"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.
