Saturday, October 30, 2010

What's More Important Than The Constitution?

Q: In Conservative political discussion, what's even more important than the U.S. Constitution?

A: Natural Law.

Bill Whittle "chalks out the basics of Tea Party Conservatism" in this latest chapter of the Firewall series. Like all the others, this one is an entertaining and informative MUST SEE:


Are you a Natrual Law Conservative?

Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Scientists uncover genetic defect that leads to liberalism


The title of this post may not be entirely fair or scientific, but this is interesting news:
People with left wing views may have their political opinions controlled by a "liberal gene", according to scientists.

The research suggests that some people have an inherent bias against conservative thinking, that is independent of their education or upbringing.

The effect is caused by a [receptor] in the brain called DRD4 which could be stimulated by the novelty value of left of centre opinions, say US researchers.

In people who are naturally outgoing, the feature encourages them to seek out companions with unconventional views as they grow up.

This in turn means they tend to form less conventional political viewpoints as adults, according to the study by the University of California and Harvard.
Novelty junkies who become liberals were noted to be carriers of the 7R variant of the DRD4 gene. Perhaps it should be no surprise that this genetic variation has also been linked with ADHD:
Associations have been reported of the 7-repeat (7R) allele of the human dopamine receptor D4 (DRD4) gene with both the personality trait of novelty seeking and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
That liberals often value novelty more than common sense or traditional values is not a new observation. James Taranto takes note:
The liberal elites cannot comprehend common sense, and, incredibly, they think that's a virtue. After all, common sense is so common.

The British philosopher Roger Scruton has coined a term to describe this attitude: oikophobia. Xenophobia is fear of the alien; oikophobia is fear of the familiar: "the disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours.' "
How does this addiction to novelty play out in real-world political discourse? The Brit who coined the term "oikophobia" provides some interesting insights from across the pond:
The oik repudiates national loyalties and defines his goals and ideals against the nation, promoting transnational institutions over national governments, accepting and endorsing laws that are imposed on us from on high by the EU or the UN, though without troubling to consider Terence's question, and defining his political vision in terms of universal values that have been purified of all reference to the particular attachments of a real historical community.

The oik is, in his own eyes, a defender of enlightened universalism against local chauvinism.
So the liberal sometimes struggles to grasp the importance of time-tested moral values. The failure to appreciate the significance of values such as group loyalty and traditional conceptualizations of sanctity and purity may, in fact, be progressivism's achilles heel.


Read more about oikophobia at the Wall Street Journal.
Here's a link to the The Journal of Politics article on the DRD4-7R allele.
Discussion: Memeorandum
Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Pajamas Media: "Something Stinks in California's 47th Congressional District

by the Left Coast Rebel

Last night I wrapped up an article for Pajamas Media on California's CD-47. I focused on a funny bit of news related to the Van Tran campaign, here's the opener:

Away from the face-off between the two candidates, something smells as bad as trash-truck juice on a Death Valley summer day in California’s 47th.

In search of the olfactory offense, I point the reader to a Van Tran mailer masquerading as a fragrance sampler, making its way to the mail boxes of likely voters in Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and Anaheim.

Don’t judge this book by its cover; it’s no ordinary fragrance sampler:


Note that the mailer says: “Open for a Free Sample Fragrance of: Loretta, The Scent of Washington.

You have to read the rest to see what happens when the mailer is opened! Later on in the piece I describe Van Tran campaign HQ, it's a pretty neat story:

The folks in the Van Tran campaign were a pleasant bunch. After meeting them I could sense that they are having fun (easily evidenced by the humorous mailer too), working hard, and ready to win. At the same time, I gathered that they were perfectly able and willing to go back to normal life if the election doesn’t go their way on Tuesday.

Central command for Van Tran is set up in a foreclosed Blockbuster building in Garden Grove, a city of 175,000 in northern Orange County. The building was essentially stripped of most things that one would associate with the past life of movie rentals such as shelving and other interior structures. Although the sign had been removed, the outline of the letters B-L-O-C-K-B-U-S-T-E-R were still clearly discernible on the building’s stucco exterior.

