The title of this article links you to a story in the Chicago Sun-Times about Steve Gardner, "The 10th Brother".
Steve Gardner was one of 12 boat crewmembers on Senator John Kerry's swift boat in Vietnam. He was the only one to speak out against Kerry as one of the members of the Swift Boat Veterans For Truth PAC. Gardner made it his business to see that Kerry was not elected Commander in Chief. For this act of "free speech", his financial privacy was threatened and he was summarily fired from his job. Gardner claims he is broke now and can't afford to sue his former company.
Millennium Information Services (MIS), Gardner's former company has abjectly denied having fired him for political cause. MIS states that the position Gardner once held is no longer necessary. However, Gardner maintains that the company has been advertising for a replacement for that "unnecessary" job. Steve Hurley, the man whom allegedly threatened Gardner with, "You better watch your step. We can look into your finances," has now denied have ever uttered those words.
So whom should we believe?
I have to admit, my heart tells me Gardner isn't lying about what's happened to him or the reasons it's happened. However, let's pretend I didn't have an inherent bias against John Kerry, this story sounds all too much like other tales of people crossing the wrong politician or operative and being soundly crushed.
Here's an example from the other side of the isle. There once was a promising politician from Houston name Lena Guerrero. Lena Guerrero was elected to the Texas state legislature at the politically tender age of 25. Guerrero was also instrumental in victorious gubernatorial campaign if Ann Richards. In 1992, Ann Richards returned the favor by tapping Guerrero, whom at the time was running for the Texas Railroad Commission--a powerful body that regulates oil and gas interests in the state, and regularly serves as a springboard to higher political office, to speak at the 1992 Democratic National Convention. USA featured her on a list of future female candidates for President. Guerrero was quite popular with her constituency had held much grace in the face of what could sometimes be brutal politics. Allegedly, during a Q & A with the press, one reporter asked her to reveal her bra size. She responded by saying, "Finally, something I know something about." Cue rim shot.
So what happened? Karl Rove, that's what happened.
Karl Rove, the political consultant and policy guru of President George W. Bush, got a hold of her college transcripts. Apparently, Guerrero had lied about her academic resume--she had never graduated college or received a Phi Beta Kappa key, and she failed classes on Texas government and Mexican-Americans in the Southwest. Needless to say, nobody in the political arena has heard from Guerrero since.
This is what I mean; it's not unheard of to crush someone’s livelihood, especially when they aren't someone politically important. You can smear anyone in this country at any time for any price. What's the message is out there, that's all she wrote. Even if you are innocent, you're guilty. One has to ask themselves in matters of integrity, "Is fighting this person or doing this thing worth losing everything I've worked?" In short, can you fight city hall?
No, you can't, especially if city hall has a media empire behind it.
Heard at Blogtalkradio.com/whiskeyrebellion every Tuesday Night at 8:00 PM Eastern, Call In At (646) 915-8862 Intellectual Honesty is a Greater Virtue Than Party Loyalty
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Saturday, November 27, 2004
"Do We Get To Win This Time?"
John Rambo: Sir, do we get to win this time?
That was a line uttered by Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II. Of course in this movie he's referring to Vietnam and our unfortunate "stalemate" in that war. More to the point, the dialogue illustrates what the soldiers in the Vietnam War were feeling. Most scholars of that conflict would validate the soldiers by saying that the US Armed Forces were severely hamstrung against the North Vietnamese. From 1957 thru 1975 American soldiers racked up enemy bodies by the 100's but did not end the Communist aggression against the S. Vietnamese. This is where the familiar term quagmire gained its popularity.
Quagmire...we throw that word around a lot now and apply to almost any military confrontation. Most recently, the liberal talking heads were calling the Iraq war a "quagmire" and furthermore, were comparing the Iraq War with Vietnam. Mind you, the Vietnam War lasted about 18 years, not counting the years after WWII and the French-Indochina War. Our involvement in Vietnam cost us roughly more than 58,000 Americans. Then there are the approximately 3 to 4 million Vietnamese (North and South) whom were killed, in addition to another 1.5 to 2 million Lao and Cambodians who were drawn into the war.
We've been in Iraq since March of 2003 and though many brave soldiers have given their life over this war, it's not anywhere near the catastrophe Vietnam was. This from Newsmax.com:
"Zarqawi: US 'Infidels' Have Us on the Ropes
The world's most dangerous terrorist, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, announced on Wednesday that the battle of Fallujah was a massive defeat for the Iraqi insurgency, blaming the debacle on Sunni Muslim clerics who failed to support his reign of terror.
"Hundreds of thousands of the nation's sons are being slaughtered at the hands of the infidels because of your silence," Zarqawi said, in an audio tape posted on an Islamic Web site known as al-Qala'a, which has been a mailbox for Islamic militant groups.
"You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and handed us over to the enemy," the notorious mass murderer complained. "You have stopped supporting the holy warriors."
The finger-pointing tape from Zarqawi is the clearest indication yet that the U.S. offensive in Fallujah has been a massive success, and could be the beginning of a rout for terrorist forces in Iraq."
Once again, this is hardly Vietnam.
Winning in Vietnam meant stopping the North Vietnamese Communists from taking over South Vietnam. In 1965 the United States sent in troops to prevent the South Vietnamese government from collapsing. Ultimately, however, the United States failed to achieve its goal, and in 1975 Vietnam was reunified under Communist control; in 1976 it officially became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Winning in Iraq means allowing the Iraqi's to elect their own leaders (whom we support) and stopping any development of an Islamic Republic, as in Iran. It also means the Iraqi's will have redeveloped their own armed services as well as a brand new police force. It does not mean there will total peace and it never will...hell, there isn't even total peace in America. What we do have is an infrastructure that is strong and can support and nation of 300 million people. That is what we are trying to build in Iraq and that is what winning will look like.
Contrary to popular myth, the North Vietnamese were never going to surrender. The Soviets, the Red Chinese and the Cubans backed them. This was also their home. Where could they have retreated? You have to remember, after we left Vietnam, Pol Pot killed something like 800,000 of his own people (Cambodians) though the CIA estimated there were 50,000 to 100,000 executions. Needless to say, the South East Asians were not afraid to confront death on a massive scale.
The Arabs are no slouches in that category either, however, when your top Arab villain says, "You made peace with the tyranny and handed over the country and its people to the Jews and Crusaders, by resorting to silence on their crimes and preventing our youth from heading to the battlefields in order to defend our religion," it seems to me it's not going to take 20 years for the Iraqi's to figure out which road is the quickest to reasonable peace.
Unlike Vietnam, we are going to see this thing though and short of launching a nuclear strike, we will do what it takes to win the Iraqi War. This time Rambo, we do get to win...and so will the Iraqi's.
That was a line uttered by Sylvester Stallone in Rambo: First Blood Part II. Of course in this movie he's referring to Vietnam and our unfortunate "stalemate" in that war. More to the point, the dialogue illustrates what the soldiers in the Vietnam War were feeling. Most scholars of that conflict would validate the soldiers by saying that the US Armed Forces were severely hamstrung against the North Vietnamese. From 1957 thru 1975 American soldiers racked up enemy bodies by the 100's but did not end the Communist aggression against the S. Vietnamese. This is where the familiar term quagmire gained its popularity.
Quagmire...we throw that word around a lot now and apply to almost any military confrontation. Most recently, the liberal talking heads were calling the Iraq war a "quagmire" and furthermore, were comparing the Iraq War with Vietnam. Mind you, the Vietnam War lasted about 18 years, not counting the years after WWII and the French-Indochina War. Our involvement in Vietnam cost us roughly more than 58,000 Americans. Then there are the approximately 3 to 4 million Vietnamese (North and South) whom were killed, in addition to another 1.5 to 2 million Lao and Cambodians who were drawn into the war.
We've been in Iraq since March of 2003 and though many brave soldiers have given their life over this war, it's not anywhere near the catastrophe Vietnam was. This from Newsmax.com:
"Zarqawi: US 'Infidels' Have Us on the Ropes
The world's most dangerous terrorist, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, announced on Wednesday that the battle of Fallujah was a massive defeat for the Iraqi insurgency, blaming the debacle on Sunni Muslim clerics who failed to support his reign of terror.
"Hundreds of thousands of the nation's sons are being slaughtered at the hands of the infidels because of your silence," Zarqawi said, in an audio tape posted on an Islamic Web site known as al-Qala'a, which has been a mailbox for Islamic militant groups.
"You have let us down in the darkest circumstances and handed us over to the enemy," the notorious mass murderer complained. "You have stopped supporting the holy warriors."
The finger-pointing tape from Zarqawi is the clearest indication yet that the U.S. offensive in Fallujah has been a massive success, and could be the beginning of a rout for terrorist forces in Iraq."
Once again, this is hardly Vietnam.
Winning in Vietnam meant stopping the North Vietnamese Communists from taking over South Vietnam. In 1965 the United States sent in troops to prevent the South Vietnamese government from collapsing. Ultimately, however, the United States failed to achieve its goal, and in 1975 Vietnam was reunified under Communist control; in 1976 it officially became the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
Winning in Iraq means allowing the Iraqi's to elect their own leaders (whom we support) and stopping any development of an Islamic Republic, as in Iran. It also means the Iraqi's will have redeveloped their own armed services as well as a brand new police force. It does not mean there will total peace and it never will...hell, there isn't even total peace in America. What we do have is an infrastructure that is strong and can support and nation of 300 million people. That is what we are trying to build in Iraq and that is what winning will look like.
Contrary to popular myth, the North Vietnamese were never going to surrender. The Soviets, the Red Chinese and the Cubans backed them. This was also their home. Where could they have retreated? You have to remember, after we left Vietnam, Pol Pot killed something like 800,000 of his own people (Cambodians) though the CIA estimated there were 50,000 to 100,000 executions. Needless to say, the South East Asians were not afraid to confront death on a massive scale.
The Arabs are no slouches in that category either, however, when your top Arab villain says, "You made peace with the tyranny and handed over the country and its people to the Jews and Crusaders, by resorting to silence on their crimes and preventing our youth from heading to the battlefields in order to defend our religion," it seems to me it's not going to take 20 years for the Iraqi's to figure out which road is the quickest to reasonable peace.
Unlike Vietnam, we are going to see this thing though and short of launching a nuclear strike, we will do what it takes to win the Iraqi War. This time Rambo, we do get to win...and so will the Iraqi's.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Pot? This is Kettle...You're Black
I don't know if the recent presidential election was defrauded or not. I haven't a clue as to whether or not Ohio and Florida voters were robbed of their vote for John Kerry due to electronic voting machines not registering their vote. According to Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org) both the governments of Ohio and Florida are stonewalling any investigations or recounts of the November 2nd presidential election. This from said website:
"BREAKING -- TUESDAY NOV 23 2004: Citizens take action to clean up elections: (Summary of irregularities in Volusia) -- Volusia County resident Susan Pynchon, with the help of Volusia County attorney Daniel R. Vaughen, P.A., filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, Nov. 23, seeking to set aside the Nov. 2, 2004 Volusia County election due to irregularities. Full text of lawsuit
BREAKING -- MONDAY NOV 22 2004: Florida counties stonewall records requests. While some Florida counties have been attentive to the public interest and have promptly complied with our public records requests (scroll down for the Nov. 2 records request, for critical audit diagnostics), other counties have stalled, stonewalled, failed to comply in a timely manner, or outright refused to provide the records. UPDATE: Several Florida counties refused to comply with the law, by failing to provide the 8 items in the Black Box Voting Nov. 2 public records request in a timely manner."
MMM could be...however it certainly wouldn't be the first time this country has experienced massive voter fraud. Larry Sabato and Glenn Simpson explain in their 1996 book "Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics", that voter fraud in the U.S. is as American as apple pie. They conclude that voter fraud has been with us for as long as we've had elections. Sabato is a well-respected political science professor from the University of Virginia and a Fox News Contributor whom has consulted for both Democrats and Republicans. This from said book:
"For much of the last century and a good part of this century, elections in many states and localities became contests of the voting fraud capacities of various factions and parties. The chief question on Election Day sometimes was: who could manufacture the requisite number of votes most easily and shrewdly, giving the other side insufficient time to make adjustments to its tallies and insufficient evidence to cry foul consistently.
In the 1844 election, New York City's 41,000 voters managed to cast 55,000 votes, a 135% turnout.
In 1876, Democratic Presidential candidate Samuel B. Tilden had 184 electoral votes (185 were needed then to win) with four states and 20 electoral votes still in question. Tilden had a substantial lead in Florida, but a Republican-controlled election board there began disqualifying hundreds of Democratic votes for dubious reasons, giving the state instead to Rutherford B. Hayes, his Republican opponent. Congress then set up a Republican-led commission to decide the election, and they gave all the remaining electoral votes to Hayes, denying Tilden the one vote he needed to win.
Vote selling first became popular in the late 1800's. It became so prevalent in some places that in 1910 a judge in Adams County, Ohio convicted 1,679 people, more than 25% of the voters there, of selling their votes. Inquiries showed that 85% of the county’s voters had bought or sold votes at some time in their lives.
In 1941 a young Congressman named Lyndon Johnson was elected in a tight election that came down to the vote count for Voting Box 13 in Alice, Texas. A few days after the election the official in charge of Box 13 "found" 203 additional votes, 202 of them for Johnson. Strangely all 203 of these citizens voted in alphabetical order and used the same pen. Johnson won the election by 87 votes statewide.
In a special election in Philadelphia's Senatorial District 2 in 1993, Republican Bruce Marks received 564 more in-person votes than his opponent William Stinson. However a vast majority of the absentee ballots went for Stinson, giving him a victory by 351 votes. A subsequent inquiry found that Stinson campaign staffers and local election board officials conspired to systematically collect, distribute and in some cases help voters fill out absentee ballots that favored Stinson. A judge overturned the election, Stinson was indicted (but not convicted), and some of his staffers went to jail.
In California in 1996 it was estimated that up to 24% of all voter registrations were phony or obsolete. One cause is the practice of paying third-party firms per registration to sign up new voters. Many times these firms sign up already registered voters with new addresses, duplicating these voters in the rolls. Paid solicitors added over 4,000 fraudulent voter registrations in L. A. County in 1992 alone. California also does not have a good procedure for removing dead voters or voters who leave the state from their lists. It's unclear how many people try to commit fraud by capitalizing on these registration problems. In one case in 1994 a woman entered a polling place in Kern County and asked for a ballot under the name of a woman who happened to be in a voting booth at that moment. When the legitimate voter stepped out and objected the impersonator fled.
In 1992 in Harris County, Texas 6,707 ineligible voters cast ballots, exploiting a law there that allows voters to sign a sworn statement of eligibility if they are not on the rolls. It took seven months for elections officials to completely evaluate these ineligible ballots; long after the election results had been certified.
Texas allows early voting using mail-in ballots. There is a space for a signature on the ballot and on the envelope that the ballot is mailed in. Texas law allows you to mark anything in this signature space, even an "X". Even so in a 1994 election in Galveston County a watchdog group found over 200 instances where the full signature on the envelope was very different from the full signature on the ballot inside. In that election a number of races had been decided by less than 200 votes."
So now you understand the phrase, "vote early, vote often." The Air America radio hosts whom have been barking about voter fraud in Ohio and Florida swear that unless something is done, our democracy is, "finished!" If that's the case we've "finished" for a little over 200 years now.
However, while the US can't seem to have an honest election, I find this article by Andrew Tully remarkably funny:
"U.S. Refuses To Accept Ukrainian Election Result
Washington, 24 November 2004 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has rejected the official results of Ukraine's runoff presidential election, in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych -- backed by the Kremlin as well as incumbent President Leonid Kuchma -- was formally declared the winner over opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko.
Shortly after Viktor Yanukovych was formally declared the winner of the disputed 21 November elections, Secretary of State Powell said in Washington that the United States cannot accept Yanukovych as Ukraine's president-elect.
"We cannot accept this result [of the presidential election in Ukraine] as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse," he said.
Powell said it is time for Ukraine's leaders to decide whether or not they are on the side of democracy. The secretary said he had spoken with Kuchma, urging him to conduct a thorough investigation into suspected election fraud. He said he also advised Kuchma not to resort to force in dealing with the tens of thousands of pro-Yushchenko demonstrators who have gathered in Kyiv for the past three days.
If an election-fraud investigation is not mounted, Powell said, there would be "consequences." He refused to say what they might be.
