"Bergenheim said Friday that Carroll's parents, who spoke to her about the video, told him it was "conducted under duress.-When you're making a video and having to recite certain things with three men with machine guns standing over you, you're probably going to say exactly what you're told to say," Bergenheim added."
"I've been watching this traitor bitch fawn all over her captors this morning. "Nice furniture, safe, nice clothes, they NEVER threatened me". I'm very glad you were so comforatble while working to undermine our efforts in Iraq. Now, wipe that muslim DNA from your face and confess to pre-planning this?"
"She's probably coming home with a suitcase full of cash (her kickback) and a dose of the clap."
Maybe this will answer some of Kurtz's questions from his column today since he too found her statements a little odd. Aaron emailed me and nominated Howard to take Ben's place:
"Read your column today with interest, particularly the insinuation that "odd" behavior by a woman just released from 3 months as a hostage was somehow unusual. Enjoyed how you passed off the smear of Jill Caroll as un-American or a terrorist sympathizer: since, after all, "that's what people are talking about." Way to tamp down the intemperate political discourse! After this bravura performance, I think Mr. Brady's choice for a right-wing blogger to balance out Dan Froomkin is obvious. He wouldn't even need to pay a cent more! Your column can simply be labeled, "Opinion: Media Notes." I'm sure the browbeating from the White House would stop."
Update: Apparently Charles is still unhinged:"Note that all of these statements seem to come from the family, not from Carroll herself."
Jonah Goldberg follows suit. No Jonah, if anyone that was for this war was captured and returned safely-I would be celebrating their release. That's something you obviously can't comprehend.
Ok, we have people here who have been to SERE, the military's training on escape and surviving captivity. Please comment on her activities as per your training.
Because I have never heard as much asshatery as I have today. Iraqis usually kill their captives, often in grusome ways. If she had to suck a room full of dicks to get out, that's what she had to do. And it seems they respected her, and didn't ask that from her.
Goldberg would probably have begged to get fucked by them. And Kurtz? What the fuck is wrong with him. He should know better.
This isn't a game, this is life and death, and if part of the reason they didn't chop her head off and personally, I thought they would find her headless body in the street, is that she respected them, good for her. She did what she had to do to survive and can get on with her life. These men don't have her courage or brains, and thus attack her because they know what snivelling cowards they would turn into.
Jill Carroll is a heroine. Pure and simple. The people attacking her are scum not fit to wipe her ass.
Terrorists are at war with our country. And we have a choice.
Either we use every tool available to fight and win the War on Terror ... or we heed the calls of Democrats who would censure and impeach the President for fighting the terrorists.
On September 11, the President made a solemn commitment to protect the American people. The President made his choice. And many Democrats are making theirs, calling a program to defeat al Qaeda terrorists inside the U.S. an illegal and an "impeachable offense."
Where do you stand? Watch the video. And take action by signing our petition against repeated Democrat attempts to weaken these efforts to fight the terrorists and keep American families safe.
Sincerely, Ken Mehlman Chairman, Republican National Committee
Dear Ken,
The President violated the law to little effect and still Osama sends us videotapes on his views of American politics.
Half of Pakistan would make him the next president of the country.
American troops cannot cross the border from Afghanistan and may get shot at by Pakistani troops if they do.
You can't even come up with a realistic plan to stop illegal alien smuggling gangs and sexual slavery. Please don't talk to me about impeachment now.
What Al Qaeda? There was no AQ stopped, just some loons.
Fear only works when there is something to be fearful of. Why can't the president obey the law? Why does he have to be above it, Ken.
Get Osama, then we can talk. If not, maybe Bush and Cheney should find someone who can and retire.
. . .But I felt gradually exhausted since September 11th, 2001, [because] it's very dispiriting trying to keep going in this phase of what is a very long conflict. And the reason I do it is because I want us to win. I don't particularly like journalism. I don't particularly like writing newspaper columns. I'm sick of having to make what I think should be an obvious case again and again and again. And I'd much rather pack it in and sit on my porch in New Hampshire and enjoy the view of the mountains. But I do it because I want us to win.
We were waiting on Hugh Hewitt to say something like, "I don't use the word 'hero' very often, but you, Mark Steyn, are the greatest hero in American history." But instead, he used Steyn's lead as an opportunity to whine about how lefties were so very mean to him over his Empire State Building comments, directed at Time Mag's Iraq correspondent, Michael Ware:
I'm sitting in the Empire State Building. Michael, I'm sitting in the Empire State Building, which has been in the past, and could be again, a target. Because in downtown Manhattan, it's not comfortable, although it's a lot safer than where you are, people always are three miles away from where the jihadis last spoke in America. So that's...civilians have a stake in this. Although you are on the front line, this was the front line four and a half years ago.
To which Steyn replied magnanimously:
[W]e're all, in a sense, we're all conscripted in this war. Those 3,000 people who died on September 11th, they weren't serving forces, they were just fellows who got up in the morning and went to work, or went to Logan Airport and got on a plane. And that's the thing. We're all conscripted in this war, whether we know it or not.
Must be something in the wingnut water cooler, because Roy Edroso finds Jeff Goldstein exhibiting the same sort of self-aggrandizing self-pity:
...[Tbogg] and his fellow Iraq war critics have started to pretend that the threat from al Qaeda doesn’t exist, and instead spend the majority of their time poking their sticks into the sides of those who aren’t quite so sanguine about al Qaeda’s intentions.
This is almost plaintive: Goldstein only wants to save America, why are we making fun of him? Maybe Goldstein noticed that, too, and quickly butched back up to the belligerent sophistry that is his stock in trade
Anyway, this is yet another episode to add to the Steyn dossier.
Oh, fuck this shit. Conscripted?
No. Fuck No. Mark Steyn gets clean water and a bath and a clean bed. He wasn't conscripted to anything.
I want people to read the following. It's been on the hard drive for three weeks, but it was forwarded by a reader who knows something about this: It originally ran in Texas Monthly
Four years in the Air Force, including stints in Iraq and Afghanistan, have prepared me for every conceivable situation. Except, that is, for my mind-numbing new civilian existence.
by David Broyles
WHEN I WAS IN IRAQ, I couldn’t wait to leave. Now, driving home to Texas, I wish I’d never left. Earlier today, I stuffed my car full of green military-issue duffel bags; the past four years of my life fit inside six of them. Then I changed out of my uniform and passed through the gates of Moody Air Force Base, in Georgia, for the last time.
The boots I threw in my trunk have desert and dirt stuck in the treads, pieces of Afghanistan and Iraq mixed with Georgia swamp. My favorite pair is stained with helicopter hydraulic fluid from flying over Baghdad with my feet hanging out the door and, next to those, my wetsuit booties still have mud from a canal by Fallujah where we dived for bodies. I kept some others, too. Dried flakes of memories coat them in a fine layer of dust. I did a lot of things wearing all those boots; I did a lot of things I never would have done before.
A few months after graduating from college, I went to sleep on September 10, 2001 not knowing what I wanted to do with my life. The next morning, I woke up and I did. I signed up for the hardest job in the military I could find: Pararescue. SEALs with stethoscopes, as they've been called, their job was to save lives, not take them. Their motto was as apolitical and unambiguous as their mission: "That Others May Live." Pararescuemen, or PJs, lived and sometimes died by those words.
The two-year PJ qualification program is famously difficult: nine out of ten don't make it through. After basic training, I was there, and I was in over my head. During a tough pool session, the guy in front of me drowned. Already hypoxic, he had to swim fifty meters underwater, recite the Pararescue Mission between gasps, and then try to swim fifty more. Halfway there, carbon dioxide built in his blood from not breathing and, before it was my turn, he spasmed and sunk. As they pulled his limp body from the water and worked to revive him, I relaxed. No way we'd keep going.
"Broyles!" The instructor said, "You're up! GO!" It was the first time I pushed the bubbling fear down, swallowed my own vomit, and did the thing that needed doing.
After the instructors put the trainee on oxygen, he came back to life, and, before he stopped coughing up water, he quit. In two hours, six more were gone. One of them, a star athlete, lost it and started whimpering like an animal, and they carried him away sobbing. We never saw him again.
"Look at that sun, men!" said our instructor at the end of the day.
"While you were crying about how hard training was, two of your PJ brothers died today doing the real thing."
He shifted and the sun blinded me.
"Enjoy this sunset," he said, "Because they can't. Now, drop!"
We fell into the push-up position and knocked out the usual fifty, plus two more in honor of Ridout and McDaniel, the names of the PJs who'd been killed in the war. In a few months, we added another for Cunningham; he was shot through the stomach during a rescue but saved ten lives before he bled to death. Then there were two for Maltz and Plite; they died on a mission saving two Afghani children. I wondered if I'd be able to make the same sacrifice. I wondered if anyone would do push-ups for me.
Suddenly, I don't feel like driving and I pull over on the shoulder somewhere between Mississippi and Louisiana. I study the backs of my hands on the wheel and listen to the rush of passing traffic. Maybe, if I never get where I'm going, I can still go back to where I've been.
Tensions over immigration reform heightened in the Phoenix area's East Valley Thursday when students raised a Mexican flag over Apache Junction High School — and then other students yanked it down and burned it.
"I know (they) shouldn't have burned the Mexican flag," said Jacob Stewart, a 16-year-old sophomore. "I heard it was raised above the American flag and that just irked me."
He said the turbulence was tied to debates going on in the state Legislature and Congress, where ideas ranging from offering illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship to making them felons are being floated.
Freshman Chelsea Garcia, 15, and junior Brittany Ramage, 16, said the unrest had more to do with long-running racial tensions at the school.
The week's events might have sparked some anger, Ramage said, "but kids aren't too deep about that stuff."
The Hispanic student who brought the Mexican flag said he was responding to a remark directed at him Wednesday. The flag-raising, flag-burning, and shoving match that followed happened before most students arrived at school.
Six students — three Hispanic and three white — will be disciplined, Principal Chad Wilson said.
Officials with the Apache Junction Unified School District would not specify what punishment the six face.
Wilson did say in a letter sent home to parents that there would be "increased supervision, including additional police officers, on the campus over the next couple of days."
By DAVID GINSBURG, AP Sports Writer Thu Mar 30, 9:49 PM ET
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - Anna Benson wants a divorce from Baltimore Orioles pitcher Kris Benson, who still thinks the New York Mets traded him because of his impulsive wife.
Anna Benson, an actress and model who has posed topless, filed for divorce in Atlanta on Thursday. The petition for divorce claims the marriage is "irretrievably broken."
The couple has been married for seven years.
Kris Benson initially protested the deal that sent him to the Orioles. But now he thinks the Mets did him a favor.
"I was a little upset because I enjoyed my time in New York and I feel like they had a good team coming into the season," Benson said in a recent interview. "But now that I realize the opportunity I have, it's going to be a good career move for me."
Now, it appears as if he will go at it alone. .............................
Mets general manager Omar Minaya contended that Anna Benson was not a factor in the trade. Kris Benson isn't buying it.
"New York is just a world of its own. I knew that coming in, but you learn that a little more when you get put in the spotlight like that in a negative and undeserving way," Kris Benson said. "It was a little frustrating at the time because people kind of believe what they read. For her it's been a little tough, because they kind of portray her in a negative light."
Anna Benson wore a provocative dress at the team Christmas party, and there was talk that she was considering posing nude for Playboy. Kris Benson bristles at the memory.
...........................
"Some people are already seeing the trade as a negative thing. There are a lot of things that don't add up when it comes to the reasoning behind it," he said. "There's a lot of hearsay, a lot of rumors floating around about the reason why. Lately, a lot of people are suspecting foul play in terms of one thing being said and the truth being different."
Look, the Mets didn't trade you to Baltimore because they got a great deal, but because that soon to be ex-wife of yours was trouble with a capital T. Her right wing rantings. her slutty behavior, her sewer-like mouth, all hurt you.
Why?
Because she made you look like her bitch. She was running the show and humiliating you. What was next, washing her underwear in the sink?
Minaya and Randolph are not easygoing guys. They are not going to have an Anna Benson, trampy ex-stripper, ruining their team. That shit she said about Delgado sealed your fate. Carlos agreed to play along, and then she tossed that shit in the air about him not standing for the pledge. He did a big thing, and she jumped in the middle with her fucking mouth.
Let's not let this happen again: remember the Alamo
Mexican Invasion! Is one race really planning for control of U.S. territory? by Alex Koppelman in New York, New York USA
The Jews are coming to overthrow our government!
Don’t believe me? Here, I’ll quote from their own plan for world domination, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which makes clear that the plan is “the labour of many centuries.”
“We shall triumph and bring all governments into subjection to our super-government,” it reads. “It is enough for them to know that we are merciless for all disobedience to cease.”
Mark my words — the Jews’ plan for world domination is a long-held notion among their intellectual elite and political class, and most of the members of the media won't dare breathe a word about this militant phenomenon, lest they be accused of... racism. Oh, the irony!
Okay, not really.
In fact, as a Jew myself I’m well aware that the Protocols are a libel against the Jewish people as a whole, a hoax perpetrated by the worst kind of racists and used to justify the wholesale slaughter of a people.
But this much is true: if I were to write seriously any of the above words, I would, and quite justly, never again be given a forum in the mainstream media.
So why do the people spreading similar lies about Mexican immigrants continue to get approbation and speaking time from the press?
Full disclosure: Most of the third paragraph of this column is lifted from the words of Michelle Malkin, a syndicated columnist, Fox News contributor and blogger. But Malkin wasn’t using those words to talk about Jews; she was talking about Mexicans, and the notions of Aztlan and reconquista.
“Aztlan is a long-held notion among Mexico's intellectual elite and political class,” Malkin wrote in her column Wednesday, “which asserts that the American southwest rightly belongs to Mexico. Advocates believe the reclamation (or reconquista) of Aztlan will occur through sheer demographic force. If the rallies across the country are any indication, reconquista is already complete.”
You might expect Malkin to give her readers some evidence that Aztlan really is “a long-held notion among Mexico’s intellectual elite and political class,” but she never does.
Why? Because Aztlan and reconquista these days aren’t, for the most part, ideas held by Mexicans: they’re ideas held by white supremacists and neo-Nazis. The myth of reconquista stems from a misreading of one of the founding documents of the Chicano movement, “El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan.”..................
A simple Google search shows that the people talking about Aztlan and reconquista are predominantly not Mexican (though there are some radical fringe groups) but white supremacists. .................................. ................................. Malkin’s column is distributed by Creators Syndicate, a major syndicate, to papers like the New York Post, the Kansas City Star, the Modesto Bee, the Washington Times and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review among others — almost 200 papers total, according to her website. She’s a Fox News contributor and frequent guest on The O’Reilly Factor. She’s appeared on MSNBC’s Hardball, and just last week one of her blog posts was quoted in both the Washington Post and New York Times.
The larger question, of course, is what I asked on Tuesday: At what point do we draw the line when publishing blogs or other commentary as legitimate journalism? Of all the conversations surrounding my industry now (the latest is James Surowiecki on the Knight Ridder sale), we ought to be talking about what “citizen journalism” really means – and taking a hard look at how the next few years will define what we have known to be American journalism for the past century.
And as part of that broader conversation, those news organizations I mention above – and the others that treat Malkin as a respectable commentator with a legitimate place in mainstream political discussion – need to reconsider that decision, and soon.
There was a shocking segment earlier today on the popular radio/television show “Imus In The Morning.” Watch this exchange between Executive Producer (and “quick-witted on-air contributor”) Bernard McGuirk and Don Imus’ sidekick Charles McCord.
Some lowlights:
MCGUIRK: She strikes me as the kind of woman who would wear one of those suicide vests. You know, walk into the — try and sneak into the Green Zone.
IMUS: Oh, no. No, no, no, no.
MCCORD: Just because she always appears in traditional Arab garb and wearing a burka.
MCGUIRK: Yeah, what’s with the head gear? Take it off. Let’s see.
…
MCCORD: Exactly. She cooked with them, lived with them.
IMUS: This is not helping.
MCGUIRK: She may be carrying Habib’s baby at this point.
…
IMUS: She could. It’s not like she was representing the insurgents or the terrorists or those people.
MCCORD: Well, there’s no evidence directly of that –
IMUS: Oh, gosh, you better shut up! …
MCGUIRK: She’s like the Taliban Johnny or something.
Stupid motherfuckers. Remember your hero Steven Vincent, the one shagging the translator and bragging about it? How they capped him in the face and left dead on the street?
The reason she dresses like an Iraqi woman is to not get killed. Jane Arraf, former bureau chief for CNN in Baghdad. Was she fucking US soldiers because she wore combat gear and traveled with them?
Carroll saved her life by respecting the Iraqi people. People could vouch for her and her behavior kept her alive and not raped and dead.
That hijab, Iraqis generally don't wear burkas, is standard gear for most women who don't want to be smacked around by the Mahdi Army. Carroll's respect for Iraqis was wise considering that she didn't have a bodyguard and they shot her translator dead.
I'd say she was remarkably brave myself, but I'm not a creepy racist drunk like Imus and his crew of loser fucks.
Imagine India's top basketball coach flying to Miami to teach Shaquille O'Neal how to shoot free throws. You can guess the incredulous reaction of everyone from the ESPN pundits to your local 7-Eleven cashier.
That's how German fans reacted when national soccer team coach Juergen Klinsmann brought in US fitness guru Mark Verstegen to whip his team into shape before Germany hosts the World Cup this summer.
"It would happen, even if the guy were Italian," says Andrei Markovits, an expert on German soccer culture at the University of Michigan. "But the very fact that the guy is American is just inexcusable."
It would be hard to overstate the national pride associated with the German team. In the 17 tournaments held since 1930, only seven countries have won the championship. Brazil has five World Cup titles; next, with three each, are Italy and Germany, who last won in 1990.
US titles? None.
"Some innovation never hurts," allows Falk Neuhof, sitting in a Berlin bar watching Germany beat the US 4-1 last week. "But it just won't bring much. The players have been used to doing things differently for years." ............................
"The proof is in the pudding," says Professor Markovits. "If Germany wins the World Cup, there will be statues built of [Klinsmann] and the American strength coach will be a god."
Verstegen himself has accepted all the criticism with a patient smile. After all, players have overwhelmingly embraced his conditioning drills. Some have even begun including them during practices with their club teams.
"After the first day, they understood what we were after," he says. "They began to see instantaneous results, or it began making sense to them."
Will it make sense to German soccer fans? Ask again in mid-June, when the World Cup is in full swing and the German team is - hopefully - still competing.
................................ Actually, not quite. Last week, the Post breathed new life into those old stereotypes by launching Red America, a blog dedicated to offering "a daily mix of commentary, analysis, and cultural criticism" from a right-wing perspective. The liberal blogosphere did not think this was such a good idea; when the Post announced it had hired Ben Domenech, a 24-year-old editor with Regnery Publishing and co-founder of the popular conservative blog RedState.com, liberal pundits met the news with full-blown hyperventilation. Josh Marshall wrote that if the editors at the Post "want to make a blogger 'Crossfire' with a firebreather on the left and on the right, they should do it. It might even be interesting. But here they've just been played by bullies and played for fools." Criticism soon turned to scrutiny, and liberal bloggers gleefully discovered that, in the past, Domenech has had a penchant for plagiarism. Three days after publishing his first post, the Post's conservative blogger had stepped down.
Domenech deserved to be let go; but in the course of celebrating his demise, liberals have missed the real lesson of this entire episode. Instead of hiring a conservative, the Post hired a caricature of one; Domenech's blog would have been less a product of red America and more a product of what blue America understands red America to be. More than anything else, the sad saga of Ben Domenech reveals just how simplistic blue-state elites have become in their understanding of American conservatism.
....................................
What, exactly, did Brady see in Domenech? Certainly not a principled conservative journalist. Either Brady didn't read Domenech's blog posts, or he did, and they fit the ticket. If the former is true, well, shame on Brady. But the latter seems more likely. In other words, as far as Brady was concerned, Domenech--an angry, bigoted bloviator--was the face of true conservatism.
Brady isn't alone, of course. Ever since the 2004 election, liberals have been eager to confirm their stereotypes of conservatives as narrow-minded, self-righteous folk. It was only days after the election that the popular Jesusland map spread over the Internet; then came this strongly worded critique of the South. Similar, if more refined, sentiments popped up in print publications as well. The editors of Seattle's popular newsweekly, The Stranger, wrote:
.......................
One question still remains: Who will Brady pick as Domenech's replacement? He might want to take a look at these lists (here and here), compiled by Slate's Jack Shafer when The New York Times was looking for columnists to replace William Safire. For the most part, Shafer's suggestions include respected, or at least respectable, conservatives: Heather Mac Donald, Steve Chapman, John Ellis, Stuart Taylor Jr., Jonah Goldberg, Mark Steyn, and James Lileks. Then again, the Post will probably pass on all of them: Not one conforms to a liberal's caricature of what a conservative should be
. Rob Anderson is a reporter-researcher at The New Republic.
Rob Anderson is clueless.
Goldberg and Mac Donald are as racist as Domenech, but just more clever about it. Mac Donald 'sspeciality is telling black people how wrong they are about everything. She made an ass of herself during the transit strike telling the workers how good they had it and how wrong their leaders were, that they should shut up and be happy.
Rob, Young Ben's sin was obviousness, not having views many conservatives shared. They all loved Red State and chortled at the crude racism, but it wasn't any cruder than what ran in NRO, which mocked black people drowing and questioned their self-control. But no one ever calls them race-baiters.
The fact was and is that any number of promient conservatives, with the right light and heat, would reveal themsevles in the same way. Young Ben was just first.
I'M THINKING of a cabal of radical legislators who don't reflect the views of average Americans or even the interests of their own constituents. They use wedge issues, play the race card and push their party to the ideological extreme. They collude with outside activists, many of whom use religion as a Trojan horse for a radical political agenda.
Sound like those perennial paladins of villainy, the congressional GOP? Guess again. This is the Congressional Black Caucus.
The caucus lives in a fantasy in which it is the "conscience of the Congress." Immune to the sort of scrutiny that many other groups receive, it has benefited from the soft bigotry of low expectations for decades.
As the Economist recently noted, gerrymandering and Democratic politics have resulted in a caucus well to the left of black America. Only four of 43 members of the group voted to ban partial-birth abortion in 2003, even though a majority of blacks favored such a ban. Most African Americans favor school choice, but because the caucus is firmly ensconced in the teacher-union racket, it bars the schoolhouse door to black kids who want a better education via vouchers. A majority of blacks oppose outright racial quotas, but don't tell that to the caucus. Or that blacks are heavily opposed to gay marriage.
Why pick on the blacks in Congress? Because they represent black leadership in America, and it has been on their watch that black America has descended into such a mess. ..................................
There's a lot of Marxist-infused nonsense about how economics are at the root of black America's problems. But this doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Of course poverty makes social pathologies worse, but it's the pathologies that cause poverty in the first place.
Family breakdown in the black community has occurred despite a steady rise in the wages of blacks since World War II, when 80% were born to married parents. Racism alone cannot be blamed anymore for causing all black problems. By every measure, racism, particularly official racism, has declined even as these problems have worsened.
Racism is surely still a problem, but it pales in comparison to family breakdown. Nothing more perpetuates the cycle of moral and financial poverty. If you are raised by two married parents today, black or white, it is unlikely that you will be poor, or poor for long. Blaming slavery and historic white racism for family erosion may be satisfying — often accurate — but it promises few solutions. ............................. Obviously, black America's problems are larger than the black caucus. But the caucus has failed to provide the morally serious leadership — leadership that builds on the historic social conservatism and self-reliance of African Americans — that is sorely needed.
This, from a man who thought black people drowning was a larf.
Once again, doughy pantsload seems to not get that his opinion means nothing to black people, and the Uncle Ruckus clones he wants to push have zero credibility with African Americans.
Um, black people don't support vouchers in large enough numbers to push it through. We're going to watch Cory Booker lose on that issue this year in Newark.
Official racism? So Wal Mart isn't being sued for not promoting blacks, black men aren't less likely to hired than any other group of Americans, and schools aren't segregated.
Has it ever occured to doughy pantsload why you can't run as a Republican in black districts? Why black Republicans and their allies are revilled?
If the CBC didn't represent their districts, then they couldn't win. Many people think that they aren't liberal enough. The Black Commentator ran a study which showed the political leanings of the African American community would best be described as Swedish Social Democrats. Which is why the CBC looks like it does and Michael Steele has little traction in the black community.
But doughy pantsload doesn't note the change in American society and just dumps them on black people.
None of the issues he mentioned matter as much as education and employment to black people, no matter howmuch he'd like them to. And one of the leading groups of black professionals happen to be teachers. Who are far more trusted than white politicians and pundits.
Besides, his "concern" for black people is a joke. He works for the most virulently racist mainstream publication in America, one which has changed little since it opposed integration in the 1950's, well, they let Jews and blacks work for them now.
If he thinks the CBC isn't representative, GOP candidates can run in these districts and we can see what happens.
I hope the Times is deluged with replies to this nonsense.
You know, when they remodel your kitchen, it isn't ANYTHING like HGTV . Nothing like it. I'm living out of a fucking cooler and eating out every day, for at least the next week.
Talk about frustrating. Fuck. And everything from the kitchen has to go somewhere, read living room.
Frustrating as hell.
So let me talk about 10 things which annoy me other than kitchen remodeling
1) Forex commercials
You're going to do what most pros can't. Make money trading currency. Jesus christ, people lose their shirts in currency dealing. Every fucking Saturday, you see these people being told that they can make quick profits in dealing currency if they just use this program. OK, so what about the people who lose their money?
Now, they have an options program. Oh my God, options? Trading fucking options? From home?
Here's a hint: if it was easy to make money on Wall Street, why would they tell you
2)Women who read "He's just not that into you" and miss the point
It's about every commitment phobic asshole you date. Not someone else. If a guy isn't beating a path to become best friends with your pussy, if work is tying him up and he's not a lawyer about to try Darryl Littlejohn or seperate twins, he isn't that in to you. Men don't make excuses when sex is in the offing. If you hear them, please, please fucking move on.
The corollary: if you don't meet his friends, he's trying to hide you. Most men want his friends to know there is a woman in his life. If he doesn't, you don't need to be there.
3) Men who make up lists for their wives
There is a subspecies of man who expects his wife to cook, clean and obey his rules. It's 2006. If you find a woman that stupid, she won't remain that stupid for long. Grandpa may have done it that way, but you ain't grandpa
4) Newspapers who whine about Craigslist
It isn't Craig Newmark's fault he figures out a way to get something done you can't. Whining about that makes you look stupid. Classified was like hunting farm raised animals until he figured out a way to do thing cheap and quick. Adapt or die.
5) People who hate soccer
I'm watching Olbermann and he's showing some guy on a tricycle with soccer ball wheels and saying "this is the best thing you can do with a soccer ball".
Jesus fucking christ. When most people watch a game, it's not baseball. Even if you could give a shit about sports or even soccer, buy a fucking clue. This is the world's most lucrative and predominant form of entertainment. FIFA is the largest NGO after the UN in terms of influence, the IOC is a footnote and the ICRC affects fewer people. Soccer clubs have the highest brand name recognition in the world for an entertainment product.
When you say soccer, you're not just talking about sport, but money, gobs of it. In the United States, it's the predominant sport for kids and has been for two decades. Baseball is being rejected as a sport in Latin America because the realization that soccer can provide more money, like the Cubans finally figured out. Being clueless about the business aspect of soccer is like not understanding the US has shitty cellphone service while covering communications.
The current face of baseball is an unpleasant, steroid abusing freak, and a faltering US national team.
Here's a hint, Olbermann is gonna look like a fucking idiot knocking soccer this summer. Not looking like an idiot might, just might be wise.
6) Chickenhawks
All I have to say is www.marines.com, www.goarmy.com. And the first in line should be PNAC's bitch Peter Beinart. You think war is so much fun, join the team and stop the cheerleading
7) Good News from Iraq
There is none. OK.
Imagine if oh, 30 crips and 30 bloods were found beheaded in MacArthur Park and the 405 had an IED explosion every day, and going down Crenshaw meant answering to throwback jersey kids armed with M-4 rifles.
Good news would be hard to find.
The fact is that Iraq is only safe for people in a gang militia. Everyone else is fair game. I don't care how many schools you build, people live in fear of going to the market. And if people don't feel safe, they won't care about anything else.
8) Gay adoption paranoia
Look, they won't make the kids faggots ok. Worst they should be left in the hands of the Catholic Church. You can't hate blacks any longer in the open, now you hate gays. Fuck you. But then so many of you people are in the clerical closet, which goes way beyond Rome, if your shit came to light, people would hate you as well.
9) Les Moonves
The President of CBS is an asshole. Always has been. Tossed Dan Rather out like a too-old stripper, now sues Howard Stern in a fit of bitch-like jealousy. Oh yeah, I couldn't say that David Lee Roth sucks, since I don't listen to terrestrial radio anymore, but I'll quote Jen here.
"He's just another lame, middle class white guy. Why the fuck didn't they plan to get someone talented."
Best $13 I spend a month.
