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Archive for July, 2011

Controversy Over Rosa Parks Account of a ‘Near-Rape’

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:42 am by HL

Controversy Over Rosa Parks Account of a ‘Near-Rape’
Rosa Parks, “mother of the civil rights movement,” was discovered recently to have written a first-person account of a young black housekeeper being sexually accosted by a white man, but whether she was describing something that happened to her or was writing a work of fiction is uncertain. (An earlier version of this Truthdig item was based on an AP report that changed afterward when new information surfaced.) The handwritten, six-page document was one of thousands of Parks’ belongings being sifted through and organized for auction. Parks’ memoirs never mentioned the incident detailed in the recently found work. A civil rights historian, Danielle McGuire, described the essay as an astounding discovery and said the encounter it spoke of helped explain Parks’ longtime effort against the ritualistic rape of black women by whites. However, an institute created by Parks reacted to the news by saying that although the account was written by Parks, “we believe [it] is a work of fiction.” From The Associated Press: … The six-page document is among thousands of the civil rights activists’ personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey’s Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive. … Archivists who reviewed the documents for Guernsey’s provided descriptions of their contents and characterized the encounter as a “near-rape.” Steven G. Cohen, a lawyer for the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit, said people who knew Parks well were aware that she liked to write fictional essays for herself. … “This six-page essay we believe is a work of fiction,” said Cohen. … Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire, however, called the essay an astounding find. “Rosa Parks was very likely to have encountered this kind of proposition,” she said. It helps explain what triggered Parks’ lifelong campaign against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men, said McGuire. … Parks writes in the essay: “He offered me a drink of whiskey, which I promptly and vehemently refused. … He moved nearer to me and put his hand on my waist. I was very frightened by now.” “He liked me … he didn’t want me to be lonely and would I be sweet to him. He had money to give me for accepting his attentions,” she wrote. “I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never.” … Read more

Rosa Parks, “mother of the civil rights movement,” was discovered recently to have written a first-person account of a young black housekeeper being sexually accosted by a white man, but whether she was describing something that happened to her or was writing a work of fiction is uncertain. (An earlier version of this Truthdig item was based on an AP report that changed afterward when new information surfaced.)

The handwritten, six-page document was one of thousands of Parks’ belongings being sifted through and organized for auction. Parks’ memoirs never mentioned the incident detailed in the recently found work.

A civil rights historian, Danielle McGuire, described the essay as an astounding discovery and said the encounter it spoke of helped explain Parks’ longtime effort against the ritualistic rape of black women by whites. However, an institute created by Parks reacted to the news by saying that although the account was written by Parks, “we believe [it] is a work of fiction.”

From The Associated Press:

… The six-page document is among thousands of the civil rights activists’ personal items currently residing in the Manhattan warehouse and cramped offices of Guernsey’s Auctioneers, which has been selected by a Michigan court to find an institution to buy and preserve the complete archive.

… Archivists who reviewed the documents for Guernsey’s provided descriptions of their contents and characterized the encounter as a “near-rape.”

Steven G. Cohen, a lawyer for the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in Detroit, said people who knew Parks well were aware that she liked to write fictional essays for herself. …

“This six-page essay we believe is a work of fiction,” said Cohen. …

Civil rights historian Danielle McGuire, however, called the essay an astounding find. “Rosa Parks was very likely to have encountered this kind of proposition,” she said.

It helps explain what triggered Parks’ lifelong campaign against the ritualistic rape of black women by white men, said McGuire. …

Parks writes in the essay: “He offered me a drink of whiskey, which I promptly and vehemently refused. … He moved nearer to me and put his hand on my waist. I was very frightened by now.”

“He liked me … he didn’t want me to be lonely and would I be sweet to him. He had money to give me for accepting his attentions,” she wrote.

“I was ready to die but give my consent never. Never, never.” …

Read more

Related Entries


Automakers Agree to Boost Fuel Economy
Washington did get something done this week. President Obama and major American automakers on Friday reached an agreement that raises the average fuel economy of passenger cars to more than 54 miles per gallon by 2025. Today, new cars are averaging a bit more than 28 mpg, and in order to reach the mark by 2025, new cars will have to average about 34 mpg in just five years. Although making such goals may be a step in the right direction, does it go far enough? —BF greentechmedia: The new mandate means: —$1.7 trillion. That’s the estimated amount of money that Americans will save from 2011 through 2025 on gas because of the new rules, the White House estimates. Put another way, you’ll save $8,000 over the life of your car on fuel costs. —12 billion. The total number of barrels of oil we won’t consume. —2.2 million per day. The total number of barrels of oil a day we won’t consume in 2025. The U.S. now consumes around 21 million barrels a day so this would represent a 10.5 percent reduction from today’s figures. The White House states that 2.2 million barrels of oil a day constitutes around half of the oil we get from OPEC on a daily basis. Read more

Washington did get something done this week. President Obama and major American automakers on Friday reached an agreement that raises the average fuel economy of passenger cars to more than 54 miles per gallon by 2025.

Today, new cars are averaging a bit more than 28 mpg, and in order to reach the mark by 2025, new cars will have to average about 34 mpg in just five years.