"It is time for Ukrainian leaders to decide whether they are on the side of democracy or not, whether they respect the will of the people or not," he said. "If the Ukrainian government does not act immediately and responsibly, there will be consequences for our relationship, for Ukraine's hopes for Euro-Atlantic integration and for individuals responsible for perpetrating fraud."
If this is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black then I don't know what is. The only saving grace here is that we are the self-professed, leaders of the free world, and as such we have a responsibility to see democracy flourish throughout the world. I guess in this case it's of the "do as I say, not as I do" variety.
What a precedent this sets for global affairs. The US' foreign policy will now resemble something like bad parenting.
France: You should be seen and not heard!
Russia: Democratize as I say, not as I do!
Iraq: Stop crying before I really give you something to cry about!
"BREAKING -- TUESDAY NOV 23 2004: Citizens take action to clean up elections: (Summary of irregularities in Volusia) -- Volusia County resident Susan Pynchon, with the help of Volusia County attorney Daniel R. Vaughen, P.A., filed a lawsuit on Tuesday, Nov. 23, seeking to set aside the Nov. 2, 2004 Volusia County election due to irregularities. Full text of lawsuit
BREAKING -- MONDAY NOV 22 2004: Florida counties stonewall records requests. While some Florida counties have been attentive to the public interest and have promptly complied with our public records requests (scroll down for the Nov. 2 records request, for critical audit diagnostics), other counties have stalled, stonewalled, failed to comply in a timely manner, or outright refused to provide the records. UPDATE: Several Florida counties refused to comply with the law, by failing to provide the 8 items in the Black Box Voting Nov. 2 public records request in a timely manner."
MMM could be...however it certainly wouldn't be the first time this country has experienced massive voter fraud. Larry Sabato and Glenn Simpson explain in their 1996 book "Dirty Little Secrets: The Persistence of Corruption in American Politics", that voter fraud in the U.S. is as American as apple pie. They conclude that voter fraud has been with us for as long as we've had elections. Sabato is a well-respected political science professor from the University of Virginia and a Fox News Contributor whom has consulted for both Democrats and Republicans. This from said book:
"For much of the last century and a good part of this century, elections in many states and localities became contests of the voting fraud capacities of various factions and parties. The chief question on Election Day sometimes was: who could manufacture the requisite number of votes most easily and shrewdly, giving the other side insufficient time to make adjustments to its tallies and insufficient evidence to cry foul consistently.
In the 1844 election, New York City's 41,000 voters managed to cast 55,000 votes, a 135% turnout.
In 1876, Democratic Presidential candidate Samuel B. Tilden had 184 electoral votes (185 were needed then to win) with four states and 20 electoral votes still in question. Tilden had a substantial lead in Florida, but a Republican-controlled election board there began disqualifying hundreds of Democratic votes for dubious reasons, giving the state instead to Rutherford B. Hayes, his Republican opponent. Congress then set up a Republican-led commission to decide the election, and they gave all the remaining electoral votes to Hayes, denying Tilden the one vote he needed to win.
Vote selling first became popular in the late 1800's. It became so prevalent in some places that in 1910 a judge in Adams County, Ohio convicted 1,679 people, more than 25% of the voters there, of selling their votes. Inquiries showed that 85% of the county’s voters had bought or sold votes at some time in their lives.
In 1941 a young Congressman named Lyndon Johnson was elected in a tight election that came down to the vote count for Voting Box 13 in Alice, Texas. A few days after the election the official in charge of Box 13 "found" 203 additional votes, 202 of them for Johnson. Strangely all 203 of these citizens voted in alphabetical order and used the same pen. Johnson won the election by 87 votes statewide.
In a special election in Philadelphia's Senatorial District 2 in 1993, Republican Bruce Marks received 564 more in-person votes than his opponent William Stinson. However a vast majority of the absentee ballots went for Stinson, giving him a victory by 351 votes. A subsequent inquiry found that Stinson campaign staffers and local election board officials conspired to systematically collect, distribute and in some cases help voters fill out absentee ballots that favored Stinson. A judge overturned the election, Stinson was indicted (but not convicted), and some of his staffers went to jail.
In California in 1996 it was estimated that up to 24% of all voter registrations were phony or obsolete. One cause is the practice of paying third-party firms per registration to sign up new voters. Many times these firms sign up already registered voters with new addresses, duplicating these voters in the rolls. Paid solicitors added over 4,000 fraudulent voter registrations in L. A. County in 1992 alone. California also does not have a good procedure for removing dead voters or voters who leave the state from their lists. It's unclear how many people try to commit fraud by capitalizing on these registration problems. In one case in 1994 a woman entered a polling place in Kern County and asked for a ballot under the name of a woman who happened to be in a voting booth at that moment. When the legitimate voter stepped out and objected the impersonator fled.
In 1992 in Harris County, Texas 6,707 ineligible voters cast ballots, exploiting a law there that allows voters to sign a sworn statement of eligibility if they are not on the rolls. It took seven months for elections officials to completely evaluate these ineligible ballots; long after the election results had been certified.
Texas allows early voting using mail-in ballots. There is a space for a signature on the ballot and on the envelope that the ballot is mailed in. Texas law allows you to mark anything in this signature space, even an "X". Even so in a 1994 election in Galveston County a watchdog group found over 200 instances where the full signature on the envelope was very different from the full signature on the ballot inside. In that election a number of races had been decided by less than 200 votes."
So now you understand the phrase, "vote early, vote often." The Air America radio hosts whom have been barking about voter fraud in Ohio and Florida swear that unless something is done, our democracy is, "finished!" If that's the case we've "finished" for a little over 200 years now.
However, while the US can't seem to have an honest election, I find this article by Andrew Tully remarkably funny:
"U.S. Refuses To Accept Ukrainian Election Result
Washington, 24 November 2004 (RFE/RL) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has rejected the official results of Ukraine's runoff presidential election, in which Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych -- backed by the Kremlin as well as incumbent President Leonid Kuchma -- was formally declared the winner over opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko.
Shortly after Viktor Yanukovych was formally declared the winner of the disputed 21 November elections, Secretary of State Powell said in Washington that the United States cannot accept Yanukovych as Ukraine's president-elect.
"We cannot accept this result [of the presidential election in Ukraine] as legitimate because it does not meet international standards and because there has not been an investigation of the numerous and credible reports of fraud and abuse," he said.
Powell said it is time for Ukraine's leaders to decide whether or not they are on the side of democracy. The secretary said he had spoken with Kuchma, urging him to conduct a thorough investigation into suspected election fraud. He said he also advised Kuchma not to resort to force in dealing with the tens of thousands of pro-Yushchenko demonstrators who have gathered in Kyiv for the past three days.
If an election-fraud investigation is not mounted, Powell said, there would be "consequences." He refused to say what they might be.
"It is time for Ukrainian leaders to decide whether they are on the side of democracy or not, whether they respect the will of the people or not," he said. "If the Ukrainian government does not act immediately and responsibly, there will be consequences for our relationship, for Ukraine's hopes for Euro-Atlantic integration and for individuals responsible for perpetrating fraud."
If this is not a case of the pot calling the kettle black then I don't know what is. The only saving grace here is that we are the self-professed, leaders of the free world, and as such we have a responsibility to see democracy flourish throughout the world. I guess in this case it's of the "do as I say, not as I do" variety.
What a precedent this sets for global affairs. The US' foreign policy will now resemble something like bad parenting.
France: You should be seen and not heard!
Russia: Democratize as I say, not as I do!
Iraq: Stop crying before I really give you something to cry about!
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
The Kids Are Not Alright (11/23/04)
I'm going to be doing this once a week as a feature. Apparently there are plenty of stories to be told about how kids are being ruined all around the country.
13-Year Old Charged With Abducting Exotic Dancer
"A 13-year old Virginia Beach boy is being held at the Virginia Beach Detention Center after police say he abducted an exotic dancer last Tuesday night.
According to officials, the dancer showed up at a pre-arranged appointment at a residence - subsequently discovered to be vacant - in the 700 block of South Rosemont Road around 6:30pm.
The woman noticed the client was a juvenile, but was told that the contract was for his older brother. Police say the woman waited for a while, but no one else showed up.
Authorities say when the woman eventually tried to leave the residence, she was stopped by the juvenile who pointed a shotgun at her and ordered her to dance.
The dancer diverted the boy's attention and tried to dial 911 on her cell phone. According to police, the juvenile then grabbed the phone. During the struggle, the woman bit the boy's hand and was able to break free and run to her car.
Police say their investigation identified the suspect, and also led them to believe that another juvenile was involved in the plan to abduct the dancer. Investigators are working on identifying the second suspect.
The initial 13-year old suspect was arrested Thursday. He is charged with abduction by force, conspiracy, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, brandishing a firearm, and transporting and possessing an assault firearm at age 13."
I cannot stress this enough, you cannot take the stripper home with you. I supppose the obvious question's here are, "Where was the child's parent's and how did the child become in possession of a shotgun?" Actually, here's another question, "Where was this chick's bodyguard?" I would assume that all call girls and strippers and such, when they make housecalls, have some back-up to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Women in the sex industry have to be wary of all kinds of men that are out to do them harm. Now they're going to have to be on the lookout for gun-wielding children as well.
Student faces 20 years in prison for school shooting
"TROY, N.Y. -- A teenager who said he fantasized about "shooting up" his school, admitted in court Monday that he fired several shotgun blasts at two students, hitting a teacher in the leg.
John Romano pleaded guilty to attempted murder and could get 20 years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 20. He also pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment.
Romano walked into Columbia High School in suburban Albany on the morning of Feb. 9, firing his 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun twice at the pair of students. Neither student was hit. He was finally tackled by a school administrator, but not before getting off a third round of birdshot that hit teacher Michael Bennett in the leg.
"I'm pleased and I hope that John gets the help he needs," Bennett told reporters after Romano's court appearance Monday.
In a signed statement to police on the day of the shooting, Romano said, "I have had fantasies for about the last year of going in Columbia and shooting up the place."
Romano, who was 16 at the time, also said in his statement that he hated the school's principal and assistant principal. "They had no respect for me and lied to me. If I saw them, I would have shot them," Romano wrote.
District Attorney Patricia DeAngelis prosecuted Romano as an adult, bringing an 86-count indictment against the student that included three counts of attempted murder, one second-degree assault charge and 82 counts of first-degree reckless endangerment.
He pleaded guilty to all three counts of attempted murder and six counts of reckless endangerment.
"This sentence sends a strong message to any person who is contemplating committing any act of violence in our schools," DeAngelis said. "There is no room for fear in the classroom. There is no room for violence in the classroom."
Romano's attorney, E. Stewart Jones, had characterized his client as an "unstable, fragile and frightened" boy with "a history of emotional problems."
On Monday, Jones called the possible 20-year sentence "barbaric." "
It's always sad to hear about yet another school shooting. High school is a rough place and it can be worse if you don't have a reasonable adult to confide in and trust. Whenever I hear about stories like this I think back to my time in school. I saw kids get dirty pantyhose shoved down their throats, beat with lacrosse sticks, humiliated in front of crowds...hell I even put one kid in a gym locker...and I was one of the kids getting picked on. However, as far as I know, nobody from my town ever came back to the school with the intent to commit murder. I'm not saying my town had some stellar teacher's and parent's...because that would be a lie, but I would like to think that above all else, we all respected each other's right to live. There's a huge line between revenge against the school bullies and murder. Apparently, that line is being ever more blurred year after year.
Child Detention Centers Criticized in New Jersey
"Hundreds of children and teenagers held in juvenile detention facilities in New Jersey are there illegally, kept for months without basic medical care in locked quarters that are severely overcrowded and leave them vulnerable to episodes of violence, according to a report by the independent monitor of the state's child welfare system.
The report, issued by the Office of the Child Advocate, which was created last year after the state's child welfare system scandal, is based on a yearlong investigation that had access to confidential government records.
It amounts to a damning portrait of the 17 county detention facilities that together house more than 10,000 adolescents a year.
The report found that fully a quarter of the youths held in detention facilities, many of them suffering from mental health problems, were there simply because the state could not find a more appropriate setting, such as a hospital or foster home. And in what the report called a "cruel irony,'' scores of them stayed four months longer on average than the sentences served by the adolescents who had been sent there for committing crimes.
The counties, according to the report, often failed to provide the most troubled youths in the facilities with rudimentary mental health care. Evaluations often were not done in some county juvenile jails; in others, mental health care was provided by drug and alcohol counselors, not doctors.
State officials acknowledged the problems yesterday and said significant reforms were being introduced and had already reduced the population in detention.
Nevertheless, the report offered recent chilling examples of cases that underscored the chaos and damage suffered by some of the adolescents in the detention centers.
One boy, over eight weeks in one of the centers, attempted suicide five times, often showered with his clothes on and threatened workers, but was taken off suicide watch by a social worker. That night, he was found trying to hang himself from a light fixture, using a piece of elastic from his underwear. A 16-year-old attempted suicide 14 times before being hospitalized.
"Thousands of kids are being inappropriately waylaid into detention when they need community-based mental health services,'' said Kevin M. Ryan, the child advocate. "The vast majority of the mentally ill kids are in detention for some minor offense like stealing a bike or getting into a fight. During the course of doing this report, we saw scores of them slowly and painfully come apart as they failed to receive treatment.''
Mr. Ryan said he had been particularly struck by the case of one teenager at the detention center in Union County. The youth had tried to kill himself four times in one month, once by slicing his wrists with a broken plastic cup, once by swallowing a screw, and yet again by drinking the chemicals from an ice pack.
"Putting kids like this in detention is akin to placing an asthmatic child in a closet with pollen and asbestos,'' he said. "It is a given they are going to get sicker.''
The inappropriate but frequent placement of mentally ill adolescents in detention facilities is a national problem. According to a 1999 report by the surgeon general, one in five youngsters in detention centers across the country have serious emotional problems, just as in New Jersey. Still, the child advocate's report points to long-term systemic failures within the state that have exacerbated the impact of such incarceration on adolescents.
In one measure, the report found that juveniles are often placed in detention centers that have already reached maximum capacity, a practice Mr. Ryan called a flagrant violation of state law. In 2003 in Camden County, the juvenile detention center had more than twice as many youths as legally allowed inside its walls on a daily basis.
Over the years, the administrator of the Camden County center, Mary T. Previte, has repeatedly protested the overcrowding, calling the conditions a "tinderbox'' that could lead to violence and sexual assault."
Parent's bring children into this world that they cannot care for and ultimately do not want because they are selfish and dysfuntional. Social service agencies are set up to protect children from said parent's. But what happens when said agencies fail those children? You get the story above. This makes me sick. This is glaring proof that we as a society are really not interested in protecting children. We seem to be saying that we are, but the proof is sitting in detention centers, shelters and foster homes across the country. I just do not have the words.
"A 13-year old Virginia Beach boy is being held at the Virginia Beach Detention Center after police say he abducted an exotic dancer last Tuesday night.
According to officials, the dancer showed up at a pre-arranged appointment at a residence - subsequently discovered to be vacant - in the 700 block of South Rosemont Road around 6:30pm.
The woman noticed the client was a juvenile, but was told that the contract was for his older brother. Police say the woman waited for a while, but no one else showed up.
Authorities say when the woman eventually tried to leave the residence, she was stopped by the juvenile who pointed a shotgun at her and ordered her to dance.
The dancer diverted the boy's attention and tried to dial 911 on her cell phone. According to police, the juvenile then grabbed the phone. During the struggle, the woman bit the boy's hand and was able to break free and run to her car.
Police say their investigation identified the suspect, and also led them to believe that another juvenile was involved in the plan to abduct the dancer. Investigators are working on identifying the second suspect.
The initial 13-year old suspect was arrested Thursday. He is charged with abduction by force, conspiracy, use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, brandishing a firearm, and transporting and possessing an assault firearm at age 13."
I cannot stress this enough, you cannot take the stripper home with you. I supppose the obvious question's here are, "Where was the child's parent's and how did the child become in possession of a shotgun?" Actually, here's another question, "Where was this chick's bodyguard?" I would assume that all call girls and strippers and such, when they make housecalls, have some back-up to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Women in the sex industry have to be wary of all kinds of men that are out to do them harm. Now they're going to have to be on the lookout for gun-wielding children as well.
"TROY, N.Y. -- A teenager who said he fantasized about "shooting up" his school, admitted in court Monday that he fired several shotgun blasts at two students, hitting a teacher in the leg.