10) Stage Parents
If mass neutering could be made legal, anyone who thinks their child is going to be a TV star should be included. I saw this one family, headed by what could charitably be seen as a lunatic, who moved his family to New York, and thought at 42 his family would be the new Von Trapps, after bullying his wife and he would be a star. Oh yeah, the kids hated it
Then you see these moms parading their six year olds in more makeup than any woman I've known and Jen wears makeup to work every day, but she's a lawyer, not a porn star. I mean, these girls are a pedos dream, more made up than a teen miss, with their pudgy moms loving the attention. It's scary sick. But not the worst.
Then you have the delusional mothers who let their teen girls take money and pose for men online, thinking they can be models. I don't think I'd want my daughter taking money from horny bastards on the internet. Oh, wear the school girl outfit and here's some money, is um, fucking sick. Ford and Elite will not be calling you. They don't look at those sites, they look at headshots.
But my favorite are the gym moms. This one woman had her son doing routines with her daughter WAY past the time he wouldn't get his ass kicked for it in school. Another had her son doing gynmastics when he didn't want to do it, and the idiot father wouldn't stand his ground on this. Lucky he was seven, because he could quit now and not be abused in school. Elementary school can be a cruel place.
When you hear the stories of how these kids are fucked up later in life, you realize it's the parent's unfulfilled dreams driving a lot of this crap.
I'm so glad my sisters are indifferent to their children's hobbies. One may play college in basketball, I think she's been to a couple of games where she stayed away. My niece likes art with no prompting from her mother. Much easier for all concerned.
This is from Think Progress, but the link to the article is down. My comments will be in green
What’s Good and What’s Missing From the Democrats’ National Security Strategy
Today, the Democrats unveil their national security strategy, “Real Security: Protecting America and Restoring Our Leadership in the World.” On a number of issues – including strengthening the military and improving homeland security – the strategy includes concrete proposals that would make the country safer and go far beyond what the Bush administration has been willing to do.
The Democrats should be commended for, in many instances, recognizing the the status quo is unacceptable and drawing a clear policy contrast. (The President’s appointment of uber-insider Joshua Bolten to replace Chief of Staff Andy Card was another sign he plans to “stay the course.”) The glaring exception to their efforts is Iraq.
The three-part section dealing with Iraq is, for the most part, indistinguishable from the Bush administration’s policy and rhetoric –
>As more capable Iraqi police and soldiers come on line, they will assume responsibility for more territory — with the goal of having the Iraqis control more territory than the coalition by the end of 2006. As Iraqis stand up, America and our coalition will stand down.
Ensure 2006 is a year of significant transition to full Iraqi sovereignty, with the Iraqis assuming primary responsibility for securing and governing their country and with the responsible redeployment of U.S. forces.
Just using the buzzword “redeployment” does not create a clear, substantive difference between the Democratic plan and Bush’s promise to have American troops “stand down” as Iraqis “stand up” in 2006.
The reality is much, much grimmer. As I will explain in a later post, the Iraqi Army is unlikely to stand up if that means facing down Sadr or the Badr Organization. There is plenty of indications that they are already doing their dirty work, with bodies sprouting up everywhere. If the US were to send 80,000 people home, the remaining 60,000 would literally have to run for the border. The US cannot do it's job now, removing more than half of the troops would leave them essentially armed hostages
If the US Army is bogged down with 140,000 troops, a piecemeal withdrawal will only make things worse President Bush, 3/12/06:
Iraq’s leaders know that they must put aside their differences, reach out across political, religious, and sectarian lines, and form a unity government that will earn the trust and the confidence of all Iraqis. The only path to a future of peace is the path of unity.
and defeat the insurgency; promote regional diplomacy; and strongly encourage our allies and other nations to play a constructive role.
Now how in the fuck are we going to abrogate hundreds of years of ethnic strife. And get our allies to "play a constructive role" is akin to wishing for unicorns to fly us to Pluto. Reality needs to seep in here. Our allies are content to watch us be humbled in Iraq. The Shia are going to run Iraq whether the Sunni and Kurds like it or not.
The Dems simply have to realize that the Iraqis who are running things aren't running shit. Jaafari sits in the big man chair because Sadr put him there.
The insurgency already has a stranglehold on Sunni life and the government. The Iraqi "government" represents no one but itself and to expect them to have the loyalty of people is ridculous.
The fact is that this has devolved into which church wins. We forget, and the Shia did not, how we let Saddam kill them by the bushel. They are not going to play by our rules to make us happy
The one exception to this pattern is the rather vaguely worded third section that promises to “hold the Bush administration accountable.” So impeachment is around the corner? Article of impeachment being drawn up? No? OK then. We're going to cut funding, rightz?
A dramatic change of course from the administration’s flawed strategy in Iraq is long overdue. American Progress has a concrete proposal called Strategic Redeployment. It calls for 80,000 troops to exit Iraq in 2006, including all of the National Guard and Reserve. (Most would return to the United States, others would be redeployed to Kuwait, Afghanistan and other strategic locations.) Virtually all of the remaining 60,000 would exit Iraq in 2007.
This would be funny if it wasn't so sad. Here what is likely to happen. As US troops draw down, domestic pressure to end the occupation will explode. The resistance will grow bolder in their attacks, starting to wage company-sized attacks in daylight. The remaining 60,000 will face an increasing pace of attacks as our Iraqi allies demand residence in the US to save their lives. Because when we leave, the killing will erupt in a wave closer to Rwanda or the Congo. Anyone who had contact with the US will be murdered, probably by their neighbors.
As this happens and the Iraqi "government" collapses, with it's non-Iranian protected members fleeing back to their London and Detroit homes, where many of them spend a lot of time now. The Army will be the next to go, since most of the people were collecting a paycheck anyway, when their imams say it's time to choose up, the Wolf Brigade turns into the Badr Brigade commando unit.
So while people in Washington thinks the house of cards will stand without US glue, most Iraqis who can, will run when we leave. What fantasyland do people think we can just yank the Guard units and everything will be cool. They've born much of the infantry war and without them, it gets real ugly real fast My feeling is that once the withdrawal starts, the whole facade of the Iraqi government will collapse into a bundle of factions all looking for the door.
Given the absolutely critical nature of forming a wartime government, these clowns are going to fight over who does what. That should indicate that the next Iraqi government will not be elected and it's leader doesn't reside in the green zone.
Reality is not exactly popular, but the Dems do no one a service by pretending Iraq can be saved by 5,000 German troops. It is too far fucking gone. Nor forgetting to mention that Rumsfeld's plans for a tech driven Army are the opposite of what we need, which is more infantry, with better ground mobility. The era of air assault came to an end in October 1993, when a bunch of khat chewing street kids blew a $1m American helicopter out of the sky with a hundred dollar grenade, killed four special operators and captured another one.
We do not have an army which can actually prevent mass killing and restore order. We have an army which is trained to kill the Group of Soviet Forces Germany. They are now lost to the mists of history, but our Army remains the same.
Yet, there is no plan to actually make an Army which can fight guerrillas, aid and protect NGO's and mobilize quickly. Instead, we're converting artillery and engineers into ad hoc infantry and MP's and sending people out to die in hillbilly armored vehicles.
Yes, this sets the ground for real reform in the face of Bush's failure, but it is a baby step and far short of the real and comprehsive vision needed for a 21st Century defense policy
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, March 29 — Charles G. Taylor, the warlord who became Liberia's president, was captured Wednesday after a dramatic 24 hours in which he disappeared from the villa in Nigeria where he had lived in exile and then was recognized at a remote outpost as he tried to leave the country.
He was brought here to face war crimes charges for his role in a brutal decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone, one of a series of conflagrations that he set off, killing at least 300,000 people. He is the first African head of state to face such charges in an international court.
Mr. Taylor's arrival by helicopter under extraordinary security capped a saga that began nearly three years ago, when he fled his nation in the face of a rebel onslaught. He was captured Wednesday morning after a customs official recognized him as he tried to escape into Cameroon.
He arrived unshaven and dressed in a white tunic covered by a bullet-proof vest, tan pants and slip-on shoes. His appearance was in stark contrast to his dapper look in his last public appearance, in 2003, when he went into exile after a 14-year civil war that killed a quarter million of his countrymen, defiantly declaring, "God willing, I will be back."
He did return to Liberia, briefly, on Wednesday, but only to be handed over to United Nations troops who promptly flew him here, where he was read the indictment from a United Nations-backed court dealing with war crimes in Sierra Leone — 11 counts of crimes against humanity — then jailed.
Desmond de Silva, the prosecutor who will try the case, said Mr. Taylor's arrival "sends out the clear message that no matter how rich, powerful or feared people may be, the law is above them."
The trial is sure to resonate on a continent where dictators have ruled with ruthless impunity. From Idi Amin, the soldier whose murderous rule in Uganda gave way to comfortable exile in Saudi Arabia, to Haile Mengistu Mariam, whose 14-year Communist rule in Ethiopia brought political purges that killed more than a million people but who is now living quietly in Zimbabwe, African leaders who brutalize their citizens have faced few consequences.
Evil is a kind description.
The movie Lord of War has a Taylor-like character who is as scary as Freddie Kruger, but real. A total fucking monster who could kill like people breathe.
This is a very good thing. He should be under the jail.
WASHINGTON, March 29 — The battle among Republicans over immigration policy and border security is threatening to undercut a decade-long effort by President Bush and his party to court Hispanic voters, just as both parties are gearing up for the 2006 elections.
"I believe the Republican Party has hurt itself already," said the Rev. Luis Cortes, a Philadelphia pastor close to President Bush and the leader of a national organization of Hispanic Protestant clergy members, saying he delivered that message to the president last week in a meeting at the White House.
......................
In a lunch meeting of Senate Republicans this week, Senator Mel Martinez of Florida, the only Hispanic Republican in the Senate, gave his colleagues a stern warning. "This is the first issue that, in my mind, has absolutely galvanized the Latino community in America like no other," Mr. Martinez said he told them.
............................
Show Hispanics who their real friends are," as Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, put it.
But the issue is a delicate matter for Democrats as well. Polls show large majorities of the public both support tighter borders as a matter of national security, and oppose amnesty for illegal immigrants. Many working-class Democrats resent what they see as a continuing influx of cheap labor.
The stakes are enormous because Hispanics now account for one of every eight United States residents, and for about half the recent growth in the country's population. Although Hispanics cast just 6 percent of the votes in the 2004 elections, birth rates promise an imminent explosion in the number of eligible voters.
....................................
Mr. Kyl, for his part, accused Democrats of race-baiting by painting all Republicans as anti-Hispanic, a practice he said most Hispanics resent. But the senator also acknowledged some fears that the immigration debate could repel Hispanic voters. He added, "I would hope that some of our colleagues who don't have much of a Hispanic population in their states would at least defer to those of us who do."
...................................
Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Republican Party, said it had pushed ahead on recruitment of Hispanic candidates and voters. He noted that Mr. Mehlman had appeared frequently at events with Hispanic groups, hitting classic Republican themes about lower taxes and traditional values. A particular focus has been Hispanic churchgoers and pastors like Mr. Cortes, who receives money from Mr. Bush's religion-based social services initiative.
Democrats say that Mr. Bush's success with Hispanics has not gone unnoticed. Democratic leaders in Congress have expanded their Spanish-language communications, and after 2004 the Democratic Party vowed to stop relying on payments to Hispanic groups and organizations to help turn out Hispanic voters.
"How can you spend your money on get-out-the-vote when you are beginning to lose your market share?" Mr. Bendixen said. "But Democrats had no experience in campaigning for the hearts and minds of Hispanic voters. They treated them like black voters who they just needed to get out to the polls."
Still, both sides say it is the tenor and ultimate outcome of the immigration debate that may give the Democrats their best opportunity to attract Hispanic voters.
Senator Martinez, a Cuban immigrant who delivered part of a Senate speech in Spanish a few months ago, alluded to the nervousness among Hispanics when he was asked whether he would do the same again in the debate on immigration. "I am about to be sent back as it is," he said, joking. "I better be careful."
No, Senator Kyl, you let Tom Tancredo, a man so racist he wanted to deport a high school student and his family after years of residence in the US, to the horror of the Denver community, define the debate. He's the one who talked about invasion and changing America as if Latinos hadn't lived here since 1542.
When you let the fanatics set the issue, you reduce the debate.
Instead of talking about drug gangs, extreme violence on the border spilling north from Northern Mexico, and sexual slavery, all byproducts of illegal immigration, we're debating race. Why? Because Sensenbrenner and Tancredo were allowed to define the debate instead of Bush, who ran from it from 2001, it is now being used as a weapon against the GOP.
I mean, you have Jim Gilchrist and Tancredo standing side by side, which is insane. One of the original founders of the Minutemen quit because of the creeping white supremacist tone to their protests. Anyone who lives on the border has a real, ongoing reason to worry about security, but this debate became about families. Tancredo even proposed eliminiating the birthright of American citizenship to alien babies.
What did the GOP think was going to happen? Mild upset among Latinos?
People are saying "Steve, why are you saying this is about race, not illegal immigration" Because the debate is about nothing real. If it was, we'de be talking about snakeheads and Asian and Eastern Europeans forced into sexual slavery and measures to curb that, better border security which didn't depend on a wall, you know like more sensors, predator aircraft, more border patrol with more resources, new resources to aid deportation. Not this moronically regressive idea of turning our neighbors and their children into felons.
We'd also talk about streamlining the legalization process and making it easier for legal immigrants to gain citizenship.
But all that is lost when you get half-wits making policy.
Tancredo panders to racism without offering real solutions. A wall against the border of one of our largest trading partners, where we have invested billions? Come on, that's fantasy. Talk of an invasion? You mean the one that started before there was an America.
Latinos had been slightly more receptive to GOP pitches, but like Katrina with blacks, this is about family. This isn't some abstract debate, this is about cousins, friends, even kids. And when you do that, people take it personally. Blacks took Bush's failure in Katrina personally.
Latinos take this personally.
Once again, the GOP's base kills the GOP's future. The GOP needs some black voters. They need lots of Latino voters to keep any viability as a party. If Melhman didn't like Katrina, this has him puking. Because to two generation of young Latino voters, the GOP has said they are not welcome.
Well, the GOP is unwelcome among Latino voters.
How did the GOP miscalculate the response? Easy, they didn't listen to Spanish-language radio, which allowed the organizers to plan for a large response, and escape the notice of Anglo media. English primary schoolkids used Myspace and IM to communicate, again escaping the notice of the Anglo media.
But once again, the GOP has little way to gage the reaction of minority communities. They were suprised by the open hostility to Bush at the King funeral, and by the mass protests among the LA community.
The Democrats forgot that they had to make the case to Latinos on why they needed to vote democratic and paid for that. But once again, someone shits in the GOP punchbowl. You can bet gay marriage won't have any play for them. Thanks to Tom Tancredo.
This was the worst move possible at the worst possible time for an already struggling GOP. They need Latino voters to keep their seats. Now, they going to have angry Latinos voting to cause the GOP pain.
Republican pollster Jan van Lohuizen, in a memo written for RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, warns that if members of Congress try to drive a wedge between themselves and Pres. Bush, it'd be akin to adding weight to an anchor. GOpers are "W Brand Republicans" whether they like it or not. And van Louhizen, who has polled (often secretly) for the Bush White House under the RNC aegis for years, is worried about low turnout.
Time Magazine first reported on the memo this weekend, but the full text is below.
--------------- Memorandum
To: Ken Mehlman From: Jan van Lohuizen Date: March 3, 2006 Re: Bush -- Congressional Republicans
Per our conversation, we took another look at the way voters, Republicans specifically, link President Bush and Republicans in the House and the Senate. There are several points worth making:
1. President Bush continues to have the strong loyal support of Republican voters. Despite slippage in approval ratings among all voters, the President's job approval among Republicans continues to be very high. Most members will be elected with between 80% and 100% of their support coming from Republicans. I don't see that Republicans driving a wedge between themselves and the President is a good election strategy.
2. My read of the current environment is that our problem will be turnout. '06 could become an election like '82 or '84. In '82 Republicans showed up at relatively normal turnout rates, while Democrats, because they were angry, showed up at abnormally high turnout rates. In '94, Republican turnout was elevated, while Democratic turnout was depressed. We have every reason to believe '06 could become the inverse of '82. We don't see signs of a depressed Republican turnout yet, but we have every reason to believe Democrats will turn out in high numbers. Anything we do to depress turnout, by not running as a unified party for instance, could very well lead to serious consequences in November.
3. The President is seen universally as the face of the Republican Party. We are now brand W. Republicans. The following chart shows the extremely close correlation between the President's image and overall ratings of the party.
President Bush drives our image and will do so until we have real national front-runners for the '08 nomination. Attacking the President is counter productive for all Republicans, not just the candidates launching the attacks. If he drops, we all drop.
You have to be kidding. Bush is not going to go up in the polls unless Osama surrenders and he's too busy laughing his ass off to bother. This is seriously like waiting for Army Group Steiner.
Russell Pleasant, 46, of Bellevue, Neb., left, one of four out of 3 million contest entrants to pick all the teams in this year's Final Four, hows his winning bracket on a laptop computer with his son Russell Jr., 14, and daughter Ashley, 15, in their Bellevue, Neb., home,
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - A University of Memphis law professor has banned laptop computers from her classroom and her students are passing a petition against it.
Professor June Entman says her main concern is that students are so busy keyboarding they can't think and analyze what she's telling them. ................
Student Cory Winsett says if he must continue without his laptop, he'll transfer to another school. Winsett says he won't be able to keep up if he has to rely on hand-written notes, which he says are incomplete and less organized.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 29 — Facing growing pressure from the Bush administration for him to step down, Iraqi prime minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari today vigorously asserted his right to stay in office and warned the Americans against undue interference in Iraq's political process.
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, at the Pentagon with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, explaining a map of the mosque compound assaulted by Iraqi and American troops on Sunday.
Mr. Jaafari also defended his recent political alliance with radical anti-American Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, now the prime minister's most powerful backer, saying in an interview that Mr. Sadr and his thousands-strong militia were a fact of life in Iraq and need to be accepted into mainstream politics.
Mr. Jaafari said he would work to fold the country's myriad militias into the official security forces and ensure that recruits and top security ministers abandon their ethnic or sectarian loyalties.
The existence of militias has emerged as the greatest source of contention between American officials and Shiite leaders like Mr. Jaafari, with the American ambassador arguing in the past week that militias are killing more people than the Sunni Arab-led insurgency. Dozens of bodies, garroted or executed with gunshots to the head, turn up almost daily in Baghdad, fueling sectarian tensions that are pushing Iraq closer to full-scale civil war.
The embattled Mr. Jaafari made his remarks in an hour-long interview with The New York Times at his home, a Saddam Hussein-era palace with an artificial lake in the heart of the fortified Green Zone. He spoke calmly, relaxing in a black pinstripe suit in a ground-floor office lined with books like the multi-volume "The World of Civilizations."
"There was a stand from both the American government and President Bush to promote a democratic policy and protect its interests," he said, sipping from a cup of boiled water mixed with saffron. "But now there's concern among the Iraqi people that the democratic process is being threatened."
"The source of this is that some American figures have made statements that interfere with the results of the democratic process," he added. "These reservations began when the biggest bloc in Parliament chose its candidate for prime minister."
The bookish, soft-spoken Mr. Jaafari is at the center of the deadlock in talks over forming a new government, with the main Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular blocs in the 275-member Parliament staunchly opposing the Shiite bloc's nomination of Mr. Jaafari for prime minister. Senior Shiite politicians said Monday that the American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad, had weighed in over the weekend, telling the leader of the Shiite bloc that President Bush did not want Mr. Jaafari as prime minister. That was the first time the Americans had openly expressed a preference for the post, the politicians said, and it showed the Bush administration's acute impatience over the stagnant political process.
Badr wants to legalize their death squads and now Sadr is saying the prime minister is his prime minister. Of course, now the Americans want to pick who ruins Iraq, not even aware that would just make that person a puppet. But why notice minor things like that now.
But I love the way Jaafari lies about ending secterianism. Wonderful.
If Syria or Iran had done this (not that they don't), there would have been a huge squeal of outrage from the American right. I challenge Instapundit, Andrew Sullivan, and Christopher Hitchens to intervene effectively to get Kamal Sayid Qadir out of Barzani's jail. Here is something all of us, left and right, can agree on, and I hope the Left blogs the hell out of it, too. Will someone please start a blog to count the days Qadir is not free?
Qadir
American blood was shed saving the Kurds from Saddam, and this is not right. It is not right
I have been interested in the Kurds since the mid-1980's. I knew exactly how evil Saddam was when Don Rumsfeld was shaking his hand. I also know that the new image of them as the enlightented Iraqis is a crock of shit. Talabbani and Barzani are warlords and always have been.
After all, the Kurds have their own secret prisons and use them.
But Cole makes the mistake many Americans do. He expects them to be grateful for our sacrifice. They are not. They want us to give them Kurdistan. That's it. If we can do that, they will love us. If we cannot, they will not.
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It was like a strange dream, where everything starts off sort of in reality and then it takes a turn for the weird.
It started off as a Minuteman rally, the anti-"illegal"-immigrant groups based out of CA. Jim Glichrist, one of the founders of the movement was there to lead things off
As well as other "pro-border protection" speakers.
There were about 60-70 supportive activist donned in their red whites and blues in very spirited voice for this growing movement of isolationism.
And, of course, like every political rally there will be the counter demonstrators. In this case, those protesting against the Minutemen believe that it is racism and this sort of trend will lead to a divition in American society.
Everything was going pretty much like a normal day for a poltical rally.
Then all of a sudden, off in the distance, like the shark from "Jaws"...
Here comes Bill White, spokesman for the National Socialist Movement....
The first thing Bill did was to steal all the media, and from at that time, it was Gilchrist who was at the Minuteman podium, but the media then flooded Bill like moths to a lightbulb....
Bill claimed to be there to oppose the rally. Much of what he said was the Minutemen movement is a form of "white racialism" and that their allience to any of the poltical parties are not going to get them anywhere.
Here's the problem. Obviously most Americans who want immigration limits are not Nazis, but this movement attracts these mutants and they aren't chased away like the vermin they are. Behind most of these Mexicans hunters is a swastika and a stars and bars.
There is a deep well of race hatred under the veneer of calling for immigration control, because when they start with their Minuteman bullshit, these folks aren't far behind and they aren't kicked out.
Open letter to CNN and other mainstream US media outlets:
1. The vast majority of Hispanics/Latinos in the U.S. (75 percent of us) were born and raised here, including many of us who have roots here that predate the arrival of the pilgrims.
2. "Immigrant" is not synonymous with "Latino" and the media should stop pretending they mean the same thing.
3. The CNN analyst who said today "Keep in mind, Latino voters are LEGAL immigrants, not illegal immigrants" should be FIRED for sloppy thinking. MOST LATINOS ARE NOT IMMIGRANTS AT ALL, PINCHE CABRON.
4. Immigrants to contemporary USA come from EVERYWHERE. There are, for instance, 100,000 Nigerians in Houston, and tens of thousands of ILLEGAL Irish in Boston. If this debate is truly about immigration, as opposed to racist portrayals of Latinos, please curb your coverage to be more responsible.
5. Just because someone waves a Mexican or Colombian flag at a peaceful demonstration does not mean the demonstration is a "riot" or the people unAmerican. Lou Dobbs should get his panties out of a knot and realize it is no different than someone waving an Irish flag in Southie or an Italian flag in Queens. These flags are not waved as proof of national allegiance; they are waved in solidarity with a person's cultural heritage.
6. You can be a Mexican American and never have had an ancestor come over the US border; vast portions of the United States of today USED TO BE MEXICO or SPAIN. If you failed to learn this in high school, your teachers should be fired.
7. The vast majority of Hispanics/Latinos in the US speak English as a first language. The Pew Center for Hispanic research shows that by the third generation, all Latin American immigrant descendents - 100 percent of them - are English-first, English dominant. Zero percent speak Spanish as a first or primary language by the third generation.
8. The US has TWO international borders, not ONE. To date, not a single terrorist has gotten to the US through Mexico; to date, at least two suspected terrorists have arrived here through Canada. In fact, I would not be surprised if, while the media and xenophobes are focused on the Mexican border, terrorists figure out that it might be a good idea to walk over from Vancouver to Seattle for a latte.
9. Not all Hispanics/Latinos are Mexican or of Mexican origin in the U.S., and most people of Mexican extraction in the US were born in the UNITED STATES.
10. Please check for plans to give Haliburton the contract to build a wall along the Mexican border before caving in to the right-wing propaganda about a "crisis" in immigration from Mexico.
11. Please be careful when you discuss these issues not to stereotype or overgeneralize. The anti-Latino frenzy you're creating is leading to a racist backlash against tens of millions of native-born Americans who happen to have Spanish names.
12. The following are also Spanish names: California, Arizona, Florida, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego. Why does CNN allow states, cities and rivers with Spanish names to be American, while disallowing American people with Spanish names the same right...?
13. Please tell us what the problems are that are caused by illegal immigrants. Don't just say there is a "debate". Tell us in concrete terms what the risks and dangers are being brought to the US by "illegal" immigrants. Can't find any? Thought so.
14. Please remember that the least legal and least assimilable of American immigrants were...the English. And the only people who can claim to be true "Americans" are Native Americans.
15. Most Mexicans are Native Americans.
16. Shut up about this non-issue and get back to BEING JOURNALISTS, covering the REAL issues, like the illegal war in Iraq and the lies that got us there; the record-setting trade deficit; Bush's bankrupting of America; NSA's illegal wiretapping of American citizens; the fact that our public schools are MORE segregated than they were before Brown vs. the Board of Education; the fact that we as a nation have now slipped to having only the 27th freest press in the world; the Plame leak and the consequences of it being that Americans are much less safe than we were before Cheney and his friends played "revenge"; the disappearance of the American middle class and unions; the sorry state of the FAA; the rapid devaluation of the American dollar on the world market thanks to idiot leaders; the dismantling of the endangered species act by our administration; the rapid and unprecedented rise of a white underclass (the fastest rise in poor whites in American history has occurred under Bush); the enormous and growing gap between rich and poor in America.
All best,
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
Oh yeah, you know how they turned out 500,000 people in LA?
Spanish-language radio.
How many people live in the US?
295,734,134
What are we debating, 11 million, about three percent of the US population. Someone posted what would happen if we had 30 million immigrants. Well, it would probably make them about 6-7 percent of the US IF there is a normal increase of US population.
Remember, every child of an immigrant born in the US is an American, regardless of the parent's status.
If the GOP could add, they would have realized that they would be alienating a massive number of voters. Far more than 11 million people.
You know, I think a lot of this is driven by numbers, 11 million sounds large, but it isn't, if it was an ethnicity it would be under Asian Americans ,who are six percent of the US. But compared to 295 million, well it's hardly Attilla the Hun.
So how many Angelinos are there 3,819,951
500,000 is about one of every eight city residents and Latinos make up 46.5 percent of the city population. So of the people who marched, more than one of four Latinos in LA marched, and it may be up to half, if estimates of a million are accurate.
Now, think about that: you have just pissed off millions of people, MOST of whom can vote.
This seemed like a smart play over the poll numbers, but in reality, it just gave the people most affected a reason to hate the GOP forever. Tom Tancredo doesn't see families here, just brown people. Would you vote for a party which wanted to make your 70 hour a week working cousin with two young kids a criminal? I don't think so.
This is a picture that Howard Kaloogian, a conservative Republican candidate in San Diego's upcoming congressional special election to replace disgraced GOPer Duke Cunningham, has placed on his Web site. It is billed as a photo that Kaloogian and his party took on a recent trip to Iraq. Here's his provocative caption:
We took this photo of dowtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq. Iraq (including Baghdad) is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be. But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring in the country and screams and shouts about it - in part because many journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort to fight terrorism.
OK. But look very carefully at this picture. Notice anything unusual? Just like those puzzles they used to run in the Sunday comics section, see how many, um, mistakes you can spot in the photo.
When you're done, read this and also this. (But don't peek until you're done!)
The Internet detectives strike again!
Iraq war vets, share your knowledge of Iraq's large cities with us for extra credit.
Here's a hint: no cops or soldiers on the streets.
Last week, we told you about the launch of Red America, a washingtonpost.com weblog written by Ben Domenech, a Republican activist who worked in the Bush administration and co-founded RedState, a "Republican community weblog ... focused on politics, and ... dedicated to the construction of a Republican majority in the United States."
Domenech had a history of bigoted and homophobic comments like calling Coretta Scott King -- on the day of her funeral -- a communist and suggesting that blogger/journalist Andrew Sullivan, who is gay, "needs a woman to give him some stability." However, a review of his articles also made it clear that he was a serial plagiarizer.
Domenech is no longer employed by washingtonpost.com thanks to the efforts of progressive media critics. He "resigned" amid a public outcry over his plagiarism.
But Domenech's resignation doesn't erase the hard questions about why he was originally hired. Washingtonpost.com still needs to explain why a partisan operative who admits he is not a journalist and who has a history of racially charged rhetoric, homophobic bigotry, and serial plagiarism was given a platform on washingtonpost.com in the first place -- and what steps the paper is taking to ensure that such a fiasco does not happen again.
Take Action! Click here to contact Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com and ask him why he decided to hire Domenech, a rabidly partisan activist with no real credentials and a history of bigoted comments.