Although making such goals may be a step in the right direction, does it go far enough? —BF

greentechmedia:

The new mandate means:

—$1.7 trillion. That’s the estimated amount of money that Americans will save from 2011 through 2025 on gas because of the new rules, the White House estimates. Put another way, you’ll save $8,000 over the life of your car on fuel costs.

—12 billion. The total number of barrels of oil we won’t consume.

—2.2 million per day. The total number of barrels of oil a day we won’t consume in 2025. The U.S. now consumes around 21 million barrels a day so this would represent a 10.5 percent reduction from today’s figures. The White House states that 2.2 million barrels of oil a day constitutes around half of the oil we get from OPEC on a daily basis.

Read more

Related Entries



New York Post Staff Told To Preserve Documents That May Relate To Phone Hacking

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:41 am by HL

New York Post Staff Told To Preserve Documents That May Relate To Phone Hacking
LOS ANGELES — New York Post staffers have been told to preserve any documents that may relate to phone hacking or payoffs to officials, as…

Harry Reid’s Debt Ceiling Bill Puts His Cards On The Table
WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) unveiled a new debt-limit bill Friday night that strongly resembles a plan first suggested by his rival,…

Obama’s Approval Rating Drops To A New Low
resident Obama’s job approval rating is at a new low, averaging 40% in July 26-28 Gallup Daily tracking. His prior low rating of 41% occurred…


The Bigotry Of Pat Buchanan

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:40 am by HL

The Bigotry Of Pat Buchanan

Pat Buchanan wrote in his recent syndicated column that accused Norway mass murderer Anders Behring Breivik may be “evil,” but when it comes to his reported belief that there’s a coming “climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world … Breivik may be right.” Buchanan, who also serves as an MSNBC analyst, has a long history marred with bigotry and hostility towards non-whites.

Buchanan: “Breivik May Be Right”

Buchanan’s Long History Of Bigotry

Buchanan’s War Against Non-White Immigrants

Buchanan’s Recent History On Minorities, Race-Relations

Buchanan’s Anti-Gay History

Buchanan: “Breivik May Be Right”

Buchanan: “As For A Climactic Conflict Between A Once-Christian West And An Islamic World … Breivik May Be Right.” From Buchanan’s syndicated column about the attacks in Norway:

Though Breivik is being called insane, that is the wrong word.

Breivik is evil – a cold-blooded, calculating killer – though a deluded man of some intelligence, who in his 1,500-page manifesto reveals a knowledge of the history, culture and politics of Europe.

He admits to his “atrocious” but “necessary” crimes, done, he says, to bring attention to his ideas and advance his cause: a Crusader’s war between the real Europe and the “cultural Marxists” and Muslims they invited in to alter the ethnic character and swamp the culture of the Old Continent.

[…]

The flood of illegal aliens into the Canary Islands from Africa, into Italy from Libya and Tunisia, and into Greece from Turkey has mainstream parties echoing the right. The Schengen Agreement itself, which guarantees open borders within the European Union to all who enter the EU, is under attack.

None of this is to deny the presence of violent actors or neo-Nazis on the European right who bear watching. But, awful as this atrocity was, native-born and homegrown terrorism is not the macro-threat to the continent.

That threat comes from a burgeoning Muslim presence in a Europe that has never known mass immigration, its failure to assimilate, its growing alienation, and its sometime sympathy for Islamic militants and terrorists.

Europe faces today an authentic and historic crisis.

With her native-born populations aging, shrinking and dying, Europe’s nations have not discovered how to maintain their prosperity without immigrants. Yet the immigrants who have come – from the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia – have been slow to learn the language and have failed to attain the educational and occupational levels of Europeans. And the welfare states of Europe are breaking under the burden.

Norway, too, needs to wake up. From the first call for help, police needed 90 minutes to get out on the island in the Oslo lake to stop the massacre by the coward, who surrendered as soon as the men with guns arrived. Apparently, Breivik wanted to be around to deliver his declaration of European war in person. Yet, if convicted of the 76 murders, Breivik can, at most, get 21 years, the maximum sentence under Norwegian law.

Norway is a peaceful and progressive country, its leaders say.

Yet Norway sent troops to Afghanistan and has participated in the bombing of Libya, where civilians have been killed and Moammar Gadhafi has himself lost a son and three grandchildren to NATO bombs.

As for a climactic conflict between a once-Christian West and an Islamic world that is growing in numbers and advancing inexorably into Europe for the third time in 14 centuries, on this one, Breivik may be right. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 8/28/06]

Buchanan Blamed VA Tech Murders On Immigrant “Invasion,” Claimed Immigrants “Are Going Berserk Here.” From Buchanan’s May 1, 2007 column:

Since the massacre of 32 students and teachers at Virginia Tech, the mainstream media have obsessed over the fact the crazed gunmen was able to buy a Glock in the state of Virginia.

Little attention has been paid to the Richmond legislators who voted to make “Hokie Nation,” a Middle American campus of 26,000 kids, a gun-free zone where only the madman had a semi-automatic.

Almost no attention has been paid to the fact that Cho Seung-Hui was not an American at all, but an immigrant, an alien. Had this deranged young man who secretly hated us never come here, 32 people would heading home from Blacksburg for summer vacation.

What was Cho doing here? How did he get in?