It was somewhat dirty inside, a proverbial makeshift campaign war room with folding tables set up for walk-in volunteer phone bank folks. Van Tran signs were strewn graciously and haphazardly across the walls, and there was a constant buzz of activity. The accommodations were functional but not flashy.

Please read the rest, comment, Facebook 'like' it and pass it along to friends - especially those of you that live in California. And please, above all, support Van Tran and other conservative candidates in the closing days of the 2010 midterm election.

Nothing short of the future of the nation is at stake.

Tea Party Candidate Wins Landslide...In Liberal Toronto

While Republicans are still struggling to accommodate the Tea Party, the conservative message is spreading like wildfire, even across international lines:
The story last night is so familiar to U.S. political reporters: the business community and other elites line up behind one candidate, but the opponent rallies the conservative base with talk of rolling back government spending and no more taxes. The press mocks the latter candidate for off-hand comments and what they consider simplistic rhetoric. But the political grass-roots is more emboldened than ever and people are fed up with and nervous about government in general and take a chance on the “risky” candidate.

It could have been Nevada, Alaska, or any of the states and races where the “tea party” movement emerged triumphant last year. But, instead it was Toronto, Canada, where voters last night resoundingly rejected the “establishment” choice for mayor and instead went with “outsider” candidate Rob Ford. With nearly half the eligible voters turning out, 41-year-old City Councilor Ford rolled up a landslide win over “establishment” favorite George Smittherman, who had the backing of the business community and organized labor.

In reporting the stunning win of the outspoken Ford, the Financial Times this morning likened the mayor-elect to a “tea party” candidate. Indeed, Ford campaigned on an agenda to cut city spending and roll back taxes, his cogent slogan being: “Stop the Gravy Train!”
Don't miss the rest of John Gizzi's article.

Ford drew 47 percent of the vote, compared to Smitherman's 35 percent, with no other candidate getting more than 12 percent, according to official vote tallies...

Toronto, with a population of 2.6 million, is Canada's financial capital. In federal elections, the city tends to vote Liberal or for the left-leaning New Democrats, while many of its suburbs vote Conservative.

Ford capitalized on voter resentment over high taxes and an ugly municipal workers' strike, while generating support for his own penny-pinching and accessibility. He vowed to abolish Toronto's vehicle-registration tax and land-transfer tax.
If the fiscally conservative tea party message can win in a landslide in liberal Toronto, it win anywhere in the U.S.

Related: Israel's right wing starts its own Tea Party.
Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Monday, October 25, 2010

Liberal Hypocrisy & The Specter of Shadowy "Outside" Groups


The New York Times has issued an alert: Shadowy "outside" pro-Republican groups are crushing poor Democrats with dirty, anonymous money. The vast right-wing conspiracy strikes again!

In their paranoid little piece, the Times refers to "outside groups" nine times. I wonder what they find so repugnant about the flow of money and power across congressional lines?

Liberals and so-called moderates in Washington cheerfully impose their will on the rest of the country without regard for the constraints of the Constitution. They treat the Bill of Rights as a quaint list of mere suggestions (particularly the 10th Amendment, which seems to be viewed as an embarrassing anachronism by most of the self-appointed elitists who run the imperial federal government in D.C.)

Power mongers in Washington have taken it upon themselves to regulate every detail of American life. From what you eat, to how you get your health care, to how you illuminate your home, Congress and POTUS have a plan.

About a year ago, CNS news asked Madame Speaker Nancy Pelosi about the limits of her power:
CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a “serious question.”

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”
So malignant statist busybodies like Pete Stark (D-CA) have concluded as recently as this summer that "The federal government, yes, can do most anything in this country."

Pete and Nancy have made it clear that they're quite comfortable with the idea of exerting their influence on people outside of their own congressional districts, but I don't remember the New York Times fretting much about that.