Resources:
Media Matters to Wash. Post brass: Fire bigoted blogger [3/23/06]
Why calling an American icon a communist is perfectly fine. I mean, all those liberals cursed Reagan when he died, right?
What, you mean they didn't?
I'm so fucking tired of the language of hate, they're gonna kill liberals, they're gonna kick their asses. Really, I have 20 regulars here who are combat vets, more than a few former special operators. You do not join the GOP when you enlist. I can't tell you about the lurkers.
And what is most galling is that these cowards run or bullshit when asked about actually enlisting. They are so goddamn tough, they should be down at Benning or MCRD Parris Island. I mean, they're so fucking deluded that they think a nasty post is the same as a combat patrol in Iraq.
Look at the shit on Red State today, a coward's hate fest. I'd like to drag one of these big talking fuckers to Walter Reed so they can see what violence is really like. These people make me sick
For reasons known only to themselves, Israeli voters decided to ignore the rallying cry of Pajamas Media's chickaboom gal and pull the lever for Bibi.
The Independent (UK), that commie rag, breaks the bitter news:
"The exit poll results were a humiliation for Likud, which could now end up as the fourth biggest party. Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took over as the party's leader when Mr Sharon staged his sensational breakaway from the right wing party last November, had said he wanted at least 14 seats and there will be doubts over whether he can remain as leader."
But Netanyahu accepted defeat, humiliation, and the prospect of a long winter in the political wilderness with the grace of a gladiator dragging himself from the arena.
"In a direct rebuke to Mr Sharon, who is in a coma in a Jerusalem hospital, Mr Netanyahu said the party had already been damaged when 'the former head of the party left it, and left us a broken, shattered movement.' But he declared: 'We intend to continue along the path we have only just begun in order to ensure this movement is rehabilitated and takes its rightful place in the nation's leadership.'"
Blaming a man in a coma for your poor showing at the polls: classy.
Now they want the West Bank wall, which will not stop anything, but it's a step away from neverending war.
By VIV BERNSTEIN and JOE DRAPE Published: March 29, 2006
DURHAM, N.C., March 28 — Duke University suspended the season of its nationally ranked men's lacrosse team Tuesday while the authorities investigated allegations that a woman from a nearby college who had agreed to dance at a private party attended by many team members had been sexually assaulted.
The incident on March 13, which occurred at an off-campus house owned by the university, has brought into sharp relief long-simmering tensions between the private university and the city. The woman is black, most of the team members are white and law-enforcement officials say they are investigating allegations that racial epithets were shouted at the woman.
Residents, students and faculty members have staged at least five protests in the last four days, including one Tuesday night outside the building where Duke's president, Richard H. Brodhead, was holding a news conference. They are upset with the silence of team members and the university's handling of the case.
Mr. Brodhead's announcement that the team's season was being suspended came five days after 46 of 47 members of the Blue Devils lacrosse team provided DNA samples to Durham police investigators. The team's roster includes 26 players from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut high schools.
Mr. Brodhead said that he met with the team's captains Tuesday morning and that they apologized for the embarrassment they had caused themselves, their families, the athletic department and the university. They also denied the allegations made by the woman, who said she had been assaulted in a bathroom by three team members. Mr. Brodhead said he made his decision to suspend competition after meeting with the team captains, who had asked that the season be suspended only until the DNA testing was completed.
Michael B. Nifong, the Durham County district attorney, criticized team members for not coming forward.
"The thing that most of us found so abhorrent, and the reason I decided to take it over myself, was the combination gang-like rape activity accompanied by the racial slurs and general racial hostility," Mr. Nifong said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
Once upon a time, that was just a long weekend for a Southern gentleman. Now, these boys face jail for raping a black woman in North Carolina. And the one thing my father told me about the South which stuck was that they respect the law, and you better too. Rich kids from Jersey acting out.....picked a very bad place to do it.
Ever see these Southern DA's, you know like Nancy Grace? They like putting people in jail, and arrogant rich kids? Even better.
It reminds me of what Robert E Lee said when seeing a young private.
"Don't worry son, you will receive justice here."
"I know sir, that's what I'm afraid of."
Now, these boys can try the OC rape trial defense, but that is even less likely to fly. You've got some real reputations on the line, the school, the DA, the city. Whining about her being a slut isn't going to cut it.
The truth be told, it does not surprise me that surburban kids from Jersey would have backwards racial attitudes. Most of the black people they see are on TV. So while many Southerners have positive relationships with blacks, a lot of suburban Northerners may have little to no contact with any minority.
And they ain't basketball players, so being a jock will not help
"According to court documents, two black women were hired from an escort service to dance for what turned out to be a lacrosse team party at 610 N. Buchanan Blvd. After only several minutes there, documents report, the men inside the house became excited and aggressive. After fleeing the house amid racial slurs, police and neighbors report, the women were persuaded to go back inside. One of the women reported that she was pulled into a bathroom by three of the men, where she was strangled, beaten, raped and sodomized."
Its really hard to fake evidence that you were "strangled, beaten, raped and sodomized."
The whole community, including the wider Duke student body, the leaders of the neighborhood in which it happened, and the local law enforcement agencies are roaring mad about this. This is the first case that the county prosecutor has taken on personally since he was diagnosed with cancer in 1997. While I wouldn't accuse him of being a Nancy Grace type, he has said repeatedly that he is looking at obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges for the non-rapists on the team.
No one around here doubts that these boys did this, especially given all of the circumstantial accounts from witnesses. The fact that they calimed it was just a batchelor party for 10 clients. Or that they used false names. Or that they woman's broken nails were all over there house. Or that they have already sold the house.
I've not run into one person down here, black, white, or other that thinks these boys deserve anything short of a raw deal.
Here's a point: NONE are cooperating with the investigation. If your innocent friends were accused of a crime they didn't commit, would you stonewall the cops?
This shit is no different than the St. Guillen murder. The bar owners shut up. Why? Innocent people don't shut up and don't refuse to cooperate.
Back in 2004, I wrote a brief on how the US, unable to contain the growth of Iraq's open source insurgency, was planning to use loyalist paramilitaries (the Latin American solution) to contain it (this is analysis I repeated a year later in the New York Times):
The establishment of... loyalist paramilitaries in Iraq would quickly put the insurgency on the defensive. Over the next year, their activities will likely result in a level of "controlled chaos" sufficient to allow the US to withdraw its forces. Additionally, these militias could operate while the government maintains a fig leaf of democracy.
This is exactly what happened. However, I ended the brief with this caveat on the consequences of this choice:
* Institutionalized corruption. These militias would likely involve themselves in illegal activities. A government abetted franchise for their counter-insurgency activities would require inaction in regards to their criminal actions. * Human rights abuses. These militias will operate within the same rule set used by the guerrillas they are fighting. This means assassinations, hostage taking, etc. * Long term instability. While the militias will be able to put a lid on the growth of the insurgency, they will likely be unable to eradicate it. This means that Iraq will be stable enough for the US to leave but will suffer long-term instability.
The Window Slams Shut
Unfortunately, the US didn't take advantage of the opportunity to withdraw during 2005. Decision makers mistook the controlled chaos enabled by the use of militias for progress towards their maximal goals in the country. That illusion officially ended with the attack on the Samara shrine (a form of social system disruption, likely a coup de grace by Zarqawi). After that event, the fragile structure of the system flew out of control as Shiite militias began to ethnically cleanse Sunnis.
The US is now caught between the militias and the guerrillas and the situation will deteriorate quickly.
Here's a likely scenario for how this will play out: deeper entrenchment within US bases (to limit casualties) and pledges of neutrality (Rumsfeld) will prove hollow. Ongoing ethnic slaughter will force US intervention to curtail the militias. Inevitably, this will increase tensions with the militias and quickly spin out of control. Military and police units sent to confront the militias will melt down (again), due to conflicting loyalties. Several large battles with militias will drive up US casualties sharply.
Supply lines to US bases from Kuwait will be cut. Protesters will march on US bases to demand a withdrawal. Oil production via the south will be cut (again), bringing Iraqi oil exports to a halt. Meanwhile, the government will continue its ineffectual debate within the green zone, as irrelevant to the reality on the ground in the country as ever. Unable to function in the mounting chaos and facing a collapse in public support for the war, the US military will be forced to withdraw in haste. It will be ugly.
UPDATE: After I wrote this, there was news that the US intervened by attacking a gathering point for Shiite militias in Baghdad. An Imam was killed along with 16 others. There was also a raid on an Interior Ministry prison (Badr). The scenario begins...
ASHINGTON, March 27 — With Republicans deeply divided, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted on Monday to legalize the nation's 11 million illegal immigrants and ultimately to grant them citizenship, provided that they hold jobs, pass criminal background checks, learn English and pay fines and back taxes.
The panel also voted to create a vast temporary worker program that would allow roughly 400,000 foreigners to come to the United States to work each year and would put them on a path to citizenship as well.
The legislation, which the committee sent to the full Senate on a 12-to-6 vote, represents the most sweeping effort by Congress in decades to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. If passed, it would create the largest guest worker program since the bracero program brought 4.6 million Mexican agricultural workers into the country between 1942 and 1960.
Any legislation that passes the Senate will have to be reconciled with the tough border security bill passed in December by the Republican-controlled House, which defied President Bush's call for a temporary worker plan.
The Senate panel's plan, which also includes provisions to strengthen border security, was quickly hailed by Democrats, a handful of Republicans and business leaders, as well as by the immigrant advocacy organizations and church groups that have sent tens of thousands of supporters of immigrant rights into the streets of a number of cities to push for such legislation in recent days.
But even as hundreds of religious leaders and others rallied on the grounds of the Capitol on Monday, chanting "Let our people stay!," the plan was fiercely attacked by conservative Republicans who called it nothing more than an offer of amnesty for lawbreakers. It remained unclear Monday night whether Senator Bill Frist, the Senate majority leader, would allow the bill to go for a vote this week on the floor or would substitute his own bill, which focuses on border security. His aides have said that Mr. Frist, who has said he wants a vote on immigration this week, would be reluctant to move forward with legislation that did not have the backing of a majority of the Republicans on the committee.
Only 4 of the 10 Republicans on the committee supported the bill. They were the committee chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Mike DeWine of Ohio and Sam Brownback of Kansas. All eight Democrats on the committee voted in favor of the legislation.
The rift among Republicans on the committee reflects the deep divisions in the party as business groups push to legalize their workers and conservatives battle to stem the tide of illegal immigration. Mr. Specter acknowledged the difficulties ahead, saying, "We are making the best of a difficult situation." But he said he believed that the legislation would ultimately pass the Senate and would encourage the millions of illegal immigrants to come out of the shadows.
There's supposedly a controversy about flags now.
Yeah, right.
If they wave the American flag, they're dirty immigrants stealing American jobs. If they wave their national flags, they don't want to be Americans.
OK, let's cut the bullshit and wish fulfillment for a minute.
You like to eat? Well, guess who buses your table and delivers the food. We all like to pretend it's someone else exploiting immigrants. Well, it's us and we like cheap labor just fine. We like what it brings and how it allows us to have nice jobs in offices which someone else cleans.
You know, I live in a neighborhood filled with Mexicans. Once all Puerto Ricans, now mixed. And you know, the men work two jobs, the women raise their young families and you see the kids learning English the way everybody else does. Crime is way fucking down.
Even when you try to become legal, and those who can do, ICE is a fucking nightmare. Stand outside the Javits federal building any weekday, long fucking lines, they lose papers, miss deadlines, screw things up beyond imagining. When we talk about legal immigrants is that they get the shitty end of the stick as well.
It's easy to engage in the fantasy of tossing all illegals, but the fact is that is a fantasy and for the most part, they do jobs like cutting meat and picking fruit and cooking in restaurants.
You want to be able to tell who really belongs here, ICE is more problem than help.
It's not like you can snap your fingers and become a citizen. If you live in New York, you read about this once a month or so. And the law abiding get screwed.
The blogosphere is abuzz with news that now-deposed WashingtonPost.com conservative blogger Ben Domenech was outed for multiple instances of plagiarism.
I hate plagiarism, since I've been plagiarized so many times and feel violated with each instance. As I've said before, imitation is NOT always the sincerest form of flattery. It's the most dishonest form of robbery. At least an armed robber has the guts and decency to tell you to your face that he's stealing from you.
My problem with the piling-on of Ben Domenech is not that he doesn't deserve it. He does. It's that so many right-wingers--and left-wingers--that are calling him to task don't have a problem with much more prominent conservative plagiarists. That's hypocrisy.
When I pointed out, not too long ago, that whole portions of a column I wrote were flat-out ripped off by Jerome Corsi, co-author of the best-selling Swift Boat veterans book against John Kerry, his WorldNetDaily.com editor, Joseph Farah, refused to do a damn thing (but add a tiny link to my column--Big Deal).
Some conservatives told me to "take one for the team." Huh? I don't think so. (Since then, I've been told by several conservative writers that this is not the first time that WND and/or Farah have condoned--and engaged in--plagiarism.) Since Corsi has a Ph.D. and has written more than one book, how much of those are also plagiarized? People don't become plagiarists in their old age.
Then, there's Monica Crowley, formerly of FOX News Channel, now on MSNBC, and with a radio show on WABC in New York. She's the white, blonde Jayson Blair in a skirt. But unlike the loud calls for his firing by conservatives everywhere, there is not even a peep from conservatives about thief Monica Crowley. (Details of her blatant plagiarism are here and here.)
For an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Crowley lifted whole passages about President Nixon from a Paul Johnson article in Commentary. She never admitted to it. She's banned from the Wall Street Journal because of it. But that's the only damage.
Even though she's written two books on Nixon and a Ph.D. thesis--both of which have raised lots of questions as to their veracity and whether she plagiarized those, too--conservatives continue to embrace peroxide plagiarist Crowley. (And she continues to snootily insist on being referred to as "Dr." Monica Crowley. Whatever.)
In fact, Ms. Plagiarism is a calendar girl, Miss November, for the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. CBLPI is a great organization, but do they really want to teach young women to steal? That's what their poster girl, Monica Crowley, did. I doubt Clare Boothe Luce, a classy and integrity-abundant journalist and writer (among other things), would condone it.
It's liberals that believe in taking away your property from you by force (you know, big government, redistribution of the wealth, eminent domain, et al). Conservatives are supposed to believe in property rights, but not these low-rent thieves.
Poor Ben Domenech. He apparently wasn't a big enough name to get away with unarmed robbery, the way Jerome Corsi and Monica Crowley did.
Posted by Debbie at March 24, 2006 05:34 PM
Um, Debbie, it's not the liberals who are condoning this. It's your conservative friends who didn't think you were important enough to stand up for. While I don't much like the way you express your politics, word theft is just wrong. You won't see us defending it for party soldiarity. Unlike your friends, we value original thought and hard work.
Today on CBS’s Early Show, Bay Buchanan — right-wing strategist and sister of Pat Buchanan — argued that the government can, and should, deport all the undocumented workers in the United States.
Watch it:
Transcript:
BUCHANAN: Every guest worker program in the history of this country and any other country around the world has always turned into amnesty. He says it’s impossible to move these people out. It is certainly not impossible. It is very realistic. We should absolutely stand up to the law and let people come through legal channels, but in no way reward them for illegal behavior.
So the Irish and Poles will be first on the boats, right? What about those Canadians who forgot to go home. Ship 'em back right?
This is all fantasy. An argument which has slipped the surly bonds of earth and is about as realistic as D&D. First of all, many of the children of those illegal immigrants are American citizens who have a right to stay in the US. Second, it's a waste of money and time when we need to worry about securing America from real terrorist threats. Third, if these weren't brown people under discussion the proto-fascist Bay Buchcanan wouldn't be saying a word.
Washingtonpost.com hired GOP operative Ben Domenech, a 24-year-old wonder boy with virtually no journalism background, to add an explicitly conservative voice to its stable of blogs. Domenech made his first post Monday and immediately came under fire from liberal bloggers, outraged that the Post would create a Red America blog but not one for Blue America.
But that’s not what ended Domenech’s short-lived stint in the mainstream media. (By the way, I loved how he used his gig in the MSM to attack the MSM for ignoring conservatives.) It turns out there were strong indications that he was a serial plagiarizer. He resigned today, and Post officials said he would have been fired had he not resigned.
It just happens that former Pioneer Press editor Deborah Howell, now the Post’s ombudsman, was in our newsroom today for a Q&A session on journalism topics. I asked her about the Domenech affair. Her reply: “I can’t defend it. It’s a fuckin’ disaster.”
Jim,
I bet today has been one of those days where the burnt, acidy taste of Starbucks coffee is working hard on the organs. Bathroom twice, and it's not a number one. Your cell phone is now your enemy, and the e-mail not much better. Because you fucked up. Bad. You hitched your wagon to a bunch of racists and chickenhawks.
The e-mails started up yet? Seems they should be coming. People are pissed at you. You do know that once upon a time the Post was seen as the savior of American democracy. Now, you're just a tool for people who shouldn't be hired to get coffee for the help desk, much less have a voice attached to the Post. You're supposed to be a steward of that name and tradition, even if everyone else fails in it.
When I was at NYU, I was taught by Timesmen, which is what they called themselves. They were mostly old school reporters, like Frank Prial, but they respected themselves and their profession and taught us to as well. Young Ben would have flunked out of Reporting I and booted from the program.
But at least you can drink coffee from your desk today. At least you can smile at the secretaries and have your ID card. Because, even while Deb Howell tosses you under that bus, you still have your job.
What did you think? We didn't read Red State? That their reputation wouldn't have contaminated the Post? Did you ask any questions?
Imagine your job security when it was discovered that another of Red State's founders was behind the new Georgia Poll tax? Is it me, or is DC and surrounding areas filled with black people? Think they like poll taxes and voter suppression?
Sometimes, bad things are good for people, missing that flight and then it crashes, not going to that party and everyone is arrested, blowing off that girl and then finding out her boyfriend is a violent psycho. Ben's quick rise and fall is one of those things.
Why? Oh let's play pretend for a minute.
DC black radio:
Host "In other news, the Washington Post has hired a "blogger" for a new column called Red America"
Co-Host: Red America? You mean red neck America
Host: Something like that. The guy's name is Ben Domenech. Seems he writes for something called Red State.
Co-Host: Red State, huh?
Host: Yeah. They didn't like the King funeral. Seems this guy called Mrs. King a communist.
Co-Host: What?
Host: Yeah, he said "the president was honoring a communist"
Co-Host: What? And he writes for the Washington Post?
Host: Yeah.
Co-Host: So we need to find out who his boss is and asked why he hired him.
Jim, you see where this is going. Flooded switchboards, threats to pull car ads, questions from politicians. A festival of ugly, all with your name on it. And for what? People who hate you, will continue to hate you and think you are anti-American. You risked your job for ungrateful snots who sneered at you.
I think I'd switch to tea and seltzer if I were you. The coffee isn't going to help you now. Just more acid. Think happy thoughts. You'll need to.
01) Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
02) Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
03) Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
04) Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
06) Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
07) Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
08) Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
09) Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10) Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
Unpaid DOD spokesman Josh Trevino wants us to believe that there is a victory possible in Iraq. And I agree. There will be a victory in Iraq.
But it won't be ours.
The problem is that we have at least three parties with three different ideas of victory. No matter what the Kurds say, their idea of victory says Kurdistan with a K
See the problem. No way but victory for the Kurds only starts in Iraq. If you follow the border, the majority of Kurdistan is in Turkey. But to ensure that, they want to take Kirkuk and it's oil. Which might be a problem.
But it gets better. Let's look at this ethnographic map to see why the Kurds talk of no end but victory.
The green and light green bits are Shia, the tan bits are Sunni and the light brown and brown bits are Kurd. Mixed in are the Turkomen. The Turks regard them as Turks;.
See, the Shia's en end but victory has them running the entire country. While the Sunnis want to retain their status, no matter what the cost.
So, everyone has a plan for victory, what it is not is sharing power in the US created parliament.
The situation is descending into madness which will quickly surpasss Lebanon, but all we get from the adminstration and their lackies, is a cry for good news.
The only problem is that the news is bad. Worse than the media has let on for some time.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 26 — American and Iraqi government forces clashed with Shiite militiamen in Baghdad on Sunday night in the most serious confrontation in months, and Iraqi security officials said 17 people had been killed in a mosque, including its 80-year-old imam.
Officials in Baquba said Sunday that 30 men had been beheaded.
The American military, clearly worried about exacerbating a combustible situation that many Iraqis are already describing as civil war, denied that American forces had entered the mosque. But it said in a statement that 16 insurgents had been killed and 15 captured in a nearby combat operation against a terrorist cell.
The differing versions of what happened seemed to raise a broader question about who is in control of Iraq's security at a time when Iraqi politicians still have not formed a unified government, sectarian tensions are higher than ever and mutilated bodies keep surfacing on the streets. On Sunday, Iraqi authorities found 10 bodies in Baghdad and said they were investigating a report that 30 men were beheaded near Baquba.
American officials are now saying that Shiite militias are the No. 1 problem in Iraq, more dangerous than the Sunni-led insurgents who for nearly the past three years have been branded the gravest security threat.
Shiite militias have been accused of running death squads that kidnap and brutalize Sunni men, and on Sunday the American militay said the cell its forces raided had kidnapped Iraq civilians.
But the deadly clash could reopen an old wound. The Iraqis who were killed had apparently worked for Moktada al-Sadr, a young radical Shiite cleric with ties to Iran who has led several bloody rebellions against American forces.
Mr. Sadr has recently become much more politically aggressive and he is considered a pivotal force in the maneuvering over the delayed formation of a new government.
Earlier on Sunday, a mortar shell nearly hit Mr. Sadr's home in the southern holy city of Najaf. Immediately he accused the Americans of trying to kill him.
American officials have been more overt in the past week than ever in blaming Mr. Sadr's militia for a wave of sectarian bloodshed that seems to have no end.
On Sunday night, American and Iraqi Army forces surrounded a mosque in northeast Baghdad used by Mr. Sadr's troops as a headquarters, Iraqi officials said. Helicopters buzzed overhead as a fleet of heavily armed Humvees sealed off the exits, witnesses said, and when soldiers tried to enter the mosque, shooting erupted, and a heavy-caliber gun battle raged for the next hour.
Speaking in an interview on the NY1 cable news station on Friday, Spitzer, the state's attorney general, said that if he is elected governor and finds that the impediments which have delayed the project are not resolved, he will move quickly to solve them.
Spitzer, who is leading in polls for the Democratic nomination for governor, expressed doubts about the massive 1,776-foot Freedom Tower.
"I certainly think that there's a very serious question about the economic viability of the Freedom Tower," Mr. Spitzer said. "The prospect that the Freedom Tower would be built and would sit there vacant as essentially a white elephant that would sap the entire cash available to build the other buildings, is something that is very problematic."
...................
In the NY1 interview, Spitzer said that if anyone is responsible for leaving the dispute unresolved, it's Gov. George Pataki. A Pataki spokesman, David Catalfamo, told The New York Times, "It must be campaign season, because it's the first time that I've heard Eliot Spitzer mention the words 'ground zero' in four years."
Because Pataki has had a stranglehold on Ground Zero since 2001. No one thought that the stagnation would continue for this long. It is clear that there is no one, single plan for the site, and last year Donald Trump jumped in and said to rebuild the towers to applause.
Yeah, he can be a dick, but his point was that something needed to be done and nothing is.
Everyone is at each other's throats, even the memorial is controversal, with police and fire demanding recognition for their members. Pataki wants to run for president, please, his inability to get this to work is amazing. Bloomberg and Spitzer are on the same page in wanting to Silverstein to go away. The great fear is that he will go bankrupt.
The plan to only build office space there is silly. The area is the last part of Manhattan to shut down at 5 PM. They need more there. People already live in some of the old office buildings near Wall Street, there has to be more than delis and the South Street Seaport. It would be nice to have it turn into a neighborhood.
As far as the 9/11 families go, some hate the memorial, some want it to be over. But the whole mess is just tiring, and now people are dropping dead because of the air in the days after the attack. A tiring, sad mess which seems is never going to end.
LONDON — In the weeks before the United States-led invasion of Iraq, as the United States and Britain pressed for a second United Nations resolution condemning Iraq, President Bush's public ultimatum to Saddam Hussein was blunt: Disarm or face war.
But behind closed doors, the president was certain that war was inevitable. During a private two-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Jan. 31, 2003, he made clear to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he was determined to invade Iraq without the second resolution, or even if international arms inspectors failed to find unconventional weapons, said a confidential memo about the meeting written by Mr. Blair's top foreign policy adviser and reviewed by The New York Times.
"Our diplomatic strategy had to be arranged around the military planning," David Manning, Mr. Blair's chief foreign policy adviser at the time, wrote in the memo that summarized the discussion between Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and six of their top aides.
"The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March," Mr. Manning wrote, paraphrasing the president. "This was when the bombing would begin."
The timetable came at an important diplomatic moment. Five days after the Bush-Blair meeting, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was scheduled to appear before the United Nations to present the American evidence that Iraq posed a threat to world security by hiding unconventional weapons.
Although the United States and Britain aggressively sought a second United Nations resolution against Iraq — which they failed to obtain — the president said repeatedly that he did not believe he needed it for an invasion.
Stamped "extremely sensitive," the five-page memorandum, which was circulated among a handful of Mr. Blair's most senior aides, had not been made public. Several highlights were first published in January in the book "Lawless World," which was written by a British lawyer and international law professor, Philippe Sands. In early February, Channel 4 in London first broadcast several excerpts from the memo.
Since then, The New York Times has reviewed the five-page memo in its entirety. While the president's sentiments about invading Iraq were known at the time, the previously unreported material offers an unfiltered view of two leaders on the brink of war, yet supremely confident.
Just today Blair was nattering on about continuing on to the end. So what regiment is his oldest son enlisting in? Light Infantry would be a good choice, unless he wants to be a sailor or Royal Marine. After all, if the princes can sign up for Sandhurst, why isn't Blair's oldest son.
An anonymous blog by a young woman in war-torn Iraq has been longlisted for BBC Four's Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction.
Baghdad Burning, a first-hand account written under the pseudonym Riverbend, is one of 19 books in contention.
Others include Alan Bennett's Untold Stories, a biography of 19th-Century cook and author Mrs Beeton and a study of post-war US-Soviet relations.
The winner of the £30,000 prize will be announced on 14 June.
If she wins this, she'll probably have to live in exile for years to come. I've always thought it would come down to this, Riverbend fleeing for her life, because the Iraq she wanted was never, ever going to happen, and her mere present in the Iraq which exists wasn't going to be viable.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- George Mason's players stood on the press table, waving their jerseys to the crowd. Coach Jim Larranaga walked around with the nylon net around his neck.
It won't be the same old schools from the same old conferences at this year's Final Four -- certainly not top-seeded Connecticut.
Buoyed by a partisan crowd and playing some 20 miles from their campus, 11th-seeded George Mason overcame huge disadvantages in size, athleticism and history Sunday to stun the Huskies 86-84 in overtime, ending a stranglehold that big-time programs have enjoyed for 27 years in college basketball's biggest showcase.
Improbable as it may seem, the powers-that-be are going to have to make room for a suburban commuter school from Fairfax, Va., that was a dicey choice to make the NCAA tournament as an at-large team.
"I was kidding with one of my assistants," Larranaga said, "We're not just an at-large team, we're an at-extra-large. And if we win today, we're going to be an at-extra-double-large. I can't tell you how much fun I'm having."
The Patriots overcame their deficiencies with heart and tenacity. They were never rattled, even when they trailed by 12 late in the first half and nine early in the second. They hit six straight 3-pointers in the second half, shot 5-for-6 in overtime and outrebounded UConn 37-34 even though the Huskies have three starters taller than any of the Patriots' frontcourt players.
There was also motivation from Larranaga, who fired up his team during timeouts by telling them that UConn's players didn't even know which conference George Mason is in.
"That's a little bit of disrespect," guard Tony Skinn said. "Coach told us the CAA stands for 'Connecticut Assassin Association."'
Of course, as more people are learning, CAA stands for Colonial Athletic Association, a league that has never had a team get this far before. The Patriots (27-7) are only the second double-digit seed to make the Final Four, matching LSU's run, also as an 11th seed, in 1986. They are the first true outsider to crash the quartet since Penn and Indiana State both got there in 1979.
This has been the most amazing tourney I've seen in years. There was a lot of debate about George Mason making it into the tourney, but the final four.
The last time I heard this much whining was when Europeans were bitching about the inclusion of the US and Senegal in the World Cup. All it took was one little victory against Portugal to shut people the fuck up. And watching Senegal run rings around other teams.
George Mason played up with UConn and that broke them. At the end of OT, they looked defeated, as in "how the hell did we wind up here, this is supposed to be over". George Mason was so stunned at winning, they were almost numb, very little jumping up and down. The same sort of surprise that you might feel when you wake up next to a supermodel, too stunned to jump, too happy to not keep smiling.
The NCAA had long devolved into the constest of the big schools, Mason's unexpected rise would for our English friends, be like Leeds winning the FA cup against Arsenal. Mason is a small school, but has benefitted from kids who have talent but were overlooked by the Duke and UConn's, and they have been changed by the flood of high school talent into the NBA. If Lebron James was at Ohio State, Carmello Anthony at Maryland or Virginia and Sebastian Telfair at 'Cuse or Georgetown, this would be a VERY different Final Four. Most of the big schools lack that game changing, championship winning star, who can now learn in the NBA.