Cho was among the 864,000 Koreans here as a result of the Immigration Act of 1965, which threw the nation’s doors open to the greatest invasion in history, an invasion opposed by a majority of our people. Thirty-six million, almost all from countries whose peoples have never fully assimilated in any Western country, now live in our midst.

Cho was one of them.

[…]

What happened in Blacksburg cannot be divorced from what’s been happening to America since the immigration act brought tens of millions of strangers to these shores, even as the old bonds of national community began to disintegrate and dissolve in the social revolutions of the 1960s.

[…]

Since the 1960s, we have become alienated from one another even as millions of strangers arrive every year. And as Americans no longer share the old ties of history, heritage, faith, language, tradition, culture, music, myth or morality, how can immigrants share those ties?

Many immigrants do not assimilate. Many do not wish to. They seek community in their separate subdivisions of our multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic, multilingual mammoth mall of a nation. And in numbers higher than our native born, some are going berserk here. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 8/28/06]

Buchanan On Spanish-Language Anthem: “An Insult”; Americans “Are Awakening To The Character Of These People.” On MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, Buchanan said that a Spanish-language version of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is “a provocation and an insult” but that, ultimately, it is “a good thing in this sense: The American people are awakening to the character of these people.” [MSNBC, Scarborough Country, 5/15/06]

Buchanan: “You’re Going To Have A Giant Kosovo In The Southwest, Which De Facto Is Going To Secede.” On MSNBC’s Hardball, Buchanan said that the influx of immigrants entering the United States will cause the “balkanization of America.” Later the same day, on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country, Buchanan said that “you’re going to have a giant Kosovo in the Southwest, which de facto is going to secede from this country.” [MSNBC, Hardball, Scarborough Country, 6/5/06]

Buchanan: Mexican President’s “Ultimate Goal” Is Making Mexico And U.S. “Basically Part Of The North American Union.” On CNN, Buchanan said, “The government of Mexico is pushing its poor and unemployed into the United States to ease social pressure on itself. Secondly, they get $16 billion in remittances back to Mexico. Third, it is awoken to the idea that it can reannex the American southwest, which it used to hold, linguistically, culturally, ethnically and socially, not militarily by pushing all these people in there and creating a gigantic fifth column in America.” Buchanan added: “The ultimate goal of Vicente Fox is the erasure of the border between the United States and Mexico. He has said as much and to make the two basically part of the North American Union in which Mexico will get … a constant flow of cash from the wealthy USA and La Reconquista is the objective.” [Lou Dobbs Tonight, 9/5/06, via Nexis]

Buchanan Compares Immigrations Of “Zulus” Or “Englishmen … What Group Would Be Easier To Assimilate And Would Cause Less Problems For The People Of Virginia?” From ABC’s This Week in 1991:

SAM DONALDSON: Do you agree with Charles Rangel who says that if the Haitians weren’t black, we would take them in, rather than saying, “No, you stay on the high seas until perhaps you die”?

BUCHANAN: He’s probably got a bit of a point there. Let me go back to what George said. Illegal immigration is a problem and ought to be stopped. Now, how about legal immigration, on where folks come from? George, it is a legitimate issue to sit down and debate. I think God made all people good, but if we had to take a million immigrants in, say, Zulus, next year or Englishmen and put them in Virginia, what group would be easier to assimilate and would cause less problems for the people of Virginia? There is nothing wrong with us sitting down and arguing that issue, that we are a European country-

GEORGE WILL: But the English aren’t trying-
 
BUCHANAN: -English-speaking country-
 
GEORGE WILL: -to get in. The Asians and the Hispanics and the Latins are.
 
BUCHANAN: All right, here’s- you have to sit down- I mean, every immigration policy is going to let somebody in and keep somebody out. It’s going to have different criteria. What I am saying is culture, language, background are not illegitimate criteria for us to discuss when we discuss legal immigration. [ABC, This Week, 12/8/91, via Nexis]

Buchanan: America Will Become “A Third World Country…If We Do Not Build A Sea Wall Against The Waves Of Immigration.” From a June 1990 syndicated column by Buchanan, in which he also complains that the “Negros of the ’50s became the blacks of the ’60s; now, the ‘African-Americans’ of the ’90s demand racial quotas and set-asides, as the Democrats eagerly assent and a pandering GOP prepares to go along”:

The question we Americans need to address, before it is answered for us, is: Does this First World nation wish to become a Third World country? Because that is our destiny, if we do not build a sea wall against the waves of immigration rolling over our shores.

We are not immune to the global rise of separatism, nationalism and ethnic militancy. Reflect on the reception accorded Nelson Mandela, the growing support for racists like Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton. Consider the demand for bilingual education by Mexican-Americans, the issue upon which Canada is splitting up. In D.C., blacks openly subscribe to the thesis that Mayor Marion Barry is a victim of “The Plan,” a secret conspiracy whereby the white power structure is out to destroy the black leadership. Bensonhurst and Howard Beach may get the headlines, but black-on-white is the most common form of interracial crime, by factors of 10-1 and 20-1. Where was the national story when white visitors to Georgetown were beaten in wilding assaults by blacks, requiring a mass infusion of police?

