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There are dueling posts up at Lean Left with KTK asking What is Off-Limits, and Why?, while Kevin started with Romney Faith Fair Game?

This is a problem for the current political climate. There have always been whisper campaigns about the religious views of candidates, beginning with John Adams, but they weren’t in the open, and getting caught was a net negative. Now, people are almost required to explain their religious views to run.

This is not a good development, and is destructive. There is no evidence that religious views make you a more competent person to run the country, and good evidence that pandering to a particular religious point of view is divisive.

I tend to come down on the side that religion can’t be off-limits if the candidate keeps bringing it up to justify her/his policy positions. Traditionally it was off limits, because people didn’t talk about it, or use it as a shield. If a candidate brings it up, they open it up to being questioned.

Dave Johnson of Seeing The Forest notices a logical inconsistency on the Right: if the Media is a liberal conspiracy, why is the Right opposed to the “Fairness Doctrine?”

You would think they would want the time to explain their point of view – a puzzlement?

Chris Regan of Mass Historia fills you in:

This day in history is usually a good one for fans of war and warlike people. Of course, those “fans” are usually people who have never been involved in a war themselves, apart from the violent struggle to get the remote control away from their wife so that they can return to watching History Channel’s “Hitler Week.”

One side’s humiliating defeat is the other side’s great victory, so someone will be happy.

In an amazing display of sanity, fairness, and common sense, the judge in megabuck missing pants trial has told the plaintiff to pay the legal costs of the defendants, take his pants, and get out of her sight [or something very close].

The only thing missing was a mental health referral that the plaintiff really needs.

Kevin Hayden at American Street links to an article by Don Mayer at Barkings! about his company’s health insurance problems. Don writes about the choices that small businesses are forced to make when faced with the ever rising cost of providing health insurance for their employees.

David Ansen of Newsweek reviews Michael Moore’s movie, Sicko, and makes an incredibly wrong statement:

Why, Moore asks, in a very funny montage that turns a Soviet musical propaganda movie on its head, do we readily accept free schools, libraries, police officers and firemen but blanch at the idea of free medical service?

Having not seen the movie, I’m assuming that Ansen is characterizing those things as “free,” as he makes the same mistake earlier in the article. If Moore is doing it, then Moore is wrong. None of the listed services are free, they are publicly financed. As Ron Paul would say: “there is no free lunch.”

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CBS reports: Feds Raid Office of Mississippi Governor’s Kin

The FBI has raided the office of a company owned by the wife of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour’s nephew. Rosemary Barbour’s firm Alcatec LLC has a large contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to maintain thousands of travel trailers housing residents displaced by hurricane Katrina. There is no evidence that Governor Barbour is involved with the company.

Rosemary Barbour is married to Charles Barbour, the nephew of the Governor and himself a county supervisor. A spokesman at the FBI field office in Jackson Mississippi would not comment on the ongoing investigation but said agents had conducted a “court approved” search of a business late Thursday.

[Read more →]

The Shrubbery has managed to make it by Jimmy Carter’s 28% to become the second most unpopular President ever recorded in Newsweek’s poll with a new low of 26%. Only Tricky Dick’s 23% is between the current resident of the White House and immortality as the most unpopular President ever.

Phinky of Ignorant Hussy checked in today to say: “I AM IN KUWAIT!”

She expects to be back in the “world” this weekend after six months in the “sandbox.”

Liz at Blonde Sense has some of the winger reaction to Jimmy Carter’s complaints about the way the Hedgemony has been treating Palestine.

It is a fairly straightforward situation, the Palestinians had an election that the US, EU, and Israel demanded they have. The problem was the Palestinians didn’t vote for Fatah.

Instantly everyone cut off funding and Gaza and the West Bank have been descending into anarchy.

Hamas has finally established its control of Gaza using weapons, confirming the control it had already won at the ballot box, but that is being portrayed as a coup, while Fatah’s unilateral dissolution of the government and call for new elections is being hailed as legal.

Sorry, but the problem with democracy, is that it doesn’t guarantee the results you want. You can’t say you support democracy, and then demand a new election when the election didn’t produce the results you were looking for.