John Romano pleaded guilty to attempted murder and could get 20 years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 20. He also pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment.
Romano walked into Columbia High School in suburban Albany on the morning of Feb. 9, firing his 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun twice at the pair of students. Neither student was hit. He was finally tackled by a school administrator, but not before getting off a third round of birdshot that hit teacher Michael Bennett in the leg.
"I'm pleased and I hope that John gets the help he needs," Bennett told reporters after Romano's court appearance Monday.
In a signed statement to police on the day of the shooting, Romano said, "I have had fantasies for about the last year of going in Columbia and shooting up the place."
Romano, who was 16 at the time, also said in his statement that he hated the school's principal and assistant principal. "They had no respect for me and lied to me. If I saw them, I would have shot them," Romano wrote.
District Attorney Patricia DeAngelis prosecuted Romano as an adult, bringing an 86-count indictment against the student that included three counts of attempted murder, one second-degree assault charge and 82 counts of first-degree reckless endangerment.
He pleaded guilty to all three counts of attempted murder and six counts of reckless endangerment.
"This sentence sends a strong message to any person who is contemplating committing any act of violence in our schools," DeAngelis said. "There is no room for fear in the classroom. There is no room for violence in the classroom."
Romano's attorney, E. Stewart Jones, had characterized his client as an "unstable, fragile and frightened" boy with "a history of emotional problems."
On Monday, Jones called the possible 20-year sentence "barbaric." "
It's always sad to hear about yet another school shooting. High school is a rough place and it can be worse if you don't have a reasonable adult to confide in and trust. Whenever I hear about stories like this I think back to my time in school. I saw kids get dirty pantyhose shoved down their throats, beat with lacrosse sticks, humiliated in front of crowds...hell I even put one kid in a gym locker...and I was one of the kids getting picked on. However, as far as I know, nobody from my town ever came back to the school with the intent to commit murder. I'm not saying my town had some stellar teacher's and parent's...because that would be a lie, but I would like to think that above all else, we all respected each other's right to live. There's a huge line between revenge against the school bullies and murder. Apparently, that line is being ever more blurred year after year.
"Hundreds of children and teenagers held in juvenile detention facilities in New Jersey are there illegally, kept for months without basic medical care in locked quarters that are severely overcrowded and leave them vulnerable to episodes of violence, according to a report by the independent monitor of the state's child welfare system.
The report, issued by the Office of the Child Advocate, which was created last year after the state's child welfare system scandal, is based on a yearlong investigation that had access to confidential government records.
It amounts to a damning portrait of the 17 county detention facilities that together house more than 10,000 adolescents a year.
The report found that fully a quarter of the youths held in detention facilities, many of them suffering from mental health problems, were there simply because the state could not find a more appropriate setting, such as a hospital or foster home. And in what the report called a "cruel irony,'' scores of them stayed four months longer on average than the sentences served by the adolescents who had been sent there for committing crimes.
The counties, according to the report, often failed to provide the most troubled youths in the facilities with rudimentary mental health care. Evaluations often were not done in some county juvenile jails; in others, mental health care was provided by drug and alcohol counselors, not doctors.
State officials acknowledged the problems yesterday and said significant reforms were being introduced and had already reduced the population in detention.
Nevertheless, the report offered recent chilling examples of cases that underscored the chaos and damage suffered by some of the adolescents in the detention centers.
One boy, over eight weeks in one of the centers, attempted suicide five times, often showered with his clothes on and threatened workers, but was taken off suicide watch by a social worker. That night, he was found trying to hang himself from a light fixture, using a piece of elastic from his underwear. A 16-year-old attempted suicide 14 times before being hospitalized.
"Thousands of kids are being inappropriately waylaid into detention when they need community-based mental health services,'' said Kevin M. Ryan, the child advocate. "The vast majority of the mentally ill kids are in detention for some minor offense like stealing a bike or getting into a fight. During the course of doing this report, we saw scores of them slowly and painfully come apart as they failed to receive treatment.''
Mr. Ryan said he had been particularly struck by the case of one teenager at the detention center in Union County. The youth had tried to kill himself four times in one month, once by slicing his wrists with a broken plastic cup, once by swallowing a screw, and yet again by drinking the chemicals from an ice pack.
"Putting kids like this in detention is akin to placing an asthmatic child in a closet with pollen and asbestos,'' he said. "It is a given they are going to get sicker.''
The inappropriate but frequent placement of mentally ill adolescents in detention facilities is a national problem. According to a 1999 report by the surgeon general, one in five youngsters in detention centers across the country have serious emotional problems, just as in New Jersey. Still, the child advocate's report points to long-term systemic failures within the state that have exacerbated the impact of such incarceration on adolescents.
In one measure, the report found that juveniles are often placed in detention centers that have already reached maximum capacity, a practice Mr. Ryan called a flagrant violation of state law. In 2003 in Camden County, the juvenile detention center had more than twice as many youths as legally allowed inside its walls on a daily basis.
Over the years, the administrator of the Camden County center, Mary T. Previte, has repeatedly protested the overcrowding, calling the conditions a "tinderbox'' that could lead to violence and sexual assault."
Parent's bring children into this world that they cannot care for and ultimately do not want because they are selfish and dysfuntional. Social service agencies are set up to protect children from said parent's. But what happens when said agencies fail those children? You get the story above. This makes me sick. This is glaring proof that we as a society are really not interested in protecting children. We seem to be saying that we are, but the proof is sitting in detention centers, shelters and foster homes across the country. I just do not have the words.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Open Up the Border?
I am not a fan of George W. Bush. I voted for him, I donated money to the Republican Party in order to help him get re-elected and I frequently defended him against nearly everyone I came in contact with (I live in a Blue state, after all). But that doesn't mean I like everything he does, or even most things he does. One of my biggest issues with President Bush was his "Guest Worker" program that he unveiled last January. If the Democrats had ran someone against President Bush whom was a Foreign Policy hawk and would have at least promised to tighten up the boarder, I could have been convinced to vote for said person. Alas, the Dems ran Kerry and I would have rather sat the election out than vote for him.
The "Guest Worker" program was a phenomenally stupid idea that would have inevitably done irreparable harm to our economy as well as expose the country even more so than it already is to terrorists. Even now there are terrorists trying to enter our country through Mexico. This from Time Magazine:
"Sharif al-Masri, an Egyptian who was captured in late August near Pakistan's border with Iran and Afghanistan, has told his interrogators of "al-Qaeda's interest in moving nuclear materials from Europe to either the U.S. or Mexico," according to a report circulating among U.S. government officials.
Masri also said al-Qaeda has considered plans to "smuggle nuclear materials to Mexico, then operatives would carry material into the U.S.," according to the report, parts of which were read to TIME. Masri says his family, seeking refuge from al-Qaeda hunters, is now in Iran." (credit Time.com)
Now I thought the plan that was unveiled in January was dead on arrival. This is politics after all and just because a politician says something, that doesn't mean he or she is actually serious about it. I thought at the time that President Bush was just throwing a bone out to the Hispanic population in order to curry favor and votes from them. A March 4th, 2004 story in the Detroit Free Press calmed my nerves at the time.
"President George W. Bush's plan to ease immigration laws is dead on arrival in Congress, doomed by opposition from Republicans who say it goes too far and Democrats who say it doesn't go far enough.
Although White House officials had hoped the plan would boost Bush's standing with Hispanics, it has turned out to be a flop. Some of the strongest opposition comes from the president's fellow Republicans, especially in California and other states with large immigrant populations." (credit freep.com)
However, while driving to my weekly, Sunday touch football game, I heard this on the Monica Crowley program (courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, "Bush Renews Migrant Pledge - President tells Mexican leader Vicente Fox that he plans to push ahead with a measure to give illegal immigrants guest-worker status.
SANTIAGO, Chile - President Bush vowed Sunday to push a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States as guest workers even though it appears unlikely to win backing in a Congress that grew more conservative in this month's elections.
Bush made the commitment during a half-hour meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox in the Chilean capital, where the two leaders are attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference." (credit latimes.com)
Have you ever had one of those moments where you're driving and you suddenly stop and pull over to the side of the road, turn the car off but leave your hands on the steering wheel and just let out a great, big, cleansing sigh? With all due respect to the President of the US and the leader of the free of world...are you an idiot?
You can't possibly be serious about domestic terrorism and then push for a plan that allows undocumented, illegal immigrants to become "guest workers" in the United States. I think our current immigration policies are flawed enough as it is without further eroding them into nonexistence which this plan most certainly would.
People have heard the old saying, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." President Bush would do well to remember the lessons of 9/11; specifically the ones concerning the 9 out of 19 hijackers that were in the country illegally. In case you've forgotten, here's a piece from CNN on October 11, 2001:
"The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) said Thursday at least nine of the 19 hijackers were in the United States legally on September 11. Of four others who had been granted nonimmigrant visas, at least three had overstayed those visas. The INS said it has no conclusive records yet on the remaining six hijackers.
The agency stressed its information is incomplete as investigators continue to learn more about when and how the hijackers entered the U.S.
The information was released after INS Commissioner James Ziglar, appearing before a Congressional panel Thursday, said he believed 10 of the hijackers had been in the U.S. legally at the time of the attacks." (credit CNN.com)
I am sure most of the immigrants coming into America from Mexico are not potential terrorists and only want to provide for their families. That's fair enough. However, as much as I think America benefits from LEGAL immigration and naturalization, I am adamantly oppose to illegal immigration and I'm not interested in the supposed "benefits" of "cheap immigrant labor". They say you cannot just round up all the illegal immigrants and deport them. I say we put a man on the moon, we can do anything we want that we put our minds to. Right now I think we need to be taking a closer look at the boarders and our relative safety and start making some rational decisions.
This is from (FAIR) website (www.fairus.org): "The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest.
Why Amnesty Isn't the Solution
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) giving amnesty - legal forgiveness - to all illegal aliens who had successfully evaded justice for four years or more or were illegally working in agriculture. As a result, 2.8 million illegal aliens were admitted as legal immigrants to the United States. In addition, they have so far brought in an additional 142,000 dependents.
Various Amnesties of Illegal Aliens
IRCA (including dependents) 2,831,351
NACARA 405,000
Haitian Act 50,000
INA Section 249 (from 1987-1997) 69,670
TOTAL 3,356,021
The amnesty permanently added millions of poor to our society.
An Immigration and Naturalization Service study found that after ten years in the United States, the average amnestied illegal alien had only a seventh grade education and an annual salary of less than $9,000 a year.1 Unlike immigrants with a sponsor who guarantees they will not become a burden on the public, when Congress enacts an amnesty, it makes the American public financially responsible for those amnestied.
The cost of amnesties to the American taxpayer is staggering.
According to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies, the total net cost of the IRCA amnesty (the direct and indirect costs of services and benefits to the ex-illegal aliens, minus their tax contributions) after ten years comes to over $78 billion.2
Amnesty disguises the extent of illegal immigration.
Apologists for illegal immigration have actually had the nerve to claim that, because the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. today (between 8.7 and 11 million) is about the same as the number living here ten years ago, illegal immigration must not be that big of a problem. In doing so, they rely on the public's forgetting that, without the amnesty, there would be closer to 12 or 14 million illegal aliens in the country. It is akin to pardoning and releasing everyone in prison, then claiming there is no crime problem because the prisons are empty.
An amnesty sends the message that it is okay to break the law.
An amnesty says that eventually you will be forgiven, even rewarded, for breaking the law. Furthermore, it makes a mockery of the legal immigration process, wherein those who obey the rules wait years to immigrate (instead of jumping the line and hoping for absolution later).
The amnesty of illegal aliens skews the average educational and skill level of legal immigrants downward.
As the ex-illegal aliens naturalize and become U.S. citizens, they are able to petition for their relatives to join them here as immigrants. Each one will be able to sponsor parents and brothers and sisters as immigrants. Naturally, the profile and characteristics of the relatives will be similar to their sponsoring immigrant which, as was noted above, will detract from the high-skills, high-education, high-wage economy we are aiming for in the 21st century.
Amnesty has set a dangerous precedent.
The 1986 IRCA amnesty has created the atmosphere for illegal aliens' home governments to push our government toward another amnesty or other forms of legal forgiveness. Mexico's President Vicente Fox began in 2001 to push the United States to 'regularize ' the status of the estimated three to six million illegal aliens from Mexico in this country. Those who profit from illegal immigration have jumped on the bandwagon and political pressure is building to repeat what was billed in 1986 as the first and last amnesty for illegal aliens.
Amnesty threatens homeland security.
Aliens who apply in the home countries to become legal immigrants to the United States are screened by U.S. consular officials to weed out any criminals or likely terrorists. Millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. have evaded this screening; amnesty would make them legal aliens without the necessary safeguards to ensure that they are not dangers to our national security.
Report on the Legalized Alien Population, Immigration and Naturalization Service, M-375, March 1992.
Measuring the Fallout: The Cost of the IRCA Amnesty After 10 Years, Center for Immigration Studies, May 1997.
Updated 10/02"
That was October of 2002, God only knows what the figures are like now. Whether it's an Amnesty or a "Guest Worker" program, it's the same thing...bad for America. Of all the policies to stand by with a mandate from the public after a general election, President Bush has decided to stand by an idea that will not only move to bankrupt this country but put us all in grave danger.
I think I'm having buyer's remorse.
The "Guest Worker" program was a phenomenally stupid idea that would have inevitably done irreparable harm to our economy as well as expose the country even more so than it already is to terrorists. Even now there are terrorists trying to enter our country through Mexico. This from Time Magazine:
"Sharif al-Masri, an Egyptian who was captured in late August near Pakistan's border with Iran and Afghanistan, has told his interrogators of "al-Qaeda's interest in moving nuclear materials from Europe to either the U.S. or Mexico," according to a report circulating among U.S. government officials.
Masri also said al-Qaeda has considered plans to "smuggle nuclear materials to Mexico, then operatives would carry material into the U.S.," according to the report, parts of which were read to TIME. Masri says his family, seeking refuge from al-Qaeda hunters, is now in Iran." (credit Time.com)
Now I thought the plan that was unveiled in January was dead on arrival. This is politics after all and just because a politician says something, that doesn't mean he or she is actually serious about it. I thought at the time that President Bush was just throwing a bone out to the Hispanic population in order to curry favor and votes from them. A March 4th, 2004 story in the Detroit Free Press calmed my nerves at the time.
"President George W. Bush's plan to ease immigration laws is dead on arrival in Congress, doomed by opposition from Republicans who say it goes too far and Democrats who say it doesn't go far enough.
Although White House officials had hoped the plan would boost Bush's standing with Hispanics, it has turned out to be a flop. Some of the strongest opposition comes from the president's fellow Republicans, especially in California and other states with large immigrant populations." (credit freep.com)
However, while driving to my weekly, Sunday touch football game, I heard this on the Monica Crowley program (courtesy of the Los Angeles Times, "Bush Renews Migrant Pledge - President tells Mexican leader Vicente Fox that he plans to push ahead with a measure to give illegal immigrants guest-worker status.
SANTIAGO, Chile - President Bush vowed Sunday to push a plan that would allow undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States as guest workers even though it appears unlikely to win backing in a Congress that grew more conservative in this month's elections.
Bush made the commitment during a half-hour meeting with Mexican President Vicente Fox in the Chilean capital, where the two leaders are attending the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference." (credit latimes.com)
Have you ever had one of those moments where you're driving and you suddenly stop and pull over to the side of the road, turn the car off but leave your hands on the steering wheel and just let out a great, big, cleansing sigh? With all due respect to the President of the US and the leader of the free of world...are you an idiot?
You can't possibly be serious about domestic terrorism and then push for a plan that allows undocumented, illegal immigrants to become "guest workers" in the United States. I think our current immigration policies are flawed enough as it is without further eroding them into nonexistence which this plan most certainly would.
People have heard the old saying, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." President Bush would do well to remember the lessons of 9/11; specifically the ones concerning the 9 out of 19 hijackers that were in the country illegally. In case you've forgotten, here's a piece from CNN on October 11, 2001:
"The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) said Thursday at least nine of the 19 hijackers were in the United States legally on September 11. Of four others who had been granted nonimmigrant visas, at least three had overstayed those visas. The INS said it has no conclusive records yet on the remaining six hijackers.
The agency stressed its information is incomplete as investigators continue to learn more about when and how the hijackers entered the U.S.
