Young libertarians the future of the GOP?

Maybe so.

HAMILTON, N.Y. — College campuses have long been thought of as a breeding ground for political activism, but not for leaning to the right.

Libertarians, like [Colgate University senior Kyle] Gavin, the Colgate College Republicans President, are rapidly changing that.

“I think that’s the future of the Republican Party,” he said.

And he may be right. Gavin and the college Republicans sold out the biggest name in Libertarianism this week: Ron Paul.

Pollster John Zogby said it was fiscal issues that drove these young people to the Libertarians and the GOP.

“Their numbers are growing, particularly as college educated, young, younger people are feeling the squeeze of the recession and more and more rejecting government as a solution,” Zogby said.

Old story but it continues today so why not revisit?

Here’s looking at you, kid

Congress forces Army to keep spending billions on a tank no one wants or needs.

Built to dominate the enemy in combat, the Army’s hulking Abrams tank is proving equally hard to beat in a budget battle.

Lawmakers from both parties have devoted nearly half a billion dollars in taxpayer money over the past two years to build improved versions of the 70-ton Abrams.

But senior Army officials have said repeatedly, ‘No thanks.’

Yet in the case of the Abrams tank, there’s a bipartisan push to spend an extra $436 million on a weapon the experts explicitly say is not needed.

‘If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,’ Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told The Associated Press this past week.

Why are the tank dollars still flowing? Politics.

Congressional backers of the Abrams upgrades view the vast network of companies, many of them small businesses, that manufacture the tanks’ materials and parts as a critical asset that has to be preserved.

The money, they say, is a modest investment that will keep important tooling and manufacturing skills from being lost if the Abrams line were to be shut down.

While I wasn’t there at the time, I recall reading that somewhere around 1941, 1942, our country experienced a sudden need for battle ships, tanks and even airplanes and within months, companies that had previously been churning out sewing machines and belt buckles were in the armaments business. I imagine we could do that again.

Walter Olson moves up?

My friend Walter Olson has moved his Overlawyered.com blog to the Cato Institute. A link to Walter’s site has been over on the right (naturally) of this blog for years. If you haven’t used it to keep track of the inanities of our modern society of flawed men and laws, here’s a good opportunity. Sample: U.K.: bags of nuts recalled for lacking “Contains Nuts” warning label.

Next time they support the right of Nazis to march through Skokie, remember this

ACLU attends Philadelphia mayor’s investigation of offensive magazine article to voice its support for the mayor.

There are many stories that the national media find uninteresting. One of them, surprisingly, turns out to be the mayor of a major city ordering an investigation of a city magazine for its political content. The Philadelphia Human Relations Commission has broad authority to investigate various complaints and impose penalties. Even if the city’s actions are blatantly unconstitutional, costly administrative proceedings can tie up accused offenders for years (see “The Sensitivity Apparat,” February 4, 2013).

…..

[Speaking at the investigation was ] Mary Catherine Roper, a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia office. After a perfunctory lecture on the importance of the First Amendment, she offered the following: “I’d like to speak as a white person who lives in Philadelphia for more than 25 years. .  .  . As a white person, I was deeply embarrassed by that magazine article, and that did not speak for me.” The PHRC can rest easy about putting the press on the hot seat. The ACLU may give a nod to the First Amendment, but in this particular instance their heart’s not in it.

Yo, Mamma! Take that kid across the bridge and suckle him there! (That’ll be $70,000, please.)

I’ll take Manhattan

NYC looking to pay someone $70,000 to encourage breast feeding in Brooklyn. I’ve just done that.

Maybe we could arrange a swap, our college students for their kids

Young Cubans want off the island.It might be expensive in terms of numbers; five Brunswick grads , $1 million and a trade to be announced later for each ambitious young Cuban, but who’d complain?

And if we could somehow persuade the commies to take Dollar Bill, would any price be too high to pay?

They must think they’re enforcing American law, or something

A country that’s lost its will to defend its borders has lost its will to live

Brits refuse to deported convicted drug dealer who came in illegally because separating him from his new girlfriend would violate his “human rights”.

Ali was brought to Britain “irregularly” by a people-smuggling gang in 2000, when he was 24, and has never been in this country legally. Two years after arriving he made an asylum claim which was refused, as was a subsequent appeal. However, for reasons which are unknown, he was not deported and continued to live in Britain.

He had a child with an Irish woman and then another son with a woman from Liverpool but has no contact with either child, the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber heard.

In November 2005 he was convicted of possessing Class A and Class C drugs, and fined.

Just over a year later he was convicted of another offence at Snaresbrook Crown Court in London but this time it was more serious – possessing Class A drugs with intent to supply – and he was jailed for four years. Under immigration laws any foreign national jailed for a year or more should be subject to automatic deportation.

The drug dealer was released on bail in January 2009. Deportation proceedings began again in 2010, and Ali again lodged an appeal. He told the court he would be in danger if he was returned to Iraq because he was so Westernised.

Allowing him to stay at the second hearing, Judge Perkins said he was impressed by evidence from Ali’s girlfriend, Cy Harwood, 31, a Londoner who has trained as a beautician. They met in 2005.

The judge ruled that Ali’s deportation would have a very damaging effect on her and would be a breach of the couple’s rights under Article 8.

“Destroying an important relationship in the light of a reformed criminal who was last in trouble over six years ago [of course, he’d been in prison the past six years, a small matter the judge overlooked – Ed] , I find, just too much and I am satisfied that an exception is made out,” he said.

The case raises new concerns over the arguments sometimes put forward by foreigners who are seeking to stay in Britain, such as the Bolivian man whose case was first reported in The Sunday Telegraph in 2009.

Camilo Soria Avila argued that he should not be deported partly because he and his boyfriend had bought a pet cat, Maya, and joint ownership of the animal added weight to his case that he enjoyed the “right to family life” in Britain.

The immigration tribunal ruled that sending Mr Avila, 36, back to Bolivia would breach his human rights because he was entitled to a “private and family life” with his British boyfriend Frank Trew, 49, and joint ownership of a pet was evidence that he was fully settled in this country.