Something, I think, should be banned, as it is for the NFL But that's another story.
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 25 — Mohannad al-Azawi had just finished sprinkling food in his bird cages at his pet shop in south Baghdad, when three carloads of gunmen pulled up.
In front of a crowd, he was grabbed by his shirt and driven off.
Mr. Azawi was among the few Sunni Arabs on the block, and, according to witnesses, when a Shiite friend tried to intervene, a gunman stuck a pistol to his head and said, "You want us to blow your brains out, too?"
Mr. Azawi's body was found the next morning at a sewage treatment plant. A slight man who raised nightingales, he had been hogtied, drilled with power tools and shot.
In the last month, hundreds of men have been kidnapped, tortured and executed in Baghdad. As Iraqi and American leaders struggle to avert a civil war, the bodies keep piling up. The city's homicide rate has tripled from 11 to 33 a day, military officials said. The period from March 7 to March 21 was typically brutal: at least 191 corpses, many mutilated, surfaced in garbage bins, drainage ditches, minibuses and pickup trucks.
There were the four Duleimi brothers, Khalid, Tarek, Taleb and Salaam, seized from their home in front of their wives. And Achmed Abdulsalam, last seen at a checkpoint in his freshly painted BMW and found dead under a bridge two days later. And Mushtak al-Nidawi, a law student nicknamed Titanic for his Leonardo DiCaprio good looks, whose body was returned to his family with his skull chopped in half.
What frightens Iraqis most about these gangland-style killings is the impunity. According to reports filed by family members and more than a dozen interviews, many men were taken in daylight, in public, with witnesses all around. Few cases, if any, have been investigated.
Part of the reason may be that most victims are Sunnis, and there is growing suspicion that they were killed by Shiite death squads backed by government forces in a cycle of sectarian revenge. This allegation has been circulating in Baghdad for months, and as more Sunnis turn up dead, more people are inclined to believe it.
"This is sectarian cleansing," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of Parliament, who has maintained a degree of neutrality between Shiites and Sunnis.
So if I drain all the tanks the illegals use to drink when they cross the desert, can I refill them with salt water. Give 'em a little flavor?
A Border War Tom Tancredo is pulling the immigration debate to the right—and away from Bush.
By Holly Bailey
Newsweek
Tancredo may not be a household name yet, but he's doing everything he can to change that. As the House and Senate debate the nation's immigration and border-security laws, the four-term Coloradan has positioned himself as the loudest, angriest voice against the estimated 11 million illegal aliens now living in the United States. They are "a scourge that threatens the very future of our nation," he says. He laments "the cult of multiculturalism," and worries about America's becoming a "Tower of Babel." If Republican presidential candidates don't put the problem atop the agenda in 2008, he says he'll run himself, just to force the front runners to talk about it. Not that he thinks he'd win the White House. He declares himself "too fat, too short and too bald" to be president. If the Republicans lose the election because he's too tough on the issue, he says, "So be it."
Not so long ago, Tancredo was regarded as little more than a noisy pest on Capitol Hill. His colleagues shook their heads at his tireless demands for crackdowns on American employers who hire illegals and his idea for a 700-mile-long fence along the Mexican border. But in recent months, some of those same Republicans have come to realize that, while Tancredo may be a crank, he is a crank with a large and passionate following
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Bush, forced to step up his own security rhetoric in response to the feud, is still hoping for a compromise. At an immigration meeting at the White House last week, the president said that "the debate must be done in a way that doesn't pit one group of people against another." But Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, a former Bush cabinet member who sides with the president on the issue, fears that's exactly what is happening. "Republicans have made significant gains [among Latinos]," he says, "and we're risking all of that by allowing ourselves to be positioned as anti-immigrant ... We are at great peril."
..................................... He's remained unapologetic about his views. In 2002, The Denver Post ran a human-interest story about a high-school honors student who couldn't get college financial aid because he was in the United States illegally. Tancredo tried to have the boy and his family deported. (He was unsuccessful.)
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The other side of the Southern Strategy was to appease white abti-Castro Cubans, and support white landowners in the Southwest and California. But since the GOP has the inability to learn, they forgot the last time immigrant bashing became an issue. Remember Prop 187? The law that made California blue. What they wanted to do was bar illegals from all services. Which was unconsititutional.
Now, like a fat, Western Jesse Helms, here comes Tom Tancredo.
He doesn't care about the fate of the party, he just wants them brown people gone. Only problem, they're the fastest growing group of Americans. And Chicanos with 200 years in the US don't like anti-immigration laws any more than the most recent fence jumpers. And as Prop 187 proves, they vote.
Oh yeah, the Catholic Church opposes this as well.
If Bush was smart, he'd call Tancredo out on his racism. But he won't, because the base will go nuts.
The smart Dem play is to offer a moderate bill, along the lines of Bush's, and the the GOP go to war.
It may seem funny that this is the ultimate outcome of the Southern Strategy, but it is. Most Americans forget how virulent anti-Mexican racism has been. It's different than anti-black racism, they were never segregated in the military, they didn't have the most onerous conditions of Jim Crow, but then black kids were never beaten in the LA County schools for speaking Spanish. HBO has a movie called "Walkout" about the rebellion of the students of the LA county schools to this second class treatment.
We forget that much of the Southwest was built on changing ownership of the land from small Mexican farmers and ranchers to big white farmers and ranchers. And that Mexicans were barred from jobs in the same way blacks were without the benefit of law.
My favorite story, which a book was written about, was when New York nuns sent Irish orphans to be raised by Catholic families in the Southwest. Only problem, the families were Mexican. Well, the white folks went batshit, got their guns, threatened the nuns and took the kids. How dare they let white kids be raised by Mexicans, was the thinking.
So in the end, what was done to blacks, would eventually affect the largest minority group, no matter who it was. Now it's Mexicans. The GOP thought they could use conservatism and religion to wedge in with Latinos. But as always, the racists raise their shiny heads and help turn the GOP into the white man's party. And of course, they could always hint that brown was better than black.
Now, even black pols, often prone to immigrant bash because of jobs, see what this is, the war against brown people. Tancredo gives the game up, and his buddy Lou Dobbs doesn't help matters.
A smart Republican would denounce the Minutemen, not ride shotgun with them. Not wage vengeful campaigns to deport teenagers, not do and say things which make it clear that we're not just talking about illegal immigration. When Tancredo opens his mouth about multiculturalism, which this country has always had, we know he's speaking code for "goddamn Mexicans are ruining the US and no more better come."
We need to get immigration policy away from fantasy and into reality, like as long as Mexico limits opportunities for metizos and Indians, we're going to get the ambitious ones and should have a plan for them to come legally and be paid fairly, driving up wages for everyone.
As long as immigration policy is based on thinly veiled race hatred and punative measures, we're not going to have an effective immigration policy. Local law enforcement doesn't like helping ICE now. Add felonies on it, they will like it even less.
Oh yeah., and we need one. Something about people crossing borders with intention to do harm.
I GOT back to Iraq two weeks ago, having been away more than a year. The first story I covered began with a tip that vigilantes had hanged four suspected terrorists from lamp posts in Sadr City, a Shiite slum. The minute I got to the scene, I realized I was stepping into a new Iraq. Another new Iraq, really; maybe even the third Iraq I have seen since I began reporting here in 2003.
Gone were the American tanks that used to guard the intersections. Instead, aggressive teenagers with machine guns and shiny soccer jerseys ruled the streets. They poked their heads into cars and detained whomever they wanted. There were even 8-year-olds running checkpoints, some toting toy pistols, others toting real ones. Whatever they carried, 4-foot-tall militias made me nervous. The streets now had a truly Liberian feel.
The episode was oddly symmetrical with a moment in 2004 when mobs in Falluja swarmed four American contractors and hung the bodies from a bridge. But there were a few big differences. For one, this wasn't Falluja, angry heart of the insurgency. This was Baghdad. And these weren't Americans dangling from rope. They were Sunni Arab Iraqis.
I had thought Iraq might be getting quieter. Fewer mortars were sailing into the Green Zone, where the Americans are based, and fewer suicide bombings were disrupting the morning rush. Even the airport road, the most dreaded strip of asphalt in the world, was doing better. It had been repaved and was flowing with traffic.
But soon I caught on. The violence had not declined. It had just turned inward. No longer was most of it pointed at the Americans, either directly or indirectly, as it had been during the invasion and when the insurgency exploded in 2004. Back then, if G.I.'s were not the targets, their helpers were — the Iraqi police, regional governors, Kurdish leaders, foreign civilians, anyone remotely connected to the "occupiers."
.................. Mass murder used to provoke some form of official reaction, however feeble. I remember seeing the Iraqi police seal off areas after big bomb attacks and poke around for evidence. Now, there are major crimes with no crime scenes. Very few of these mystery killings have been investigated, and it isn't for lack of witnesses. Many of these men were abducted in daylight, in public, in front of crowds. ..................
Of course, the old insurgency hasn't abated. Last week, 200 masked insurgents besieged a jail, killing more than a dozen guards and springing their comrades. A few days ago, one of our translator's uncles was killed when a box of sweets blew up in a tea shop. It seems as if half of our staff has had family murdered.
It is difficult to communicate just how violent Baghdad has become. A DVD was recently circulated in markets showing an imam being dragged behind a pickup truck. There was also a home video of a family of four, including a 10-day-old girl, all of them wrapped in plastic in the morgue.
Everyone has guns. We interviewed an educated woman who rides the bus with a loaded Glock pistol in her lap.
This is not to say life has ground to a halt. Stores are open, though the curfew has cut into business. Children go to school. The other day a mortar shell flew over a swing set and the children kept on swinging, even as a cloud of dust rose behind them.
I recently met a Sunni man who used to be virulently anti-American. He showed me postmortem pictures of his younger brother, who had been kidnapped by death squads and had holes drilled in his face.
Oddly enough, a reader posted that the Voice was running an article which linked the connections between the bar owning Dorrian family and Guiliani's staff and law firm. Briefly, former bouncer Darryl Littlejohn has been charged in the rape-murder of graduate student Imette St. Guillen. But the quesition remains about what his employers knew and did in the immidate aftermath of her appearance and how that links to former mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Flunking a Bar Exam After the killing of Imette St. Guillen, scrutiny for the Falls dynasty by Sarah Ferguson
Now Dorrian's whole block was lined with TV news trucks, come to see the dozen protesters demanding the bar answer to charges of misleading police and hiring Darryl Littlejohn, a seven-time violent felon who is now the prime suspect in the rape and murder of the 24-year-old St. Guillen. It's illegal for bars to employ felons.
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"I can't say anything about anything," Michael responded with an exasperated shrug, his face flushed, when asked about the public crucifixion of his family's bar dynasty.
State Liquor Authority records, though, have plenty to say. The files for the Falls and other bars and restaurants owned by members of the Dorrian family reveal that since 1996, the SLA has fined the family's enterprises a total of $29,500, for 19 offenses.
Nine of the incidents took place at Dorrian's Red Hand, the Upper East Side drinking mill made famous by the so-called "preppy murder" in Central Park. As many have noted, that 1986 killing bears an eerie similarity to the police's primary theory about St. Guillen's; it involves yet another beautiful young woman—Jennifer Levin—who was strangled by a man she'd met at a Dorrian-owned bar.
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SLA records indicate a continued slew of offenses, some standard for a bar, others more likely to halt a raised glass. The Red Hand has been popped numerous times for noise and disorderly premises—no big surprise for a saloon—but in 1998 was also cited for a violation known as "improper brand label." An SLA spokesperson explained that the bar had substituted one brand for another. The bar was cited for operating outside of licensed business hours in 2000 and 2003. And in 1997, it paid a fine of $10,000 for filing false tax returns.
Rebar and Suite 16, two former Chelsea nightclubs that Michael and brother John Dorrian operated at 127 Eighth Avenue under the corporate name Mac Daddy Inc., were together cited 10 times for violations that included "refilling/contaminated bottles" and selling to a minor. Rebar was cited for four assaults or altercations there between January 1998 and November 1999.
The family's trendy Park Avenue eatery Barna came out clean, as did Il Posto Accanto, the wine bar Michael recently sold in the East Village.
The Falls, which Michael opened with Daniel and chef John Kekalos in 2004, was cited on January 14, 2006, for selling booze to a minor. It has until March 29 to answer this charge. Meanwhile, outrage over management's conduct in the investigation intensified last week with the revelation that a second bouncer working at the club had a violent record. That bouncer, now a key witness for the prosecution, was also on duty the night St. Guillen disappeared.
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As owners, Michael, Daniel, and Kekalos could face penalties for not hiring licensed security guards, in addition to SLA violations for hiring convicted felons. If the Falls' liquor license were revoked, Michael and his partners could be barred from holding a liquor license anywhere for two years.
The Dorrian family's attorney, Daniel Gitner, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
In any case, the Alcohol Beverage Control Law says only that bars can't "knowingly" hire a felon, and they're not required to run background checks. Jack Dorrian told the New York Post that Littlejohn posed as a former U.S. marshal and showed them a fake badge when he applied. The other bouncer, Tim Catella, was charged in 2001 with two counts of assault and criminal possession of a weapon for beating a man with a bat and a flashlight. In a plea deal, he spent three years on probation.
One well-placed liquor industry source said he doubted that failing to hire licensed staff would prompt the SLA to shut the Falls. "It's like a slap on the wrist," he said.
"It's like they see themselves as above the law," says Soho resident Sean Brady, who lives behind the Falls. Brady says he spent months complaining about the Falls' loud and "egregiously bad" music, which he hears all night long because his loft shares a side wall with the bar.
Brady says Daniel promised repeatedly to hire sound and stereo experts to fix the problem. "They strung me out for months," he charges. "It was a total stonewall."
If the Dorrians are taking shelter behind a stone wall, it's a well-defended one. Their present attorney, Gitner, is the former assistant federal prosecutor for Manhattan who put Lil' Kim behind bars for perjury. Jack Dorrian's youngest daughter, Carol, is married to Anthony Carbonetti, former mayor Rudy Giuliani's chief of staff and current business partner at Giuliani Partners LLC. That helps explain why, in the initial days of the murder investigation, the Dorrian family was being advised by Daniel Connolly, a founding member of the firm, who was a top lawyer for the city during Giuliani's second term.
Jack's youngest son, Chris Dorrian, was a community liaison to the mayor's office during the first Bloomberg administration. And the two-story building where the Falls is located, 218 Lafayette Street, is owned by the family of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro and her husband, real estate mogul John Zaccaro. They've long been close to the Dorrian clan. Zaccaro's real estate office is on the second floor. Zaccaro and Ferraro's daughter runs a Web-based charity there.
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One of the things they're accused of is watering down booze or replacing good booze with cheaper, well, brands. Why would they do that? Profit at a bar with regular booze is simply stupid. A keg of Bud is $44, you get 150 16 ounce pints from each keg, most bars charge $4. A case of bud is $12 for 24 bottles, bottles in a place like the Falls goes for $5.
And with liquor, the profit is even greater. You can buy a well bottle of tequila for $7, each shot is 3 and you get 33 one ounce shots in a bottle. But when you get a $15 bottle of Jack or Jim Beam, the price goes up to $5. So you still make a killer profit. Messing with the drinks seems to be foolish, especially when you have clubs filled with patrons paying top dollar for drinks $5-6. You have to be some kind of dishonest to do that.
These people are connected out of the ass, and in the inevitable and well-deserved civil suit, a whole lot of people are going to be questioned.
Geraldo Rivera asked a really good question on his syndicated show: why aren't the Dorrians being indicted for obstruction of justice. Well, you have your answer. Connections.
WASHINGTON, March 25 — The telephone lines in the unassuming Houston offices of Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, have been sizzling in recent weeks as anxious Republican voters call to find out precisely where their tough-minded senator stands on illegal immigration.
Senator John Cornyn speaking to a Houston group about immigration.
Mr. Cornyn is a former state attorney general and a fiscal conservative, a Texan who wears cowboy boots with his pinstripes and prides himself on his 100 percent approval rating from the American Conservative Union.
But as the Senate prepares to wrestle this week with the question of legalizing much of the illegal immigrant population, Mr. Cornyn, like many Republicans, finds himself squeezed by warring factions in his own party.
President Bush focused on the issue in his weekly radio speech on Saturday, a day after protests in three cities by immigrant rights advocates. As Mr. Bush spoke, people gathered at rallies across the country, including hundreds of thousands of immigrant rights advocates in Los Angeles and a few hundred demonstrators in New York. [Page 31.]
Mr. Cornyn has been criticized on conservative talk radio and labeled a "sellout" on some Web logs for promoting legislation that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to remain in the United States for five more years. The proposal would also create a temporary worker program that would allow those immigrants and hundreds of thousands of foreigners abroad to work here legally for up to six years.
At the same time, business groups have been pressing him to go further by supporting legislation that would put their illegal workers on the road to citizenship.
The legislative battle has pitted Republican against Republican, with conservatives deriding guest worker programs as an amnesty for lawbreakers and calling for a wall to be built along the border with Mexico, and with business leaders pushing for legalization of the illegal workforce and the admission of thousands of foreign workers.
With the Senate expected to start voting on legislation as early as Tuesday and Congressional staff members negotiating furiously over the fine print, some lawmakers are struggling to find middle ground.
In his radio talk, Mr. Bush acknowledged the difficulty that lawmakers faced. "This is an emotional debate," he said. "America does not have to choose between being a welcoming society and being a lawful society. We can be both at the same time."
But finding that balance has been enormously difficult. When asked how he felt on a recent day when he had shuttled from a telephone interview on Fox News Radio to a luncheon with business executives, Mr. Cornyn said, "In between."
"I have people come to see me who say, 'The wall is the answer,' " Mr. Cornyn said as he settled into a leather couch in his office in Houston. "I hear others say we ought to be sympathetic, we ought to just let them stay and call them legal and declare an amnesty. And I don't think either of those alternatives are possible or viable.
"Sometimes they end up yelling at me," he said of his conservative constituents. "But my job, and our job in Congress, is to see the whole picture and to come up with a realistic consensus."
Mr. Cornyn acknowledged, however, that it would be difficult to reach given the deep divide within his party. "It's the hardest thing," he said. "I honestly don't think we'll know the outcome until we get there."
Too bad this debate is mostly informed by fantasy. We can't wall up the Mexican border and have it mean anything. Millions of employed, tax-paying immigrants aren't going anywhere except under dire force.
Everyone wants the illegals to solve this problem by going home, yet they still give them work. Pete King is an especially noxious person here. He plays the xenophobe card while Nassau has a booming Latino population, legal and illegal. If the locals didn't hire day laborers, would they be in the burbs? No.
Making illegal immigration a felony is the stupidest fucking idea I can imagine. What are they going to do, set up concentration camps to hold the guilty?
The LA Times reports that 500,000 people filled the streets of downtown Los Angeles today to protest the passage of proposed immigration reform bill HR 4437:
The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500,000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.
That 500,000 is a POLICE estimate, remember.
Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!).
"There has never been this kind of mobilization in the immigrant community ever," said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. "They have kicked the sleeping giant. It's the beginning of a massive immigrant civil rights struggle."
Many of the marchers were immigrants themselves -- both legal and illegal -- from Mexico and Central America. Some had just crossed the border, while others had been here for decades. There were construction workers and business owners; families with young children and people in wheelchairs.
So while I was out planting in my garden, running to OSH for potting soil, a lot of other people were out changing the world.
Amazing. Inspiring. Humbling.
Si se puede!, indeed!
As we call this: the GOP's race problem.
On one hand, they want to keep the fundies happy, on the other, they have to deal with reality, which is that our economy thrives on low cost labor from Mexico and Asia. This idea that we can turn millions of people into felons and build a wall to keep the brown people out is insane.
But, we're watching the GOP become the minority party in the US. Blacks are outraged after Katrina. Now, Latinos will be enraged over this.
What we learned this week and will learn over the next couple of weeks, is that the GOP base is crippling their ablity to grow, and cultural issues will not trump economic issues for minorities. I feel for Ken Mehlman. He's trying to save the GOP and Congress is killing his efforts. You can't say vote for us because we protect babies, but we want to jail your cousin Sergio for trying to make a living.
But what drives me nuts is that the assumption by the anti-immigrant caucus that Mexico and our southern neighbors are powerless.
All Mexico has to do to fuck us is refuse to accept arrested felon immigrants. What was Pete King do then, demand an invasion?
Mexico can hurt us simply by allowing the drug gangs to replace the Army and hunt down the Minutemen. What could we do? Go to war? Nope.
I'm a New Yorker, so I see this differently. The best thing we could do is provide a road to citizenship for the people here and arrest businessmen who hire future illegals.
The Times has an article on Michael Steele which mentions me obliquely. But given the way he campaigns, we can move away from race and on to character and tactics. He'd rather discuss race when it all boils down. I no longer have to mock him, I just have to report what he says.
There was one family-related topic I wondered how Steele would handle. It's not unusual for politicians to have embarrassing relatives, but Steele's ex-brother-in-law is Mike Tyson, who served time in prison for rape and, famously, bit part of an opponent's ear off. Steele didn't at all mind talking about him. He is a man of grand themes, and one of them is family — which in his mind Tyson still is. "Let me tell you about Mike Tyson," he began when I asked what it was like being the former champ's brother-in-law. He was smiling, and it was clear that the subject genuinely delighted him. "He is one of the most engaging and smartest guys I have ever had a chance to go toe to toe with in a debate. The first conversation I ever had with him, you know what we talked about? The philosophy of Mao Zedong."
He moved on that day from Fruitland to the even smaller town of Pittsville (and another sewage-treatment plant) and finally to Salisbury State University, and it was at that last stop, in front of an audience of students, that he showed yet another side of himself — the candidate as a man under siege, attacked for daring to blaze a new trail. "You know what it's like to be called an Uncle Tom because you're a black Republican?" he asked. He told them about what occurred in 2002 as he watched Ehrlich debate his Democratic opponent at Morgan State University in Baltimore. "Folks started throwing Oreo cookies at me" — the Oreo, black on the outside, white on the inside, being intended to slur someone who has betrayed his race.
The Oreos incident has been an off-and-on story for several years. An Ehrlich aide claimed that the cookies were "thick in the air like locusts," almost certainly an exaggeration. News accounts told of the cookies being "hurled" and Steele being "pelted." Democrats have charged Steele with inflating the episode to score political points, and some have privately hinted that maybe it never happened at all. When I asked Steele about it, he leaned over and spoke slowly and directly into my tape recorder to make his point. "It happened. I was there. O.K.?" He said he did not see the Oreos in the air, but when he got up, noticed them at his feet when he stepped on one and heard a crunching sound.
Other incidents are not in dispute. A liberal African-American blogger in New York posted a crude, doctored photo of Steele with the caption "I's Simple Sambo and I's running for the Big House" — easily ignored except that it triggered stories in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun and other papers that circulate in Maryland. Last fall, two staff members at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee resigned after it was revealed that they had obtained copies of Steele's credit report.
Steele is, of course, a big, inviting target. And fair game. There may also be a sense that he could unravel if pressed. He is sometimes careless with facts — at Salisbury State, he told students concerned with rising tuition that he had gone to college "in the days of 25 percent inflation" (it actually ranged between 6.5 percent and 13.6 percent during his college years at Johns Hopkins, from 1977 to 1981) — and he has a tendency to gravitate toward the kind of rhetorical minefields that more practiced public figures avoid. After speaking to a Jewish group in Baltimore last month, he had to apologize for seeming to draw a parallel between embryonic-stem-cell research and Nazi-era human experimentation. Two weeks later, at the tea shop in Prince George's County, he spoke about how black people do not always support black-owned businesses. "You know how it goes," he said. "Six months and it's gone. What happened to the chicken joint? The Chinese are now serving us chicken."
He seemed to catch himself heading into dangerous territory. "Nothing against the Chinese," he quickly added.
Whatever.
Steele is quickly shaping up to be an absolutely horrible candidate.
On the list of scary, crazy black people, Mike Tyson heads the list. If I were running for Senate in a blue state, as a Republican, I wouldn't talk about how great my convicted rapist brother-in-law was. Does he think that's gonna go unremarked?
Then the slip about the Chinese was not good either.
Let's get this clear, anyone can be a racist, black, white, latino. When you imply that a Chinese owned business is less desireable than a black one, you're being stupid.
I won't lie, batting him around for being an Uncle Ruckus clone is amusing, but is now irrelevant. The more he opens his mouth, the bigger the disaster coming is.
The whole stem cell thing was amazing. This is an educated man, yet he's amazingly careless with words. Some call that lack of polish, but it could also be a second-rate mind. It seems that he's unaware of other opinions. That crack might go down in a barber shop, but an elected official is held to a higher standard.
Steele isn't ready for prime time, regardless of his craven loyalty to the GOP. If he was a Dem, I'd make just as much fun of a campaign this doomed.
Don't drink in a Dallas bar if you like not getting arrested. The Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission is now arresting drunk people in bars and bartenders as well. Let me put it this way, if that was last week, Jen would have been in jail and I probably would have as well. We won't even talk about my 20's, the last time my friend came up from Miami or a barbecue we had a couple of years back. And people are pissed. Lawmakers to review bar busts
Public floods TABC with e-mails; legislators to review program
08:53 AM CST on Saturday, March 25, 2006
By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Public intoxication busts of bar patrons by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission elicited a blast of indignant – even vicious – e-mails and calls from citizens Friday – to the agency, to journalists, and to elected officials who pledged to look into the arrests.
"I'm getting all those same e-mails, the Nazi, Taliban, Gestapo e-mails," said commission spokeswoman Carolyn Beck. "I don't really understand the hateful outrage. I don't understand, 'Die in a fire.' "
That e-mail traffic came after news reports about a stepped-up liquor-law enforcement program that has included arrests this month of patrons sitting drinking at establishments in Irving. Among those arrested was an Arkansas man who drank several beers at a hotel restaurant before he retired for the night to his room in the same hotel.
Ms. Beck said the arrests are part of a larger effort to rein in people who could be a danger to themselves or others – especially by driving drunk. In the six months ending in February, the agency issued 2,281 criminal citations, nearly double the amount for the same period the previous year.
Legislators who oversee the commission said they generally agreed with the agency's increased emphasis on public safety, including the attempt to nab potential drunken drivers early. That's why lawmakers gave the commission more than 100 new employees.
The commission was up for a periodic legislative review last year, meaning it would be eliminated if it wasn't explicitly approved by the Legislature. A complex bill to overhaul the agency and alcohol rules eventually failed, and the commission's life was extended for two years, with the understanding that its fate would be reconsidered in 2007.
But, the lawmakers said, accounts of the arrests suggest the enforcement program should be reviewed before next year, both to check for abuses and to measure its effectiveness. Even if the busts are legal, the question is whether they are the best use of the commission's resources, several said.
"Somebody hanging around the hotel, a little stumbling on the way to their room? I don't think that was what we were focusing on," said Rep. Peggy Hamric, R-Houston, who authored the proposed rewrite of the statute authorizing the agency.
Rep. Kino Flores, chairman of the House Licensing and Administrative Procedures, said he plans to call a meeting next month to examine the alcohol commission's work.
"We're looking at it and we're going to be looking at it: Are we going too far, or do we need to go further?" the Mission Democrat said.
Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, was instrumental in getting the increased staffing, as a member of both the powerful Senate Finance Committee and the Criminal Justice Committee, which oversees the alcohol commission.
Although he agreed hearings are merited, he defended the principle of in-bar citations.
"Even though a public drunk is not planning on driving, that could change in an instant," he said. "There is certainly potential danger."
Mr. Whitmire said lawmakers should examine whether the agency, which is funded by fees it collects, is motivated to stricter enforcement by fiscal concerns.
Whitmire is an idiot. People have a right to drink and what's worse, is that people arrested were hotel guests. What were they going to do, drive up the elevator?
James Ragland: Despite furor, agency intends to win bar fight
10:16 PM CST on Friday, March 24, 2006
Big Brother has gotten mean and sneaky.
In case you hadn't heard, you can't get wasted in a Texas drinking hole these days without fear of going to jail.
And your bartender might be hauled off with you.
The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is cracking down on public intoxication by going right where you'd expect to find somebody who may have had one too many – bars and nightclubs.
Apparently, the agency loves to shoot fish in a barrel.
Jokes aside, the campaign has caused a public uproar the likes of which I haven't seen around these parts in quite some time.
Within hours after The Dallas Morning News wrote about the crackdown, dozens of e-mails came pouring in yesterday against the TABC.
Folks are outraged, accusing the TABC of "Gestapo-like" practices, of trying to usher in a new era of alcohol prohibition, of being too lazy to go after drunks causing real problems.
Those were the nicer ones.
The TABC's district offices have been flooded with calls across the state.
Still, the agency isn't backing down. Capt. David Alexander, the man in charge of the North Texas region, said he isn't the least bit embarrassed by all the national attention the campaign is drawing.
"We don't feel embarrassed or ashamed, and we feel like we're making a difference by holding the bars accountable and reducing the potential for DWIs," Capt. Alexander said in a telephone interview, one of the countless media calls he has fielded.
Look, I'll give him this much. Capt. Alexander makes a compelling argument for cracking down on bars that defy state laws by selling drinks to patrons who seem like they've had too much to drink.