The information was released after INS Commissioner James Ziglar, appearing before a Congressional panel Thursday, said he believed 10 of the hijackers had been in the U.S. legally at the time of the attacks." (credit CNN.com)
I am sure most of the immigrants coming into America from Mexico are not potential terrorists and only want to provide for their families. That's fair enough. However, as much as I think America benefits from LEGAL immigration and naturalization, I am adamantly oppose to illegal immigration and I'm not interested in the supposed "benefits" of "cheap immigrant labor". They say you cannot just round up all the illegal immigrants and deport them. I say we put a man on the moon, we can do anything we want that we put our minds to. Right now I think we need to be taking a closer look at the boarders and our relative safety and start making some rational decisions.
This is from (FAIR) website (www.fairus.org): "The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) is a national, nonprofit, public-interest, membership organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that our nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest.
Why Amnesty Isn't the Solution
In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) giving amnesty - legal forgiveness - to all illegal aliens who had successfully evaded justice for four years or more or were illegally working in agriculture. As a result, 2.8 million illegal aliens were admitted as legal immigrants to the United States. In addition, they have so far brought in an additional 142,000 dependents.
Various Amnesties of Illegal Aliens
IRCA (including dependents) 2,831,351
NACARA 405,000
Haitian Act 50,000
INA Section 249 (from 1987-1997) 69,670
TOTAL 3,356,021
The amnesty permanently added millions of poor to our society.
An Immigration and Naturalization Service study found that after ten years in the United States, the average amnestied illegal alien had only a seventh grade education and an annual salary of less than $9,000 a year.1 Unlike immigrants with a sponsor who guarantees they will not become a burden on the public, when Congress enacts an amnesty, it makes the American public financially responsible for those amnestied.
The cost of amnesties to the American taxpayer is staggering.
According to a study by the Center for Immigration Studies, the total net cost of the IRCA amnesty (the direct and indirect costs of services and benefits to the ex-illegal aliens, minus their tax contributions) after ten years comes to over $78 billion.2
Amnesty disguises the extent of illegal immigration.
Apologists for illegal immigration have actually had the nerve to claim that, because the number of illegal immigrants living in the U.S. today (between 8.7 and 11 million) is about the same as the number living here ten years ago, illegal immigration must not be that big of a problem. In doing so, they rely on the public's forgetting that, without the amnesty, there would be closer to 12 or 14 million illegal aliens in the country. It is akin to pardoning and releasing everyone in prison, then claiming there is no crime problem because the prisons are empty.
An amnesty sends the message that it is okay to break the law.
An amnesty says that eventually you will be forgiven, even rewarded, for breaking the law. Furthermore, it makes a mockery of the legal immigration process, wherein those who obey the rules wait years to immigrate (instead of jumping the line and hoping for absolution later).
The amnesty of illegal aliens skews the average educational and skill level of legal immigrants downward.
As the ex-illegal aliens naturalize and become U.S. citizens, they are able to petition for their relatives to join them here as immigrants. Each one will be able to sponsor parents and brothers and sisters as immigrants. Naturally, the profile and characteristics of the relatives will be similar to their sponsoring immigrant which, as was noted above, will detract from the high-skills, high-education, high-wage economy we are aiming for in the 21st century.
Amnesty has set a dangerous precedent.
The 1986 IRCA amnesty has created the atmosphere for illegal aliens' home governments to push our government toward another amnesty or other forms of legal forgiveness. Mexico's President Vicente Fox began in 2001 to push the United States to 'regularize ' the status of the estimated three to six million illegal aliens from Mexico in this country. Those who profit from illegal immigration have jumped on the bandwagon and political pressure is building to repeat what was billed in 1986 as the first and last amnesty for illegal aliens.
Amnesty threatens homeland security.
Aliens who apply in the home countries to become legal immigrants to the United States are screened by U.S. consular officials to weed out any criminals or likely terrorists. Millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. have evaded this screening; amnesty would make them legal aliens without the necessary safeguards to ensure that they are not dangers to our national security.
Report on the Legalized Alien Population, Immigration and Naturalization Service, M-375, March 1992.
Measuring the Fallout: The Cost of the IRCA Amnesty After 10 Years, Center for Immigration Studies, May 1997.
Updated 10/02"
That was October of 2002, God only knows what the figures are like now. Whether it's an Amnesty or a "Guest Worker" program, it's the same thing...bad for America. Of all the policies to stand by with a mandate from the public after a general election, President Bush has decided to stand by an idea that will not only move to bankrupt this country but put us all in grave danger.
I think I'm having buyer's remorse.
Sunday, November 21, 2004
"Rome Wasn't Burnt in a Day" by Joe Scarborough: a Review
As the cover states, this is, “The Real Deal on How Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Other Washington Barbarians Are Bankrupting America.
“For readers seeking partisan insults instead of political insights, I can assure you that your local bookstore will provide scores of titles guaranteed to reinforce any preexisting prejudices one might harbor against a wide array of political enemies. But this is not such a book. The goal here is to show you how Washington truly functions by taking you behind the closed doors of Congress, into Oval Office meetings, onto Air Force One, and deep inside the corridors of power to which few Americans are granted access,” (pg. 6). So begins Joe Scarborough’s new book “Rome Wasn’t Burnt in a Day”.
Scarborough’s book deals simultaneously with three subjects. The first is a memoir of his time as a Congressman from Pensacola, Fl circa 1994 – 2001. The second theme is a tell-all about the scandalous waste and corruption that steers that the federal government and makes short work of those like him or John McCain whom would seek to reform the government. The third theme offers suggestions on how to heal the sickness within Washington DC, presumably without having your life and/or livelihood snuffed out like a mafia snitch.
“Rome etc.” is a pretty concise book that gets right to the point about government waste and spending. One of the major topics covered is a subject near and dear to my heart, the absolutely absurd amount of money spent on farm subsidies. Anyone that follows this should know that farm subsidies are one of the biggest bones of the contention against the US in terms of the global free market economy. We pay farmers unseemly amounts of tax dollars not to grow crops in order to inflate prices and create demand. Then on top of that, we don’t buy cheap (FDA approved) food from “third world” countries, which would prime the pump of international economies. Essentially the message we are sending the world is, “Open up your markets to us, but for your market’s, go scratch!” While Scarborough doesn’t go into nearly this much detail about the international offense of the US farm subsidies, he does mention the domestic waste and corruption it portends. So much so that while I was reading about it, I nearly cheered that someone other than Bill Maher and I have noticed the damage farm subsidies or welfare if you will have caused.
A great deal of the book also deals with the Newt Gingrich saga and the Contract With America. I wasn’t following politics at the time so this was new to me. Scarborough also deals with Bill Clinton, the budget battles and the government shutdown. There’s also a great deal of time spent on Gingrich’s removal as Speaker of the House due to his duplicity on said Contract With America and those whom supported him. Along the way he speaks of how the establishment is run on the iron law of party loyalty. He regales tales of how and some other bright eyed freshmen Congressmen of 1994 came to DC seeking real reform and were shown in short order that the ruling elite are not to be trifled with.
Finally, Scarborough ends the book with the real reasons he left public office and deals with some of the rumors that circulated after he retired back to Pensacola.
Scarborough treats the subject material fair as he skewers both the Democrat and Republican parties equally for being irresponsible with the public treasury. He admits at the end of the book that it was one thing to battle liberals such as Bill Clinton on spending but he did not want to have the same exact fight with President Bush, as most he assuredly would have.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
A Glaring Double Standard: Killing Margaret Hassan vs. Unarmed Terrorist
I received this today from the Free Iraqis of the iraqicommunity@yahoogroups.com. The author of the piece is Jane Novak, whom is a political commentator and analyst in the US. She has summed up my feelings on the "marine shooting" story perfectly. I'm including her article here in it's entirety with no more than this simple explanation. No more needs to be said, other than, investigate the marine shooting, find the marine not guilty of any wrong doing and let these men win this war. Do not hamstring the entire armed forces in Iraq over rules of engagement that the enemy is completely ignoring. Here is Jane Novak:
"What a glaring double standard. The Arab world is enraged over the
shooting of a wounded, unarmed Iraqi insurgent by a uniformed US
soldier.
There is no similar outrage for Margaret Hassan. Is it because she
was an Anglo, a woman, or because she was killed by a Muslim?
The video of the soldier shooting is proof,
we are told, of America's evil. And the kidnapping, torture and
murder of Mrs. Hassan is then proof of what- that America is evil!
Muslims wouldn't do that unless evil America forced their hand.
Bombing children, defiling mosques, kidnapping civilians, executing
poor workers and cleaning women point blank: these are not
discussed, broadcast with frequency, or the source of much anger.
Videos where a masked man shakes a bloody head while the curtains
flutter do not evoke such fury. Why? The identity of the victim or
the perpetrator?
All tactics of the insurgents are excused. Hide among civilians.
Justified. Wear civilian clothes. Justified. Shoot from the holy
mosque. Justified. Feign death to draw soldiers in (the way one
marine died the day before the incident). Justified. Wave a white
flag as a ploy. Justified. Booby trap dead bodies. Justified. That's
just Fallujah.
Moving outward-Deliberately killing Iraqi civilians daily.
Justified. Bombing churches. Justified. Bombing cafes. Justified.
Using schools and mosques as arsenals. Justified. Attacking the
police. Just fine.
The rules of war don't apply to the insurgents, only the Americans.
And if one horrible act occurs at the hands of one American soldier,
the world howls.
The insurgents' constant inhumane tactics are acceptable. The
American rules of engagement prohibited shooting unarmed combatants:
this prohibition was followed by thousands of soldiers, thousands of
times. After the shootout at the mosque in which the man was
wounded, a call went to headquarters to send a medical team out to
pick him up. Its American policy that wounded fighters are given
good medical attention. Many are being treated now. A wounded
American soldier found by the enemy fighters would be tortured to
death after being paraded on al-Jazeera. And that would be fine.
The last war in which Arab militaries fought was the Iran/Iraq war
and executions were systematic. That was fine.
Al-Jazeera, marketing arm for anti-Americanism globally, is showing
the shooting nearly nonstop. Yet they refused to show the last tape
of Margaret begging for her life because it was "too disturbing."
How bad of a shape was she in? Is that why her bruised and battered
body is still alone and unrecovered? They refused to show her
execution because shooting this good woman in the head was not
a "war death," although it was carried out by those the US military
are fighting. Broadcasting terrorists' messages to inspire fear in
the Iraqi people is thought impartial journalism. Except in Iraq,
where al-Jazeera has been suspended numerous times for acting as a
tool of the jihadiis.
There is so little regard for Iraqi civilians when they are killed
by Muslims but when an unarmed fighter is killed by an American
soldier, the Arabs suddenly love the Iraqis. It is too perplexing to
consider that Arabs expect a higher standard of humanity from
Americans than they do from themselves.
The soldier will be tried. The facts will come out. A punishment
will be issued because the US has respect for the Iraqis and
enforces the rules of engagement. If the soldier was wrong,
Americans will say he was wrong, loud and clear. Americans
themselves will demand his punishment.
Tomorrow when Iraqi children are again deliberately targeted by
these terrorists-not freedom fighters-what will we hear from Arab
countries then, not even muted mumbling. Is it a lack of courage or
a lack of concern? Why is there so much more sympathy for the
fighter in civilian clothes who was shooting from a mosque than for
Margaret? For the insurgents than for the civilians? For the
terrorists than the police?
Elections are coming to Iraq. The Iraqis will rule themselves.
Saddam stole 21 billion dollars from the mouths of starving Iraqi
children. The UN closed its eyes. He filled mass graves and torture
chambers and the world stood silent. Now as the Iraqis struggle for
self-determination, for security, and for freedom from both the US
and the terrorists, Arabs back the suicide bombers. Habit perhaps.
For years, some Iraqis may harbor deep resentment toward the US for
its mistakes. The successes Of the insurgents, all those dead
civilians, will be remembered with anger by many. Perhaps the
greatest number will recall how they were not valued by
their "brothers" and were quickly forsaken in the greater cause of
anti-Americanism."
Amen sister, amen.
"What a glaring double standard. The Arab world is enraged over the
shooting of a wounded, unarmed Iraqi insurgent by a uniformed US
soldier.
There is no similar outrage for Margaret Hassan. Is it because she
was an Anglo, a woman, or because she was killed by a Muslim?
The video of the soldier shooting is proof,
we are told, of America's evil. And the kidnapping, torture and
murder of Mrs. Hassan is then proof of what- that America is evil!
Muslims wouldn't do that unless evil America forced their hand.
Bombing children, defiling mosques, kidnapping civilians, executing
poor workers and cleaning women point blank: these are not
discussed, broadcast with frequency, or the source of much anger.
Videos where a masked man shakes a bloody head while the curtains
flutter do not evoke such fury. Why? The identity of the victim or
the perpetrator?
All tactics of the insurgents are excused. Hide among civilians.
Justified. Wear civilian clothes. Justified. Shoot from the holy
mosque. Justified. Feign death to draw soldiers in (the way one
marine died the day before the incident). Justified. Wave a white
flag as a ploy. Justified. Booby trap dead bodies. Justified. That's
just Fallujah.
Moving outward-Deliberately killing Iraqi civilians daily.
Justified. Bombing churches. Justified. Bombing cafes. Justified.
Using schools and mosques as arsenals. Justified. Attacking the
police. Just fine.
The rules of war don't apply to the insurgents, only the Americans.
And if one horrible act occurs at the hands of one American soldier,
the world howls.
The insurgents' constant inhumane tactics are acceptable. The
American rules of engagement prohibited shooting unarmed combatants:
this prohibition was followed by thousands of soldiers, thousands of
times. After the shootout at the mosque in which the man was
wounded, a call went to headquarters to send a medical team out to
pick him up. Its American policy that wounded fighters are given
good medical attention. Many are being treated now. A wounded
American soldier found by the enemy fighters would be tortured to
death after being paraded on al-Jazeera. And that would be fine.
The last war in which Arab militaries fought was the Iran/Iraq war
and executions were systematic. That was fine.
Al-Jazeera, marketing arm for anti-Americanism globally, is showing
the shooting nearly nonstop. Yet they refused to show the last tape
of Margaret begging for her life because it was "too disturbing."
How bad of a shape was she in? Is that why her bruised and battered
body is still alone and unrecovered? They refused to show her
execution because shooting this good woman in the head was not
a "war death," although it was carried out by those the US military
are fighting. Broadcasting terrorists' messages to inspire fear in
the Iraqi people is thought impartial journalism. Except in Iraq,
where al-Jazeera has been suspended numerous times for acting as a
tool of the jihadiis.
There is so little regard for Iraqi civilians when they are killed
by Muslims but when an unarmed fighter is killed by an American
soldier, the Arabs suddenly love the Iraqis. It is too perplexing to
consider that Arabs expect a higher standard of humanity from
Americans than they do from themselves.
The soldier will be tried. The facts will come out. A punishment
will be issued because the US has respect for the Iraqis and
enforces the rules of engagement. If the soldier was wrong,
Americans will say he was wrong, loud and clear. Americans
themselves will demand his punishment.
Tomorrow when Iraqi children are again deliberately targeted by
these terrorists-not freedom fighters-what will we hear from Arab
countries then, not even muted mumbling. Is it a lack of courage or
a lack of concern? Why is there so much more sympathy for the
fighter in civilian clothes who was shooting from a mosque than for
Margaret? For the insurgents than for the civilians? For the
terrorists than the police?
Elections are coming to Iraq. The Iraqis will rule themselves.
Saddam stole 21 billion dollars from the mouths of starving Iraqi
children. The UN closed its eyes. He filled mass graves and torture
chambers and the world stood silent. Now as the Iraqis struggle for
self-determination, for security, and for freedom from both the US
and the terrorists, Arabs back the suicide bombers. Habit perhaps.
For years, some Iraqis may harbor deep resentment toward the US for
its mistakes. The successes Of the insurgents, all those dead
civilians, will be remembered with anger by many. Perhaps the
greatest number will recall how they were not valued by
their "brothers" and were quickly forsaken in the greater cause of
anti-Americanism."
Amen sister, amen.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Cowards, Racist and Liberals! Oh My!
It's a good thing Jeff Danziger is a liberal, or he'd be considered a racist and a coward.
The title of this post will take you to the website of Jeff Danziger, a political cartoonist. Of course you won't find this cartoon up there anymore because the racist coward took it down.