“In multi-ethnic communities, the notion of ethnic rights precedes the notion of human rights,” writes Sunic. Exactly. The Negros of the ’50s became the blacks of the ’60s; now, the “African-Americans” of the ’90s demand racial quotas and set-asides, as the Democrats eagerly assent and a pandering GOP prepares to go along.

Who speaks for the Euro-Americans, who founded the United States?

“Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture’s got to go,” was Jesse Jackson’s chant at Stanford, giving aid and comfort to leftist academics who are out to replace Western culture with – what?

Is it not time to take America back? [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 6/28/90]

Buchanan’s Recent History On Minorities, Race-Relations

Buchanan Complained That With Elena Kagan, The Supreme Court Would Have Too Many “Jews.”  From Buchanan’s May 2010 column on Elena Kagan’s nomination to the Supreme Court: 

Indeed, of the last seven justices nominated by Democrats JFK, LBJ, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, one was black, Marshall; one was Puerto Rican, Sonia Sotomayor. The other five were Jews: Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.

If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats.

Is this the Democrats’ idea of diversity?

But while leaders in the black community may be upset, the folks who look more like the real targets of liberal bias are white Protestants and Catholics, who still constitute well over half of the U.S. population.

Not in living memory has a Democratic president nominated an Irish, Italian or Polish Catholic, though these ethnic communities once gave the party its greatest victories in the cities and states of the North.

What happened to the party of the Daleys, Rizzos and Rostenkowskis?

And not in nearly half a century has a Democratic president nominated a white Protestant or white Catholic man or woman.

[…]

If Kagan is confirmed, the Court will consist of three Jews and six Catholics (who represent not quite a fourth of the country), but not a single Protestant, though Protestants remain half the nation and our founding faith. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 5/14/10]

Buchanan Appeared On “Pro-White” Radio Show Twice. Buchanan appeared on the June 29, 2008, and September 14, 2006, editions of The Political Cesspool Radio Show, a program whose “Statement of Principles” asserts that it “represent[s] a philosophy that is pro-White.” Buchanan’s June 29 interview was streamed “Live” on the self-described “White Nationalist” and “White Pride” website Stormfront.org. [Media Matters, 8/19/08]

Buchanan: Sonia Sotomayor An “Affirmative Action Pick.” From the May 26, 2009, edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews:

BUCHANAN: I’m saying that she herself says that her gender and her ethnicity will influence her decision, and I think that is a disq– that would be for me a disqualification for the Supreme Court. She is also an affirmative action pick, Chris [Matthews, host]. Clearly. The president was down to four choices, all four of them women, and he picked the Hispanic. [MSNBC, Hardball, 5/26/09]

Buchanan: “It Was Here That 600,000 Black People, Brought From Africa In Slave Ships, Grew Into A Community Of 40 Million,” Later Adds, “We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?” In a 2008 column, Buchanan asserted that “no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans,” adding: “We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?”

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks – with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude? [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 3/21/08]

Buchanan: “For The First Time In Our Lifetimes Outside The South, White Racial Consciousness Has Visibly Begun To Rise.” From Buchanan’s July 2010, syndicated column:

What was it that caused the rush to judgment by Vilsack, the NAACP and a White House that supported the ouster of Sherrod without talking to her or viewing the full tape?

Panic. The White House fears it is losing white America because of a false perception that it harbors a bias against white America.

[…]

For though the black community remains solidly behind Obama and the white majority is shrinking toward minority status by 2042 or 2050, depending on which Census survey one uses, whites in America still outnumber blacks five to one. And if forced constantly to come down on one side or the other of a racial divide, most folks will wind up with their own.

In past elections, Democrats have raised race – allegations that black churches were being torched in the South, that George W. Bush’s opposition to a hate-crimes bill meant he was coldly indifferent to the dragging death of a handicapped black man – to solidify and energize the minority vote. And, today, that vote remains solid behind Obama.

Where the erosion is taking place is in white America, among working- and middle-class folks who voted for Hillary Clinton in the primaries but took a chance with Obama in the fall. Now, every time some new incident erupts, these folks are being tarred.

Opposition to affirmative action is racist. Supporting the tea party gives aid and comfort to racists. Opposing health care puts you in league with folks who used racial slurs on Rep. John Lewis. To raise the issue of the New Black Panther Party is to play the race card.

One understands the bitterness of tea-party folks who carry signs that read: “What difference does it make what this placard says? You’ll call it racist anyway.”

As the National Journal’s Ron Brownstein has been reporting, white America is increasingly alienated and distrustful of all our major economic and political power centers – the banks, big corporations, the government.

And, for the first time in our lifetimes outside the South, white racial consciousness has visibly begun to rise. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 7/22/10]

Buchanan: “In A Way, Both Sides Were Right” During The Civil War. From the April 8, 2010, edition of MSNBC’s Hardball:

BUCHANAN: Now, I don’t know if they want to go that far. But quite frankly, there’s a real feeling out there of people that they do not like this government! It’s too big, too oppressive…

MATTHEWS: Who was right in the Civil War?

KAREN FINNEY: Wait a sec…

BUCHANAN: Who was right in the Civil War? I think, in a way, both sides were right. I think Lincoln had a right to save the union. I think they had a right to go free. People — it was unsettled…

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: So Robert E. Lee was right…

FINNEY: Let’s not defend the right to slavery.

MATTHEWS: … to join the South?