Along the same lines, liberal Republicans like Olympia Snowe are greatly inconvenienced by conservatives who inisist on meddling with her right to meddle:
What works in South Carolina and Delaware may not work in Maine. We all have different views. We're independent," Snowe responded, "I can't go back to the people of my state and say, excuse me, I have to be one hundred percent ideologically pure because someone has dictated that from another state. It just wouldn't wash," she said.
The irony of this attitude is hilarious.
Statists don't want you interfering with their lives or their machinations, e.g., if you reach across state lines to crush one of their statist cronies, they and their friends in the Democrat-Dominated Dinosaur media are quick to complain:
“As you know, they have been dumping tens of millions of dollars of secret money into these campaigns,” Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in an interview. “I would say the outside groups have shuffled the deck in a number of these races.”
Sounds scary, right?

As the New York Times agonizes over the voluntary transfer of money across congressional lines, I laugh at the hypocrisy.

Friday, October 22, 2010

It's Time to Tear it Down


Video inspired by this by DeRoy Murdock:

[Figures are] from the U.S. Labor Department, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Haver Analytics. Between December 2007, when the Great Recession began, and last July, the private sector lost 7,837,000 jobs (down 6.8 percent). Local-government employment dropped 128,000 positions (minus 0.9 percent), while state governments shed 6,000 positions (less 0.1 percent). Meanwhile, Washington, D.C., boomed. Federal employment zoomed by 198,100 slots as Uncle Sam’s workforce expanded by 10 percent.

This graph’s whiff of Marie Antoinette should boil every patriot’s blood. While the American people live increasingly ascetic lives, and even city halls and statehouses have displayed some restraint, Washington, D.C., increasingly resembles Versailles — an out-of-touch, extravagant, and callous place that fuels little beyond the nation’s disgust, fury, and organized rebellion. As the party rages within the Beltway, federal revelers scream, “Let them pay taxes!”

Click to enlarge

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Juan Williams Not Sufficiently Islamophobic for NPR

The real Islamophobes in our society are those who are afraid to permit respectful criticism or analysis of Islam.

At the hands of the cowards at government-funded NPR, Juan Williams has become the latest victim of extreme Islamophobia. Michelle Malkin takes note:
Un-freaking-believable.

Cable news blogger Johnny Dollar red-flagged NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik’s Twitter feed, which announced tonight that liberal NPR analyst/Fox News contributor Juan Williams’ contract was terminated — over comments Williams made about Muslims on The O’Reilly Factor. He gave his honest opinion: “[W]hen I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
NPR was spooked by acknowledgement of fear. Truly un-freaking-believable.

The New York Times reports:
The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.

He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country...

NPR said in its statement that the remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”
Credibility, really? I'm more inclined to question the honesty and credibility of someone who claims not to be afraid of Islamist terrorism on airplanes.

NPR fired Juan Williams after receiving a de facto order from the Council on American-Islamic Relations:
NPR should address the fact that one of its news analysts seems to believe that all airline passengers who are perceived to be Muslim can legitimately be viewed as security threats," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "Such irresponsible and inflammatory comments...should not pass without action by NPR.
Here's a challenge to NPR: Just admit It, you’re scared of Muslims.

[T]he Islamophobes are clearly not those who publicly defy Islam's threats and attacks and who just go ahead and publicly criticise it anyway and publicly mock it anyway. Where's the "phobia" in that? No, the phobia - the fear - is being shown by those who refrain from such criticism and such mockery, because they are afraid, and are afraid even to admit that they are afraid (because that too might be interpreted as an implied criticism of the thuggishness of that which they are refraining from criticising or mocking).

Although I have long been irritated by the suggestion that to fear Islam is in any way irrational, I had truly never thought of this particular point. Next time you dare to criticise Islam for being, oh, I don't know, evil, or something along those lines, and somebody says you are an Islamophobe, say: "Well, yes, I am a little bit scared of Islam because it is indeed scary. But you are even more scared of it, so scared that you dare not admit the truth of what I am saying. You are even more of an Islamophobe than I am."
[emphasis added]

Man up, NPR. Or at least admit you're afraid.

Discussion: Memeorandum
Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Chris Coons: Jobs Killer, Tax Hiker, Corruptocrat


If you like high unemployment, if you think taxes should be raised when the economy is weak, if you think we need more politicians in Washington who will help themselves to profitable deals, and if you like politicians who have trouble understanding the Bill of Rights, Chris Coons is your man.