Michelle Malkin, author of "In Defense of Internment", wrote the racist coward a 7-word e-mail:
"Disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself."
Danziger promptly emailed back:
quote:
Thanks for your letter.
In fact the idea for the cartoon was suggested to me by a friend who is African-American. It wasn't racist. Nor am I. I have been doing this for nearly thirty years, and any review of my work will prove that no racism attaches. Further, I am a decorated Vietnam veteran who voted for Nixon once, GHW Bush twice and even for Bob Dole. So keep your labels.
Ms. Rice had told America that she knew for certain that the nuclear and mass destruction weapons existed. For certain. Then once the war is on and over a thousand GI's get killed, she said last week that she didn't know anything for certain, and that she never said it was certain and it was all the CIA's fault and Clinton did the same thing and blah-blah. A litany of excuses. She reminded me of Prissy, a character in the film "Gone With the Wind", who knew all about birthin babies, until an actual baby was on the way, and then she didn't know nuthin about birthin babies.
Nothing racist about it at all. Just the standard lies told by a political operative, out of her depth, who happens to be African- American. Whenever this administration is in trouble they send out Condi Rice because the press, which is mostly white and male, gives her a far easier treatment than they would a white male.
Meanwhile, our troops are dying and being greviously wounded in a war that could have been avoided, or at least unsought. Ms. Rice's (and other's) statements about the aluminum tubes are the same kind of lie as the Gulf of Tonkin lie from Lyndon Johnson's people. 55,000 GI's died for that lie.
Even so, I appreciate your comments and will bear your remarks in mind in the future. For the record I do not work for the NY Times.
Jeff Danziger
(credit: http://bbs.simonsays.com/)
Of course after he defends the cartoon he then took it down, I suppose as to no longer offend anyone. This incident might be funny if it weren't so sad. Dr. Condoleeza Rice is fallible, just as any person is but she doesn't deserve to be compared to a "mammy" type character from "Gone With the Wind".
I have not heard a peep on this subject from either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Where is the outrage? Where is the cry for justice? The hypocrisy of this incident is just glaring.
Here is another sample of that renowned liberal tolerance I hear so much about from Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury.
If I walk into work tomorrow and call any of the women, let alone the Black women, "Brown Sugar" I would not only lose my job but I'd be slapped so hard with a sexual harassment suit I'd think I was back in the mosh pit! Oh to be a liberal media elite, unchained by political correctness and...well, class.
Here's the thing that bugs me, these are two obviously mean spirited, purposely derogatory "statements" about a public servant. However, and this is what I mean by hypocrisy, I can think of two cases right off the bat where conservatives said something in public that was not intentionally malicious, yet they could be construed as insensitive and the media went "Zell Miller" crazy!
Do you remember back in 2002 when former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was forced to resign his position as Senate Majority because of a comment he made praising Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday?
"The comment in question was delivered last week ago during a 100th birthday party for the retiring Thurmond -- a party that often resembled a roast of the South Carolina Republican, who later in his career rejected segregation and supported civil rights.
Lott noted that in Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign, whose centerpiece was opposition to integration, Mississippi was one of four states Thurmond carried.
"We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott said. " (credit: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/lott.comment/)
I'll buy that Lott's comment validated segregation and was insensitive. I'll even go along with him losing his coveted leadership position in the Senate. But where is the cry against Danziger and Trudeau? Supporting a reformed segregationist on his 100th birthday, that's insensitive, but calling a former Provost from Stanford University "Mammy" and "Brown Sugar", that's just clever.
This is one however is my favorite. Another conservative, this time radio talk show icon Rush Limbaugh lost his job when he said, "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team." (credit: http://espn.go.com/gen/news/2003/1001/1628537.html)
Limbaugh resigned over this because the media elite went berserk and called him a racist. Maybe if he had shown a drawing of Donovan McNab in "blacker" face wearing a butler's uniform and tap-dancing, to illustrate his point...no wait, that still wouldn't have mattered. Only liberals are allowed to be racist and insensitive.
For the record I don't think all liberals are racist and not all conservatives are virtuous and tolerant. What I'm so mad about is the blatant hypocrisy when dealing with race. In my opinion, the media are not consistent within their own universe.
It's really easy to hide behind a venomous pen and the first amendment isn't it. It's very easy to be "clever" and "creative" when you know nothing can be done to you. At the very least, Ted Rall has the courage to go on the O'Reilly Factor and be confronted. The men (and I use that word lightly) who drew these cartoons are nothing more than spoiled, scared little children all grown up and hiding behind their drawing board.
The title of this post will take you to the website of Jeff Danziger, a political cartoonist. Of course you won't find this cartoon up there anymore because the racist coward took it down.
Michelle Malkin, author of "In Defense of Internment", wrote the racist coward a 7-word e-mail:
"Disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself."
Danziger promptly emailed back:
quote:
Thanks for your letter.
In fact the idea for the cartoon was suggested to me by a friend who is African-American. It wasn't racist. Nor am I. I have been doing this for nearly thirty years, and any review of my work will prove that no racism attaches. Further, I am a decorated Vietnam veteran who voted for Nixon once, GHW Bush twice and even for Bob Dole. So keep your labels.
Ms. Rice had told America that she knew for certain that the nuclear and mass destruction weapons existed. For certain. Then once the war is on and over a thousand GI's get killed, she said last week that she didn't know anything for certain, and that she never said it was certain and it was all the CIA's fault and Clinton did the same thing and blah-blah. A litany of excuses. She reminded me of Prissy, a character in the film "Gone With the Wind", who knew all about birthin babies, until an actual baby was on the way, and then she didn't know nuthin about birthin babies.
Nothing racist about it at all. Just the standard lies told by a political operative, out of her depth, who happens to be African- American. Whenever this administration is in trouble they send out Condi Rice because the press, which is mostly white and male, gives her a far easier treatment than they would a white male.
Meanwhile, our troops are dying and being greviously wounded in a war that could have been avoided, or at least unsought. Ms. Rice's (and other's) statements about the aluminum tubes are the same kind of lie as the Gulf of Tonkin lie from Lyndon Johnson's people. 55,000 GI's died for that lie.
Even so, I appreciate your comments and will bear your remarks in mind in the future. For the record I do not work for the NY Times.
Jeff Danziger
(credit: http://bbs.simonsays.com/)
Of course after he defends the cartoon he then took it down, I suppose as to no longer offend anyone. This incident might be funny if it weren't so sad. Dr. Condoleeza Rice is fallible, just as any person is but she doesn't deserve to be compared to a "mammy" type character from "Gone With the Wind".
I have not heard a peep on this subject from either Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Where is the outrage? Where is the cry for justice? The hypocrisy of this incident is just glaring.
Here is another sample of that renowned liberal tolerance I hear so much about from Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury.
If I walk into work tomorrow and call any of the women, let alone the Black women, "Brown Sugar" I would not only lose my job but I'd be slapped so hard with a sexual harassment suit I'd think I was back in the mosh pit! Oh to be a liberal media elite, unchained by political correctness and...well, class.
Here's the thing that bugs me, these are two obviously mean spirited, purposely derogatory "statements" about a public servant. However, and this is what I mean by hypocrisy, I can think of two cases right off the bat where conservatives said something in public that was not intentionally malicious, yet they could be construed as insensitive and the media went "Zell Miller" crazy!
Do you remember back in 2002 when former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott was forced to resign his position as Senate Majority because of a comment he made praising Strom Thurmond on his 100th birthday?
"The comment in question was delivered last week ago during a 100th birthday party for the retiring Thurmond -- a party that often resembled a roast of the South Carolina Republican, who later in his career rejected segregation and supported civil rights.
Lott noted that in Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign, whose centerpiece was opposition to integration, Mississippi was one of four states Thurmond carried.
"We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years either," Lott said. " (credit: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/12/13/lott.comment/)
I'll buy that Lott's comment validated segregation and was insensitive. I'll even go along with him losing his coveted leadership position in the Senate. But where is the cry against Danziger and Trudeau? Supporting a reformed segregationist on his 100th birthday, that's insensitive, but calling a former Provost from Stanford University "Mammy" and "Brown Sugar", that's just clever.
This is one however is my favorite. Another conservative, this time radio talk show icon Rush Limbaugh lost his job when he said, "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team." (credit: http://espn.go.com/gen/news/2003/1001/1628537.html)
Limbaugh resigned over this because the media elite went berserk and called him a racist. Maybe if he had shown a drawing of Donovan McNab in "blacker" face wearing a butler's uniform and tap-dancing, to illustrate his point...no wait, that still wouldn't have mattered. Only liberals are allowed to be racist and insensitive.
For the record I don't think all liberals are racist and not all conservatives are virtuous and tolerant. What I'm so mad about is the blatant hypocrisy when dealing with race. In my opinion, the media are not consistent within their own universe.
It's really easy to hide behind a venomous pen and the first amendment isn't it. It's very easy to be "clever" and "creative" when you know nothing can be done to you. At the very least, Ted Rall has the courage to go on the O'Reilly Factor and be confronted. The men (and I use that word lightly) who drew these cartoons are nothing more than spoiled, scared little children all grown up and hiding behind their drawing board.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
The Kids Are Not Alright
In the past few weeks I've run across some news stories that involve children being hurt in some way by their caretakers, other adults or other children. Here's a couple of stories that have reminded me, we are in fact living in the days of the Roman Empire.
Girls, 13, Arrested for Serving Poisoned Cake
"Wednesday, November 17, 2004
MARIETTA, Ga. Two 13-year-old middle school girls were held on assault charges Wednesday after being accused of serving poisoned cake to about a dozen students who became ill and went to a hospital.
Lawyers for the two seventh graders said the cake was a prank, and that they had no intention to harm anyone. Lab tests showed the icing on the cornbread cake contained an expired prescription drug, bleach, clay and tabasco sauce.
"They took it into the cafeteria at lunch time and began passing it out to students, just whoever would take a piece," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb County School District (search) in suburban Atlanta.
Some of the students started vomiting after eating the cake Tuesday, officials said. Eleven students, mostly seventh graders, were treated at a hospital and released, Dillon said.
"There was some hysteria, from what I understand," Detective Wayne Delk said.
The 13-year-old girls appeared Wednesday before a Juvenile Court judge who refused their attorneys' request to allow them to go home. The judge will reconsider the request on Friday.
Police said one of the teens was charged with 12 counts of aggravated assault with intent to commit murder, among other charges. The other girl was charged with the same 12 aggravated assault charges.
In addition to the charges, Dillon said the girls will be suspended and could be expelled.
'We don't understand why they would have done something like this," Dillon said. "It's certainly something more serious than a prank.' "
Well, this is a rather loud cry for help. I don't know enough about the two girls in this story to make an accurate diagnosis but something tells me neither of them are watched very closely at home. I would love to know what's going on in homes across America that kids can get an idea into their heads that bleach and old prescription drugs on pastries is somehow funny. Call me old fashioned but in my day (circa 1990-1994) I wouldn't have tried to poison my classmates no matter how much I hated them. I'm fairly certain there's nothing the kids at school could have done to me that would have been worse than what would have happened when my parent's found out I tried to kill a dozen or so kids.
Teacher charged with criminal sex abuse; Teens were reportedly paid for services
"November 10, 2004 Three Chicago teens claim a public school teacher paid them thousands of dollars for sex. Senorita Walker was arrested this week on charges of criminal sexual abuse. She is being held on a $300,000 bond.
Walker is a 33 year old mother of a 5 year old son. She is accused of paying 3 teenage boys a total of $5,000 for sex. Prosecutors say she gave a written statement implicating herself in the crime. The students reported her after Walker told them she had a new boyfriend and wanted to move on with her life
The rumors had been circulating around Corliss High School for days. It wasn't until principal Anthony Spivey heard it firsthand did he believe that three of his male students were having sex for money with the 33 -year -old Chicago public school teacher.
"They shared some information with me that I thought was very horrible and so at that particular point I started following Chicago Public Schools policy and when informed of suspected child abuse which is the way I looked at it," said Spivey.
Police say special education teacher Senorita Walker began having sex with her three victims at the beginning of the summer. She approached one of the kids on a South Side basketball court.
"She got his telephone number and a few days later called him. She picked up the victim and another victim, drove them back to her home, where she did perform sexual acts on these two boys," said Mary Anna Planey, assistant state's attorney.
On other occasions, a third victim became involved. Prosecutors say Walker allegedly supplied marijuana and alcohol and paid the kids for the services.
"The very first time she had any sexual contact with the first victim she did pay him $100. On the second time she paid one of the victims $200," said Planey.
Walker currently teaches at Robeson High School. She met one of her victims while they both were at Kohn elementary. The allegations against Walker come as a surprise to Kohn's principal, who always thought Walker was a good teacher.
"They're screened before the board of education before they come here and we interview. I'm not a psychologist. I can't always pick up on what could be an issue with a staff member," said Cecellia Smith, Kohn School principal.
Senorita Walker has been suspended with pay. She began working for Chicago Public Schools in 1995.
Walker has worked a seven other schools besides Robeson. She does not have a criminal record in Cook County. If Walker is convicted on all three counts of criminal sexual abuse, she faces three to seven years in prison."
And NY City won't hire my dad to teach math. Contrary to popular opinion, teenage prostitution does not make an appropriate after school job. I think this is a great argument for home schooling your children. Between the teacher's union obstructing the learning process and more and more stories of teachers sexually assaulting their students, it's getting so there are very few institutions left where your children are safe.
Speaking of assaulting children...
Stratford woman formally charged for having sex with 8 year-old boy
"STRATFORD-- A Stratford woman has been formally charged for having sex with an eight year-old boy.
Tammy Imre was arrested on Friday. The divorced mother of a seven year-old daughter was charged with first-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault, and risk of injury to a minor.
In court on Monday, prosecutors told the judge that Imre shouldn't be released on bond because she is a danger to the community. The judge set bond at a quarter million dollars because of the severity of the case. The case has been bolstered by graphic eyewitness statements by the victim, the defendant herself, and the defendant's seven year-old daughter.
The eight year-old's mother tells Eyewitness News her anguish in the courtroom on Monday as she watched Imre face the judge.
"I had my mother sitting next to me and a friend of mine in court and I was just squeezing their hands till I couldn't squeeze anymore. Thats how angry I was", says the victim's mother.
According to the victim's mother, the eight year-old often went over to Imre's Birch Drive home, where she thought he was playing with Imre's seven year-old daughter, a classmate. But when she found a letter written by Imre to her son, she knew something was wrong.
"Some of the letter said, we could...you know. I guess it was a rainy day or something like that. You could come over later and we can do the you-know-what. But the you-know-what to an eight year old?", says the victim's mother.
According to the arrest warrant, the rest of the letter reads, "She can watch TV downstairs, we can come upstairs, ok. Love ya! I want you!"
Tammy Imre's mother walked swiftly out of court on Monday and defended her daughter.
"She wasn't in her right mind", says Imre's mother.
If convicted, Imre could serve more than twenty years in prison."
I hope this woman, and I use that word lightly, gets life imprisonment...and that's because I don't believe in the death penalty. Child rape is obviously a very serious thing and there's nothing funny about this horrible incident. The boy will need years of therapy in order to find any sense of normalcy in his life. And then there's that poor 7-year-old girl, who now has to suffer life with a divorced father and a clinically insane, child rapist mother. I've worked with kids in foster care that get shuffled from place to place, feeling ever so disengaged from a world that has suddenly and without warning shattered their fragile lives. It's not pretty and this is as ugly as it gets...correction, it does get uglier:
PERVY BLAME GAME
"By JOE McGURK
November 10, 2004 -- STRATFORD, Conn. The mom of the randy receptionist who allegedly seduced an 8-year-old neighbor blamed her daughter's little victim yesterday, angrily insisting, "It's his fault!"
"It's not her . . . she was just too friendly, that's all," said Evelyn Imre of her 29-year-old daughter, Tammy Imre, a secretary.
Speaking about the third-grader Tammy allegedly engaged in twisted sex trysts with and still refers to as her "boyfriend" the mother defiantly told The Post: "He's the one who needs to be looked at.
"I know she's innocent," the 52-year-old mom said of Tammy. "It's the devil at work."
The boy's mom, stunned at the attempt to blame her son, only said sadly, "I just don't believe it he's 8 years old."
Wannabe actress Imre was busted Friday for allegedly turning the child into her sex toy, starting their lurid relationship after the boy began coming over to play with her own 7-year- old daughter, cops said.