Abbas may be the choice of Israel, the EU and the US, but there is no indication that he and his party are the choice of the Palestinian people. What is the plan if they hold new elections and Hamas wins again?

So long ago that Woody Allen was making movies that were amusing, he made a “sci fi/comedy” called Sleeper. It involved being defrosted from a long period of cryogenic storage to deal with problems in a distant future.

One of the first “gags” is when a doctor hands Woody’s character a cigarette as he is coming to and tells him to smoke it, saying it was tobacco, one of the best things for you.

Wellllllll, Peter of Lone Tree at Blonde Sense has a post about new research: Researchers Light Up for Nicotine, the Wonder Drug.

No, smoking isn’t good for you, but nicotine has some interesting possibilities.

Dr. Cole would like as many people as possible to spread the word to people in and around New York City that there will be a Vigil for Detained Iranian Intellectuals:

Amnesty International

In May the government of Iran arrested four Iranian-Americans: prominent U.S. scholars Haleh Esfandiari and Kian Tajbakhsh, journalist Parnaz Azima and activist Ali Shakeri. Esfandiari, Tajbakhsh and Shakeri remain in detention without being able to see family, lawyers, or the ICRC. All four face serious charges stemming from their efforts to promote an Iranian-American dialogue and scholarly work and could be sentenced to long prison terms.

…

WHERE: Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at 1st Avenue and 47nd Street across from the United Nations Plaza

WHEN: Wednesday June 27, 12 noon to 1 pm

As I have said in the past, more than anything this is a reaction to the seizure of five Iranians in Irbil. The Iranians were there at the request of the Kurdish regional government. If the US were willing to be reasonable, an exchange would be made.

We really need to find an experienced kindergarten teacher to mediate between Iran and the US.

Update: Laura Rozen has more on the Iranians detained by the US.

Via Laura Rozen an article in Ha’aretz: Netanyahu departs for U.S. in bid to increase pressure on Iran

Opposition leader and Likud Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday will embark for the U.S. on a visit aimed at increasing financial sanctions against Iran to get it to drop its nuclear program.

During his visit, Netanyahu is slated to meet a New York State financial official, asking him to withdraw or freeze hundreds of millions of dollars the state pension funds have invested in Iran.

Netanyahu will then arrive in Washington where he will meet for talks on the Iranian issue with Vice President Dick Cheney, Democratic Party presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, and Republican Party presidential hopeful Fred Thompson.

An interesting group of visits.

“Bibi” Netanyahu believes that military force is the only real solution to any problem. He and Cheney are a matched set. I’m not exactly surprised by the candidates he chose to visit. Nothing he has to say will advance the cause of peace in the Middle East.

CNN is reporting: Bloomberg drops Republican affiliation

WASHINGTON (CNN) — New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg changed his party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated Tuesday, a move that will surely increase speculation he is considering an independent White House bid.

But Bloomberg, who has repeatedly denied he is planning a run, said in a statement his future plans haven’t changed.

He wasn’t much of a fit for the Repubs anyway, so if he is interested in even statewide office, he had to get out from under the mantle of the GOP. He’s a billionaire, so running as an independent isn’t out of the question.

Update Yellow Doggerel Democrat in comments:

So it’s Tom Ravenel
Dragging Rudy through hell,
Not the sort he likes sharing a fetter with.
Rudy knows it’s no joke
Because this kind of coke
Is not really the kind things go better with.

– SB the YDD

Via CBS an Associated Press report: Politician Charged With Coke Distribution

(AP) South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury for distribution of cocaine.

The indictments accuse Ravenel and another man of distributing less than 500 grams of cocaine starting in late 2005.

…

Thomas Ravenel is the state chairman for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign.

Ravenel is Rudy’s kind of guy, just like Bernie Kerik. It’s a problem when you’ve been a prosecutor, you meet all of these people and it’s not always easy to remember where. Maybe he needs index cards to keep the good guys and bad guys separate. There was less than half a kilo of Colombia’s major export involved, so he wasn’t a major player, but when you’re the state treasurer people get nervous.