Here are some informative links on Chris Coons:
  • Chris Coons Was Sued Three Times In 2007 For Retaliating Against Public Employees For Their Political Views.
  • By Coons’ Own Standard, He Led The County From Being “Fundamentally Sound” To The Verge Of Bankruptcy.

Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Send Rover to the Dog House... Permanently

Karl Rove thinks the Tea Party is "not sophisticated."
SPIEGEL: Is the Tea Party movement a repeat of the Reagan Revolution?

Rove: It's a little bit different because the Reagan Revolution was driven a lot by the persona of one man, Ronald Reagan, who had an optimistic and sunny view of what the nation could be. It was also a well-organized, coherent, ideologically motivated and conservative revolution. If you look underneath the surface of the Tea Party movement, on the other hand, you will find that it is not sophisticated. It's not like these people have read the economist Friedrich August von Hayek. Rather, these are people who are deeply concerned about what they see happening to their country, particularly when it comes to spending, deficits, debt and health care.
I shouldn't have to point out how unhelpful this attitude is. I assume Rover wants to help the Republican Party, but I don't understand how he hopes to accomplish his goals by alienating legions of Tea Party conservatives with insulting generalizations.

Moreover, it's quite perplexing to hear a professional political analyst talk smack about millions of "unsophisticated" political amateurs when he himself is incapable of understanding how unwise it is to attack members of his own party during the time between the primaries and the general election.

When and if Rover tries to backpedal away from his "unsophisticated" statement, I won't be inclined to believe whatever he says. Ordinarily I might try to give the benefit of the doubt with a more charitable assessment, but Karl Rove has a brilliant mind and he knows well power of his words. He meant what he said, belittling connotations included.

Unfortunately, this deeply ingrained, destructive establishment attitude is all too pervasive in the GOP. Consequently, a great number of Republicans, "conservatives" and libertarians apparently would prefer to lose elections to statist Democrats than to be embarrassed by unsightly Tea Party rabble.

Rush is right. The ingredients for a third party revolt are already brewing and the GOP is adding fuel to the fire.

Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Update: The unenthusiastically anticipated walk-back/non-appology from Rover:
They are unsophisticated in the ways of DC, and they demand 100 percent of what they want and now.”

He continued: “Most of them are generally proud they are not from Washington — or wise in its ways...
Rover clearly thinks tea partiers are petulant rubes who are too stupid to take his sage, progressive Republican advice, but Rover has put his own immaturity on display. I think he's still sore about Tea Partiers in Delaware ignoring his pleas. Rover stooped to grace Delaware Tea Partiers with his glorious presence in a private meeting, but the Tea Partiers stubbornly refused to get behind his liberal Republican buddy, Cap-n-Trade Castle.

Has Rover's ego been bruised beyond all recognition? Let this video tell the story:


"NO ONE is going to tell us how to take care of business."

Update II: Rush provides his opinion on the matter:
I got a note today from a friend, "Why would Karl be saying this, Rush? You know Karl. Why would he be saying this? Why doesn't Karl learn to keep his mouth shut?"

I said, "Karl means to say this. Mike Murphy, all these guys, they think this."

It's not easy for me to say here, folks, it really isn't. But it's what ought to be a euphoric period still indicates that on the Republican side there are divisions and jealousies and egos and competition. And the simplest explanation is that the Tea Party cannot be claimed as credit by anybody. Nobody can say, "I am the Tea Party." Nobody can say, "I started the Tea Party." Nobody can say, "I saw the Tea Party coming, and I steered it." Nobody who makes a living generating political support, generating political donations, nobody in that business can point to the Tea Party and say, "I did it." So it's a threat.

It's a genuine effervescent, grassroots effort. Nobody has any control over it, nobody can honestly claim any credit for it, and therefore it's a threat.

Folks, I could give you the greatest analogy I ever could, but I would probably end my career doing so in talking about this program in its early days. None of the experts -- and they were all very nice people -- none told me it would work. They all told me it wouldn't work. Therefore when it did, none of them can say they had anything to do with it. So there was ambivalence about it while people were happy about it at the same time.