The way the TABC figures it, if it can cut down on the number of tipsy people leaving bars and restaurants, it can reduce the number of DWI-related accidents and fatalities.
That's an admirable goal. Plus, the truth is, public intoxication is illegal, too – and to the surprise of several people I talked to yesterday, bars are public places.
Still, you have to draw the line somewhere.
Problem is, the TABC has drawn its line too far by taking it upon itself to start arresting bar patrons who aren't causing any disturbance, especially if they're not planning to get behind the wheel.
That's apparently what happened to Burton Byers. He was drinking beer at the hotel he was staying at in Irving when police approached him. Undercover alcohol commission agents had ratted him out, identifying him as intoxicated either because of his behavior or because he'd had a few beers.
The Arkansas aircraft repairman was taken outside, handcuffed and sent to jail, where he posted $360 bond and was released. He later lost his job, he said, in part because of the arrest.
For some reason, Dallas residents don't like this.
Remind me never to patronize a Texas bar again. That means I won't be paying taxes on those drinks, and the bars will lose the income. If enough people like me do that, could be trouble for Texas. Don't you Texans have better places to put your law enforcement dollars than arresting people for drinking in bars?
March 24, 2006 07:33 p.m.
If bar patrons want to be considered a protected class then maybe they should start acting like it? I have been to bars, and it is a fact most people there have too much to drink. The law says you cannot be drunk in public. If they don't like living by the law then maybe we need to close bars down across the board?
March 24, 2006 06:15 p.m.
Well I may not be able to have a night out with some good friends and drinks anymore but at least I can still get state ID card that lets me shoot a man dead if he seems threatening to me.
March 24, 2006 06:08 p.m.
So is this the same freedom that our forefathers fought for? Or even the soldiers in Iraq? It seems like every year, we loose a little bit of our precious freedom. Don't be surprised when an uprising occurs in the USA. I have always said that police are those same people that were picked on in high school, and this is their revenge!
March 24, 2006 05:13 p.m.
This type of system is too subjective. It leaves room for discrimination, weighing in on the side of law enforcement. There are also privacy issues involving the act of being surveilled in a drinking establishment. However, the high rate of alcohol related fatalities in Texas is disturbing and should be addressed. Perhaps a vigorous awareness program is a better idea. The few statistics I've heard as a result of this controversy, speak loud and clear: we might not all drink in Texas bars but we must all occupy the same public roads and highways.
March 24, 2006 03:43 p.m.
Here is an easy answer. Write and e-mail your Cnongressman/woman...demand they find another less invasive way to trap public drunkeness and if as many people create outcry as those who write these comments. Than maybe this will reverse the course. Use popular soveriegnty to your advantage!!
March 24, 2006 03:40 p.m.
Completely outrageous and appalling. Some poor guy loses his job because he drank beer at a bar? Arrested while IN the bar? If alcohol is legal then it is legal. Period. What's next? Cops arresting people for having a 6 pack in their shopping cart at Kroger?
March 24, 2006 03:37 p.m.
For anyone commenting on this story and mentioning drunk driving, please re-read the story and pay attention! This is NOT about driving while drunk. There is a HUGE difference in the danger level between operating a two ton motor vehicle while drunk and just walking around a bar or other public area while drunk. It is not at all uncommon for people to drink in a bar and then walk or take a taxi home. Its worth our tax dollars to get the drunks off the road, but trying to arrest them in bars strikes me as a waste of time and money. Further more, very few people, including TABC officers, can really tell when another person is intoxicated unless that other person is so intoxicated that they are falling down drunk. If they are going to enforce this law, they better be prepared to offer proof of intoxication, and that means performing a breathalyzer test.
March 24, 2006 03:12 p.m.
Hassle in this case. this guy had a room at the hotel. I could understand if the commission officials wanted to stand outside the door and catch people trying to leave in a vehicle, that is totally understandable. But at this establishment if you are staying at the hotel you don't even have to go outside to get to your room. I know because I enjoy a few beers or six myself from time to time at the Circle Spur (Clarion) in Irving.
STILLWATER, Okla. — Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told a crowd of about 3,000 people at Oklahoma State University that he won't contemplate a 2008 presidential bid until after November's elections.
Giuliani, who gained international attention in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, said it's important for the nation's security that Republicans retain control in Congress.
“I want to make sure that I can do everything that I can to help my party hold onto the House and the Senate because I think it's very, very important to continue the effort that we're making against terrorism, to have the commitment that we have in Iraq,” Giuliani said during a speech Friday at OSU's Gallagher-Iba Arena.
“After the 2006 election, then I'll think about whether I should run for president, whether it makes sense,” he said. “We have a lot of really good candidates, some people who at least are also being talked about as candidates, and some of them are very good friends of mine. So there's a lot of thinking that goes into that, and I probably won't decide something like that until next year.”
Giuliani, who was paid $100,000 from OSU student fees for his speech, said it is imperative the United States remain committed to the president's goal of establishing an accountable government in Iraq.
He won't run. He talks big, but he won't make the leap when he can collect big pimpin' money and avoid questions about everything from race to the debacle which is 9/11.
I think he's waiting to see if the Dems rampage and Bernie gets indicted myself.
"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty." President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, says "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of SouthDakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."
When Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1215 into law it effectively banned all abortions in the state with the exception that it did allow saving the mother's life. There were, however, no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. His actions, and the comments of State Senators like Bill Napoli of Rapid City, SD, set of a maelstrom of protests within the state.
Napoli suggested that if it was a case of "simple rape," there should be no thoughts of ending a pregnancy. Letters by the hundreds appeared in local newspapers, mostly written by women, challenging Napoli's description of rape as "simple." He has yet to explain satisfactorily what he meant by "simple rape."
...........................
Strong words from a very strong lady. I hope Ms. Fire Thunder challenges Gov. Rounds and the state legislators on this law that is an affront to all independent women.
(Tim Giago is the president of the Native American Journalists Foundation, Inc., and the publisher of Indian Education Today Magazine. He can be reached at [najournalists@rushmore.com]
Napoli is a cretin. I hope he isn't left explaining to a traumatized relative why she has to bear a rapist's baby
A man with no arms has been caught speeding at 121 km/h (75 mph), according to police in New Zealand.
The driver, who used one foot to steer and another to operate the pedals, told officers he was born with no arms but had been driving for years.
The 32-year-old had passengers in the car when he was stopped on a highway near Papamoa in the Bay of Plenty area.
Police fined the unemployed man NZ$170 (£60) and banned him from driving, local media reported.
'Shocked officer'
The driver, whose name has not been published, was going well over the speed limit of 100 km/h (60 mph) when he was stopped by police on Thursday. .......................
The driver told police he had never held a driving licence.
This is NOT a meeting of the Red State board. How can you tell?
Well, there's no waving Stars and Bars for one thing. And noBox Turtles
Mike Krempasky, responsible for the sewer which is now the imploding Red State, had a few words to say about the embarassment which is now Augustine-Ben Domenech. We don't link to hate sites, but these are his words.
On behalf of RedState By: krempasky · Section: Miscellania
A young man took something and called it his own. He owes apologies to those writers, his editors, and especially his friends who have rushed to his defense in the past 48 hours. It is an embarrassing offense -- and one rightly criticized.
All of the leadership of RedState has struggled mightily over the past few days, and have tried at every step to take the right course of action. Now that the story is complete, we can move on.
If you, as many have done, dedicate thousands of man-hours to scrutinizing of his life's work, you'll find two things: First, you'll find several instances of this behavior, some attributable to youth, and some not. Second, you'll find an amazingly talented writer, a man of principle, and an earnest young activist seeking not to advance himself -- though advance he did -- but the things he believed in.
Certainly it may seem strange today to describe him as a "man of principle." But those who know Ben -- and all of us on the RS leadership team do -- know that he is passionate in his beliefs. They also know that he is human. It was ignoring this humanity that led to our earlier posts about the situation. It is fitting then, that he chose “Augustine” as his nom de plume here at RedState – for who could serve as a better reminder of the full potential of fallibility and sin – and yet existing within that peril - real hope of forgiveness.
And for his failing, his career is in ruins, and his public reputation is in tatters. It is a long road back for Ben Domenech. And he's going to pay a steep price to regain lost trust among colleagues, readers, and friends.
And you know what? He'll take the time to wander in the wilderness as he rightly should. He'll walk that road. The least the rest of us can do is be waiting for him at its end. So today, the world thinks ill of Ben Domenech. But perhaps it should step back a bit. His crime was not mortal, and his character is not irredeemable. Indeed, most of his friends believe this episode a _deviation_ from a core character that is fundamentally good. He is my friend. He is our friend and will remain so. He needs some time away from this – and he’ll get it in the form of a leave of absence.
Putting aside the charge for which Ben has been pilloried and you're left with is a particular group of critics. Unlike Ben, there is far less hope for their redemption. You see - before they settled on the attacks on his writing - they spent three days proving that they are the lowest of the low. Charges of racism were born of poor reading comprehension. Threats of violence. Obscene commentary about his mother, his sister, his father. Loathesome, vile, and disgusting - their contempt for civil behavior surpassed only by the emptiness of their own souls. These are a people that see a man who gives up drinking in the middle of his life for the sake of his family, and respond by creating rumors of cocaine addiction. These are ignoramuses that think portraying an African-American politician as Sambo is appropriate, as long as the critics are liberal and the target is a Republican.
Our critics can raise their glasses and toast to what they think is success – tearing down a flawed conservative. But therein lies their greatest weakness: destroying a conservative is not to destroy conservatism. And while they put all their energy and venom into this campaign, it is worth remembering that for all the noise – they have yet to present a real alternative to an America that rests on the foundation of freedom, free markets and family. Against that, the only answer they have is yet another personal attack.
Are we talking about me, motherfucker?
Ok.
So let's talk.
First, Mike, it's really simple. Linking black crime to birth rates is racist at it's core. Why? Uh, because there is no evidence that black children will commit crime or their not being born will prevent crime
People who are poor and black are a drag on society. We would all be better off if there were fewer of them. Since we have, with little success, spent trillions of dollars over the past several decades trying to make poor blacks non-poor, it is time we recognize that there are more efficient means of eliminating the drag. Stated so bluntly, many readers might find that way of putting the matter morally problematic. The extermination of anti-social elements does, after all, have a somewhat controversial history. One thinks, perhaps inevitably, of the Holocaust, but it did not start or stop there. Six years ago, economist Steven Levitt and law professor John Donohue sparked a brouhaha with their claim that abortion is probably the greatest crime-prevention measure ever invented. Now that argument has received renewed currency in the bestselling book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Levitt and his co-author Stephen Dubner. In recent years there has been a 30- to 50-percent drop in crime, and many explanations are offered: new policing methods, more than two million people behind bars, the drop-off in the use of crack, and on and on. But a careful analysis of the data, say Levitt and company, indicates that the biggest factor, far and away, is that the millions of young men most likely to commit crimes were killed early on. ............................ notice that many other commentators make a point of saying that this discussion is not about the rightness or wrongness of abortion.It just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime. I do not question the research or logic of Levitt's argument. If a specifiable group is inordinately responsible for a social problem, it follows that eliminating a large number of people belonging to that group will reduce the problem. It is hard to argue with that. What is morally odious is the cool and disinterested way in which the commentariat is discussing what might fairly be described as racial cleansing.
Since you insist I misread this, let's deal with the assumptions here. I'll even color code it for your sorry ass. Oh, by the way Mike, I'm old enough and dealt with enough white people, and have enough of an education to know when an argument is offensive. And if this was the ONLY link to his racism, I might believe you, but it's not. But we'll save that for the end.
1) Why is black included. While Neuhaus may be pro-life, this comes from the racist assumption that poor blacks are a special drain on society. Hmmm. Why is that? Is it because he wants to shock the audience? Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact is that largest group of poor in this country is white women. Aren't they a drag as well, or does race obliviate that. At best one can say the choice was unfortunate and a failed attempt to garner sympathy for his position
2) The idea that most poverty money went to blacks is, wel,l comical. The average welfare recipient in America is a white single mom. This is not an argument based on fact, Mike. It is fact free. Here's a handy chart Since it's a bit hard to read, Mike, the blues are white, the reds are black. What the bar chart shows is both the percentage of people who are poor within their population, and those in the general population. What it shows, Mike, is that more Latinos are poor as a percentage of Latinos than blacks are poor than blacks. So why aren't the abortion of Latinos a way to eliminate crime?But then, you'll notice the second chart which show whites are a third more of the poor than blacks, and that's with only 10 percent of the white population regarded as poor.So using this logic, one could say aborting whites would eliminate far more poor people than blacks. Another chart shows the overall decline of poverty in all populations
Law enforcement agencies that contributed arrest data to the UCR Program reported information on the age, sex, and race of the persons they arrested. According to the 2004 data, adults accounted for 84.2 percent of arrestees nationally. (See Table 38.)
A review of arrest data by age from 2003 to 2004 showed that arrests of adults increased 1.6 percent. Arrests of adults for property crimes increased 2.1 percent, but arrests of adults for violent crimes dropped 1.6 percent over the same time span. In contrast to the 2-year arrest trend of adults, the arrest total for juveniles in 2004 decreased 1.7 percent from the 2003 figure. Over the same 2-year period, arrests of juveniles for violent crimes declined 1.0 percent and for property crimes dropped 2.9 percent. (See Table 36.)
By gender, 76.2 percent of arrests in 2004 were of males. Males accounted for 82.1 percent of the total number of arrestees for violent crimes and 68.1 percent of the total for property crimes. (See Table 42.)
A review of the 2004 arrest data by race indicated that 70.8 percent of arrestees were white, 26.8 percent were black, and 2.4 percent were of other races (American Indian or Alaskan Native and Asian or Pacific Islander). Of all arrestees for violent crimes, 60.9 percent were white, 36.9 percent were black, and the remainder were of other races. Of all arrestees for property crimes, 69.3 percent were white, 28.2 percent were black and the remaining 2.5 percent were of other races. Whites were most commonly arrested for driving under the influence (893,212 arrests) and drug abuse violations (821,047 arrests). Blacks were most frequently arrested for drug abuse violations (406,890 arrests) and simple assaults (288,286 arrests). (See Table 43.)
Levitt doesn't say black, and for a good reason, more whites are arrested for crimes and aborting white babies would be far more likely to reduce the rate of crime. But that isn't the argument Neuhaus makes, is it?
Then. his logic jumps into the river and goes for a swim.
According to Human Rights Watch working off the Bureau of Justics Statistics, blacks are far more likely to be jailed for offenses whites are not
Since most inmates are adult men, an even more significant measure of the extent of racial disparities in state prison populations and of the sheer magnitude of black incarceration is obtained from comparing the racially disaggregated incarceration rates of men over the age of eighteen.27 In no state are black men incarcerated at rates even close to those of white men (Figure 4). Nationwide, black men are incarcerated at 9.6 times the rate of white men. In eleven states, black men are incarcerated at rates that aretwelve to twenty-six times greater than those of white men (Table 5). Thus, in Minnesota, the state with the greatest racial disparity in incarceration, a black man is 26.8 times more likely to be in prison than a white man. In Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, a black man is more than fifteen times more likely to be in prison than a white man. In the District of Columbia, black men are incarcerated at 49 times the rate of white men.
The rate at which black men are incarcerated is astonishing. There are 4,630 black men in prison nationwide per 100,000 black men in the population, whereas the rate for white men is 482.28 In ten states and the District of Columbia, black men are incarcerated at staggeringly high rates that range from 5,740 to 7,859 per 100,000. In contrast, the range among the ten states with the highest rates of white male incarceration is 620 to 1,151. The highest rate of white male incarceration (1,151) is lower than the lowest rate of black male incarceration (1,195). According to Department of Justice calculations, if current rates of incarceration remain unchanged, 28.5 percent of black men will be confined in prison at least once during their lifetime, a figure six times greater than that for white men.29
Because of their extraordinary rate of incarceration, one in every 20 black men over the age of 18 is in a state or federal prison, compared to one in every 180 whites. In certain states, the incarceration of black men reaches devastating levels: in Oklahoma and Iowa one in every thirteen black men is in state prison; in Rhode Island, Texas and Wisconsin, the figure is one in every fourteen (Table 6).
Mike, you can see where this is going. Blacks are not more likely to commit crime than whites, they are far more likely to be arrested and jailed for it. So the supposition that blacks are largely responsible for crime and then aborting black babies would solve the crime problem are wrong on their face. Levitt specificially doesn't talk about race and Neuhaus's logic is steeped in racism.
Now you can try that misreading bullshit with someone who can't read, but as these little charts show, Neuhaus was at best, sloppy in his logic, because he correlates race and crime in a way no one else does outside the Pioneer Fund and Charles Murray.
But I think young Ben posted that up because HE misread it, and liked the idea of calling blacks criminals. A famously lazy mind like his might make that assumption, despite the facts. Why would I think that? Well, because he called Coretta Scott King a communist and praised Jefferson Davis. No matter how you cut it, Mike, that shit is just racist.
I mean, YOU don't believe the Kings were communists? Right?
Now it's show and tell time:
This was a billboard posted around the South. They even had postcards made.
What was this really about?
Well, Mike, it centers around the Highlander Folk School (now Highlander Education and Research Center). Why was it called communist? Red banners? Support for the Soviet Union in the Great Patriotic War?
The Highlander Folk School at Monteagle, Tennessee, has earned its bad reputation over a long period of years as a result of its left wing programs, the Communist-front taint of its leadership and the disgraceful conduct of school leaders when called upon by congressional committees to answer justified questions about its operations.
More recently, attention has been centered on Highlander Folk School because of its emphasis on forcing racial integration and the accompanying deterioration of harmony and disruption of goodwill upon the South. It is a gathering place for leaders in agitation of racial issues. When criticism arises, the school has always been able to count upon statements of defense from a clique of left-wing "do gooders" whose prominent positions in various fields have been tarnished by their misuse of them in this and similar respects.
It is not at all surprising, but is noteworthy, that one of Highlander's integration workshops this year will be addressed by none other than Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt's name long has been linked with the school, she having been one of its early contributors and sponsors.
Mrs. Roosevelt's participation in the Highlander Folk School program will not raise either its reputation or hers. But considering both the school's record and Mrs. Roosevelt's record, their new association will probably damage neither, since both already have sunk so low.
That's right, Eleanor Roosevelt was supporting "communists" by supporting intergration.
It seems anyone who supported the school was a communist. Even a first lady. Might the term "communist" be used for another, darker, purpose here, Mike? Tarnish the idea of integration?
Frustrated by the continued reluctance of existing organizations to overcome racial barriers to change, Highlander's teachers began holding workshops on public school desegregation in 1953, nearly a year before the U.S. Supreme Court's momentous decision in Brown v. Board of Education and the subsequent emergence of the Civil Rights movement in the South. Residential workshops gradually encompassed the challenges of community-wide integration. The sessions attracted hundreds of black and white activists including, shortly before the Montgomery bus boycott, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. Highlander-sponsored Citizenship Schools, first held in 1957 on the South Carolina Sea Islands, taught thousands of blacks in Tennessee, Georgia, and Alabama the literacy skills they needed to secure the right to vote. In the early 1960s, as sit-in protests erupted in Nashville and across the South, college students gathered at the folk school to explore the possible directions and goals for a new era of black protest; they also learned "freedom songs" adapted by Highlander musicians, including "We Shall Overcome." Through these programs Highlander became the educational center of the early Civil Rights movement.
The folk school's involvement in the southern labor and Civil Rights movements earned it both accolades and enmity. Even as Eleanor Roosevelt, Reinhold Niebuhr, educators, ministers, union leaders, philanthropists, and reform groups voiced their support, staff members endured a barrage of threats and denunciations from industrialists, politicians, self-styled patriotic groups, and journalists for unfriendly newspapers. As Highlander became more prominent in the struggle for racial justice, outraged southern white segregationists launched a sustained assault against what they described as a "Communist training school." Although faculty members defended the school's ideology and pedagogy eloquently and often persuasively in the face of such attacks, their understandable, but loose institutional practices made them vulnerable in the 1950s. Following a headline-grabbing investigation by state legislators, a police raid, and two dramatic trials, the state of Tennessee revoked Highlander's charter and confiscated its property in 1962.
This did not mean the end of Highlander. Before the final court decision on the folk school's fate, Highlander officers secured a charter for a new institution to be named the Highlander Research and Education Center. First based in Knoxville, and since 1972 near New Market, the center continues to pursue, in a new context, the folk school's original purpose, as given in its mission statement: to educate "rural and industrial leaders for a new social order" while enriching "the indigenous cultural values of the mountains."
Now, Mike, see the problem here? It's a pattern. He misreads a poorly thought out anti-abortion column and posts it without comment, he called Coretta Scott King a communist on the day of her funeral and gives a lame refutation of it under pressure. And toss on Jeff Davis, and you have someone who has a problem with race. Specifically, the equal and full rights of African-American citizens of the United States
But that's hardy unknown at that little sewer you run. Mr. Erickson's little voter suppression program, Blanton's unvarnished racism. It seems you've got quite the Klavern over there. Box Turtle Ben's just brought it all to light in the worst way possible.
Now about Michael Steele
Michael Steele was called Sambo because he refused to condemn Bob Erlich attending an all-white country club. He defended this by saying "it's not a big deal" . Well, it was and it is. Then, in a bid to garner white sympathy, he made up an incident about being bombarded with Oreos at Morgan State. The audience didn't see any flying Oreos, the janitor didn't clean any up, but this fiction was repeated as fact by the GOP.
You may not like it, but black people hold a dim view of those who grovel for white acceptance at any price. Upon reflection, I would not have used the term Sambo. Because it wasn't nasty enough. I will now refer to him as Uncle Ruckus, the white-worshiping, self-hating character from the Boondocks. See the show, and you'll wish I'd stuck to calling him Sambo, Mike.
Since you run a 527, how much money have YOU raised for Mike Steele? I bet not enough for a coke and a smile. Why? Well, you guys seem to have an issue with black votes, insulting them, working to deny them , a whole nasty sewer of race hate under the barest cloak of denial.
But I feel for you. Because your clients at Wal-Mart Stores (you can google for contact info) and the RNC have to wonder what the fuck you and the Klavern are up to. You're supposed to keep this stuff among you white folks, not post it online.
We know about your problems with Ruffini and the rest of the crew at the RNC, Had quite a chuckle over them. Trying to get them to buy into the net without oversight.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING?
They can't trust you to buy a fish sandwich given the antics of your crew. You'd probably come back with burnt wings or a hot dog. This week, Red State went from an annoyance to a liability. Because your guys are spoiled little conservatives with no sense that the country or the world is larger than you.
Yeah, about Monday. Your clients, especially Wal Mart and the RNC, are gonna have some sharp questions for you, or not, but if I were you , I wouldn't count on the not.
Why? Because both groups have their little black problems, Wal-Mart several class action lawsuits, the GOP, Bush's 2 percent favorable rating among black voters. What they don't need is association with a barrel of racists, spewing hate and working to restrict voter rights.
You, through your association with Red State, might be a liability. After all, people are going to wonder why they should pay you to give them problems. You didn't write the stuff, but you founded it. And as Garance Franke-Ruta wrote, you guys are fast becoming the best argument for regulating the blogs.
Didn't count on that, huh?
Malkin and the NRO ran from you like you were a suicide bomber. Their lack of support was quite amusing.
And your cult worship of the dry drunk in the White House would be funny, if people weren't dying.
But you know something, even though Box Turtle Ben is an unreconstructed racist with some very sad ideas, that isn't the worst thing he's done, not even the chronic and ongoing word theft. It was that damn Marine Sniper cup.
You should have told him to stop selling that long ago. Because unless he's in the Marine Reserve and been to the school at Quantico, he has no right to it, None. There's a war on and if he likes Marine snipers so much, there's a billet for him at MCRD Parris Island so he can start on that road.
Ignorant racism and pathetic explainations, I can deal with. Trying to claim the glory of men who are at risk every day and some who have died doing their duty, while sititng on your ass and letting daddy get you jobs, is the worst thing of all.
A 24-year-old blogger for The Washington Post, Ben Domenech, resigned yesterday after being confronted with evidence that he had plagiarized articles in other publications. .......................
He explained the passage that appeared to be copied from Mr. O'Rourke's book by saying that Mr. O'Rourke gave him permission.
Contacted at his home in New Hampshire, Mr. O'Rourke said that he had never heard of Mr. Domenech and did not recall meeting him.
"I wouldn't want to swear in a court of law that I never met the guy, Mr. O'Rourke said of Mr. Domenech, "but I didn't give him permission to use my words under his byline, no."
Mr. Domenech works full time at Regnery Publishing, a publisher of conservative authors like Michelle Malkin and Tony Blankley. Ms. Malkin, whose latest book was edited by Mr. Domenech, posted a column on her blog yesterday that described the evidence of plagiarism as "damning" and called for Mr. Domenech to resign from The Post.
A spokeswoman for Regnery, Angela Phelps, said that while Mr. Domenech remained an employee, the company would look into the accusations.
Mr. Domenech said he received an e-mail message from Kathryn Lopez of National Review, putting him on notice that the magazine planned to review his previous work.
Glenn Reynolds, who writes the blog Instapundit, said the bloggers were "motivated by a desire to get" Mr. Domenech.
"They didn't like him because he was a conservative and he was given real estate at The Washington Post," he said. "Their goal was to find something they could use to get rid of him, and they succeeded."
Mr. Domenech addressed his detractors yesterday in a blog post on RedState.com, where he will remain a contributor. "To my enemies: I take enormous solace in the fact that you spent this week bashing me, instead of America," he wrote.
So Glenn, if I hand in all of my partner Jen's papers from law school, can I get a JD from the University of Tennessee?
Actually, after being turned on by his friends on the right, he's now taking a leave of absence.
The Times, after a year of eating Judy Miller related shit, after a year of eating Jayson Blair related shit, is going to have a wee spot of fun about this.
And Glenn was never motivated to "get" anyone? Please. Cowardly little shit hides behind other people all the time.
It's funny to see them run from this guy like an IED. He was once one of them, and he isn't black. So why the retreat?
Anyone associated with Red State will be in a state soon enough.
The latest issue of the New York Review of Books has a must-read report from Baghdad by UC Berkeley journalism dean Orville Schell on the state of the press in the Iraqi city. Schell gives a fascinating analysis of the wretched conditions under which U.S. and other reporters are working right now and how the hostilities keep journalists in their hotels or villas and out of the war zones, cut off from sources and insurgents.
This week, what with Bush hitting the airwaves to again declare we're making progress in Iraq and expressing his wish that reporters in Baghdad would cover and show the advances happening, it is good to have Schell's piece to wave at the president and his war defenders when they say good news from Iraq simply is not getting out.
Well hello, Bushies? The remaining (and probably dwindling) number of reporters in Iraq face incredible survival issues every day and are severely limited in just getting around Baghdad never mind the rest of country, and you all believe reporters over there are purposefully keeping good news hidden?
Do the Bushies really think that if the journalists could refrain from not covering the daily bombings, suicide attacks and other fatal mayhem, and they could leave their hotels and the Green Zone, that what they'd find are groups of Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds joining together to sing Kumbaya?
As America approached the third anniversary of its involvement in Iraq, I had gone to Baghdad to observe not the war itself, but how it is being covered by the press. But of course, the war is inescapable. It has no battle lines, no fronts, not even the rural– urban divide that has usually characterized guerrilla wars. Instead, the conflict is everywhere and nowhere [...]
Foreign news bureaus are either in or near the few operating hotels such as the Al Hamra, the Rashid, or the Palestine. Like battleships that have been badly damaged but are still at sea, these hotels have survived repeated bomb attacks and yet have managed to stay open. A few hotels like the Rashid, where once there was a mosaic depicting George Bush Sr. on the floor of the lobby, are sheltered within the Green Zone. A few other bureaus have their own houses, usually somewhat shabby villas that have the advantage of being included inside some collective defense perimeter that makes the resulting neighborhood feel like a walled medieval town [...]
Security is a very costly business, which has meant that most stringers and freelance journalists who could never afford such protection have been driven out of Baghdad. Bureaus like that of The New York Times which can afford it and are still in Iraq now carry costly insurance policies and require that all coming and going —indeed, all aspects of life outside the compound, including trips to the airport—be under the control of a full-time security chief, who acts as an earthbound air-traffic controller for the bureau. His job is to carefully set times and routes for reporters' trips, and then maintain almost constant contact with their cars until they are safely back. If you want to have an interview outside the bureau, there is always a chance that it will be canceled or delayed for security reasons. Security chiefs are also in charge of the armed guard details that protect the bureau around the clock. No one goes anywhere without a plan worked out in advance, and then preferably in a "hardened," or reinforced, vehicle followed by a "chase" car with several trusted Iraqi guards ready to shoot if necessary [...]
"In the summer of 2003, you could walk out of the Al Hamra and get a cab or even drive to Falluja for dinner, chill out, or go to a CD shop," I was told by the Los Angeles Times's Borzou Daragahi, whose bureau is in the Al Hamra. "Now, the AP won't even let its people leave the city."
