The Casey Lartigue Show!

As I mentioned, I was on a Blogger's Roundtable Discussion on NPR's News and Notes, hosted by Farai Chideya . Here's the archive and blog of the show with a link to the audio. Anyway, some random thoughts: And I'm not responsible for the bad checks Megan Williams wrote, either... * If I told you that six people had kidnapped and raped a woman for a week, would you need to know the race of the people involved to know just how outraged you should be? It seems that many racial activists and members of the chattering class need such information... * White people in West Virginia are apologizing for the alleged abduction and rape of a 20-year old black woman by 6 white people. I feel absolutely no responsibility for the actions of criminals and lunatics, regardless of their race. As I said on the show, if I am really my brother's keeper and I am somehow responsible for what he does, then I want him checking in with me every 15 minutes so I'l...

I was on NPR's News and Notes again yesterday. The archive and blog about the show are here. I'll try to post some random thoughts later on. CJL

Senator Brownback just mentioned that we must be realistic about the war in Iraq. Professor Paul mentioned nothing that would lead to something that Duncan Hunter mentioned about Iraq: Victory! Democrats have made it clear that they won't pull the troops out of Iraq...they want president Bush to do it so they can blame Republicans for the disaster that would follow... CJL

Tancredo told it like it is...if DC residents really want to have Congressional representation, then they have their areas become a part of Maryland or Virginia again... Keyes also pointed that DC was created to be a separate area to represent the entire country...if you don't like it, move! Immigration is the one issue Republicans lose me on. I'm often mistaken for being an open borders supporter--I guess it depends on one's definition...I support allowing anyone into the country who can pass basic health tests and a criminal background check. CJL

The topic is now the Jena 6. I happened to be in New Orleans the same day that Sharpton and company were there protesting the Jena 6 case. I still haven't quite gotten the details of the case, and based on the informal poll that I took while I was there, black people who are outraged about the case don't know the details either. I guess Sen. Brownback just identified with the black audience...he announced that he has been to jail. I agree with the candidates who pointed to the drug war as a major problem for black Americans. Professor Paul said we must repeal the entire drug war! Excellent! Too bad he'll never be president! CJL

I don't even have to look at the polls to know that Ron Paul and Alan Keyes will never be president of the United States. I'll be softer on Paul because he cited professor Walter E. Williams on the minimum wage law. Still, Paul is an example of an academic pretending to be a politician. He'll always be 2 or 3 points ahead of me in the national polls. And I was going to point out that Keyes will never be president of the United States, but I enjoy when he is at the microphone! He may be the Republican version of Farrakhan and he probably won't get a vote from anyone in the audience tonight, but he can energize even an audience that thinks he is a damned fool. CJL

Brownback just mentioned that he would make sure the African American history museum gets built on the mall. As a reminder: Calvin Coolidge signed legislation creating a black history musem his last day in office. That was March 4, 1929. Malcolm X was almost 4 years old. Martin Luther King, Jr., was two months old. The museum still hasn't been built. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would suspect this museum is a rope-a-dope... If the first person who thought of this idea of a black museum had put $50 in the bank every year after the idea was first proposed in 1915, in 1928 when the legislation passed Congress or in 1929 when Coolidge signed it, the interest in 78 years would have been enough to pay for the museum without a dime of government money. I'm not opposed to the museum, by the way. But the reality is that the museum would be get built faster if it were a Jazz Museum. There won't be any of the drama about how much to highlight slavery or white guilt; it would hig...