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Nig Nagin Finally Goes on Trial

Former New Orleans Mayor Nig "Chocolate City "Nagin's  trial on Bribery, Corruption and being a World Class Asshole started last week in the Big Easy. 

AP - Ray Nagin, a Democrat who was mayor when Hurricane Katrina stuck in 2005, served two terms before leaving office in 2010. He was living in a Dallas suburb when a federal grand jury indicted him a year ago. He faces charges of accepting bribes and free trips among other things from contractors in exchange for helping them secure millions of dollars in city work.

Each bribery count carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Each wire fraud count is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The charges are the product of a City Hall corruption investigation that already has resulted in several convictions or guilty pleas by former Nagin associates.

Nagin's 21-count indictment accuses him of accepting more than $160,000 in bribes and truckloads of free granite for his family business in exchange for promoting the interests of local businessman Frank Fradella. Nagin also was charged with accepting at least $60,000 in payoffs from another businessman, Rodney Williams, for his help in securing city contracts.

The indictment claims Nagin received free private jet and limousine services to New York from an unidentified businessman who owned a New Orleans movie theater. Nagin allegedly agreed to waive tax penalties the businessman owed to the city on a delinquent tax bill in 2006.

A political novice before he was first elected mayor in 2002, Nagin became a national figure after broken levees flooded most of the city in Katrina's aftermath. Known for his occasionally cringe-inducing rhetoric, Nagin famously declared in 2006 that the slowly repopulating city would be "chocolate" again, playing to black residents' fears that they would get short shrift during the recovery process."

It is beyond the thinking of a lot of people in this part of the country as to how this douche bag dodged charges of manslaughter in the deaths of the many poor New Orleans citizen he abandoned  and left the city for safety as Hurricane Katrina bore down on the city.   

The Nation's State of Disunion

"After four years of the politics of divide-and-conquer, Mr. Obama had stirred sufficient resentment in his political base to win a second term. What he has produced entering the sixth year of his presidency is a nation in a state of disunion.

"The pollsters at Gallup wrote last week that Mr. 'Obama is on course to have the most politically polarized approval ratings of any president.' Segments of the U.S. population see themselves not just in disagreement with the Obama administration, but as the target of its policies.

"This includes not only the famous 1%, but also the upper-middle class, Southern states, charter schools, politically active conservatives, private businesses, the Catholic church, electric utilities, doctors driven out of ObamaCare's health networks and those famous partisans, the Little Sisters of the Poor.

"All have been vilified, investigated, audited or sued by the president himself, Eric Holder's Justice Department, the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Environmental Protection Agency and, not least, the Internal Revenue Service. Last year's most remarkable polling number from Gallup said in December that 72% of Americans regard big government as the greatest threat to the U.S. They got the message."  — Daniel Henninger, WSJ

Being Liberal is Thirsty Work

Liberals Drink More Than Conservatives

The Week

A sobering new study published by the Journal of Wine Economics — yes, there is a Journal of Wine Economics — finds that alcohol consumption in American states rises as the population’s politics becomes more liberal. The study by Pavel Yakovlev and Walter P. Guessford of Duquesne University in Pennsylvania shows a direct correlation between political beliefs and the demand for alcohol.

The study compares sales of alcoholic beverages against the political leanings of a state's members of Congress, as ranked by liberal organizations Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE). The research reveals that states with more liberal representatives like Nevada tend to consume up to three times more alcohol per head than more politically conservative states like Arkansas and Utah.

The study concludes:

"In this study, we show that liberal ideology has a statistically significant positive association with the consumption of alcohol in the United States even after controlling for economic, demographic, and geographic differences across states."

These findings are consistent with other recent studies in other parts of the world showing that people with socialist views tend to drink more.

One 2002 study found that Russian socialists were significantly more likely than anti-socialists to drink alcohol frequently. Another 2006 survey of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine found that adults with anti-communist views were less likely to drink, smoke, or take drugs than their pro-communist peers.

The authors of this latest study offer two theories to explain this divergence in behavior. One possibility is that people of a more liberal persuasion tend to be more open to new experiences, such as the consumption of alcohol or drugs.

Another possibility is that people living in more liberal states or countries may feel more confident in government health care and social welfare to pick up the pieces if drinking leads to health or social problems.

Chicago Opens First ObamaCare Unnecessary Care Clinic

Fishnet Friday

Hollywood's Not So Invisible Propaganda Machine

NRO's  Jonah Goldberg recounts the story of the William Randolph Hearst-financed FDR propaganda film, Gabriel Over the White House (starring Walter Huston). The film features a carbon copy FDR president as the hero, who undergoes a coma-inducing car accident only to wake up “transformed from a passive Warren Harding type into a hands-on dictator.”

"The reborn commander-in-chief suspends the Constitution, violently wipes out corruption, and revives the economy through a national socialist agenda. When Congress tries to impeach him, he dissolves Congress.

The Library of Congress summarizes the film nicely. “The good news: He reduces unemployment, lifts the country out of the Depression, battles gangsters and Congress, and brings about world peace. The bad news: He’s Mussolini.” 

Unsurprisingly, FDR loved it and was more than willing to offer some changes, later telling Hearst, “I think it is an intensely interesting picture and should do much to help.”

“Should do much to help,” indeed.

Hollywood has of course long been in the business of propaganda. Goldberg cites a number of examples of Hollywood's hypocritical propaganda double-standard, including recent outrage over Lone Survivor’s supposed “jingoistic, pornographic work of war propaganda.” As an example of left-wing propagandizing, Goldberg highlights the political proselytizing of Norman Lear, as highlighted by Ben Shapiro in his book Primetime Propaganda:

As Shapiro notes, perhaps no figure was more upfront — or successful — at yoking art to political proselytizing than Norman Lear, the creator of All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and other shows.

"Last fall, the California Endowment, which is spending millions to promote the Affordable Care Act, gave $500,000 to the Norman Lear Center at USC to work on ways to get Hollywood to do its part. In February, the center will co-sponsor with the Writer’s Guild of America an event in New York titled “The Affordable Care Act: Comedy, Drama & Reality,” about portraying Obamacare in TV and film. The Obama administration, naturally, will be sending an emissary to help."

And so the legacy of FDR endures, as Hollywood and the political left continue their silver screen propaganda campaigns, while hypocritically decrying all political messages that don't seem to fit the progressive metanarrative.  

via Truth Revolt