me). Just insert his view for mine.

Arthur Silber writes a post on the draft that I totally agree with. I don't always agree with Arthur, not being an objectivist/libertarian (at least not totally) but I find him, again and again, to be the most lucid and reasonable objectivist I have ever come across. If you aren't reading him often, you should be.

I just downloaded (gasp!) most of the new album from Ministry, Animositisomina For anyone who was a fan of industrial/punk in the late 80's, this is a welcome back!

Meanwhile, in my personal livejournal, I relate some much needed inventions for infants. Plus, dirty talk.