BUCHANAN: Of course he was!

(CROSSTALK)

FINNEY: Let’s not defend the right to slavery.

MATTHEWS: It was right to fight that war?

BUCHANAN: Robert E. Lee was right to defend his fellow…

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: But if he had said, “I’m not going to fight,” maybe there wouldn’t have been a Civil War. Maybe if the guys like him had stood up and said, “We’re not going to fight this, we’re sticking with the union”…

BUCHANAN: What were they going to — you — Chris…

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: … if you’d listen to Sam Houston, you wouldn’t have had that war.

BUCHANAN: Virginia had to lie down and let them march over Virginia!

MATTHEWS: OK. Your turn.

BUCHANAN: They weren’t going to do it!

MATTHEWS: Karen, I’m sorry. It’s Karen’s (INAUDIBLE)

FINNEY: That’s OK. Now, I want to go back to your other point because it — you know, there’s something very disturbing happening in this country when you do have leaders, Republican leaders, using certain phrases that are code phrases, not even just about the Civil War, but again, designed to have a very specific impact in inflaming the base and motivating the base, rather than…

MATTHEWS: But Pat doesn’t need code! Pat’s arguing…

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: … because he thinks the federal union was maybe equally right to the South!

FINNEY: But wait a second…

MATTHEWS: Maybe.

FINNEY: The point I’m making…

BUCHANAN: I think they both had a moral position. [MSNBC, Hardball, 4/8/10, via Nexis]

Buchanan Warns Against The Nation Becoming “Multiracial, Multicultural,” Adds, “I Prefer The Kind – I Grew Up In A Different Country.” From an interview with RT America:  

INTERVIEWER: Now, back in 2004, you wrote, “the America of our grandchildren will be another country altogether, a nation unrecognizable to our parents, a giant Brazil of the North.” Do you still feel that way?

BUCHANAN: Sure, it’s becoming that. I think the – Brazil is a multiracial, multicultural, multiethnic nation –

INTERVIEWER: Is that a bad thing?

BUCHANAN: Well, I prefer the kind – I grew up in a different country. And I’m saying the country is going to be changed. Now, is it going to be changed for the better? Some people think it is going to be changed for the better. But I think what we’re headed for is basically, almost, as you see it developing in society, a war of all against all. Not only ethnically, but politically, and culturally, and socially. Look at the – look at the hostility and the toxicity of American politics today. As, you know, as horrible as it’s gotten, it’s getting worse, and worse, and worse. [RT America, 6/2/10]

Buchanan Wonders: “Why Would [Hitler] Want War”? From a September 2009 Pat Buchanan column:

Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn’t want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany.

Comes the response: The war guarantee was not about Danzig, or even about Poland. It was about the moral and strategic imperative “to stop Hitler” after he showed, by tearing up the Munich pact and Czechoslovakia with it, that he was out to conquer the world. And this Nazi beast could not be allowed to do that.

If true, a fair point. Americans, after all, were prepared to use atom bombs to keep the Red Army from the Channel. But where is the evidence that Adolf Hitler, whose victims as of March 1939 were a fraction of Gen. Pinochet’s, or Fidel Castro’s, was out to conquer the world?

[…]

But if Hitler was out to conquer the world — Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia — why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?

If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?

Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?

Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece?

Because Hitler wanted to end the war in 1940, almost two years before the trains began to roll to the camps.

Hitler had never wanted war with Poland, but an alliance with Poland such as he had with Francisco Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy, Miklos Horthy’s Hungary and Father Jozef Tiso’s Slovakia.

Indeed, why would he want war when, by 1939, he was surrounded by allied, friendly or neutral neighbors, save France. And he had written off Alsace, because reconquering Alsace meant war with France, and that meant war with Britain, whose empire he admired and whom he had always sought as an ally.

As of March 1939, Hitler did not even have a border with Russia. How then could he invade Russia?

Winston Churchill was right when he called it “The Unnecessary War” — the war that may yet prove the mortal blow to our civilization. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 9/1/09]

Buchanan: “This Has Been A Country Built, Basically, By White Folks.” From the July 16, 2009, edition of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show:

BUCHANAN: Well, I think I would vote “no” on Sonia Sotomayor, the same way I would’ve voted “no” on Harriet Miers; and I said so the first day she was nominated. I don’t think Judge Sotomayor is qualified for the United States Supreme Court. She has not shown any great intellect here or any great depth of knowledge of the Constitution. She’s never written anything that I’ve read in terms of a law review article or a major book or something like that on the law.

And I do believe she’s an affirmative action appointment by the president of the United States. He eliminated everyone but four women and then he picked the Hispanic. So I think this is an affirmative action appointment and I would vote “no.”

[…]

MADDOW: Why do you think it is that of the 110 Supreme Court justices we’ve had in this country, 108 of them have been white?

BUCHANAN: Well, I think white men were 100 percent of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100 percent of the people who signed the Declaration of Independence, 100 percent of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100 percent of the people who died at Normandy.

This has been a country built, basically, by white folks in this country who were 90 percent of the entire nation in 1960 when I was growing up, Rachel, and the other 10 percent were African-Americans who had been discriminated against — that’s why. [MSNBC, The Rachel Maddow Show, 7/16/09]

Buchanan On Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize: “Affirmative Action Nobel.” From Buchanan’s October 13, 2009 syndicated column, headlined, “The Affirmative Action Nobel”:

The Affirmative Action Nobel

All my life, said Voltaire, I have had but one prayer: “O Lord, make my enemies look ridiculous. And God granted it.”