Same thing with the Tea Party movement. Any time people that are considered unprofessional or outside the professional realm enter somebody else's professional realm and shake it up, you have a bit of a threat there. And I think it's partially what's going on here.
Discussion: Memeorandum

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Christine O'Donnell Schools Chris Coons

Christine O'Donnell scored big points against Chrissy "Chrome Dome" Coons in a debate on Tuesday during which Christine and Chrissy discussed the First Amendment. Coons misquoted the First Amendment and showed that he's blissfully unaware of about 80% of its content.

The willfully blind left-wing media refuse to acknowledge that their candidate was punked, but the video evidence speaks for itself:


As O'Donnell correctly points out, Coons' words are not in the Constitution.

Note that Coons timidly and inartfully misquotes the establishment clause of the First Amendment:

“Government shall make no establishment of religion..."

I have no idea what the heck that's supposed to mean, but the First Amendment is crystal clear. Contrast Coons' stupid with the Constitution's sublime:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."

The distinction between the phrases "Separation of Church and State" and "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" is critically important (and so is the distinction between "government" and "Congress"), and it's clear from the video that Christine O'Donnell very deliberately highlighted this difference:
  • "Where in the Constitution is the 'Separation of Church and State?'"
  • "So you're telling me there's a separtion of Church and State, the phrase 'separation of Church and State' is found in the first Amendment?"
  • “Let me just clarify: You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?”
Here's the crux of their discussion of the matter:

Coons: "The First Amendment, the First Amendment establishes the separation, the fact the Federal Government shall not establish a religion, and decisonal law by the Supreme Court over many, many decades clarifies and enshrines..."

O'Donnell: "The First Amendment does?" [smiling tauntingly and speaking with a didactic tone]

Coons: "...clarifies and enshrines that there is a separation of Church and State that our courts and our laws must respect."

O'Donnell: "So you're telling me there's a separtion of Church and State, the phrase 'separation of Church and State' is found in the first Amendment?"

...and then Coons pontificates about the Court's sacred right to legislate from the bench.

Coons and O'Donnell were debating in parallel, focusing on two separate issues. Coons was fixated on a hackneyed statist meme, i.e., "the text of the Constitution means whatever liberal judges want it to mean," and O'Donnell was focused on a more sophisticated point, i.e., the constitution is NOT a living, breathing document to be raped and abused at will. Every single word of the Constitution is critically important, as the Constitution is the only thing standing between the American people and an abusive Congress or a tyrannical majority.

Dan Riehl reminds us of what all this means, specifically as it relates to the First Amendment:
While the amendment is clear on the government establishing a religion - no doubt driven by previous events in England, the amendment itself does not mandate that all religion be driven out of government. Separation and establishment are two distinctly different things.
Coons' brand of willful ignorance has real-world consequences and implications:
The First Amendment was designed to protect religion from governmental interference and obstruction. Today, by contrast, the courts seem intent on protecting the people from religion.

Thus the ACLU and other far-left groups use the courts to banish religion from the public square. Christian conservatives like O'Donnell naturally find this disconcerting. The First Amendment, after all, protects the free exercise of religion. Yet the courts increasingly have been infringing upon this basic Constitutional liberty.

So while the elites cluck in disapproval at what they believe is O'Donnell's faux pas, the reality is she knows and understands the Constitution better than they do.
Lefties (and even some squishy Righties) do appear to be sincerely convinced that O'Donnell's didactic interrogation of Chris Coons indicates that she didn't know the answers to the questions she was asking. I'm not buying that. Later in the debate, O'Donnell demonstrated her in-depth familiarity with the First Amendment by challenging Chris Coons:
O’Donnell was later able to score some points of her own off the remark, revisiting the issue to ask Coons if he could identify the “five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment.”

Coons named the separation of church and state, but could not identify the others — the freedoms of speech, press, to assemble and petition — and asked that O’Donnell allow the moderators ask the questions.

“I guess he can’t,” O’Donnell said.
I'm guessing the same. As Michelle Malkin put it, "When he got caught with his own intellectual pants down, Coons runs to the moderators for cover."