The waifish Imre told police it was her "fantasy": "I was the girlfriend, and he was the boyfriend, and someday we could be in a relationship."
The boy had a key to the house, and the pair would sneak upstairs for their sex sessions while Imre's daughter was downstairs watching TV, police said.
But the pair's relationship came to an abrupt end when the boy's older brother found a revealing note Imre allegedly penned to the child.
The suspect remains in jail on $250,000 bail on sex-assault charges.
Imre was an emotional wreck over her ordeal, said one cop who helped drive her to the courthouse.
As soon as she heard a news radio station talking about her case, she broke down in tears, he said.
Employees at the graphics company where Imre answered phones said yesterday that she was distraught there Friday, before her arrest. One co-worker said Imre told them about a month ago that child-welfare workers had taken her daughter away from her.
She was timid and easily flustered, the workers said although on a Web site for aspiring actresses, Tammy touts, 'I love to act, sing, dance and write songs!' "
I think this falls under the heading, Hitler was painter and Kim Jong Il likes movies but that doesn't make them more sympathetic. Somehow being a singer and a dancer doesn't get you off the hook for child rape, at least not my world, red as it is. This has also got to be the worst case of blaming the victim I've ever seen. This ranks right up there with. "She was asking for it your honor, it's her fault for wearing a miniskirt!" I'm sensing there's a history of psychological disorders in the Imre family. The grandmother enabling this behavior strikes me as a bit looney as well.
Police Taser 6-Year-Old Boy At Elementary School
"MIAMI -- A 6-year-old boy was subdued with a Taser while wielding a piece of glass and threatening to hurt himself in the principal's office, officials said Thursday.
The boy, who was not identified, was shocked by police with 50,000 volts of electric current on Oct. 20 at Kelsey Pharr Elementary School.
Principal Maria Mason called 911 after the child broke a picture frame in her office and waved the piece of glass, holding a security guard back.
When two Miami-Dade County police officers and a school officer arrived, the boy had already cut himself under his eye and on his hand.
The officers talked to the boy without success. When he cut his own leg, one officer shocked him with a Taser, then another grabbed him to prevent him from falling, police said.
He was treated by Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue and taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was committed for psychiatric evaluation.
"By using the Taser, we were able to stop the situation, stop him from hurting himself," police spokesman Juan DelCastillo told The Miami Herald. "Sure he could have been tackled and maybe injured, maybe his arm broken or maybe that glass could have cut him in a critical area."
Retired Juvenile Judge Frank Orlando called the incident "ridiculous."
"It just sounds excessive to me to Taser gun a 6-year-old when everyone else around there were adults," said Orlando, who now runs a law clinic on youth law at Nova Southeastern University. "They couldn't subdue a 6-year-old? Must have been a pretty big kid."
Police wouldn't say how big the child was. The case was under review. "
Normally I take the side of the police in almost any situation but this one is a bit stupid to me. I worked with kids in group homes a few years ago. The ranged in age from 13-17 and they were all shapes and sizes. They could also be taken down and restrained by any combination of two adults (male/female, female/female etc.) Not once in the year I worked with teenagers did a floor restraint lead to having to use weapons on a child...certainly not a 6 year old. Now if he had had a gun, I could see using the taser, but a piece of glass? That seems a bit excessive to me.
I've been saying this for years now, I don't think children are very valuable in this country. In the best case scenario, there considered a nuisance, in the worst, their the victims of heinous crimes. To the parents that love and engage their children, God bless you...you are in the minority.
"Wednesday, November 17, 2004
MARIETTA, Ga. Two 13-year-old middle school girls were held on assault charges Wednesday after being accused of serving poisoned cake to about a dozen students who became ill and went to a hospital.
Lawyers for the two seventh graders said the cake was a prank, and that they had no intention to harm anyone. Lab tests showed the icing on the cornbread cake contained an expired prescription drug, bleach, clay and tabasco sauce.
"They took it into the cafeteria at lunch time and began passing it out to students, just whoever would take a piece," said Jay Dillon, spokesman for the Cobb County School District (search) in suburban Atlanta.
Some of the students started vomiting after eating the cake Tuesday, officials said. Eleven students, mostly seventh graders, were treated at a hospital and released, Dillon said.
"There was some hysteria, from what I understand," Detective Wayne Delk said.
The 13-year-old girls appeared Wednesday before a Juvenile Court judge who refused their attorneys' request to allow them to go home. The judge will reconsider the request on Friday.
Police said one of the teens was charged with 12 counts of aggravated assault with intent to commit murder, among other charges. The other girl was charged with the same 12 aggravated assault charges.
In addition to the charges, Dillon said the girls will be suspended and could be expelled.
'We don't understand why they would have done something like this," Dillon said. "It's certainly something more serious than a prank.' "
Well, this is a rather loud cry for help. I don't know enough about the two girls in this story to make an accurate diagnosis but something tells me neither of them are watched very closely at home. I would love to know what's going on in homes across America that kids can get an idea into their heads that bleach and old prescription drugs on pastries is somehow funny. Call me old fashioned but in my day (circa 1990-1994) I wouldn't have tried to poison my classmates no matter how much I hated them. I'm fairly certain there's nothing the kids at school could have done to me that would have been worse than what would have happened when my parent's found out I tried to kill a dozen or so kids.
"November 10, 2004 Three Chicago teens claim a public school teacher paid them thousands of dollars for sex. Senorita Walker was arrested this week on charges of criminal sexual abuse. She is being held on a $300,000 bond.
Walker is a 33 year old mother of a 5 year old son. She is accused of paying 3 teenage boys a total of $5,000 for sex. Prosecutors say she gave a written statement implicating herself in the crime. The students reported her after Walker told them she had a new boyfriend and wanted to move on with her life
The rumors had been circulating around Corliss High School for days. It wasn't until principal Anthony Spivey heard it firsthand did he believe that three of his male students were having sex for money with the 33 -year -old Chicago public school teacher.
"They shared some information with me that I thought was very horrible and so at that particular point I started following Chicago Public Schools policy and when informed of suspected child abuse which is the way I looked at it," said Spivey.
Police say special education teacher Senorita Walker began having sex with her three victims at the beginning of the summer. She approached one of the kids on a South Side basketball court.
"She got his telephone number and a few days later called him. She picked up the victim and another victim, drove them back to her home, where she did perform sexual acts on these two boys," said Mary Anna Planey, assistant state's attorney.
On other occasions, a third victim became involved. Prosecutors say Walker allegedly supplied marijuana and alcohol and paid the kids for the services.
"The very first time she had any sexual contact with the first victim she did pay him $100. On the second time she paid one of the victims $200," said Planey.
Walker currently teaches at Robeson High School. She met one of her victims while they both were at Kohn elementary. The allegations against Walker come as a surprise to Kohn's principal, who always thought Walker was a good teacher.
"They're screened before the board of education before they come here and we interview. I'm not a psychologist. I can't always pick up on what could be an issue with a staff member," said Cecellia Smith, Kohn School principal.
Senorita Walker has been suspended with pay. She began working for Chicago Public Schools in 1995.
Walker has worked a seven other schools besides Robeson. She does not have a criminal record in Cook County. If Walker is convicted on all three counts of criminal sexual abuse, she faces three to seven years in prison."
And NY City won't hire my dad to teach math. Contrary to popular opinion, teenage prostitution does not make an appropriate after school job. I think this is a great argument for home schooling your children. Between the teacher's union obstructing the learning process and more and more stories of teachers sexually assaulting their students, it's getting so there are very few institutions left where your children are safe.
Speaking of assaulting children...
"STRATFORD-- A Stratford woman has been formally charged for having sex with an eight year-old boy.
Tammy Imre was arrested on Friday. The divorced mother of a seven year-old daughter was charged with first-degree sexual assault, fourth-degree sexual assault, and risk of injury to a minor.
In court on Monday, prosecutors told the judge that Imre shouldn't be released on bond because she is a danger to the community. The judge set bond at a quarter million dollars because of the severity of the case. The case has been bolstered by graphic eyewitness statements by the victim, the defendant herself, and the defendant's seven year-old daughter.
The eight year-old's mother tells Eyewitness News her anguish in the courtroom on Monday as she watched Imre face the judge.
"I had my mother sitting next to me and a friend of mine in court and I was just squeezing their hands till I couldn't squeeze anymore. Thats how angry I was", says the victim's mother.
According to the victim's mother, the eight year-old often went over to Imre's Birch Drive home, where she thought he was playing with Imre's seven year-old daughter, a classmate. But when she found a letter written by Imre to her son, she knew something was wrong.
"Some of the letter said, we could...you know. I guess it was a rainy day or something like that. You could come over later and we can do the you-know-what. But the you-know-what to an eight year old?", says the victim's mother.
According to the arrest warrant, the rest of the letter reads, "She can watch TV downstairs, we can come upstairs, ok. Love ya! I want you!"
Tammy Imre's mother walked swiftly out of court on Monday and defended her daughter.
"She wasn't in her right mind", says Imre's mother.
If convicted, Imre could serve more than twenty years in prison."
I hope this woman, and I use that word lightly, gets life imprisonment...and that's because I don't believe in the death penalty. Child rape is obviously a very serious thing and there's nothing funny about this horrible incident. The boy will need years of therapy in order to find any sense of normalcy in his life. And then there's that poor 7-year-old girl, who now has to suffer life with a divorced father and a clinically insane, child rapist mother. I've worked with kids in foster care that get shuffled from place to place, feeling ever so disengaged from a world that has suddenly and without warning shattered their fragile lives. It's not pretty and this is as ugly as it gets...correction, it does get uglier:
"By JOE McGURK
November 10, 2004 -- STRATFORD, Conn. The mom of the randy receptionist who allegedly seduced an 8-year-old neighbor blamed her daughter's little victim yesterday, angrily insisting, "It's his fault!"
"It's not her . . . she was just too friendly, that's all," said Evelyn Imre of her 29-year-old daughter, Tammy Imre, a secretary.
Speaking about the third-grader Tammy allegedly engaged in twisted sex trysts with and still refers to as her "boyfriend" the mother defiantly told The Post: "He's the one who needs to be looked at.
"I know she's innocent," the 52-year-old mom said of Tammy. "It's the devil at work."
The boy's mom, stunned at the attempt to blame her son, only said sadly, "I just don't believe it he's 8 years old."
Wannabe actress Imre was busted Friday for allegedly turning the child into her sex toy, starting their lurid relationship after the boy began coming over to play with her own 7-year- old daughter, cops said.
The waifish Imre told police it was her "fantasy": "I was the girlfriend, and he was the boyfriend, and someday we could be in a relationship."
The boy had a key to the house, and the pair would sneak upstairs for their sex sessions while Imre's daughter was downstairs watching TV, police said.
But the pair's relationship came to an abrupt end when the boy's older brother found a revealing note Imre allegedly penned to the child.
The suspect remains in jail on $250,000 bail on sex-assault charges.
Imre was an emotional wreck over her ordeal, said one cop who helped drive her to the courthouse.
As soon as she heard a news radio station talking about her case, she broke down in tears, he said.
Employees at the graphics company where Imre answered phones said yesterday that she was distraught there Friday, before her arrest. One co-worker said Imre told them about a month ago that child-welfare workers had taken her daughter away from her.
She was timid and easily flustered, the workers said although on a Web site for aspiring actresses, Tammy touts, 'I love to act, sing, dance and write songs!' "
I think this falls under the heading, Hitler was painter and Kim Jong Il likes movies but that doesn't make them more sympathetic. Somehow being a singer and a dancer doesn't get you off the hook for child rape, at least not my world, red as it is. This has also got to be the worst case of blaming the victim I've ever seen. This ranks right up there with. "She was asking for it your honor, it's her fault for wearing a miniskirt!" I'm sensing there's a history of psychological disorders in the Imre family. The grandmother enabling this behavior strikes me as a bit looney as well.
"MIAMI -- A 6-year-old boy was subdued with a Taser while wielding a piece of glass and threatening to hurt himself in the principal's office, officials said Thursday.
The boy, who was not identified, was shocked by police with 50,000 volts of electric current on Oct. 20 at Kelsey Pharr Elementary School.
Principal Maria Mason called 911 after the child broke a picture frame in her office and waved the piece of glass, holding a security guard back.
When two Miami-Dade County police officers and a school officer arrived, the boy had already cut himself under his eye and on his hand.
The officers talked to the boy without success. When he cut his own leg, one officer shocked him with a Taser, then another grabbed him to prevent him from falling, police said.
He was treated by Miami-Dade Fire-Rescue and taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he was committed for psychiatric evaluation.
"By using the Taser, we were able to stop the situation, stop him from hurting himself," police spokesman Juan DelCastillo told The Miami Herald. "Sure he could have been tackled and maybe injured, maybe his arm broken or maybe that glass could have cut him in a critical area."
Retired Juvenile Judge Frank Orlando called the incident "ridiculous."
"It just sounds excessive to me to Taser gun a 6-year-old when everyone else around there were adults," said Orlando, who now runs a law clinic on youth law at Nova Southeastern University. "They couldn't subdue a 6-year-old? Must have been a pretty big kid."
Police wouldn't say how big the child was. The case was under review. "
Normally I take the side of the police in almost any situation but this one is a bit stupid to me. I worked with kids in group homes a few years ago. The ranged in age from 13-17 and they were all shapes and sizes. They could also be taken down and restrained by any combination of two adults (male/female, female/female etc.) Not once in the year I worked with teenagers did a floor restraint lead to having to use weapons on a child...certainly not a 6 year old. Now if he had had a gun, I could see using the taser, but a piece of glass? That seems a bit excessive to me.
I've been saying this for years now, I don't think children are very valuable in this country. In the best case scenario, there considered a nuisance, in the worst, their the victims of heinous crimes. To the parents that love and engage their children, God bless you...you are in the minority.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
The Face of US Diplomacy...and new additions to the Blog
When I heard back in September that Condeleeza Rice was going to be resigning as National Security Advisor, I (along with Newsmax) assumed she'd be going to back to California to try her hand at State politics. It would seem she will be staying in Washington for a few more years as the new Secretary of State. I thought it was a good idea seeing as she's an expert on China and that's where a good deal of our attention needs to be focused (other than the Middle East of course).
Then I got a text message from a friend of mine that read, "Powell out, Rice in. Even you can't think this is a good idea!"
My answer to him was, "She's gotta be better than Madeline Albright."
If you have read Paul O'Neil's book (former Secretary of the Treasury) "The Price of Loyalty" you would know that one of the problems of the Bush administration in the first term was that they brought in to the cabinet "faces" that the American public would know and trust, and then proceed to cut them at the knees until they resigned in disgust. Colin Powell was one of those faces. He was there specifically to soften the administrations more hawkish edges consisting of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul "Comb-licker" Wolfowitz. He was also there to legitamize action against Iraq/Sadam Hussein. That mission has been as accomplished as it's ever going to get so there's really no need for Powell to be there as a counter-balance to the Hawks anymore.
In my opinion, it's not whether Powell is better than Dr. Rice, it's that Dr. Rice will serve in a different capacity than Powell did. She doesn't have to provide "soft diplomacy" the way Powell did. She can carry out the will of the administration to whatever end because, frankly, they won. The masks are off and now it's time to do some real damage...in a matter of speaking of course.
Only time will tell if the other diplomats and world leaders on the playground of world affairs will give her the respect she's earned.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out the new links section below the archives and my new book club. The "recommended books" links will take you to my amazon lists of books I've read that are worth checking out.
Then I got a text message from a friend of mine that read, "Powell out, Rice in. Even you can't think this is a good idea!"
My answer to him was, "She's gotta be better than Madeline Albright."
If you have read Paul O'Neil's book (former Secretary of the Treasury) "The Price of Loyalty" you would know that one of the problems of the Bush administration in the first term was that they brought in to the cabinet "faces" that the American public would know and trust, and then proceed to cut them at the knees until they resigned in disgust. Colin Powell was one of those faces. He was there specifically to soften the administrations more hawkish edges consisting of Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul "Comb-licker" Wolfowitz. He was also there to legitamize action against Iraq/Sadam Hussein. That mission has been as accomplished as it's ever going to get so there's really no need for Powell to be there as a counter-balance to the Hawks anymore.