"It's amazing now to think back to November 2003 when the insurgency was starting to gain momentum, and all we had were a few sandbags in front of our house and a few guards," Ed Wong, who is on his seventh rotation at the New York Times Baghdad bureau, later recalls. "Back then, you might have met a few angry people, but you didn't fear for your life. Then, things started to change. At first, a few civilians became targets, but not journalists. Then, in the spring of 2004, we started changing our security protocols, using two-car convoys and guards. It felt very weird. For the first time I confronted that barrier between me and the people I was supposed to be reporting on." [...]
One evening while I was in Baghdad, a British security guard mentioned that Fox News was giving a "party" in the nearby Palestine Hotel, once the almost elegant, five-star Le Meridien Palestine on the banks of the Tigris River. I was curious both to see what had happened to this legendary hotel and also what now passed for a social gathering among foreign reporters here. So at dusk, accompanied by two armed guards, I walked over to the Palestine through the maze of blast walls [...]
When we finally arrive on the fifth floor, we have to leave our guards at a checkpoint fortified with a steel door. Inside, we are greeted by the stink of disinfectant and stale air filled with the smell of curry and cigarette smoke. Down a hallway with a greasy carpet I find a small sitting room with shabby furniture and a soccer game playing on a TV. The Fox News staffers who are smoking and drinking seem glad to see almost anyone. The scene makes me think of a group of elderly retired people clinging to a residential hotel slated for demolition.
"Where are all the other guests?" I ask, as one of them thrusts a bottle of beer into my hand. Zoran Kusovac, Fox's bulky, unshaven bureau chief, takes a long drag on his cigarette and explains in his Croatian accent, "Everybody's gone home." He laughs. "It's Saturday. We wanted to have some fun. We used to be able to have parties until late at night. But now our security people told us that if we wanted to have a party, it would have to end no later than 6:00 PM, so that everyone could get home before dark. We started at 3:00!" [...]
Farnaz Fassihi has written how at The Wall Street Journal she "began relying heavily on our staff for setting up interviews, conducting street reporting and being my eyes and ears in Baghdad."
Occasionally The Washington Post's local staff "managed to persuade Iraqis to come to our hotel for interviews, giving me a chance to interact personally with sources and subjects," Jackie Spinner, a former Post Baghdad bureau chief, acknowledges in her soon-to-be-published book, Tell Them I Didn't Cry. She recounts how she "spent the nights writing stories pasted together from reports gathered by our Iraqi staff, my only access to the war outside my window...." [...]
Few reporters I talked to, whether Western or Iraqi, have any direct contact with the insurgents or with the sectarian militias: it is too difficult and dangerous, they say, to talk with Iraqis who do the fighting and set off the explosives. And thus, the various attacks, suicide bombings, and the pervasive anti-Western sentiment, as well as the sectarian hatred that has erupted during the occupation, continue to be largely unexplored and unexplained from the viewpoint of the Iraqis, whether they are Sunni insurgents, members of the Shia militias, or from the American-supplied Iraqi forces that are attacking them [...]
It is here also that the Combined Press Information Center, known as CPIC, is located and where it holds its Thursday press briefings, which remind some veterans of the surreal "Five o'clock Follies" held each day at 5:00 PM in the windowless JUSPAO (Joint US Public Affairs Office) theater in Saigon. There, an earlier generation of "press information officers" gave journalists briefings, complete with four-color overlay charts tabulating "body counts" "targets hit," "structures destroyed," and "villages pacified" in a war that seemed to be getting statistically won, even as it was actually being lost [...]
It may well be that the besieged American press in Iraq will find that the main story is not about Americans fighting Iraqi insurgents, but Americans standing powerlessly aside in their armed compounds, Green Zone, and military bases, watching as Iraqis kill other Iraqis and the country disintegrates. It would be all too ironic if this were the result of the invasion of March 2003, which was promoted as a critical step in bringing peace to the Middle East.
After reading these excerpts, I hope you want to read the full story in the NY Review. Don't you also wish the Bushies would read it?
HAVING IT BOTH WAYS. Given the fact that RedState.org has been one of the strongest proponents of treating bloggers as press for the purposes of campaign finance regulation, I found it ironic, to say the least, that RedState co-founder Ben DomenechtoldThe Washington Post today, as a defense against charges of plagiarism and excessive invective:
"I'm there to do opinion. That's what I do. I'm not a journalist."
I've been criticized by RedStaters and by prominent members of the left blogosphere in recent weeks for saying that there will need to be some clear lines drawn between journalistic activity and online partisan activism in the years ahead, both to preserve electoral campaign transparency and journalistic standards. Journalists have come in for a lot of attack over the past few years from bloggers on both sides, and especially from the right. I believe this episode with Domenech clearly shows why members of the press, for their own good, need to understand, support, and strengthen the distinction between journalism and online partisan activism.
Writing opinion pieces is a form of journalism and anyone who thinks it isn't has no business working at a publication that adheres to journalistic standards. George Will and Robert Novak, to take two prominent conservative examples, are opinion journalists. That means that, even though they have a take on things and are embedded within a particular philosophical framework, they have an understanding of what it means to gather and publish facts and use only their own work. That is an understanding Domenech lacked, and why he has now resigned.
I do not know what will happen to young Domenech now. The fact that of his two blog posts yesterday, one was an apology and one (the one on the plight of minority Republicans) had now been taken down by the Post did not bode well for his future at that august publication, and, combined with the apparent plagiarism, now calls his continued affiliations with RedState.org into question. And the Post, unlike the registered political advocacy group RedState.org, is an august publication, because of the quality of the people who work at it. Dana Milbank was exactly right when he said, in an online discussion today:
What I don't understand (although I haven't inquired) is why the website couldn't recruit somebody with more stature to do the job. This city is crawling with good conservative journalists with lots of heft. Domenech may be a smart fellow, but he's 24 years old and tells Kurtz "I'm not a journalist." I think that makes him the only "blogger" on the site who's not a journalist.
I know a lot of people who work at or contribute to the Post. They are a talented and hard-working group of individuals who busted their butts to get where they are (and still do, to stay there), out-competing their peers in challenging reporting environments and excelling at other publications for years before arriving at it. Because of them and people like them, the Post ranks as one of the very best newspapers in America, bloggy criticisms or not. And prior to the Deborah Howell comments flap and this latest brouhaha, the much-maligned Jim Brady was rightly hailed as a brilliant pioneer for his online adaptations and innovations, such as including trackbacks on articles and linking up with Technorati. He still should be praised for making the Post's website the user-friendly read that it is -- it's the only way I read the paper any more.
This Domenech debacle will doubtless be used internally to reaffirm the high standards the paper demands from its staff. And as embarrassing as it was, it comes with a silver lining in it for the MSM: Domenech's brief tenure at the Post proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that some of the worst partisan activist critics of the journalistic enterprise literally couldn't last a week if given the opportunity to do the job themselves.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
Here's where I disagree with Garance.
The fact that they were a 527 encouraged them to do things which no one at Daily Kos has done. like propose laws and then work on them, or consult for Wal Mart.
The current thinking is that if you can regulate how much bloggers can or cannot give, they will be controllable and journalists will be protected.
Well, talk to people about journalism, and that protection thing isn't all that appealing. They feel they are underserved. So what is the solution? Force up a wall between activism and journalism which doesn't exist in print. Norman Mailer running for mayor? Creating campaigns like the Post does.
What Garance wants to create is a totally unregulated system of blogs which would be able to promote any political agenda as long as they signed off on a few papers, totally unaccoutable to any sort of journalistic standards.
Look at the mess at Red State. They are a 527, they don't act like journalists, and they have zero credibility on the right because all they cared about was politics. Instead of protecting journalism, it could unleash a wave of bitter partisans tossing around money with no motivation or concern for the truth. Let a thousand Swift Boats launch, because that is what would happen. There is tremedous pressure to be accurate and honest in current blogging and she knows this, protectionism for traditional journalists by transforming all blogs into campaign committees is a mistake.
I don't think directing contributions makes you a campaing committee and both Will and Novak have worked intimately with GOP administrations. Everything done on the blogs happens in the open.
And Brady hasn't adapted to the new internet at all. He thinks that the GOP is underserved online? Please. Look, the fact is that if he hires another right blogger, without hiring a left blogger, there is going to be a problem. We're not going to sit by quietly and let only one side get heard.
When Fontana resident and 2001 Fontana A.B. Miller High School graduate Kevin Stonestreet joined the U.S. Army in the summer of 2001 as a member of the infantry, he was given a $20,000 bonus to be paid out over his six-year enlistment.
However, when Stonestreet was honorably discharged from the Army in 2005, he found out he needed to repay $3,800 of that bonus because he did not complete his six years.
But Stonestreet, who is now 23, said he was kicked out of the Army because he was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression from serving in Iraq.
In addition, Stonestreet, who was awarded the Purple Heart and was considered for the Bronze Star for bravery in combat, said the amount he was to pay back was originally $6,000, but the government repossessed his final paycheck of $2,200.
"They were nice enough to take out the $170 for my child support," Stonestreet said, laughingly.
(6:50 Pacific) I've pulled up this bit of the story to highlight just how outrageous this situation is:
THE GOVERNMENT IS still interested in recouping its $3,800 it believes it is entitled to. Stonestreet, who works as a clerk at Pep Boys in Rialto, said he has been contacted by a collection agency on the government's behalf and will soon be owing interest on that amount if something isn't done soon.
I'm too pissed off to add any meaningful commentary, but how many of these stories do we have to hear? It's not like the DOD shouldn't be able to take care of the 20k or so combat wounded, but kicking around a guy like this, who showed heroism under fire, ending up with PTSD? The DOD and this administration have no sense of honor.
Hey, somebody find a big name blogger who can grab this and set up a Paypal drive for this guy. I don't care who this guy is, or even if he's a rabid Republican, he should be treated better than this.
Update: Here is more from the story. First, the heroism under fire:
However, in September 2003, he was sent to fight in Iraq, and that's when everything changed for him.
STONESTREET WAS STATIONED near Fallujah, Iraq in April 2004 when an insurgency was being put down by U.S. military personnel.
On April 6, 2004, Stonestreet said he was riding in a Bradley fighting vehicle, which can seat up to 13 soldiers -- albeit not comfortably -- when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.
"We were providing security for the Marines as they were pulling out (of Fallujah) when they just got ambushed," Stonestreet said. "My platoon leader lost his leg and his gunner lost his right hand."
Stonestreet also was wounded. He was hit by shrapnel in his neck and was grazed by a bullet on his left arm. The shrapnel is still in his neck.
"I was a centimeter away from bleeding to death if it had hit my jugular," he said.
He was later recommended for the Bronze Star as he gave up his machine gun to a buddy when he went to get first aid for the injured -- but that's now all but forgotten, he said.
"I went on top of the Bradley to give them first aid," he said. "We were apparently under heavy fire, but because of the blast, I didn't hear anything. I was surprised there wasn't a fire, just a lot of smoke -- a lot of smoke -- and our uniforms smelled like ammonia for days."
And the aftermath:
But his world had been turned upside down by the war.
"When I first got home I had insomnia," he said. "When I could sleep, I had flashbacks, nightmares and cold sweat. "I'm a world better being away from the Army. I miss my friends, but they'll be all right, hopefully."
Update: I called Barbara's LA and Inland Empire offices, but more calls would be good.
San Francisco (415) 403-0100
Los Angeles (213) 894-5000
Inland Empire (909) 888-8525
Sacramento (916) 448-2787
San Diego (619) 239-3884
Washington D.C. (202) 224-3553
Anyone know Fontana well? It it largely mapped into Joe Baca's CD? (Joe Baca link)
We need to get on Joe Baca(D), whose office did not return calls from the local paper. If his idiot staff can't see this for what it is, we need to help them understand... Bab's LA office seemed sharp, and ready to go to work. The San Berdue office hadn't heard of this until I called.
Update (3:50 Pacific) - Rep. Baca's office: "We just got this story a few minutes ago, and we have assigned a case worker to it." (The staffer had never heard of Daily Kos)
Update (6:00 Pacific): I've added the poll on whether or not we should consider chipping in for this project. My thought here is that this looks similar to the case of the W VA soldier that John Aravosis at AmericaBlog raised funds for. Not only was it the right thing to do, it shamed the Army into doing the right thing, too... the soldier was said to have donated the funds to the mother of a soldier who helped save his life (IIRC), who lost her house in Katrina
Here's a challenge to Red State and any righties who want: why not join in on the phone calls and post this up on your sites to see if we can get this man his money back.
If you truly support the soldiers who fight this war, this is an easy thing to do.
And if that doesn't work by Monday, let's raise the money for him.
An army bomb disposal officer credited with saving seven lives by instructing troops as he lay wounded from a bomb blast has been given the George Cross.
Capt Peter Norton, 43, of Gloucester, lost a leg in the blast near Baghdad in July, and later part of an arm.
But as he lay seriously injured he continued to instruct his team on where they could move - a further bomb was discovered 10m away and made safe.
The George Cross is the highest medal for bravery with the enemy not present.
It ranks alongside the Victoria Cross, given for an act in the presence of an enemy.
Capt Norton, confined to a wheelchair following the incident, is only the 22nd British armed forces member to receive the George Cross since 1945.
In command
On 24 July last year, he was leading a team at the scene of an earlier blast, in the Al Bayaa district near Baghdad, which killed four members of a three-vehicle US patrol.
Having been briefed about the threat of further explosions, Captain Norton, of the Royal Logistics Corps, alone went forward to confirm whether a wire to more explosives was present.
His citation reads: "With a complete understanding of the potential hazard to himself and knowing that the insurgents had used secondary devices before in the particularly dangerous part of Iraq, Capt Norton instructed his team and the US forces present in the area to remain with their vehicle while he alone went forward to confirm whether a command wire was present."
An explosion shortly afterwards caused extensive injuries to his legs, arms and lower abdomen.
But he continued to instruct his team - even before he allowed them to administer first aid.
"It is typical of the man that he ignored his injuries and regarded the safety of his men as paramount as they administered life-saving first aid to him," the citation says.
Captain Norton, is the first George Cross winner from the Iraq war, which is awarded for bravery not in the face of the enemy, while the Victoria Cross is awarded for bravery in the face of the enemy.
On March 18, 2005, Private Johnson Gideon Beharry of the 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment became the first recipient of the VC since the posthumous award to Sgt Ian McKay, 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment in 1982. Beharry was cited for "valour of the highest order" during the Iraq War. He is included in a list of more than 140 British troops awarded honours for roles in Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Liberia, Sierra Leone, the United Kingdom and Congo
The US Medal of Honor can be awarded under either circumstance. One, to Sgt. Paul R. Smith, has been awarded posthumously in Iraq.
Increasing international pressure over the case of Christian convert Abdul Rahman is forcing the Afghan government to play a careful balancing act between its Western allies and religious conservatives at home.
Under the interpretation of Islamic Sharia law on which Afghanistan's constitution is based, Mr Rahman faces the death penalty unless he reconverts to Islam.
"The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back," says Ansarullah Mawlafizada, the trial judge.
"Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told him if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him," he told the BBC News website. ....................
But the bigger problem confronting the president is that an overwhelming number of ordinary Afghans appear to believe Mr Rahman has erred and deserves to be executed.
At Friday prayers in mosques across the Afghan capital, the case of Abdul Rahman and the consequent international outcry is the hot topic of discussion and the centrepiece of sermons.
"We will not let anyone interfere with our religious practices," declared cleric Inayatullah at Kabul's Pulakasthy mosque, one of the city's largest.
"What Rahman has done is wrong and he must be punished."
Unless he leaves Afghanistan, he's a dead man.
Sounds like a problem for the fundies.
Because the Afghans are no pushovers.They're tough people and they don't back down easy. The fundies and the West can caterwaller all they want, but the US isn't going to get their way and isn't going anywhere.
OK, racist RedState Ben has resigned from the WaPo in a graceless way, blaming everyone but himself for his racially insulting comments and open plagiarism.
And yet daddy is still proud.
He shouldn't be, and we shouldn't be celebrating.
This is a disgrace for the Washington Post. Ben Domenech was hired because of connections and there was no due dilligence on his writing or his background. No copy desk staffer straight out of U Maryland would have been hired that way. So why was he?
Jim Brady's leadership skills are questionable, and his employment on Monday, if he retains it, will be due to the bloggers he so eagerly attacked only a month ago. Because if Domanech had been writing for a month or two and this came out, Brady would have been fired on the spot and he knows it. Deborah Howell, who he defended with passion a month ago, tossed him under the bus so quick, heads spun.
Jim Brady will owe his employment to the skills of bloggers who ended Domenech's employment at the Post before it got all over DC black radio. That would have turned this into a major problem for the paper. Calling Mrs. King a communist, something I keep harping on, because it is so vile and such a slander on her character and patriotism, and something so deeply racist, I wonder where a 24 year old learned this. But once it was clear that he did so, that ALONE should have been cause for ternminating him.
Let me explain why. Before 1939, the Communist Party was the leading movers for civil rights in the US, long before it reached the mainstream. But in 1939, the communist party split because of the Nazi-Soviet pact, with many people leaving because of the alliance. This would come to haunt them in the 1950's during the McCarthy era. As the Civil Rights Era took root, agencies like the Mississippi Sovergnity Commission and the FBI, which had 5 black agents, including Hoover's driver, were looking for "outside agitators" leading the civil rights movement.
By the 1960's, one of the common charges was the King was a communist, was surrounded by communists and influenced by them. Of course, they considered integration a form of communism. They even tried to use HUAC, the House Unamerican Activities Committee, to prove this. It did not die in the McCarthy era.
This is not common knowledge, not anything close, unless you've read King's biographies by Garrow and Branch or are a die hard racist.
Now, if I know this, why didn't Jim Brady.
Also, why didn't he ask questions about Red State. One of their founders works for Wal Mart as an online consultant, as well as the GOP, another proposed the extremely controversal Georgia Voter ID law. I see some conflicts here. Then there was the fact that his father was a conduit for Jack Abramoff. Any one of those could have blown up in Brady's face.
But in the end, the killer was the plagiarism.
Domenech took other people's words and presented them as his own. He stole from PJ O'Rourke, Salon, and the Washington Post. Didn't Brady read this kid's work? Didn't he check for plagiarism? Did he even ask about it?
The reason this is important is simple: it's the worst thing a writer can do.
It is unforgivable to steal other people's work and present it as your own. It is lazy and dishonest, for one thing. It is also highly unethical.
Jim Brady is very lucky this was discovered before Domanech had logged any time on his site.
Oh, and Dana Milbank can continue to be unimpressed with people who were complaining about the original hiring, but, it was those same people who defended his ass when he was making funny with Keith Olbermann. The fact that he continues to do so is due to the people who stuck up for him. He should remember that.
Now, of course, this is all inside baseball, but keep in mind, that's why so many of the GOP gits are on TV. Ann Coulter doesn't own a TV station. Someone puts her on air. The same with Domanech and his friends. Someone thinks their opinions are valid and puts them before the public. The only problem is that they don't look too hard, and then they get embarassed.
But what bothers me is that it is perfectly acceptable to be a conservative Republican and say the most vile things about blacks and their leaders and find an audience, even be defended by some. And that the Washington Post hired one of these people and didn't fire him outright. and then they wonder why people don't subscribe and why people turn to the Internet
I'm talking about the Netroots. Whatever they want to be called today - liberal, progressive, Democrat, pro-abortion - it's all the same movement. On election night 2004, the Netroots became the guiding force of the modern left, and since then they have worked diligently to organize and codify their strength.
However, in the end, this the thing at which the Netroots excels. Not fundraising, not mobilizing for candidates. Hell, not even developing and articulating a message about what they stand for. We don't need to guess what they stand for - it's on display with every bell and whistle available. The energy being consumed by their current effort is simply astounding. Imagine if they brought the same force to bear on actual politics!
The bitterness, despondancy, and hopelessness of their movement can now only manifest itself as hate. Pure hate, prejudicial attacks, and rampant accusations are their message. Their platform incubated at the safe havens of Daily Kos, MyDD, and Atrios. Thousands of satellite blogs and message boards anxiously awaiting a dispatch from this "Axis of Idiocy", and faithfully linking and emailing without a modicum of sanity checking.
Serious debate? Exchange of ideas? No need to bother with those. We have framing! We can just frame our opponents the way we want, and then criticism can be deflected. Racists. Homophobes. Evangelicals. Put the conservatives in a little box, put a label on them, and light the fire in a Burning-Man-style orgy of hate. "Damn the consequences, it feels great to make someone look smaller than me!"
And somehow they square this notion - that conservatives are at the same time worthy of dismissal, and yet worthy of attack. Which is it? Are we irrelevant or are we a force to contend with? Are we an accidental majority or simply closet liberals who haven't yet 'understood the message'?
There was a day not so long ago that a man was asked to stand up and explain his actions. In fact, given an opportunity to talk with others so that erroneous conclusions were not made. In politics, that day is gone. Complaints about the bitter, divisive atmosphere in Washington are justified.
Redstate is not deterred. We are emboldened. We stand together, bound by ideology and a desire to advance the conservative movement. The movement is bigger than me, you, or Redstate
Waaaaah.
Sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up and come and take your beating like a man.
Your little racist buddy Ben is a serial plagiarizer and trader in hate. How does he explain slurring Coretta Scott King on the day of her funeral? "Overblown term? Fuck you. It's a racist slur from the '60's and he learned it at mommy's knee.
The man admires Jefferson Davis, slaveholder to the last. Why does he admire him? His leadership? His fleeing the Union in a dress, what is it about Jeff Davis which is admirable. My suspsicion? He kept the niggers in their place.
That little quote from Neuhaus? The racism in it is so obvious it irritates me to explain it, but here's the deal, linking black birth to crime is racist. You don't have to go any futher. And former red stater and CENTCOM bitch Josh "killing the Hussein brothers will end the war" Trevino, can argue what he wants, but he's full of shit.
You don't want to be called racists, don't fucking be racists. Blanton's little post only needed a Stars and Bars to complete it's racist screed.
There's nothing to explain. Your boy Box Turtle Ben steals the work of others and claims it as his own and has done so since he was a teenager. Maybe now we know why he defended Claude Allen. They both like to allegedly steal shit which isn't theirs.
The fact, the sad, undeniable fact is that Ben IS smaller than you, and every person who bothers to create their own words and express their own thoughts. He could be forgiven if he played fast and loose with the truth on high school reports, but he's a reporter and editor, and regardless of his racist attitudes, he should be held to the standards of the profession.
And if you're curious, it says "no plagiarism".
Oh yeah, now you want us to listen to Box Turtle Ben's little lies about how someone else is to blame for the errors in his work, like stealing a PJ O'Rourke piece wholesale, without attribution, and parts of Salon reviews. I use other people's work every day, but with credit. I know mommy made Ben special, but he doesn't have the right to steal the work of others for his own benefit.
Remember how you chortled at Dan Rather's fate, a braver and more honest man than you people will ever be? See how it feels on the other foot? Not much fun, is it.
Update: This just gets funnier
We Must Defend. By: Erick · Section: News
It's true. Ben Domenech is Augustine. And I stand behind him 100%. He has said nothing filled with racism or hate, or bigotry. In fact, Ben has been a leader in keeping those he dubs the "evilcons" off RedState. Unbeknownst to all of you, RedState continually self-polices and purges its own ranks of those who might be allies, but are too filled with hate to function in the internet society we choose to create. We would not without Ben's insistence at the creation of RedState be so self-policing.
Ben is accused of being a racist, gay, homophobe, an incestuous lover of his own mother, a partisan, evil, and now a plagarist. He is, according to the left, a right wing Stephen Glass who gets his jollies off with his mother. Only Stephen Glass could actually make that up -- or a jealous group of haters. The lies told, from charges of plagarism to ties to Jack Abramoff are hyperbolic lies. There are no facts or truths related to any of these charges. They are meant to destroy a good and decent human being because of hate and jealousy.
Those blogs attacking the Washington Post and Ben are so hate filled and envious, they refuse to accept Froomkin as one of their own. That's one reason they continue to lose the debate -- the reality based community denies reality. It's another reason they are disingenous in this argument. Horror of horrors they now have to share the Washington Post's blog with Ben. How terrible.
For a group of people who yell at my side saying we censor them, jail them, and otherwise silence them, who now is censoring, silencing, and viciously, irrationally attacking? It's not Ben. It's not me. it's not my side. His WaPo posts have been measured, reasonable, and pointed. In fact, no one on the other side has bothered to take on his posts -- they are too busy attacking Ben and his family.
.......................
Ben Domenech deserves our full advocacy and defense. He has done nothing wrong and does not deserve urban legends about his wrong doing solely because of the lies of those who are jealous of his success. Should the other side win, they will be emboldened. And should they win, one of our own who has done no wrong will be immeasurable hurt by the hate, lies, and jealousy of those who would just as easily do it to you or me.
We must defend Ben.
Mar 24th, 2006: 00:40:44 Full discussion: http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/3/23/22434/5436
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So, saying Coretta Scott King was a commie isn't racist? Well, this from the man who wants to restore the Poll Tax to Georgia and denies the obvious racism in it, well, his opinion doesn't mean shit to me.
Young Erick wouldn't know what racism was if the burning cross singed his robes at a lynching. Here is a man who has devised a way to supress the vote of thousands of American citizens, and he wants to act as if race isn't one of his motivations? Please.
Sorry, but young Ben is a racist, is a homophobe and is, most importantly, a serial plagiarist.
Look, you guys are over your heads. We're not 24 year old kids. We have some standards and we're going to defend what we think is right and attack what we think is wrong. Ben steals. He steals other people's words as his own and glibly embraces race hatred like some people get tattoos and piercings. It's la moda conservative.
Only problem is some folks don't forgive and forget that.
Oh, and Dan Froomkin isn't "one of us". He's a journalist. Just because we like his work, doesn't mean he does what Kos or atrios does.
At first, all we wanted to know when the Post would hire a liberal counterpart. Now, we want to know why they've hired an open racist and plagiarist. And you can deny it all you want, not that your denials mean a damn thing, Mr. Poll Tax, but Domenech doesn't like black people and doesn't go far to hide it.
The Macon Telegraph down in Macon, Georgia takes a look at the voter id legislation that is pending in that state.
Republicans nationwide, from the national party to talk radio and weblogs, have railed against what they claim is widespread voting fraud by Democrats, taking advantage of loose voter ID requirements.
Staton was assisted in drafting his law by Erick Erickson, a self-described political junkie from Macon and blogger who contributes to Redstate.org as well as his own weblog, www.erickerickson.org.
Redstate.org’s 2004 election page is a long series of raging posts about the Washington state governor’s 129-vote victory, which many Republicans believe was tainted by fraud.
Twelve states are currently considering legislation to ensure more precise voter identification, Storey said. Currently, 18 states require voters to present some form of ID at the polls, while most of the others rely on a signature to catch vote fraud.
Some new laws were inspired by the 2002 federal Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, which requires an ID number be recorded for first-time voters when they register. The HAVA law is intended to create uniform state databases of voters, which will allow for easier detection of fraud. It doesn’t require photo ID.
We would truly be fooling ourselves if we did not recognize the historic, negative impediments to black voting. Notwithstanding that, we should also not allow various individuals to scream racism — a ridiculous charge — over this law to have it defeated. That does not do anything to advance the conversation.
l concern. We should work to stop voter fraud in absentee balloting, early voting, at the polls, and through intimidation. Requiring voters to show photographic identification is common sense. Additionally, the law, as written, would allow any person to obtain a free photographic id card to vote.
Black politicians in the state are intent on framing the debate around what happened forty years ago. Let us talk about today and let them show why, given today’s racial climate, requiring photographic identification will intimidate black voters. Perhaps I am naive (and granted I am white and did not grow up in this country so I’m at a disadvantage on understanding the issue), but it just makes good sense to me that when anyone votes, they be required to show they are who they say they are. Voting is our most sacred right and we should safeguard it. Afterall, you have to show id to enter many government buildings, get on planes, or write checks. Isn’t voting more important than any of those?
This argument is bullshit.
There is no history of wideswpread fraud. This is disenfranchisement pure and simple. Which is the argument Cynthia Tucker makes
If White, a retired schoolteacher, were less educated or less persistent, she may never have acquired the documents that allow her to vote under Georgia's new law. While Gov. Sonny Perdue and his GOP colleagues recently passed a new version of the bill that they expect to pass court muster Ñ it makes the photo IDs free of charge- it doesn't make the process any simpler for many elderly Georgians. (The GOP-dominated Legislature passed a very similar voter ID law last year, but a federal judge ruled that the law likely constitutes an unconstitutional poll tax.)
That's no doubt what the backers of the bill intended to discourage voters who would likely cast ballots for Democrats. Perdue and his Republican allies insist the law is merely an effort to prevent voter fraud, but that claim is laughable. As Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Alan Judd recently pointed out in a detailed story, most allegations of voting irregularities involve absentee ballots. And the new law makes it easier to cheat using an absentee ballot.
In fact, Georgia's voter ID bill, the most restrictive in the nation, is part of a national GOP effort to shave off small percentages of Democratic voters enough to make a difference in close races. In a prescient article in The New Yorker two years ago, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin outlined a host of now-familiar episodes in which Republicans intimidated voters of color. These included eyewitness testimony that the late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist harassed black and Latino voters at Arizona polls in the early 1960s, when he was a local GOP activist. Toobin also tracked the rise of a former Fulton County GOP regular named Hans A. von Spakovsky, who, in 1997, wrote a piece for the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, a conservative research group, calling for a campaign to purge rolls of unqualified voters. That led to the notorious purge in Florida in 2000, which mistakenly disenfranchised thousands of voters, many of them black, most of them Democrats. George W. Bush's narrow and disputed win was helped considerably by that purge.