Neo-neocon provides astute analysis:
I have noticed a trend in the MSM that goes like this: the press decides that certain candidates on the right are idiots (Palin and O’Connell come to mind, and Bush before them). There is then a sort of lying-in-wait for the absurd utterance to reveal the utterly moronic nature of that person. However, since the press and pundits are not necessarily brilliant critical thinkers themselves, the utterance they fasten in is often (not always, but often) actually more intelligent than they realize. They may not agree with it, but it is seldom based on nothing, and they reveal their own ignorance in their laughing derision of it.
The controversy surrounding 1773-gate is another excellent example of this phenomenon. HillBuzz: "Whenever the Left attempts to attack and ridicule anyone, they normally just damage themselves, without realizing it."

Excellent discussion at neo-neocon and Michelle Malkin.

Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Update: Christine O'Donnell may be as "stupid" as Justice Scalia:


Monday, October 18, 2010

Left Wing Nut Job Detained at Miller Event; Progs Feign Apoplexy

Cross-posted at Left Coast Rebel

Tony Hopfinger, an irrational, out-of-control Left-Wing blogger-activist, was detained by security detail at a Joe Miller town hall meeting. Tony admits he started a shoving match with Miller security.

Left-wingers are clearly jubilant at the opportunity to ignore most of the facts and to pretend to be shocked:

Elizabeth Kennen: "Joe Miller displays his conservative principles - Liberty! Freedom! You're arrested for asking questions!"

Ian Richetti‎: "Joe Miller really doesn't comprehend that whole 'Freedom of the Press' thing. Liberty indeed."

koulflo: "joe miller, rand paul, christine o'donnell, sheryl angle, carl palladino, ron johnson. pretty much all haters."

Dan Riehl provides some essential background info on Tony and his blog, The Alaska Dispatch:
The Alaska Dispatch is not much more than the equivalent of a Lefty blog playing pretend journalists. They embarassed themselves when they came at me over the Murkowski cocaine allegations and appear to have a vested interest in trying to hurt Joe Miller's campaign for the Senate. At one point, this Tony Hopfinger was a HuffPo contributer, so it should be no surprise that they're covering Hopfinger's unhinged nonsense, too. You can Google him to see his many links to progressivism.
Thomas Lamb has more:
Yesterday afternoon I attended the Joe Miller Town Hall and it was a good event until it ended. When I attend these events, although I support Miller, I will hold a critical eye.

I will also stay in the back to observe the audience to see their reaction and I will also watch how the press act...

Here is what actually happened - Hopfinger was aggressive in his pursuit - Miller's security was trying to keep Hopfinger from Miller's path and at a distance so Miller could leave. As Miller's security tried to push Hopfinger out of Miller's path and keep him at a distance, Hopfinger kept pushing in on Miller.

Miller then reversed course and as he did, Tony began to follow Miller - two men in Miller's security detail stayed back and the scuffle between Hopfinger and the security detail began as a shoving match.

At that point Miller was gone from the scene....

There comes a point to where a person passes the point of getting answers to then becoming a person who is harassing an individual. And Tony Hopfinger crossed the line when it was clear Miller changed his direction because of Hopfinger engaging Miller's security detail in what started off as a shoving match.

What I also found interesting was the set-up that took place between blogger Jesse Griffin - who when leaving was asking where Tony was. Notably - Griffin was with the individual who asked the question on why Miller was a Welfare Queen.

And leave it to political hacks like Andrew Halcro to say Miller ordered the arrest - when Miller wasn't even there when the security team detained Hopfinger.
Read the rest of Lamb's eyewitness account here.

Statement from the Miller campaign:
While I've gotten used to the blog Alaska Dispatch's assault on me, I never thought it would lead to a physical assault. It's too bad that this blogger would take advantage of a "town hall" meeting to create a publicity stunt just two weeks before the election.

The Miller campaign was required by the facility to provide security at the event. Even though Joe had spent more than 40 minutes answering questions from those in attendance, the blogger chased Miller to the exit after the event concluded in an attempt to create and then record a "confrontation" with the candidate. While Miller attempted to calmly exit the facility, the blogger physically assaulted another individual and made threatening gestures and movements towards the candidate.

At that point, the security personnel had to take action and intervened and detained the irrational blogger, whose anger overcame him."