In awarding the Nobel Prize for Peace to Barack Obama, the Nobel committee has just made itself look ridiculous.

Consider. Though they had lead roles in ending a Cold War lasting half a century, between a nuclear-armed Soviet Empire and the West, neither Ronald Reagan nor John Paul II ever got a Nobel Prize.

In 1987, Reagan negotiated the greatest arms reduction treaty in modern time, the INF agreement removing all Soviet SS-20s and all U.S. Pershing and cruise missiles from Europe.

Other than hosting the “Beer Summit” between Sgt. James Crowley of the Cambridge Police and Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, what has Obama done to compare with what these statesmen did to make ours a more peaceful and better world?

What has Obama accomplished to compare with what the other sitting presidents to receive the Nobel Prize accomplished?

[…]

As for Obama, he got the award because he is the quintessential anti-Bush. Yet, the Nobel committee did him no service.

They have brazenly meddled in the internal affairs of the United States. They have reinforced the impression that Obama is someone who is forever being given prizes — Ivy League scholarships, law review editorships, prime-time speaking slots at national conventions — he did not earn. They have put him under moral pressure to mollify a pacifist left. They have brought him to the point, dangerous in politics, where a man becomes the butt of reflexive jokes, as did Bill Clinton in the Monica affair.

These Norwegian groupies, acting out of “adolescent adulation,” writes the Financial Times, have exposed themselves as “an annex to the left wing of the U.S. Democratic Party” with a “deeply misguided act” that will “embarrass (Obama’s) allies and egg on his detractors.”

The committee did something else. They ensured that their Nobel Peace Prize will never be taken as seriously again as once it was. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 10/13/09]

Buchanan: Obama’s Higher Education Was “Probably Affirmative Action All The Way.” From the April 26, 2011 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball:

MATTHEWS: Because this is an incredible assertion, Pat. It’s an incredible assertion to make about the president of the United States that somehow — let’s go through everything Trump said. I’m going to go through it later tonight in my close.

BUCHANAN: Right.

MATTHEWS: He is saying nobody knew him in school, that nobody ever comes forward and says they ever knew the guy, like he was some guy that never really went to these schools.

BUCHANAN: Well, can I talk to that?

MATTHEWS: There’s a funny paper trail. What’s that about, Pat?

BUCHANAN: I’ll tell you what —

MATTHEWS: What’s that about?

BUCHANAN: He went to Occidental College. Then suddenly, he shows up at one of the best schools in the country, Columbia. He vaults from there to Harvard Law School. Suddenly, he’s on Harvard Law Review. Suddenly, he’s the editor of Harvard Law Review. We’ve never seen any grades of the guy. These are legitimate questions. What I want to know from you, Chris, is —

MATTHEWS: Well, they got — they got the grades at Harvard —

BUCHANAN: What I want to know from you —

MATTHEWS: Harvard law let him in —

BUCHANAN: Well —

MATTHEWS: — and he was elected to the Law Review. They have the records.

BUCHANAN: Look, I know a lot of kids that have got phenomenal LSAT scores that can’t get into any Ivy League school, and I think a lot of people do. Chris, this is what I want to ask you. Why is it that the national press corps, when Donald Trump is out there supporting the people’s right to know, you guys are all supporting the president’s right to conceal?

MATTHEWS: OK. So, you have questions about whether the president was — did attend these schools or not. First of all, let’s —

(CROSSTALK)

BUCHANAN: Oh, he attended the schools.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How far do you go on the Trump bandwagon?

Was he in fact in these schools that Trump says nobody knew him in?

BUCHANAN: I think he went to those schools, and I think the way was very probably greased.

MATTHEWS: So, why was Trump saying —

BUCHANAN: And I think he’s probably affirmative action all the way.

MATTHEWS: Greased by whom? Greased by whom?

BUCHANAN: I think he’s affirmative action all the way.

MATTHEWS: Oh, it’s an affirmative action case. But there’s no mystery about it. It’s just affirmative action, as you see it?

BUCHANAN: Oh, I think he’s at those schools, sure.

MATTHEWS: But you don’t think he had outside help getting into these schools?

BUCHANAN: Well, look, I think all he’s got — look, Chris, you know how the system works. You apply. He’s an African-American kid at a time when everybody’s saying let’s bring those guys in, give them an advantage, move them ahead.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: So it’s about race, then? It’s about —

BUCHANAN: It’s about whether he benefited from affirmative action. Is that an illegitimate question [MSNBC, Hardball, 4/26/11]

“Offended” Buchanan Stands Up For “White Males,” Falsely Claiming Only “White Males” Died At Gettysburg, Normandy. Contrary to Buchanan’s claim, “nearly 2,000” African-Americans took part in the Normandy invasion, at least some of whom apparently died as a result, and at least one woman and one African-American were reportedly killed in the Gettysburg campaign. [Media Matters, 2/29/08] From the February 28, 2008 edition of MSNBC’s Tucker:

BUCHANAN: Did you see Howard Dean, though?