In my opinion, it's not whether Powell is better than Dr. Rice, it's that Dr. Rice will serve in a different capacity than Powell did. She doesn't have to provide "soft diplomacy" the way Powell did. She can carry out the will of the administration to whatever end because, frankly, they won. The masks are off and now it's time to do some real damage...in a matter of speaking of course.
Only time will tell if the other diplomats and world leaders on the playground of world affairs will give her the respect she's earned.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Check out the new links section below the archives and my new book club. The "recommended books" links will take you to my amazon lists of books I've read that are worth checking out.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Uh Oh! Bill's In Trouble!
This is a few days old now but I figured what the hey...Apparently Bill Maher has been slapped with a $9 million palimony suit by an ex-girlfriend (Nancy Johnson, a centerfold model and former flight attendant also known as Coco Johnsen) who alleges that the HBO star subjected her to physical and verbal abuse, including 'insulting, humiliating and degrading racial comments.' (Credit The Smoking Gun.com)
Turnabout is fair play if you ask me. This is a louse that takes every opportunity to insult parents, children, those of religious faith and anyone with traditional values (Bill O'Reilly) and he deserves what's coming to him. A palimony suit is the sort of thing that happens when a person such as Bill Maher has no moral compass. Essentially, he whines about religion because he's an overgrown child who wants instant gratification without the benefit of community guilt spoiling his "buzz".
Bill Maher needed a good humbling. I hope when this smug liberal comes back next season for "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO, he will have learned from both the shellacking his side took in the election and from this palimony suit that moral relativity argument holds no water in this country...and eventually, you get yours.
Turnabout is fair play if you ask me. This is a louse that takes every opportunity to insult parents, children, those of religious faith and anyone with traditional values (Bill O'Reilly) and he deserves what's coming to him. A palimony suit is the sort of thing that happens when a person such as Bill Maher has no moral compass. Essentially, he whines about religion because he's an overgrown child who wants instant gratification without the benefit of community guilt spoiling his "buzz".
Bill Maher needed a good humbling. I hope when this smug liberal comes back next season for "Real Time with Bill Maher" on HBO, he will have learned from both the shellacking his side took in the election and from this palimony suit that moral relativity argument holds no water in this country...and eventually, you get yours.
Monday, November 15, 2004
Is This Trip Really Necessary?
Every now and again I see a story that has me asking, "Is this really necessary?" Today is yet another fine mess eminating from that bastion of socialism and geo-political hypocrisy, France. This from www.jpost.com:
'French consider naming streets after Arafat
By MICHEL ZLOTOWSKI
Several French municipalities governed by communist and left-wing majorities are considering naming a street or a square after Yasser Arafat.'
Why don't the French just rename themselves "Anti-Semite Land" and call it a day. This is an absolute disgrace. It is a known (and should be well known) that Palestinian Arabs were willing partners in the Holocaust against the Jews in World War II.
This is a piece from the Anti-Demation League's website:
Another, more troubling approach to the Holocaust also exists in the Middle East. Hatred of Israel has led some Arabs to embrace Nazism itself, and to applaud its attempted genocide of the Jews. "[Give] thanks to Hitler," wrote columnist Ahmad Ragab recently in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Akhbar.1 "He took revenge on the Israelis in advance, on behalf of the Palestinians. Our one complaint against him was that his revenge was not complete enough." Nazi-style anti-Semitism has in fact had a long history in the Middle East, beginning as early as 1937, when Nazi leaders conducted propaganda campaigns in the region.
The Mufti of Jerusalem during World War II, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, attempted to establish an alliance between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Arab nationalists, for the ultimate purpose of conducting a Holy War of Islam against "international Jewry." Several Nazi-influenced political parties arose in the Middle East in the 1930s and 1940s, some of which went on to play important roles in shaping the leadership of Arab nations in the post-World War II period. Egypt, Syria and Iran are widely believed to have harbored Nazi war criminals, though they do not admit doing so. Mein Kampf has been published and republished in Arabic since 1963. (http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denial_ME/hdme_genocide_denial.asp)
There's a reason why Bill O'Reilly is sponsoring a boycott against France. And there's an even bigger reason why American should never use France as a model for how American society should be constructed. Let Richard Belzer, Johnny Depp and Janeane Garofalo praise France all they want. In my opinion, when you praise France, you validate socialism and anti-semitism.
More on this subject in future posts.
'French consider naming streets after Arafat
By MICHEL ZLOTOWSKI
Several French municipalities governed by communist and left-wing majorities are considering naming a street or a square after Yasser Arafat.'
Why don't the French just rename themselves "Anti-Semite Land" and call it a day. This is an absolute disgrace. It is a known (and should be well known) that Palestinian Arabs were willing partners in the Holocaust against the Jews in World War II.
This is a piece from the Anti-Demation League's website:
Another, more troubling approach to the Holocaust also exists in the Middle East. Hatred of Israel has led some Arabs to embrace Nazism itself, and to applaud its attempted genocide of the Jews. "[Give] thanks to Hitler," wrote columnist Ahmad Ragab recently in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Akhbar.1 "He took revenge on the Israelis in advance, on behalf of the Palestinians. Our one complaint against him was that his revenge was not complete enough." Nazi-style anti-Semitism has in fact had a long history in the Middle East, beginning as early as 1937, when Nazi leaders conducted propaganda campaigns in the region.
The Mufti of Jerusalem during World War II, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, attempted to establish an alliance between Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Arab nationalists, for the ultimate purpose of conducting a Holy War of Islam against "international Jewry." Several Nazi-influenced political parties arose in the Middle East in the 1930s and 1940s, some of which went on to play important roles in shaping the leadership of Arab nations in the post-World War II period. Egypt, Syria and Iran are widely believed to have harbored Nazi war criminals, though they do not admit doing so. Mein Kampf has been published and republished in Arabic since 1963. (http://www.adl.org/holocaust/denial_ME/hdme_genocide_denial.asp)
There's a reason why Bill O'Reilly is sponsoring a boycott against France. And there's an even bigger reason why American should never use France as a model for how American society should be constructed. Let Richard Belzer, Johnny Depp and Janeane Garofalo praise France all they want. In my opinion, when you praise France, you validate socialism and anti-semitism.
More on this subject in future posts.
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat dies at 75 in Paris, France. (11/11/04)
Probably the single biggest impediment to peace in the Middle East was the President of the Palestinian Authority and Chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat. I do not make this claim lightly. In the years since the state of Israel was declared (May 14, 1948) many offers were made to the Palestinians to have a home of their own. As a matter of fact, when the United Nations opted to partition the land into Arab and Jewish territories, the Israeli’s accepted it, once in 1937 and again in 1948. However, the Arabs rejected the plan for a home of their own both times citing the expulsion or outright extinction of the Jews as their top priority.
Alan Dershowitz, author of “The Case For Israel” states, “As soon as Israel declared its independence, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon attacked it, with help from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya. Arab armies, with the help of Palestinian terrorists, determined to destroy the new Jewish state and exterminate its population, (p. 75).
The Israeli War of Independence ended with Egypt and Jordan capturing land, Israel capturing more land than it was allotted and the Palestinians still had no home. Despite two more wars in the region and thousands of terrorist attacks that have killed countless innocent civilians (both Arab and Israeli) the Israeli’s have offered the Palestinians a “Two State” solution which could have brought the beginnings of peace. However, and this is where Arafat comes in, these offers of peace have been summarily rejected in favor of escalated violence. The most heinous rejection came from Arafat himself in 2001. Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia mediated a peace deal between in 2000 between Bill Clinton/Ehud Barak (Israeli Prime Minister) and Yasser Arafat. According to Dershowitz, it went down like this:
Bandar, who has been a Saudi Diplomat in Washington for 20 years and is a high-ranking member of the royal family, served as a crucial intermediary between Arafat and the Clinton Administration. He, like nearly everyone else, was surprised at Barak’s “remarkable” offer that gave the Palestinian state “about 97% of the occupied territories,” the Old City of Jerusalem other than the Jewish and Armenian Quarters, and $30 billion in compensation for the refugees…no better offer from Israel was possible…Bandar emphasized (to Arafat) that the Arabs had always told the Americans that if “you get us a deal that’s OK on Jerusalem and we’re going, too.” Bandar laid out the options to Arafat: “Either you take this deal or we go to war,” …Despite Arafat’s promises that he would take the deal if Saudi Arabia and Egypt gave him cover…Arafat rejected the deal and flew home without offering any counterproposals or amendments. As the negotiations faltered, Arafat ordered his terrorist leaders to ratchet up the violence, (pg. 119).
Bandar went on to call Arafat’s rejection of these accords as, “a crime against the Palestinians-in fact against the entire region.”
Now the criminal is finally dead. It is still a mystery as to what he actually died from. This from ABC News Online, “Internet web sites are spilling over with speculation that Mr. Arafat, who died in a French hospital on Thursday, had anything from stomach cancer or a rare blood disorder to AIDS - an idea ridiculed by Palestinian officials. A top Hamas official who was poisoned by Israeli agents but survived accused Israel of poisoning Mr. Arafat, a theory, which his private doctor did not rule out despite being discounted by the Palestinian Foreign Minister.”
With Arafat out of the way there will be an opportunity for the Palestinian leadership to make progress where Arafat only brought death and war. This from Allister Heath at Scotland on Sunday, “The ball is now quite clearly in the court of Arafat’s successors. They are a mixed bunch: Ahmed Qurei, his prime minister, will remain in his job and could be amenable to change; another relative moderate, Mahmoud Abbas, a former prime minister who resigned because of Arafat’s meddling, is the new chairman of the PLO - it will be up to him to renounce violence. But that will not be easy, given that the new leader of Fatah is Farouk Kaddoumi, a hardliner who lives in exile. Finally, the speaker of the Palestinian assembly, Rahwi Fattouh, has become the caretaker president of the Palestinian Authority, the weak and corrupt body established by the Oslo peace process to govern Gaza and the West Bank. It is his job to organize an election within 60 days; its result will determine the future of the region.”
Let’s hope for all parties involved that Arafat’s death will be the much-needed sign of hope for a region riddled with war and corruption.
Alan Dershowitz, author of “The Case For Israel” states, “As soon as Israel declared its independence, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon attacked it, with help from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Libya. Arab armies, with the help of Palestinian terrorists, determined to destroy the new Jewish state and exterminate its population, (p. 75).
The Israeli War of Independence ended with Egypt and Jordan capturing land, Israel capturing more land than it was allotted and the Palestinians still had no home. Despite two more wars in the region and thousands of terrorist attacks that have killed countless innocent civilians (both Arab and Israeli) the Israeli’s have offered the Palestinians a “Two State” solution which could have brought the beginnings of peace. However, and this is where Arafat comes in, these offers of peace have been summarily rejected in favor of escalated violence. The most heinous rejection came from Arafat himself in 2001. Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia mediated a peace deal between in 2000 between Bill Clinton/Ehud Barak (Israeli Prime Minister) and Yasser Arafat. According to Dershowitz, it went down like this:
Bandar, who has been a Saudi Diplomat in Washington for 20 years and is a high-ranking member of the royal family, served as a crucial intermediary between Arafat and the Clinton Administration. He, like nearly everyone else, was surprised at Barak’s “remarkable” offer that gave the Palestinian state “about 97% of the occupied territories,” the Old City of Jerusalem other than the Jewish and Armenian Quarters, and $30 billion in compensation for the refugees…no better offer from Israel was possible…Bandar emphasized (to Arafat) that the Arabs had always told the Americans that if “you get us a deal that’s OK on Jerusalem and we’re going, too.” Bandar laid out the options to Arafat: “Either you take this deal or we go to war,” …Despite Arafat’s promises that he would take the deal if Saudi Arabia and Egypt gave him cover…Arafat rejected the deal and flew home without offering any counterproposals or amendments. As the negotiations faltered, Arafat ordered his terrorist leaders to ratchet up the violence, (pg. 119).
Bandar went on to call Arafat’s rejection of these accords as, “a crime against the Palestinians-in fact against the entire region.”
Now the criminal is finally dead. It is still a mystery as to what he actually died from. This from ABC News Online, “Internet web sites are spilling over with speculation that Mr. Arafat, who died in a French hospital on Thursday, had anything from stomach cancer or a rare blood disorder to AIDS - an idea ridiculed by Palestinian officials. A top Hamas official who was poisoned by Israeli agents but survived accused Israel of poisoning Mr. Arafat, a theory, which his private doctor did not rule out despite being discounted by the Palestinian Foreign Minister.”
With Arafat out of the way there will be an opportunity for the Palestinian leadership to make progress where Arafat only brought death and war. This from Allister Heath at Scotland on Sunday, “The ball is now quite clearly in the court of Arafat’s successors. They are a mixed bunch: Ahmed Qurei, his prime minister, will remain in his job and could be amenable to change; another relative moderate, Mahmoud Abbas, a former prime minister who resigned because of Arafat’s meddling, is the new chairman of the PLO - it will be up to him to renounce violence. But that will not be easy, given that the new leader of Fatah is Farouk Kaddoumi, a hardliner who lives in exile. Finally, the speaker of the Palestinian assembly, Rahwi Fattouh, has become the caretaker president of the Palestinian Authority, the weak and corrupt body established by the Oslo peace process to govern Gaza and the West Bank. It is his job to organize an election within 60 days; its result will determine the future of the region.”
Let’s hope for all parties involved that Arafat’s death will be the much-needed sign of hope for a region riddled with war and corruption.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
This Is Not the Way to Get Healthy
Conventional wisdom and the mass media cite “moral values” i.e. gay marriage as the reason the Democrats got pummeled at the polls on November 2nd. Air American Radio, Ralph Nader and Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org) believe that the election wasn’t lost at all, but stolen once again. Then there are the folks like my father and some of my friends who say “fear and hatred” won the day. And then there’s this story from the Editor and Publisher (www.editorandpublisher.com) :
“Appearing on Don Imus' national radio program on Tuesday, (Zell) Miller ripped the woman he called "Maureen Loud," calling her a "highbrow hussy from New York." He added that the "red-headed woman at the New York Times" should not mock anyone's religion: "You can see horns just sprouting up through that Technicolor hair."
Asked by the New York Post for a response, Dowd said: "I'm not a highbrow hussy from New York. I'm a highbrow hussy from Washington. Senator, pistols or swords?" “
Again, as Dr. Marvin Monroe once said, “This is not the way to get healthy.”
The real reason why the Democrats lost the election is two-fold. The first is that your real candidate, Howard Dean, was defeated way back in January during the Hawkeye Cauci (Iowa Caucus) by the pretender, John Kerry. They say the Democrat party is split between the “moderates” like Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh and the “progressives” like Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. Essentially that’s the problem. The Democratic Party is one collective ideology but is trying to sell itself as another. Let’s turn and face reality, you’re here, you’re progressive/socialistic, get used to it. And that’s fine.
There are good and valid arguments to be made for policies that fall within the realm of socialism/progressivism. Three of them I’m actually a proponent of which are, a Basic Income Guarantee, a Preventative Medical Care/ Health Care Guarantee and ending the prohibition of “hard drugs” by regulating marijuana (like we do with alcohol and cigarettes) and placing other drugs (heroin, cocaine, etc) on prescription (like they used to be before the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914). However, progressive candidates like Howard Dean focused on being an “anti-war” candidate and did not spend enough time making the proper arguments to a populace that (believe it or not) wants to be educated. Meanwhile, because Dean (and his side of the Democratic Party) is not making the good arguments in a mindful and clear way, pretender candidates like Kerry are muddling up the message of the progressive movement…by sounding like a Conservative. And it’s not just Kerry; a lot of the “moderate” mainstream Democrats try to disguise their progressive arguments in the rhetoric of “middle of the road” politics. Patooey! Stand up and define yourselves as you really are. Half the country may hate George Bush but at least you know what he stands for and where he’s coming from. In short, the first reason you lost this election is because the progressive movement was hijacked by the Kerry and promptly sold out to the premise of winning over “undecided voters”. And in doing so your message got totally muddled and lost.
The second reason is your choice of non-political messengers and their way of communicating said message. Let me start with Bill Maher whom on his HBO talk show this past season referred to people of faith in this as, “…the dumb country”. This was in comparison to Europe where religious faith has plummeted while the elite trumpets this as a victory of enlightenment and science. This is pretty simple folk's and it’s marking 101: DON’T INSULT THE CUSTOMER!