Von Spakovsky's role in Bush's victory led him to a high-ranking post in the Justice Department's Voting Rights Section. There, he was able last year to overrule career lawyers who believed the new Georgia ID law should be not be approved. (Recently, Bush gave von Spakovsky a recess appointment to the Federal Elections Commission, where he can continue his campaign to suppress the minority vote.)
This year, the Legislature has put some lipstick and a little rouge on its pig of a voter ID law, hoping to sneak it past the courts. But the strategy behind the law remains the same: keep those from voting who don't look like us and don't think like us. That's definitely unconstitutional. And un-American, too.
Oh yeah, DOJ wanted no part of this poll tax.
Oh, and none of the ID centers were in Fulton County. No voter suppression there.
Come on, there is no evidence of on site voter fraud, this is about keeping black people from voting by making them jump through hoops. And of course the genius who devised the new poll tax writes for Redstate.
As a public high school freshman, my health class just finished its sex unit. (They always teach it in the spring. They think it's cute or something.) Granted, this was the fifth time I had taken a school health class, but in fifth grade and middle school, the focus is less on actual sexual behavior and health, and more on anatomy. (Remember those fun diagrams? Locate the vas deferens, identify in the epididymis, shade in the cervix. Noticeably missing: the clitoris.) But by high school, the school board realizes that a more comprehensive class emphasizing student behavior is necessary. And, after completing that course, I can only say, thank God for abstinence-only sex education.
You see, prior to this class, I identified as one of those man-hating, fire-breathing, NOW card-carrying, lesbian, feministas who got accurate sexual information from Planned Parenthood Online and Ms. Magazine. But following its completion, I have transformed into a pure, heterosexual socially submissive virgin. I never, ever, ever, have sexual urges and know that they won't kick in until after I have marched down the aisle in virginal white, been given away by my father, and married a man who I will obey and serve.
Now I only hope that you all can see the error of your ways and revoke the false liberal mindsets you insist on propagating. After all, it was your public tax dollars that made me this way. I've heard horror stories about school districts on the East and West coast that describe "alternative lifestyles" and even- gasp!- hand out condoms. Where I come from, in rural northern Michigan, we teach our kids right. I am trying to save you by offering a chance to come over to our side. So here, I offer you the abbreviated version of my sex education class. Read and be enlightened.
"The only 100% effective birth control is abstinence."
This one came as news to me: I had though that you could not get pregnant from homosexual intercourse. But, after learning that, I realized that it was still totally possible for an egg to be fertilized in the process of lesbian (or gay male) sex. I wasn't sure how, but I knew there must be a way. That nagging in the back of my mind was probably just a remnant of my brainwashing by the liberal media.
"The only sexual behavior that anybody ever engages in occurs between a male and a female."
I know some of you might read that and think it unrealistic to ignore homosexual education: after all, don't gays need to learn about how to be safe in their practices? If they don't learn at school, won't that just encourage misinformation and unsafe behavior? I can tell you that is absolutely untrue. After learning that sex occurred between males and females, I stopped being a lesbian. You know, segments of society disappear when you ignore them long enough.
"Males have a natural, uncontrollable desire for sex due to testosterone. However, since abstinence until marriage is the only acceptable sexual practice, it is up to females to postpone sex by politely refusing boys' sexual proposals."
It turns out that boys have absolutely no control over their sexual actions. Their hormones make it inevitable that they will try to get a girl alone in a bedroom at a party. This is why it is so important to drill the message of abstinence into girls' heads. They need to avoid situations where sexually active males may notice them. If girls don't walk down the hallways with their head down and eyes to the floor, preferably covered in a burka, they're destined to underage sex, whether or not they want it. After all, abstinence-only education is really just for the ladies. It turns out that it really doesn't two people to have intercourse.
"Young people should ask their parents' opinions on whether it is acceptable for girls to ask guys out."
Everybody knows that it would be vulgar and unseemly for any girl to ever ask out a guy. We don't want it to seem like females actually have voices, or worse yet, minds capable of discerning preference! Just as in abortion, or just about any other topic, men should make decisions for women. If we go worrying our pretty little heads too much, we'll hurt ourselves. That's why I asked my dad's permission before posting this. I fully embrace the patriarchy.
"'Virgin' means pure, chaste female."
The oh-so-helpful FAQs section of my health book asked the question: "Are boys who abstain considered virgins?" It went on to answer that although the term generally refers to females, changing cultural norms have seen it being applied to males more often. I know what they meant by "changing cultural norms"- the disgusting loss of American morals encouraged by the vast, liberal, feminist, media conspiracy. We all know the truth: virginity is important so that the bride will be pure for her husband on her wedding night. Dudes are free to sleep around. (The same section of my book also offered this: "Does using tampons cause girls to lose their virginity?" It seems there are very few things more valuable these days than an unbroken hymen.)
"Male latex condoms are the only birth control."
Our sex education curriculum identifies one form of birth control: the male condom. My teacher is a male gym teacher who cares primarily about football, spends all of gym class staring at girls in their gym shorts, is by any count the most sexist person on staff, and has the lucky honor to educate the future generation about sex. At one point during class, some evil, impure, feminist DailyKos reader (it couldn't have been me, I swear) raised her hand and asked the teacher if there were any other birth control methods. His response: "Other methods are all mostly outdated or illegal." You heard that right, users of the Pill, female condom, shot, patch, NuvaRing, or diaphragm: the birth control Secret Police are coming to raid your home of those illegal substances.
"Male condoms break, tear, or are used incorrectly 65% of the time. Of the times they are used correctly, they are 0% effective at preventing HPV and genital warts, 3% effective at preventing Chlamydia, 13% effective at preventing gonorrhea, 20% effective at preventing herpes, and 50% effective at preventing HIV infection." In the end, anyone and everyone who has sex outside of marriage will be infected with an STD (preferably a deadly one.) This point was driven home by my teacher ranting in front of the class about how society misleads us into thinking that using condoms means safer sex. (This was after he misspelled the words Chlamydia and gonorrhea on the whiteboard. I'm starting to look to him as a role model.) Anyways, this news really worried me. You see, after I stopped being a lesbian, part of me wanted to start having sex with boys. So, after learning that condom effectiveness is a lie propagated by the liberal media, I decided that if I ever do break my vows of chastity, I won't use a condom. I think that will turn out reasonably well, don't you?
"Marriage magically protects females from STD infection."
We got to learn this one with a great demonstration. The teacher holds up a thin, wet, sponge: this represents the female cervix prior to age 21, when it is not fully developed. Then, he holds up a thick, dry sponge: this represents the female cervix after 21. He dips the first one into a bowl of dirt, representing STDs. Guess what? Dirt sticks to wet sponge! Then, he dips the second, dry sponge in. When little dirt sticks to it, I, using my rationalizing thought processes that I know I shouldn't have as a female, thought this demonstration showed that sex prior to age 21 puts you at higher risk for STDs. But my sex ed. teacher totally knows better than me. He explained that this showed why waiting until marriage is the best choice. Then I realized: he must have misspoke before. The cervix doesn't fully develop when you turn 21. It fully develops when you get married! That makes sense now.
"Every pregnancy ever conceived is carried to term."
In class, we read plenty of these helpful anecdotes: Bob and Susie are in high school. Bob and Susie have sex. Susie gets pregnant. Bob drops out of high school to get a job. Susie drops out of high school to raise the baby. It never occurs to either of them that maybe Susie wants to consider having her pregnancy terminated. This is because Bob and Susie's high school sex education class didn't teach them that abortion was a possible alternative. Therefore, they didn't know it existed. Similarly, my sex ed. class never taught me about abortion, so I don't know it exists, either.
On the first day of class, our teacher passed out "Abstinence Pledges" to every student, stating "I promise myself that I will never have sex until after I am married." We were told that we could do whatever we wanted with our pledges, but we were encouraged to sign them and keep them at home in a visible place, so that every day we were reminded to make good choices. At that time, I threw my pledge in the recycling bin on the way out of class. When 62% of high school seniors report having had intercourse, I figured that it was another stupid spread of misinformation. Besides, so long as I was denied the right to marry someone I loved, (Michigan's state constitution defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman) how could I ever wait for marriage? Barring a move to Massachusetts or Vermont, it seemed that any sexual activity in my life would never be sanctioned by marriage. But now I realize the error in my ways. I went back and asked my teacher for a second Pledge; it seemed I had misplaced my first. I am now proud to say I fully believe in abstinence-only policy. I just needed to put your faith in myths, lies, stereotypes, and discrimination. You should, too. You are so damn lucky
MARCH 23--After posting the performance contracts of artists like Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, and U2, The Smoking Gun has finally obtained the backstage demands of a real rock star. That's right, below you'll find a copy of Vice President Dick Cheney's standard "tour" rider. The document is provided to hotels where Cheney will be bunking and lists how the Republican pol's "Downtime Suite" needs to be outfitted. While the vice president's requests are pretty modest (no extract-the-brown-M&M demands here), Cheney does like his suite at a comfy 68 degrees. And, of course, all the televisions need to be preset to the Fox News Channel (what, you thought he was a Lifetime devotee?). Decaf coffee should be ready upon his arrival along with four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite. And when Cheney is traveling with his wife Lynne, the second family's suite needs an additional two bottles of sparkling water. Mrs. Cheney's H2O should be either Calistoga or, curiously, Perrier, a favored beverage of French terrorism appeasers. The document, prepared by the vice president's advance team, was obtained by TSG after it was provided to a hotel employee prior to a Cheney visit. When we asked Cheney spokesperson Jenny Mayfield about the document's reference to gifts that hotels might leave in the suite for the vice president, she told us she was unable to address that question since she had not seen the "downtime requirements" rider (she asked for a copy, which we declined to provide in advance of its publication here). At our source's request, we've blacked out the handwritten name and Washington, D.C. phone number of a Cheney staffer. As for the notations regarding extra lamps, specific newspapers, and a carafe, it is unclear whether they were added by an advance team staffer or a hotel official. (1 page)
So where do the hoochies hang. No Cristal? No Hennessy and grade soda? How is this big pimpin'? How can a pimp like Cheney chill with diet soda. Damn, I hope he travels with viagra and condoms.
I know there are more important stories than a 24 year old homeschooled git being hired to write for the WaPo, but the fact that he was hired says a lot about the Post and their approach to the internet. And that IS important.
First of all, the Washington Post.com editors clearly did not do due dilligence in researching Ben Domenech's public comments. Honestly, I had not heard of this guy until yesterday, but once I did, I was barraged with a sea of his writing and reposting which would have given me a clear picture of what this guy does. To call him immature would be kind.
His friends say he's a nice guy, I bet none of them are black. But this isn't about his personality. He could have unicorn posters and play with kittens and tie cute ribbons on them. But that doesn't mean that he's not a dangerous little prick who should not have a national forum in one of the nation's leading national newspapers. Not only is he arrogant, but that's hardly a crime at 24, but he's ignorant.
I mean, he's not a Southerner, he's from the DC area, but he's embraced the worst sterotypes of the region. A creationist, confederacy-loving racist who thinks Coretta Scott King is a communist. Most Southerners would be appaled by such views, white or black. I bet he takes day trips to the Museum of the Confederacy. The ONLY people who would say this are one sheet shy of a Klan outfit.
I have to wonder what he learned while being homeschooled, because it sounds like a bundle full of hate to me. That post he put up from "First Events" is rephensible, even if he didn't write it. He certainly didn't object to it, nor did Krempasky. That kind of thing is usually reserved for Stormfront, but let's not fool ourselves. Krempasky is a consultant to America's largest corporation, Wal-Mart, as well as the RNC and Domenech now works for the Washington Post. These are not fringe players churning out anti-ZOG leaflets from their basement. These are no sheet wearing freaks burning crosses and cursing race traitors or looking to Matt Hale for guidance as they listen to Johnny Rebel and Skrewdriver.
Remember, Domenech is an alumus of William and Mary, as is Jon Stewart. This guy is not some marginal loon posting from mommy's basement.
The Washington Post seems to have hired him based on Dana Milbank's recommendation. If Milbank takes this guy seriously, he's a fool, if he suggested him in the way Harry Reid suggested Harriet Miers, he really hates his bosses. Because this is about to be a major embarassment for his employer.
Second, hiring Domenech shows how blind the WaPo editors are to their own future. Hiring a white, well, half-Latino racist, to a promenent position in their paper is insane. The WaPo needs to retain the support of the majority black community it serves, not just inside the district, but in the Maryland counties north of the city. As the black professionals leave the District for the safety of Maryland and increasingly Northern Virginia, and as the growing Asian and Latino base joins them, these are the most likely new customers for print subscriptions. What's more suburban than having home delivery of the newspaper.
But why would they read a paper who hires an open racist?
Aaron McGruder is a good example of the kind of reader the Post needs to cultivate. An Air Force brat who is an alumnus of the University of Maryland, he's obviously a young, well-eduated man with diverse interests. While he lives in LA now, his peers are the junior staff at federal agencies and companies like AOL and Summit Bank. Less doctrinare, well educated, they are highly likely to consume the Post in either print or online version. But not if it is home to racists.
The editors of the Post seem to think Washington hasn't changed in 20 years, that they are still selling the paper to whites, with a nod to blacks. But that isn't the case. I think the business side realizes it, but the editorial does not. If the Post was aware of what their future was, Domenech wouldn't have been within 50 feet of a blog.
It is not only an insult, but bad business to hire a writer of both virulent racism and striking immaturity, he's even slagged his collegues Froomkin and Milbank.
What exactly was the thinking here? That bloggers are all children who write nasty things? That we needed to pander to the right blogzombies and their friends? That they were short a few racists?
Whatever it was, the Post needs to be rid of him. Balancing a liberal with an out and out racist isn't anything like acceptable. He is simply unfit to have a national forum and the people who hired him should be ashamed of themselves.
In the spring of 2000, I collected the following anecdotes directly from abortion doctors and other clinic staff in North America, Australia, and Europe. The stories are presented in the providers' own words, with minor editing for grammar, clarity, and brevity. Names have been omitted to protect privacy.
"I have done several abortions on women who have regularly picketed my clinics, including a 16 year old schoolgirl who came back to picket the day after her abortion, about three years ago. During her whole stay at the clinic, we felt that she was not quite right, but there were no real warning bells. She insisted that the abortion was her idea and assured us that all was OK. She went through the procedure very smoothly and was discharged with no problems. A quite routine operation. Next morning she was with her mother and several school mates in front of the clinic with the usual anti posters and chants. It appears that she got the abortion she needed and still displayed the appropriate anti views expected of her by her parents, teachers, and peers." (Physician, Australia)
I've had several cases over the years in which the anti-abortion patient had rationalized in one way or another that her case was the only exception, but the one that really made an impression was the college senior who was the president of her campus Right-to-Life organization, meaning that she had worked very hard in that organization for several years. As I was completing her procedure, I asked what she planned to do about her high office in the RTL organization. Her response was a wide-eyed, 'You're not going to tell them, are you!?' When assured that I was not, she breathed a sigh of relief, explaining how important that position was to her and how she wouldn't want this to interfere with it." (Physician, Texas)
"In 1990, in the Boston area, Operation Rescue and other groups were regularly blockading the clinics, and many of us went every Saturday morning for months to help women and staff get in. As a result, we knew many of the 'antis' by face. One morning, a woman who had been a regular 'sidewalk counselor' went into the clinic with a young woman who looked like she was 16-17, and obviously her daughter. When the mother came out about an hour later, I had to go up and ask her if her daughter's situation had caused her to change her mind. 'I don't expect you to understand my daughter's situation!' she angrily replied. The following Saturday, she was back, pleading with women entering the clinic not to 'murder their babies.'" (Clinic escort, Massachusetts)
"We too have seen our share of anti-choice women, ones the counselors usually grit their teeth over. Just last week a woman announced loudly enough for all to hear in the recovery room, that she thought abortion should be illegal. Amazingly, this was her second abortion within the last few months, having gotten pregnant again within a month of the first abortion. The nurse handled it by talking about all the carnage that went on before abortion was legalized and how fortunate she was to be receiving safe, professional care. However, this young woman continued to insist it was wrong and should be made illegal. Finally the nurse said, 'Well, I guess we won't be seeing you here again, not that you're not welcome.' Later on, another patient who had overheard this exchange thanked the nurse for her remarks." (Clinic Administrator, Alberta)
"We saw a woman recently who after four attempts and many hours of counseling both at the hospital and our clinic, finally, calmly and uneventfully, had her abortion. Four months later, she called me on Christmas Eve to tell me that she was not and never was pro-choice and that we failed to recognize that she was clinically depressed at the time of her abortion. The purpose of her call was to chastise me for not sending her off to the psych unit instead of the procedure room." (Clinic Administrator, Alberta)
"Recently, we had a patient who had given a history of being a 'pro-life' activist, but who had decided to have an abortion. She was pleasant to me and our initial discussion was mutually respectful. Later, she told someone on my staff that she thought abortion is murder, that she is a murderer, and that she is murdering her baby. So before doing her procedure, I asked her if she thought abortion is murder -- the answer was yes. I asked her if she thought I am a murderer, and if she thought I would be murdering her baby, and she said yes. But murder is a crime, and murderers are executed. Is this a crime? Well, it should be, she said. At that point, she became angry and hostile, and the summary of the conversation was that she regarded me as an abortion-dispensing machine, and how dare I ask her what she thinks. After explaining to her that I do not perform abortions for people who think I am a murderer or people who are angry at me, I declined to provide her with medical care. I do not know whether she found someone else to do her abortion." (Physician, Colorado)
"In 1973, after Roe v. Wade, abortion became legal but had to be performed in a hospital. That of course was changed later. For the first 'legal abortion day' I had scheduled five procedures. While scrubbing between cases, I was accosted by the Chief of the OB/Gyn service. He asked me, 'How many children are you going to kill today?' My response, out of anger, was a familiar vulgar retort. About three months later, this born-again Christian called me to explain that he was against abortion but his daughter was only a junior in high school and was too young to have a baby and he was also afraid that if she did have a baby she would not want to put it up for adoption. I told him he did not need to explain the situation to me. 'All I need to know', I said, 'is that SHE wants an abortion.' Two years later I performed a second abortion on her during her college break. She thanked me and pleaded, 'Please don't tell my dad, he is still anti-abortion.'" (Physician, Washington State)
"The sister of a Dutch bishop in Limburg once visited the abortion clinic in Beek where I used to work in the seventies. After entering the full waiting room she said to me, 'My dear Lord, what are all those young girls doing here?' 'Same as you', I replied. 'Dirty little dames,' she said." (Physician, The Netherlands)
"I had a patient about ten years ago who traveled up to New York City from South Carolina for an abortion. I asked her why she went such a long way to get the procedure. Her answer was that she was a member of a church group that didn't believe in abortion and she didn't want anyone to know she was having one. She planned to return to the group when she went back to South Carolina." (Physician, New York)
"I once had a German client who greatly thanked me at the door, leaving after a difficult 22-week abortion. With a gleaming smile, she added: 'Und doch sind Sie ein Mörderer.' ('And you're still a murderer.')" (Physician, The Netherlands)
"My first encounter with this phenomenon came when I was doing a 2-week follow-up at a family planning clinic. The woman's anti-choice values spoke indirectly through her expression and body language. She told me that she had been offended by the other women in the abortion clinic waiting room because they were using abortion as a form of birth control, but her condom had broken so she had no choice! I had real difficulty not pointing out that she did have a choice, and she had made it! Just like the other women in the waiting room." (Physician, Ontario) http://mypage.direct.ca/...
The word is out. Their position is clear. Last week, Sen. Russ Feingold floated a reckless plan to censure the President, and some Democrat leaders have ecstatically jumped on Feingold's bandwagon.
And, if they gain even more power in November, they won't stop there.
Feingold says that censure actually represents "moderation" and calls the terrorist surveillance program an impeachable offense. Dick Durbin, the number two Democrat in the Senate, fails to rule out impeachment if Democrats retake Congress. Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin is talking "high crimes and misdemeanors." And 31 House Democrats are calling for a committee to look into impeachment. Their leader? John Conyers, who would become House Judiciary Committee chairman under Democrat control.
And what happens if we stand on the sidelines, and give the likes of Russ Feingold, John Kerry, and John Conyers control of Congress? Here's what the The Wall Street Journal says: "In fact, our guess is that censure would be the least of it. The real debate in Democratic circles would be whether to pass articles of impeachment. ... [E]veryone should understand that censure and impeachment are important -- and so far the only -- parts of the left's agenda for the next Congress."
The world is watching. Using every tool at our disposal to fight terrorists should not be a partisan issue. Democrats should to be focused on winning the War on Terror, not undermining it with political axe-grinding of the ugliest kind.
Sincerely,
Ken Mehlman Chairman, Republican National Committee
P.S. Russ Feingold's censure resolution and Democrat talk of impeachment have raised the stakes for 2006. Make your contribution, sign the petition, and help make sure this fight is won.
It turns out that Racist Redstate Ben also likes Jefferson Davis, the traitor to the US, and President of the Confederacy. Brad DeLong dug this up.
And that Ben likes Jefferson Davis a whole lot:
Bendomenech.com: June 26, 2005 - July 02, 2005 Archives: Shelby Foote begins his Civil War trilogy with [a chapter on] the story of Jefferson Davis.... This all goes to explain why Foote ended his [entire] trilogy this way:
...Jefferson Davis could never match [Lincoln's] music, or perhaps even catch its tone. His was a different style, though it too had its beauty and its uses: as in his response to a recent Beauvoir visitor, a reporter who hoped to leave with something that would help explain to readers the underlying motivation of those crucial years of bloodshed and division. Davis pondered briefly, then replied. "Tell them--" He paused as if to sort the words. "Tell the world that I only loved America," he said.
Here's how much Jefferson Davis loved America:
From Davis's farewell speech to the U.S. Senate:
Jefferson Davis 1861: Mississippi... has heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions.... The Declaration of Independence is to be construed by the circumstances and purposes for which it was made. The communities were asserting that no man was born... booted and spurred, to ride over the rest of mankind; that men were created equal, meaning the men of the political community... [that] all stations were equally within the grasp of each member of the body politic. These were the great principles they announced.... They have no reference to the slave...
Jefferson Davis during the debate over the Compromise of 1850:
Jefferson Davis 1850: [S]ir, I have an allegiance to the State which I represent here. I have an allegiance to those who have entrusted their interests to me, which every consideration of faith and of duty, which every feeling of honor, tells me is above all other political considerations. I trust I shall never find my allegiance there and here in conflict. God forbid that the day should ever come when to be true to my constituents is to be hostile to the Union. If, sir, we have reached that hour in the progress of our institutions, it is past the age to which the Union should have lived. If we have got to the point when it is treason to the United States to protect the rights and interests of our constituents, I ask why should they longer be represented here? why longer remain a part of the Union? If there is a dominant party in this Union which can deny to us equality, and the rights we derive through the Constitution; if we are no longer the freemen our fathers left us; if we are to be crushed by the power of an unrestrained majority, this is not the Union for which the blood of the Revolution was shed; this is not the Union I was taught from my cradle to revere; this is not the Union in the service of which a large portion of my life has been passed; this is not the Union for which our fathers pledged their property, their lives, and sacred honor. No, sir, this would be a central Government, raised on the destruction of all the principles of the Constitution, and the first, the highest obligation of every man who has sworn to support that Constitution would be resistance to such usurpation. This is my position.
My colleague has truly represented the people of Mississippi as ardently attached to the Union. I think he has not gone beyond the truth when he has placed Mississippi one of the first, if not the first, of the States of the Confederation in attachment to it. But, sir, even that deep attachment and habitual reverence for the Union, common to us all--even that, it may become necessary to try by the touchstone of reason. It is not impossible that they should unfurl the flag of disunion. It is not impossible that violations of the Constitution and of their rights, should drive them to that dread extremity. I feel well assured that they will never reach it until it has been twice and three times justified. If, when thus fully warranted, they want a standard bearer, in default of a better, I am at their command.
Hiring Bush factorum and home schooled veal Ben Domenech may have either been a cruel, vengeful joke by Dana Milbank, or a clear lack of due dilligence. But either way, the hiring of the 24 year right wing blogzombie has already caused a surprisingly bitter reaction among Post readers.
In one comment as "Augustine" his psuedonym on racist Redstate, he said
Some people claim that Martin Luther King Jr. was not a Communist, even though he did everything possible to promote the Communist's agenda. That's like saying that Hitler was not a murderer because he didn't actually do the killing. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Communist! Martin Luther King was affiliated with 60 Communist Fronts. He openly incited violence under the banner of "nonviolence." King led a bizarre sex life which included acts of shocking perversion. On Jan. 31, 1977 Coretta Scott King obtained a federal court order sealing for 50 years 845 pages of FBI records about her husband, "because its release would destroy his reputation!" Still a cowardly, spineless Congress voted to make King's birthday a national holiday. This is should be an outrage to all Christians. The King Holiday act must be repealed!
The life story of Martin Luther King is shocking and disgraceful from beginning to end. He was born with the name Michael King on Jan. 15, 1929. In 1935 his preacher father, "Daddy" King, decided to name himself after the great Protestant reformer Martin Luther. He announced to his congregation that henceforth he was to be called Martin Luther King and his son Martin Luther King, Jr. "Daddy" King never bothered to have this act legalized in court. Thus, his son's real name is Michael King! The holiday should actually be called "Michael" King Day!
It was not some "right-winger" who had King's office and hotel rooms bugged. This order was signed by then U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy on Oct. 10, 1963. Evidence proved that King was under the direct orders of Soviet spies and financed by the Communist Party. The Kennedy tapings continued for 5 years and also developed shocking revelations regarding King's sexual practices.
Negro Bayard Rustin is a former organizer for the Young Communist League. He spent 60 days in a California jail on a 1953 conviction for performing lewd homosexual acts in public. He also served 28 months in prison for draft evasion. Today Rustin is paid by Jewish organizations for use of his name as a "signer" of ads urging "Black-Jewish Unity." He was King's secretary and advisor from 1956 to 1960. During this period Rustin attended the National Convention of the Communist Party in 1957 as an "honored observer." King called him a "a brilliant, efficient, and dedicated organizer." It was Rustin who introduced King to a Soviet spy named Stanley D. Levison. He was a New York Lawyer and vice-president of the N.Y. Council of the American Jewish Congress. Levison's job was to launder the $1million subsidy Soviet Russia gave to finance the U.S. Communist Party. Levison proved important financial, organizational and public relations services for King. After King's death his wife, Corretta Scott King described Levison's role as, "always working in the background, his contribution has been indispensable." Levison wrote an obituary for King and described America as a "nation tenaciously racist... sick with violence...and corrosive with alienation. The civil rights liberation struggle is the most positive and rewarding area of work anyone could experience."
There was a tendency in the civil rights movement, as American leaders did in Vietnam and in southern Africa, to confuse a genuine, simple quest for freedom to external communist influence. In fact, the civil rights movement was completely indigenous. Negroes drew their inspiration from the years of racial violence and indignities to which they were subjected, their profound religious convictions and the acceptance of non-violence as a tactic. While the Rev Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders were subjected to various forms of surveillance by the U.S. government, it was not until M.L's speech at Riverside Church in 1964 opposing the Vietnam war and raising the commonality of liberation struggles in Southern Africa and other parts of the world that the full weight of the FBI Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) against him was instituted. Despite his assassination in March 1968, this is a story that will not die. In December 1999, after years of abortive attempts to gain a new trial for James Earl Ray, King's alleged assassin, the King family obtained a verdict in a jury trial in Tennessee that Ray was part of a broader conspiracy and did not act alone. The United States government agreed in that same month to finally create a monument to Rev. King on the Mall in Washington.
Howie Kurtz, who wrote this on Tuesday might want to reconsider his rather smug words today. Because the post about Red America went into hundreds of complaints.
The Post has a new conservative blog, called Red America . "This is a blog for the majority of Americans," writes former Bush aide Ben Domenech.
This has created an "uproar," says Editor & Publisher , although said uproar turns out to be a bunch of people complaining on Tom Edsall's online chat.
John Amato at Crooks and Liars says: "The Washington Post continues to become more and more a mouthpiece for the GOP by hiring a rightwing blogger."
I don't get it. One conservative blogger? It's not like The Post doesn't have a left-leaning blogger, or liberal columnists. Is the New York Times a GOP mouthpiece because it employs David Brooks and John Tierney? If people don't like what Domenech has to say, don't click on him. It's not like you can say "cancel my subscription!" since the Web site is free.
The Post does not have a left blogger. Dan Froomkin is a journalist. Racist Redstate Ben is a political operative. See the difference.
And Howie should realize that people are talking about cancelling their print subscriptions because the Post hired him.