CARLSON: Well, let’s put it up on the screen, Howard Dean’s remarks.

BUCHANAN: OK.

CARLSON: I have it right here. He was at Georgetown. This is from The Georgetown Voice. “Dean contrasted the two party’s presidential candidates. He said that with a woman and an African-American as the two front-runners, the Democratic field, quote, ‘looks like America, while the all-white male Republican field looks like the 1950s and talks like the 1850s.’ ” I must say, I’m not going to sit by a single more time and listen to someone slag on, quote, “white men.”

BUCHANAN: You know, I am off —

CARLSON: Television hosts do that. It makes me want to puke.

BUCHANAN: I am offended by this. Look, what did white males do? OK, they were the only guys signing the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, all the dead at Gettysburg, all the dead at Normandy. Why is it, Bill —

PRESS: Pat, Pat —

BUCHANAN: — OK to mock —

PRESS: Pat, Pat, Pat —

BUCHANAN: — backhand white — no wonder you’re losing white males.

PRESS: What do you have, white guilt? Look, here’s — Howard Dean —

BUCHANAN: No, I think you guys are self-hating white folks.

PRESS: No, Howard Dean told the truth. If you look at the Democrats on stage when they were up there, you had a Latino, you had an African-American, you had a woman, you had young, you had old. And then you contrast that with the 10 Republican all-white men over 50.

BUCHANAN: He didn’t say all 10. He said these two look like America.

PRESS: No, no. No, no, no. No.

BUCHANAN: In other words, it’s not just — every president has been a white male, Bill, every one.

PRESS: Pat, Pat, Pat, he said Democratic candidates. And it is true, if you look at the diversity — if you look at this country, Pat, at the population of this country, they are not all white, older white men.

[crosstalk]

PRESS: That’s the point he’s making. He is absolutely right.

CARLSON: Let me just say this. I think — and I’m not just — you know, people say, “Oh, you’re a white man. That’s why you’re defending white men.” Actually, I’m being sincere. I’m defending this purely on principle. I don’t think that you ought to cavalierly attack people based on their race or gender. And consider if that was any other group. “Well, this group is so-and-so or such-and-such.” There would be an uproar. I think when you allow this kind of gar — I mean, Howard Dean’s an — not very smart, so he gets kind of a pass, but a lot of smart people say this sort of thing.

PRESS: He is telling the truth. It’s the same thing — when you look at the floor of the Democratic convention and look at the great diversity on the floor, in terms of men and women and people of color, and then you look at the floor of the Republican convention, and it looks like the, you know —

BUCHANAN: What’s wrong with that?

PRESS: — the White Person Society meeting with hardly — not that many women and hardly any minorities at all.

CARLSON: Well, you’re right. I mean, you’re certainly speaking right. No, no, but hold on.

PRESS: One reflects America, and the other doesn’t.

CARLSON: Wait, hold on. Hold on.

PRESS: That’s all. That’s all.

CARLSON: You’re right that there — it is much more diverse, the Democratic convention. I’ve been to all of them in the past 20 or 15 years. But there’s a hostility toward white men —

BUCHANAN: Exactly.

CARLSON — that’s not even cloaked and that, by the way, is wrong. It’s immoral to attack people because of their skin color. Period.

PRESS: There is no hostility towards white men.

CARLSON: Oh, B.S., Bill. Come on.

PRESS: You guys — no, you guys are —

CARLSON: I hear it at work. I hear it here. I hear it in politics.

BUCHANAN: You’re saying because it’s a woman and an African-American, only those two — it is morally superior in some way to the Republicans because their candidates are white males.

PRESS: No, no. No, no, no, no. May I say it as clearly as I can? If you want to reflect what this country is all about, OK, you don’t put 10 old white men on the stage. Period.

BUCHANAN: Look, they didn’t put them on. These are guys who ran for the nomination of their party. I would remind you, every single president has been a white male. Is that something wrong with America?

PRESS: All right. You know what? That’s going to change this year, Pat.

BUCHANAN: Is that wrong with America?

PRESS: That’s going to change this year. We’re going to have a woman or we’re going to have an African-American as president. It’s going to change this year.

CARLSON: Let me just bring up one final white man, and that’s Roger Clemens. [MSNBC, Tucker, 2/28/08]

Buchanan’s Anti-Gay History

Buchanan: “The Poor Homosexuals — They Have Declared War Upon Nature And Now Nature Is Extracting An Awful Retribution.” From James Pinkerton’s June 2001 column:

Both the ideological right and left were quick to seize upon the deadly disease to underscore contrapuntal arguments about everything from public health to personal morality. Yet, AIDS is ultimately not political; it is viral. It is subject to the laws of nature, not human society. And so, while AIDS may someday be cured, the Darwinian reality underscoring all natural phenomena will continue to flummox both liberals and conservatives.