I get it; some of you are atheists and think nothing trumps science. Outstanding! Some of you have been raised on institutionalized religion and have become jaded by its politics and inherent hypocrisy. Fabulous! You are absolutely entitled to believe this way. However, for the rest of us whom depend on some degree of faith to anchor our behavior and find some common purpose in life, we do not deserve to be condescended to or insulted. But that is exactly what happened in this election. Whether it was the “ELITEMEDIAANDHOLLYWOOD” or casual conversation with friends, if you were for the war in Iraq you were a racist and war mongerer; if you were against partial birth abortion or abortion in general then you’re a misogynist; don’t think affirmative action is necessary or effective anymore, you’re a racist; if you define marriage as between a man and a woman you’re a homophobic religious fanatic…and when you vote against a muddled messenger with no clear arguments or policy plan, you’re a victim of fear and hatred.
That’s fine. If you can’t learn to communicate your ideas with going to insults and have reasonable policy debates you will keep losing elections. Once again, the Republicans may have won with bad ideas but at least we knew what the ideas were.
“Appearing on Don Imus' national radio program on Tuesday, (Zell) Miller ripped the woman he called "Maureen Loud," calling her a "highbrow hussy from New York." He added that the "red-headed woman at the New York Times" should not mock anyone's religion: "You can see horns just sprouting up through that Technicolor hair."
Asked by the New York Post for a response, Dowd said: "I'm not a highbrow hussy from New York. I'm a highbrow hussy from Washington. Senator, pistols or swords?" “
Again, as Dr. Marvin Monroe once said, “This is not the way to get healthy.”
The real reason why the Democrats lost the election is two-fold. The first is that your real candidate, Howard Dean, was defeated way back in January during the Hawkeye Cauci (Iowa Caucus) by the pretender, John Kerry. They say the Democrat party is split between the “moderates” like Joe Lieberman and Evan Bayh and the “progressives” like Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich. Essentially that’s the problem. The Democratic Party is one collective ideology but is trying to sell itself as another. Let’s turn and face reality, you’re here, you’re progressive/socialistic, get used to it. And that’s fine.
There are good and valid arguments to be made for policies that fall within the realm of socialism/progressivism. Three of them I’m actually a proponent of which are, a Basic Income Guarantee, a Preventative Medical Care/ Health Care Guarantee and ending the prohibition of “hard drugs” by regulating marijuana (like we do with alcohol and cigarettes) and placing other drugs (heroin, cocaine, etc) on prescription (like they used to be before the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1914). However, progressive candidates like Howard Dean focused on being an “anti-war” candidate and did not spend enough time making the proper arguments to a populace that (believe it or not) wants to be educated. Meanwhile, because Dean (and his side of the Democratic Party) is not making the good arguments in a mindful and clear way, pretender candidates like Kerry are muddling up the message of the progressive movement…by sounding like a Conservative. And it’s not just Kerry; a lot of the “moderate” mainstream Democrats try to disguise their progressive arguments in the rhetoric of “middle of the road” politics. Patooey! Stand up and define yourselves as you really are. Half the country may hate George Bush but at least you know what he stands for and where he’s coming from. In short, the first reason you lost this election is because the progressive movement was hijacked by the Kerry and promptly sold out to the premise of winning over “undecided voters”. And in doing so your message got totally muddled and lost.
The second reason is your choice of non-political messengers and their way of communicating said message. Let me start with Bill Maher whom on his HBO talk show this past season referred to people of faith in this as, “…the dumb country”. This was in comparison to Europe where religious faith has plummeted while the elite trumpets this as a victory of enlightenment and science. This is pretty simple folk's and it’s marking 101: DON’T INSULT THE CUSTOMER!
I get it; some of you are atheists and think nothing trumps science. Outstanding! Some of you have been raised on institutionalized religion and have become jaded by its politics and inherent hypocrisy. Fabulous! You are absolutely entitled to believe this way. However, for the rest of us whom depend on some degree of faith to anchor our behavior and find some common purpose in life, we do not deserve to be condescended to or insulted. But that is exactly what happened in this election. Whether it was the “ELITEMEDIAANDHOLLYWOOD” or casual conversation with friends, if you were for the war in Iraq you were a racist and war mongerer; if you were against partial birth abortion or abortion in general then you’re a misogynist; don’t think affirmative action is necessary or effective anymore, you’re a racist; if you define marriage as between a man and a woman you’re a homophobic religious fanatic…and when you vote against a muddled messenger with no clear arguments or policy plan, you’re a victim of fear and hatred.
That’s fine. If you can’t learn to communicate your ideas with going to insults and have reasonable policy debates you will keep losing elections. Once again, the Republicans may have won with bad ideas but at least we knew what the ideas were.
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
It's 2 Minutes Before I have to go to work...
I don't have a lot of time to post today so below are some things I just pulled out of the old literary closet and threw up here for the time being. Tomorrow I'll actually have something topical.
How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter A Review
Ann Coulter is to political discourse and debate what Hall and Nash were to WCW in 1996. Now if you're not a wrestling geek, what that means is that Ann Coulter breaks all the pre-fabricated rules of what political discourse should be. Politics becomes ridiculous when you assign the characteristics of good and evil to public servants and talk show pundits, but it does make politics more interesting, that's for sure. Ann Coulter is the anti-hero in this over-the-top morality play we call American Democracy.
Ann Coulter just says and writes whatever she feels and isn't tremendously interested in whether or not it's politically correct or that someone's feelings might get hurt. In the long run, this is the sort of thing that takes reasonable debate and obliterates it. In the short run however, she's pretty damn funny and entertaining, kind of like wrestling was before WCW imploded.
Her newest book is a compilation of unreleased and rewritten/unedited columns. If you are new to the Coulter world, this tome is a great way of catching up on the last 5 years of her opinions, gripes and other musings. If you are an avid fan of Coulter this is still worth reading for the commentaries, new chapters and the unreleased columns that were turned down by the likes of Cigar Aficionado and Good Housekeeping among others.
The book is broken up in to several chapters. The first part, which is all new material and goes to the title of the book, is her suggestions for arguing with liberals. It's funny if you know not to take her too seriously. The assumption she is making is that all liberals are emotionally overwrought folks who can't handle civilized debate and have no logic to back up their points. One can only assume, since this is a collection of columns, she needed some new material to start with, a silly opening such as this works as well as anything else.
The second chapter deals with terrorism and 9/11. It contains the column, This is War! which was written on 9/12/01 and features the line most often associated with Coulter, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." At this point a line like this should not shock anyone terribly when Ann Coulter is saying it. If you know who she is, you know what she stands for. To this day, she is still standing by this philosophy, "now more than ever." She's caustic and over the top, that's why she sells. If she were rational and thoughtful, she wouldn't be in the entertainment industry.
The rest of the book deals with airports post 9/11, the Democratic primary and the candidates therein, Hollywood celebrities, the liberal/progressive agenda, Elian Gonzalez and (oddly enough) a brief history of the Confederate Battle Flag.
There are however, large portions of this book dedicated to tearing apart the New York Times and the Clinton's. She writes several columns making the case that a left-wing bias is present in both the editorial pages as well as the hard news pages of the Time. She also spends at least half of the book dissecting the Clinton presidency. Two things you are reminded of when reading this book: Ann Coulter began her career as a lawyer and she hates Bill Clinton for what that's worth.
Overall, I enjoyed the book probably as much as those of you on the liberal side of the fence enjoyed Al Franken's book. However, Ann Coulter is not whom I go to for hard political analysis and neither should you. Coulter is someone you go to for fun and laughs that are slightly more above the level of dick and fart jokes. Like so many media distractions Ann Coulter is just a guilty pleasure to be enjoyed and not be treated as some general of hate mongers. She's just a columnist, not Joseph Goebbels.
GW's Brand New Bag: Redux
A month or so before the election, Newsmax.com ran an article about all of the cabinet level folks who would most likely be retiring after GW was re-elected. With the election safely (and mercifully) over and talk of John Ashcofts imminent retirement, I thought I'd start this blog with my article on what I thought the future would hold for the likes of Condeleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld and company:
09.10.04: GW’s Brand New Bag – Bush may have the election won but “the team” may not be coming along for a second ride.
This election cycle is over. Post-Gazette.com reports, “A Newsweek survey released yesterday showed a 13-point bounce for Bush after last week's Republican convention, compared to an uptick of only 2 percent for Kerry after the Democratic convention in late July. For the first time since January, the president's approval rating rose above 50 percent”. Electoral-vote.com, which tends to lean left and has links to liberal minded articles and other items of concern has the electoral count at Bush 270, Kerry 252. In addition, according to this poll Bush has won (weak or otherwise) Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, all key battleground states. Unless GW completely blows the debates (which he won’t) or strangles a small black child on national television, I say again, this election is over.
When you are done crying, come back.
Now then, a GW second term at first glance means second verse same as the first with a return of all your favorite cabinet members: Secretary of Defense, Donald “McNamara” Rumsfeld; Secretary of State, Colin “Screwed by the French” Powell; National Security Advisor, Condeleeza “Hung out to Dry” Rice; Attorney General, John “Patriot Act” Ashcroft; and lastly Homeland Security Secretary, Tom “Pretty Colors” Ridge.
However, USA Today reports, “Key Bush advisers such as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft will be among those who exit". Those who have already run for the hills like Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) are Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, CIA Director George Tenet, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman.
GW may be winning in November but it looks like only he and that elusive Dick Cheney will be the only ones still around the White House Christmas tree come December.
In the immortal words of Chris Rock, “How did we get here?” First off, many of GW’s cabinet were chosen initially to round out the war hawks like Cheney and Rumsfeld. Paul O’Neil states in his book the Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind, “Policy decisions are determined not by careful weighing of an issue's complexities; rather, they're dictated by a cabal of ideologues and political advisors operating outside the view of top cabinet officials. The President is not a fully engaged administrator but an enigma who is, at best, guarded and poker-faced but at worst, uncurious, unintelligent, and a puppet of larger forces.” O’Neil goes on to say that folks like himself, Whitman and Powell were chosen for their faces and not because GW and Co actually wanted their expertise.
In both of Bob Woodward’s books (Bush at War and Plan of Attack) it is plain to see that Colin Powell is regarded as the redheaded stepchild of the national security team. In both books he pleads for sanity in the face of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and sometimes Bush wanting to run headlong into war with Iraq. It was Powell who stressed the importance of engaging the UN and by proxy the French. It was that same Powell who was thus undermined by the French (French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin), the UN Security Council and the pro-war Bush administration hawks (in roughly that order). At one time Powell was regarded as a serious presidential candidate and rival of GW. After the 2002 “run-up” to war, Powell has been irreparably damaged and will most likely retire from politics, as his wife won’t let him run for president anyway. Much like the aforementioned O’Neil and the much-ballyhooed Richard Clarke (former Terrorism Czar; Against All Enemies) Powell will mostly likely write a book detailing his time in the White House…and the White House will go about their business of smearing him into oblivion.
While it is unknown right now what Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Ridge will do, Condoleezza Rice is planning on making a run for office in the state of California. Newsmax.com reports, Rice's interest in running for high office. She has already put out feelers for a run for California's governorship and has been touted as a presidential candidate. "Some friends think she'll return to California and pursue a political career there," USA Today said, confirming the NewsMax report. The paper added, "Others think she would accept a Cabinet post, possibly Defense or State."
She’s got some case if she thinks she can unseat Governor Schwarzenegger. This man is enjoying huge approval ratings and will most likely win as an incumbent should he choose to run again. In addition, while Schwarzenegger has been able to reach across party lines and work with his largely democrat legislature, those people will be gunning for him like it’s Running Man 2: Electric Boogaloo come next gubernatorial race.
Rice has a much better shot grooming herself towards a run for the presidency. She won’t win the nomination but she’d be a keen pick to win with Giuliani as Vice President against a strong Hillary Clinton ticket.
With the Iraq war over and the mission of this particular administration completed, it’s tough to say whom GW will pick to fill the empty slots in his cabinet. As a triumphant incumbent it doesn’t much matter how many moderates he picks, he’s got nobody to impress, as he cannot run again. Maybe after that stellar performance he’ll toss McCain a bone and put him in Powell’s slot. In any case, the next four years of a Bush presidency promise to be interesting indeed.
09.10.04: GW’s Brand New Bag – Bush may have the election won but “the team” may not be coming along for a second ride.
This election cycle is over. Post-Gazette.com reports, “A Newsweek survey released yesterday showed a 13-point bounce for Bush after last week's Republican convention, compared to an uptick of only 2 percent for Kerry after the Democratic convention in late July. For the first time since January, the president's approval rating rose above 50 percent”. Electoral-vote.com, which tends to lean left and has links to liberal minded articles and other items of concern has the electoral count at Bush 270, Kerry 252. In addition, according to this poll Bush has won (weak or otherwise) Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, all key battleground states. Unless GW completely blows the debates (which he won’t) or strangles a small black child on national television, I say again, this election is over.
When you are done crying, come back.
Now then, a GW second term at first glance means second verse same as the first with a return of all your favorite cabinet members: Secretary of Defense, Donald “McNamara” Rumsfeld; Secretary of State, Colin “Screwed by the French” Powell; National Security Advisor, Condeleeza “Hung out to Dry” Rice; Attorney General, John “Patriot Act” Ashcroft; and lastly Homeland Security Secretary, Tom “Pretty Colors” Ridge.
However, USA Today reports, “Key Bush advisers such as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General John Ashcroft will be among those who exit". Those who have already run for the hills like Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) are Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, CIA Director George Tenet, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Whitman.
GW may be winning in November but it looks like only he and that elusive Dick Cheney will be the only ones still around the White House Christmas tree come December.
In the immortal words of Chris Rock, “How did we get here?” First off, many of GW’s cabinet were chosen initially to round out the war hawks like Cheney and Rumsfeld. Paul O’Neil states in his book the Price of Loyalty by Ron Suskind, “Policy decisions are determined not by careful weighing of an issue's complexities; rather, they're dictated by a cabal of ideologues and political advisors operating outside the view of top cabinet officials. The President is not a fully engaged administrator but an enigma who is, at best, guarded and poker-faced but at worst, uncurious, unintelligent, and a puppet of larger forces.” O’Neil goes on to say that folks like himself, Whitman and Powell were chosen for their faces and not because GW and Co actually wanted their expertise.
In both of Bob Woodward’s books (Bush at War and Plan of Attack) it is plain to see that Colin Powell is regarded as the redheaded stepchild of the national security team. In both books he pleads for sanity in the face of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and sometimes Bush wanting to run headlong into war with Iraq. It was Powell who stressed the importance of engaging the UN and by proxy the French. It was that same Powell who was thus undermined by the French (French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin), the UN Security Council and the pro-war Bush administration hawks (in roughly that order). At one time Powell was regarded as a serious presidential candidate and rival of GW. After the 2002 “run-up” to war, Powell has been irreparably damaged and will most likely retire from politics, as his wife won’t let him run for president anyway. Much like the aforementioned O’Neil and the much-ballyhooed Richard Clarke (former Terrorism Czar; Against All Enemies) Powell will mostly likely write a book detailing his time in the White House…and the White House will go about their business of smearing him into oblivion.
While it is unknown right now what Rumsfeld, Ashcroft and Ridge will do, Condoleezza Rice is planning on making a run for office in the state of California. Newsmax.com reports, Rice's interest in running for high office. She has already put out feelers for a run for California's governorship and has been touted as a presidential candidate. "Some friends think she'll return to California and pursue a political career there," USA Today said, confirming the NewsMax report. The paper added, "Others think she would accept a Cabinet post, possibly Defense or State."
She’s got some case if she thinks she can unseat Governor Schwarzenegger. This man is enjoying huge approval ratings and will most likely win as an incumbent should he choose to run again. In addition, while Schwarzenegger has been able to reach across party lines and work with his largely democrat legislature, those people will be gunning for him like it’s Running Man 2: Electric Boogaloo come next gubernatorial race.
Rice has a much better shot grooming herself towards a run for the presidency. She won’t win the nomination but she’d be a keen pick to win with Giuliani as Vice President against a strong Hillary Clinton ticket.
With the Iraq war over and the mission of this particular administration completed, it’s tough to say whom GW will pick to fill the empty slots in his cabinet. As a triumphant incumbent it doesn’t much matter how many moderates he picks, he’s got nobody to impress, as he cannot run again. Maybe after that stellar performance he’ll toss McCain a bone and put him in Powell’s slot. In any case, the next four years of a Bush presidency promise to be interesting indeed.
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