Here's what you should get, Howie:
Domenech has been consistently pro-war while refusing to serve. He even sold a a cup on his website with the slogan of Marine snipers "you can run, but you die tired". While legal, it is of the lowest form of taste to sell such a thing when never having served as a Marine, much less a Marine sniper. How about asking writer Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead, and a former Marine scout sniper, how he feels about the appropriation of the title and Marine insignia to sell to a bunch of people who have never enlisted, much less qualified under the Marines exacting standards.
His comments on the King funeral were obscene, and I bet deeply offensive to the large black readership of the Washington Post. I wonder how many would be tempted to also cancel their subscriptions when they find out the Washington Post, and no one cares if you think the paper and website are seperate, has hired a racist who thinks Coretta Scott King was a communist and said so on the day of her funeral.
Regardless of Mr. Domenech's politics, this kind of open and vile racism is hardly going to go unnoticed.
Hundreds of readers asd well as several bloggers, have researched Domenech's posts and his father's recent roll as Jack Abrahoff's liason to the Interior Department. You know, the controlling agency over indian lands and thus their casinos?
Or his role as an editor at Regnery Press, which has often attacked people with the thinnest of proof.
More is coming about this clown.
We all live public lives, posting on line, any single post can be taken out of context. But most of us aren't racists who defile people on the day of their funeral.
If the Washington Post wants to hire an open racist, they should have to explain why to their readership.
Update: Augustine posted up this quote from "First Things"
People who are poor and black are a drag on society. We would all be better off if there were fewer of them. Since we have, with little success, spent trillions of dollars over the past several decades trying to make poor blacks non-poor, it is time we recognize that there are more efficient means of eliminating the drag. Stated so bluntly, many readers might find that way of putting the matter morally problematic. The extermination of anti-social elements does, after all, have a somewhat controversial history. One thinks, perhaps inevitably, of the Holocaust, but it did not start or stop there. Six years ago, economist Steven Levitt and law professor John Donohue sparked a brouhaha with their claim that abortion is probably the greatest crime-prevention measure ever invented. Now that argument has received renewed currency in the bestselling book Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Levitt and his co-author Stephen Dubner. In recent years there has been a 30- to 50-percent drop in crime, and many explanations are offered: new policing methods, more than two million people behind bars, the drop-off in the use of crack, and on and on. But a careful analysis of the data, say Levitt and company, indicates that the biggest factor, far and away, is that the millions of young men most likely to commit crimes were killed early on. A refreshing note of candor in the current discussion is that nobody is denying that all those fetuses killed in the womb were really human beings. So it seems the question of when human life begins has been settled once and for all. The dramatic decline in crime began eighteen years after Roe v. Wade, and a few years earlier in those states that liberalized their abortion law. Of course, most of the commentaries steer away from a too-explicit reference to race, although everybody is aware of the astonishingly inordinate incidence of crimes committed by young male blacks and the equally inordinate incidence of abortions procured by black women. In one interview, Levitt said his findings had little or nothing to do with race; his research on the correlation between crime and unstable family situations was based on Scandinavian research. Well yes, but nobody to my knowledge has suggested that the problem of crime in the United States is significantly related to the problem of Swedish immigration. Levitt, like Donohue, is also careful to say that he is not a supporter of the unlimited abortion license. I notice that many other commentators make a point of saying that this discussion is not about the rightness or wrongness of abortion. It just happens that killing black babies has the happy result of reducing crime. I do not question the research or logic of Levitt's argument. If a specifiable group is inordinately responsible for a social problem, it follows that eliminating a large number of people belonging to that group will reduce the problem. It is hard to argue with that. What is morally odious is the cool and disinterested way in which the commentariat is discussing what might fairly be described as racial cleansing. It's too bad about all those dead babies, but it is a kind of solution to the crime problem, if not a final solution. Meanwhile, those who style themselves black leaders, especially political leaders, are overwhelmingly in support of the unlimited abortion license, thus maintaining their distinction of being the only ethnic or racial leadership in history to actively collaborate in dramatically reducing the number of people they claim to lead. If they had been allowed to live, there would be about twenty million more blacks in America. White racists have reason to be grateful for what is sometimes still called the civil rights leadership. In another lifetime, before he succumbed to national ambitions, Jesse Jackson regularly declared that the war on poverty had been replaced by a war on the poor. There is more than a little to that. Having despaired of preparing young blacks to enter into the opportunities and responsibilities of American life, the society apparently decided to eliminate them before they had a chance to become a threat. The story of the Exodus plays a large and understandable part in black history: "Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, `When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him.' But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live." Today's black leaders are more compliant, much to the satisfaction of those who think we would all be better off with fewer black people.
What does Red State founder Mike Krempasky say after reading this?
p tags man, p tags
By: krempasky
my eyes hurt.
"My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives."
Not "are you fucking insane", not "this is disgusting", but make sure you format this correctly.
Howie, your new columnist posted this up on racist Red State without any commentary, which means he thought it was praiseworthy at least. He certainly didn't condemn it.
I wonder if Wal Mart or the GOP wants to be associated with this, Mike?
Or the Washington Post. I bet their large base of black professional subscribers would love to know the feelings of their blogger on race. Genocide anyone?
No wonder he didn't enlist. They don't keep open racists in the military.
DAYTON | Managers of the Dayton Daily News have received more than 900 e-mails from fans of Fox News talk show host Bill O'Reilly after Reilly's Web site and television program slammed the paper for an editorial that he says makes it "the most friendly (newspaper) to child rapists" in America. ....................................
"We never defended Judge Connor's decision to sentence a child molester to a year of house arrest and five years' probation," Bruce said Tuesday in a prepared statement. "What we said is that if the judge deserves to be removed from office, then due process should be followed – the same sort of due process that Bill O'Reilly relied upon when he was sued (for sexual harassment) and, ultimately, settled out of court."
O'Reilly was sued in 2004 by his former producer.
When the suit was settled out of court for an undisclosed sum, O'Reilly called the lawsuit and the media lashing he took for it "a brutal ordeal" and thanked his listeners for having "given me the benefit of a doubt when some in the media did not."
Bruce wondered why O'Reilly won't give Connor the same benefit of a doubt. ............................
O'Reilly, through a producer, said, "Personal attacks launched on me disqualify the Dayton Daily News from any serious debate. We believe that Jeff Bruce is not an honest individual."
Statement from O'Reilly's Web site:
"What newspaper in the United States of America is most friendly to child rapists? Could it be the Dayton Daily News which has supported Judge John Connor's sentence of probation for a man who raped a 5 year old boy and a 12 year old boy over a 3 year period.
"Not only that... but the Dayton Daily News attacked the Governor of Ohio, the Attorney General of Ohio and Bill O'Reilly for reporting the story and actually asking for the removal of Judge Connor. The vicious personal attacks launched by the Dayton Daily News were strange when contrasted to the lack of condemnation for the judge.
"So, can one conclude therefore that the Dayton Daily News is a newspaper that has sympathy for child rapists and the judges who will not incarcerate them?"
Statement from Jeff Bruce:
"They say only two things happen when you wrestle a pig: You get muddy and the pig enjoys it. So it's tempting to just let this pass, but, really, what O'Reilly has said on his Web site is so outrageous and such a distortion that I can't.
"No crime is more heinous than child molestation, so it is understandable that people would be inflamed by the notion that a pederast evaded the punishment he is due. But when Mr. O'Reilly asks the question on his Web site, "What newspaper in the United States of America is most friendly to child rapists," he's egging his readers on without giving them all the facts.
"As readers of the Dayton Daily News know, this newspaper is not soft of child molesters. Just the opposite.
"Here's what's really happening: Mr. O'Reilly is upset with the newspaper because in an editorial we referred to his own recent legal history in which he was accused of sexual harassment. His producer threatened that unless we published an apology they would resort to their 'bully pulpit.' That's what they've done. This isn't about being 'soft' on child molesters. It's about Bill O'Reilly getting even.
"We never defended Judge Connor's decision to sentence a child molester to a year of house arrest and five years' probation. What we said is that if the judge deserves to be removed from office then due process should be followed – the same sort of due process that Bill O'Reilly relied upon when he was sued and, ultimately, settled out of court.
"The editorial also noted that the prosecutor in the case, while disappointed with the judge's sentence, was afraid his evidence was so weak that he might have lost the case entirely if it had gone to trial. He agreed to settle the case.
"In America we have a system of checks and balances that includes the independence of the judiciary. There are rules in place to remove bad judges. Our editorial simply said we should follow those rules, not allow ourselves to rush to judgment because of a television commentator's opinions.
"That's not an endorsement of Judge Connor or his decision. The fact that a child molester got off so lightly is disgusting. If I would fault our editorial for anything it is that we could have said that and said it firmly.
"But that's not why O'Reilly asked his readers to write the newspaper. His producer, in a conversation with me, acknowledged the logic of our editorial's argument. But they felt dragging O'Reilly's own legal problems into the article was gratuitous. While I expected O'Reilly to take a shot at us, I was shocked that he would suggest that this newspaper 'has sympathy for child rapists.' That is a deliberate distortion of what we said and what we stand for, and nothing could be further from the truth.
"So you know, on the same page that we published our editorial, we also printed a package of opposing views, including those from O'Reilly himself. We made every effort to be fair and balanced in our presentation of this issue. It is a pity that sense of fairness was not reciprocated."
And O'Reilly thought that he could get away with this and put it in the memory hole.
Today on WTIC News/Talk radio from Hartford listeners were treated to an angry meltdown from Joe Lieberman. Joe took exception to a recent column in the Hartford Courant by the man who was interviewing him, Colin McEnroe.
In the column McEnroe had the temerity to suggest he'd vote for Ned Lamont after twenty years of voting for Lieberman.
I'm a registered Democrat, and, like a lot of my species here in Connecticut, I don't know whom I'm going to vote for in August. If I had to vote tomorrow, I'd vote for Ned Lamont, but I'd leave the polling place shaking my head, wondering what the hell happened to Joe Lieberman.
This angered Joe. A lot. But what really got his dander up was what followed.
"It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be the commander in chief for three more critical years and that in matters of war we undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril," Lieberman said.
Joe threw a not so Senatorial conniption fit. Not that McEnroe's lead-in thrilled dear old Joe
As much as I admire Lieberman's willingness to stand on principle, I've noticed an arrogance creeping in. It's one thing to support the war and the president, which he does. It's another to say, as he did last year, that those who do not parrot his support are unpatriotic.
...but that somehow the meaning of the statement was perverted somehow by being taken out of context. Joe spat out that McEnroe must have got that from "some bloggers", apparently because they specialize in that. McEnroe responded that no had gotten it directly from The New York Times, to which kindly avuncular old Joe Lieberman retorted "was just as bad".
Joe tried to convince him that the offnsive quote was from a speech where he had decried the poisonous partisanship in Washington as increasingly harmful, and not that we must follow Bush blindly or those that criticize Dear Leader were unpatriotic.
And it did sound as if he himself believed that was what he meant. But McEnroe didn't sound convinced and I doubt anyone listening to his spattering explanation did either. Especially not when later Joe's condescension of his inferiors would lead him to spout that it would be, and I quote, foolish and irresponsible to vote against a man of his background and credentials, a man with "a proven track record of getting things done for Connecticut", for an unproven upstart who had so far his only elected office had been as a Greenwich Board of Selectman. You could just see the good Senator sneering as these words spat from his mouth.
Especially ironic given that just last week Ned Lamont was the angry candidate, supposedly. Lamont had clearly irked Lieberman when he quipped "No one will ever accuse me of being George Bush's favorite Democrat."
"Mr. Lamont is clearly going to run a very negative and angry campaign where the truth doesn't get in the way."Hartford Courant
"Angry" Ned Lamont
Later on near the end McEnroe would bring up Lieberman's closeness to George W. Bush. Again Joe took great offense. He was positively miffed. Joe again went into a great litany of his differences with the administration, so strong he felt the need to run against the President in '04. [McEnroe may have snickered out loud at that point, but maybe I imagined it.] Then Joe mentioned the current atmosphere in Washington being as bad as during the Clinton years when the Republicans went after him, neatly forgetting his involvement in the sordid affair with his infamous statement.
All in all, an amazing display. Reminiscent of George Bush's recent press conference with his haughty condescension and open dismissal of his critics. Also ironic given that Ned Lamont had been on the Al Franken show on Air America with Sam Seder this afternoon. The contrast between the confident and assured Lamont and the unhinged Joe Lieberman really did beg the question of who seemed more senatorial. On this day Ned Lamont won handily.
By CHERYL WITTENAUER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 6 minutes ago
ST. LOUIS - A St. Louis radio station quickly fired a talk show host for uttering a racial epithet as he talked about Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on his morning show Wednesday.
Dave Lenihan apologized on the air immediately after making what he said was a slip of the tongue. KTRS president and general manager Tim Dorsey agreed the remark was accidental but said it was nonetheless "unacceptable, reprehensible and unforgivable."
Lenihan had been heaping praise on Rice, who has frequently said she aspires to run the NFL one day but has more recently ruled out seeking to replace retiring Commissioner Paul Tagliabue.
"She's been chancellor of Stanford," Lenihan said on the air. "She's got the patent resume of somebody that has serious skill. She loves football. She's African-American, which would kind of be a big coon. A big coon. Oh my God. I am totally, totally, totally, totally, totally sorry for that."
He said he had meant to say "coup" instead of the racial slur.
No. Because that's a word he uses in real life, every damn day.
Maybe this is why I get hate mail. After all, such ideas are “dangerous.” Whites with sinister motives may use such op-eds and blog posts as material to support their “racist” positions, so I’m told.
Back in the day, whites were afraid that slaves would be exposed to “dangerous” ideas, too, like dignity, humanity, the pursuit of knowledge, and…freedom. Radical. The freedom to think critically and for oneself can be as radical. It may result in an epidemic of knowledge and reasoned debate, and we all know how dangerous that would be.
Speaking of critical thinking, I don’t do it often enough myself (news flash!). Sometimes I rant, allowing emotions to take over. I try not to make a habit it, though. Then again, I certainly don’t want to take a Spock-like approach to life. As with everything else, there is a balance. But I digress.
Government-mandated, race-based discrimination may have been hideous, but it was the law of the land, just as child killing is today. (Supreme Court strikes again!) Of course, there’s the issue of man’s law v. the moral law, but why quibble?
For you youngsters in the audience, killing babies was once against the law. (It still is only if the mother wants the fetus.) Those days were known as the “Dark Ages.” Today, enlightened Americans on the Supreme Court decided that women ought to have a right to kill their unborn. Times sure a-change, alright. Yes, indeedy! Next thing you know, government-mandated, race-based discrimination in reverse will be the law of the land.
Come to think of it, it already is. Times sure a-change, alright.
I’m giving serious thought to preparing a proposal for a page turner of a book called, In Defense of the Southern Strategy: The Case for the Appeal to States’ Rights During the Civil Rights Movement.
I’d be vilified, of course, and 20 death threats a day would be the norm. But what press such a book would generate, especially written by a black woman! I’d have to start small with a series of well-researched articles first.
One of the myths I want to bust wide open is that the old Dixicrats disbanded and joined the Republican party en masse. I know there’s a story there, just waiting for somebody to tell it. I want to show Americans who weren’t alive then or too young to remember that it’s not only untrue, but a fable Democrats came up with to try to cover up their own embarrassing history and keep blacks dependent on a large, bureaucratic, central government (see Why Courting the Black Vote Won’t Work).
To be “fair and balanced,” I’ve included a Wikipedia entry that’s hopelessly biased against conservatism and two articles biased toward the right:
I guess she's waiting for white Jesus as well. In defense of your own subjugation. Cool.
Anyone this stupid, um, Ken Mehlman apologized for this and just this week Paul Weyrich questioned the ability of the GOP to support blacks, is going to be insulted and abused as she was the first day of Ass Clown Media. If she didn't get it then, she never will.
My grandson is going to work for the Washington Post..... in the bizarro world
It's occured to me and Jen that the right wing has grown increasingly open in it's racism in the last few months.
When I started this blog, the first post was a swinging attack on black conservatives, but the right wasn't really a topic which came up much. not even in the Iraq war to a large degree. But for the most part, it was more about black culture and folkways, not politics.
2004 was pretty much the same.
While I'll admit my sambo depiction of Michael Steele was mean and blunt, besides the caterwalling of the right, which was easily disposed of, race still wasn't a massive topic here.
That changed with Katrina.
For some reason, the right blogzombies felt free to attack black people with a vengence. From Jonah Goldberg's jokes about people drowning in the Superdome to John Derbyshire's comments that blacks didn't have 'self-control". From then on, the racism has ramped up to an incredible level.
Then you have Bill "Slots" Bennett calling for genocide and his loyal negro retainers defending him.
At every turn, black conservatives have defended white racism, no matter how demeaning it gets or how much outrage it causes normal people.
The King funeral seems to have brought the racists out like roaches in the light. Racist Redstate took the lead with its insults on black culture, then Racist Redstate Ben jumped in and called Mrs. King a communist.
Jesus fucking Christ, the only time I heard that was when the segs spoke in the mid-1960's.
And this is the person they hire to become their first in-house blogger?
Are they kidding? Would they hire someone who said the Bush girls were drunken whores or that white people are blond hair, blue eyed devils? Of course not. So why is the WaPo hiring a man who thinks the Kings were communists?
They don't give anyone else this opportunity, but he gets it, for what reason? Balance? What balance, is there a left wing blogger who thinks 9/11 was a government plot? Hiring Restate Racist Ben is like hiring one of the Farrakhans to write opinion for the Post.
As a former Marine and DC police officer, I am sure you have seen a great deal of violence in your life. However, your newest columnist seems to think that war is like a video game. You might want to inform him differently.
Ben Domenech on soldiers dying in the Iraq war (March 10, 2003):
This aversion to any sort of bodybag in the context of war is something my brother Ellis and I have mocked before, at length: we like to call it the "Contra 3 Syndrome." In Contra, one of the most popular arcade games ever (unrelated to the South American resistance), you play a soldier blasting away at baddies (in the 3rd installment, for the SNES, it's alien baddies) with oversized weaponry in a side-scrolling firefight. It's an entertaining game, but extremely short--Contra 3 is only 6 levels long. Besides, you really need all three of your lives to deal with the last boss--so a lot of people who play the game will restart the minute they lose their first life. Ellis and I are more likely to make it to the end with only one life left, but hey, that's the point of the game, not erasing/restarting every time anyone dies. Modern War isn't exactly like Contra, and it's a good deal longer than any 6-level game.
Some people earn the right to have this, some don't.
So, Redstate Racist Ben is a Marine Sniper?
Wow. He did all this?
Qualifications
Male, volunteer
0300-Infantry MOS.
E2 - E7(No officers).
expert rifleman.Minimum Requirements:
having a second class or higher swim qualification.
a first-class score on their Physical Fitness Test (PFT).
eye sight correctable to 20/20.
not colour blind.
no office hours.
Non-Judicial Punishments within 6 months.
qualify for a secret security clearance.
and posses a GT score of 110 or higher.
For a perfect score:
3 mile run in 18 minutes, 20 deadhang pull-ups(No Swinging)
100 sit-up/crunchs under two minutes.
500 meter swim using side or breast stroke.
50 meter swim holding a weight out of water, tread water for 30 seconds holding a weight out of water, no signs of panic.
Or:
Two of the better ways of becoming a Scout/Sniper are through a Recon unit or an Infantry Battalion.
First join the Marine Corps with an Infantry MOS. While in Boot Camp you will need to shoot Expert on the rifle range, become at least a second class swimmer and score a high first class PFT.
Upon completion of Infantry training you will be given the opportunity to volunteer for Recon or Force Recon.
If you successfully complete their indoc you will be sent to a Recon unit where you will first qualify as a Recon Marine then given the opportunity to volunteer for Scout/Sniper School.
BN Recon and Force Recon have school seats assigned to them for every S/S School.
Lastly:
The other way is to be sent to an Infantry Battalion and then volunteer for the Scout/Sniper Platoon.
The S/S Plt runs indocs annually and pulls in personnel from the BN.
Each Sniper unit runs its own version of the indoc but they are all extremely difficult. Once in the unit you will go through all the training to become a sniper before ever going to S/S School.
Once at the school you will be expected to have all the basic knowledge of a Scout/Sniper and the advanced knowledge of an infantry Marine.
You will show up with everything that you will need to make it through the school including your ghillie suit.
There are no second chances at the school and drops are a daily occurrence.
The title of scout/sniper is one few Marines have attained.
They are Marines highly skilled in fieldcraft and marksmanship, who deliver long-range, precision fire at selected targets from concealed positions.
Their secondary mission is to gather information for intelligence purposes, according to GySgt. Michael Johnston, staff noncommissioned officer in charge at the Scout Sniper School. The sniper is best utilized when he is sent into the area of planned offensive action ahead of time, preferably under the cover of darkness, to gather timely intelligence data and to select his targets.
During a recent exercise, 18 potential scout-snipers stood behind the tree line along a dirt road preparing their Ghillie Suits to look identical to the grass and bushes in the field they were about to cross as part of their graded exercise in stalking the enemy target. The Ghillie Suit is the camouflage uniform of the Marine sniper. It consists of trousers and a blouse with vegetation attached to it to blend in with environment. The mood was upbeat as SSgt. Kyle Bittner, chief instructor at the Scout-Sniper school, went over some important, final instructions: "Be sure to change your camouflage as you move into different areas.
Look for a good window to set your sights on your target. And don't get caught," Bittner said. The object of the graded stalk is to maneuver within 200 yards of the target and take a single shot without being detected by the instructor. Sitting on top of a small hill at the opposite end of the field, the instructor and the target are one and the same. The target scours the area with powerful binoculars to find the student crawling and slithering through the brush. "It's a weird feeling being out there all alone," Johnston said. "Your senses are heightened beyond belief. You have no time to feel fear because you are so in tune with what is going on around you." When the student graduates, he returns to his unit, now trained to be the best of the best.
His new assignment is with the same unit but as part of the Recon/Sniper platoon where he is no longer faced with stalking an instructor, but a real target. "It's not like the movie `Sniper'," Johnston said. "That movie was realistic for about the first ten minutes and then it was tremendously glorified the rest of the way," he added. The Recon/Sniper platoons are a new part of grunt units in the Marine Corps. In this platoon there are 16 Recon personnel and 16 Snipers. They return to the same unit which hand-selected them to attend the Scout/Sniper School. Only this time they are part of a smaller more elite platoon. But that all comes after eight weeks of blood, sweat and living with the smallest, ugliest creatures that inhabit the underbrush.
The graded stalk began when the whistle echoed off the surrounding hills. The students scurried into the tree line and were as visible as ghosts when they emerged on the other side. The tall grass, swaying wildly in the strong wind was a great advantage to the students. "The wind makes it nearly impossible for the target to spot the student," Johnston said. "On a day like this, any movement of the bushes or grass by the student is undetectable." Two instructors situated themselves at the middle of the field, to act as the locator for the target instructor. The target used a walkie-talkie to give instructions to the walker. "If the target spots something, he can move the walker to where he saw the student. He gets three chances to get the exact location of the student.
He then must leave the student alone until he makes another false move," Johnston said. Soon after saying this, a student tried to cross a patch of green grass with brown grass camouflage. He hugged the ground and didn't move a muscle while the walker was positioned by the target. The walker watched as he executed this maneuver and shook his head in disbelief. "If the student is caught before he reaches the 200-yard mark, he receives no points," Johnston explained. "If they get in range, then fire a shot off and are still not spotted, the walker will stand within 10 feet of the student to give the target one more chance to locate the student. If the student is still undetected, the walker checks to see if the student is aimed in on the proper target. If everything is correct they receive the maximum score of 10," he added. When the clock hit three hours, only six students were left and most of them had not even gotten off a shot.
"Each Basic Scout-Sniper Course starts with 24 to 29 students and about half make it to graduation," Johnston said. "We lose most of our students during the land navigation portion. A lot of the young Marines who come through don't know land navigation well enough and fail to get the required 70-percent mark." But those who do make it to the graded stalks train long and hard in the mud and dirt to be silent and deadly even after they take the shot. Above the doors leading to the classroom a sign reads: "Through these doors pass the world's finest infantry men. Out walks the world's deadliest weapon -- Marine Scout-Snipers."
So Ben was Force Recon, and then became a Scout Sniper? Damn, and he's only 24.
What? You mean he didn't?
He thinks he can glom on the work of people who are among the most elite operators on the planet? He thinks he would survive Parris Island, much less Quantico? Does he think Marines are impressed by a chickenhawk waving this around like he did something?
He wants to have that cup around, he should do what his boss Donald Graham did and join up. The publisher of the WaPo is a Vietnam vet and an ex-Marine. I'm sure he'd love this.
WASHINGTON -- President Bush suggested yesterday that US troops might stay in Iraq beyond his presidency, which ends in 2009, saying at a press conference that the issue of removing troops from the country ''will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq."
The president, responding to aggressive questioning at the hastily arranged morning session, declined to give a timetable for pulling US soldiers out of the increasingly unpopular war. But he warned several times about the danger of a ''premature" withdrawal.
''There's no question that if we were to prematurely withdraw and the march to democracy were to fail, then Al Qaeda would be emboldened," Bush said. ''Terrorist groups would be emboldened. The Islamo-fascists would be emboldened."
Asked whether his comments signaled that a complete pullout would not happen during the three remaining years of his presidency, Bush said the decision would be left up to the generals ''on the ground" in Iraq.
Bush's comments -- widely seen as an attempt to shift public expectations away from the notion of a quick pullout -- dovetailed with comments yesterday by Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, the leading US ally in the war.
''This is not a clash between civilizations, it is a clash about civilization," Blair said, emphasizing that Iraq is just one piece of the larger war on terrorism.
Oh, I agree. President Hastert will be withdrawing what is left of US troops. I don't think Bush has another six months of sanity in him. And Cheney lies about his health like Doyle Brunson lies about his poker hands.
I don't think Bush sees 2009 in the White House. I don't think he has it in him. Too much is up in the air for Bush to not have something land on him with both feet, my bet is the collaspe of the Iraqi "government", but it could be a Rove indictment or Abramoff or illegal spying. Bush has problems everywhere and no resiliency to deal with them.
And I think something else, as the election draws near, people are going to be far more willing to elect people willing to impeach him.
There was a LOT of caterwalling on the left about Russ Feingold's censure move. Which I think was smart to get in the open, but WAY too early to really vote on. People are used to the idea. It will come up again.
I don't think we'll get to impechment. Because Bush is a weak man, a man living in a fantasy world. America is living in Bush's Days of Wine and Roses.
When you're a young man, being a drunk playboy is cute. Bush had some sharp, mean edges to him which made it less appealing, but still, as Prince Hal, he was tolerable. But as a leader, he's more MacBeth than Henry V, with Dick Cheney as Lady MacBeth, pushing him on to further crimes.
People say he's going to blame the liberals or the media, but that won't work. Bush pushed this war way past its sellby date to the point where he's delusional, where jokes about Army Group Steiner make more sense every day.
No president can wage an unpopular war for years to come. The US Army will reach a crisis this summer, as people flee the military and recruiting hits a dry hole. Liberals seem to forget that Iraq is not in Bush's hands alone. There are many other players and they can send Iraq into a tailspin any time they choose.
Bush cannot be told the truth, so people die. But reality hits even the driest of drunks and Bush's presidency is winding down. And we're not talking three years. He can't wage a war with opposition at 80 percent and it's getting there. His hopes for his presidency relies on crooked, selfish men with seperate agendas in Iraq.
They can't even form a govenment worth anything.
So when Bush says the next president will havre troops in Iraq, he's absolutely right. Only problem, we're not talking about 2009.
I know it’s been a while, I hope you didn’t think I’d forgotten you. But when I heard that you’d hired Ben Domanech to set up his own tumescent little outpost of wingnuttia at the post.com, I just had to give my home boy a shout out. I don’t want you to think this is that disingenous GOP "thanks, Russ Feingold" brand of appreciation that explodes with the pop of Brit Hume’s cranium. No, it’s the sincere faint-when-you-see-the-Jaguar-wrapped-in-a-bow-on-Christmas-morning kind of thanks (I know your kind like to talk about "values" so I figured I’d pick one you could relate to.)
Just as the time of reckoning approaches and the Washington Post will, like it or no, have to take responsibility for all the flagrant, credulous warmongering it did in a fit of BushCo. access rapture, you guys hire the most thick-witted, mouth breathing home schooled freak you could lay your hands on. The respectable journalists who have managed to survive the Patrick Ruffini sycophancy of John WATB Harris, the jejune truthiness of Deborah Howell and the simple fact that one of the biggest stories of last year was how the paper’s own superstar fucked you over and then wouldn’t talk to you about it are no doubt cringing in the bathroom stalls.
They must’ve really been jamming sharp objects into their eyes this morning after Domanech took them to task for their lack of Red Dawn acumen. Oh, lordy Jim. I have to tell you, if I’d been writing a send-up of a right wing blogger I could not have done a better job.
You went straight to the Red State racist woodpile and extracted a full-on jingoistic feces flinger to feature on the Post web site, an unrepentant GOP operative without a shred of journalistic credibility. Nice touch. Because he balances out what, Froomkin’s IQ? Already the hunt is on to extract every stupid thing he’s ever said, every soupçon of doltish ignorance for which he has ever claimed authorship to be collected and disseminated throughout the blogosphere and beyond.
I think we can get a little pissed about this.
This story shall the good man teach his son