At the onset of AIDS, when it seemed mostly a gay malady, some right-wingers could barely contain their glee. Columnist Pat Buchanan wrote in 1983: ”The poor homosexuals — they have declared war upon nature, and now nature is extracting an awful retribution.” [Newsday, 6/7/01]

Buchanan: “Promiscuous Homosexuals Appear Literally Hell-Bent On Satanism And Suicide.” Jake Tapper reported of Buchanan: “In 1990, Buchanan spewed out another hate-filled sound bite: ‘With 80,000 dead of AIDS, 3,000 more buried each month, our promiscuous homosexuals appear literally hell-bent on Satanism and suicide.'” [Salon.com, 9/4/99]

Buchanan: “Homosexuality Involves Sexual Acts Most Men Consider Not Only Immoral, But Filthy.” From Buchanan’s syndicated column in 1989:

Homosexuality involves sexual acts most men consider not only immoral, but filthy. The reason public men rarely say aloud what most say privately is they are fearful of being branded ‘bigots’ by an intolerant liberal orthodoxy that holds, against all evidence and experience, that homosexuality is a normal, healthy lifestyle. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 9/4/89

Buchanan Has Referred To Gays As “Sodomites” And “The Pederast Proletariat.” From a 1992 Washington Post profile:

But more arresting than his biography is his public image as a man who will say and write things that regularly result in charges of bigotry and prejudice — charges that Buchanan angrily denies.

Many conservatives praise “traditional family values.” Few have joined Buchanan in referring to gay people as “sodomites” and “the pederast proletariat” and in calling feminists “the Butch Brigade.”

Many criticize U.S. immigration policy. Buchanan cast the choice as a decision over whether “Englishmen” or “Zulus” would be easier to assimilate. [Washington Post, 2/15/92]

Buchanan: “Homosexuality Is An Affliction, Like Alcoholism.” From Buchanan’s October 19, 2004 column:

Indeed, whether nature or nurture determines orientation remains a matter of disagreement. When Barney Frank blurted, “It’s not as if I had a choice in this matter,” it struck some of us as transparently true. Why would a teenage kid choose to carry this cross through life?

To some of us, homosexuality is an affliction, like alcoholism, and hellishly difficult to control. Why some folks can take or leave alcohol — while others can enjoy it in moderation, and others cannot stop drinking without help and must swear off it for life or it will kill them — remains a mystery of nature.

Homosexuality seems to be like that. Sumner Welles, one of FDR’s most trusted confidantes, saw his career destroyed after he propositioned a porter on a train. LBJ’s closest White House aide killed his career during the 1964 campaign when caught in a sting operation in a YMCA men’s room, a block from the White House.  

A contemporary of this writer and rising conservative star in the House, with a wonderful family, lost it all when caught trolling D.C.’s tenderloin district for teenage boys. Catholic priests have dishonored the church to which they have dedicated entire lives and disgraced themselves by abusing altar boys.

In such cases, the behavior seems almost suicidal. Clearly, there is a compulsion here that is, at times, terribly difficult to resist, a sexual compulsion that seems far more rare among normal men. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 10/19/04]

Buchanan: “Where Is The Successful Society Where Homosexual Marriage Was Normal?” From Buchanan’s syndicated column:

What is the moral basis of the argument that homosexuality is normal, natural and healthy? In recent years, it has been associated with high levels of AIDS and enteric diseases, and from obits in gay newspapers, early death. Where is the successful society where homosexual marriage was normal?

Not until the Stonewall riots at a gay bar in Greenwich Village in 1969 was the case broadly made by anyone but the Mattachines of Frank Kameny that homosexuality deserved to be treated as a natural and normal expression of love.

[…]

As Albert Einstein observed, “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.” By 14, most boys have learned on the playground there is something disordered about boys sexually attracted to other boys.

Hence the need for politically correct universities to purge such ideas from young minds and indoctrinate them in the new truths of modernity.

[…]

In our new society from which traditionalists are seceding, many ruling ideas are rooted in an ideology that is at war with Burke’s “general prejudices.”

High among them is that homosexuality is natural and normal. That abortion is a woman’s right. That all voluntary sexual relations are morally equal. That women and men are equal, and if the former are not equally represented at the apex of academic, military and political life, this can only be the result of invidious discrimination that the law must correct. That all races, religions and ethnic groups are equal and all must have equal rewards.

Once a nation synonymous with freedom, the new America worships at the altar of equality. [Pat Buchanan, syndicated column, 7/1/11]


Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh Being Sued For $100K In Child Support

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:39 am by HL

Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh Being Sued For $100K In Child Support
Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), who has made the media rounds bashing President Obama on the national debt, was sued in December for $117,437 in back child support he allegedly owes his ex-wife and their three children.

Man To Plead Guilty To Trying To Sell Military Spy Plane Over EBay
A foreign national is expected to plead guilty on Thursday to buying a military spy plane and then trying to resell it on eBay.



Puncturing the Anti-Government Big Lie

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:36 am by HL

Puncturing the Anti-Government Big Lie
What’s to be done about a domestic political discourse becoming unmoored from reality? The debt ceiling stand-off and early rounds of the 2012 campaign debate on the economy are disheartening markers of the sorry state of American politics. One of…

Best of the Commentary on Rupert’s Escape
Rupert Murdoch and his son James effected a Houdini-like escape yesterday from the none-too-tight coils of a hearing designed by British parliamentarians eager to look more righteous — and less complicit — than many of them actually are in the…


What Blinds Murdoch Apologists Like Roger Cohen?
Why is it that journalists who’ve written very credibly as impassioned defenders of the public sphere also swoon over Rupert Murdoch, the brilliant entrepreneur, as if his business triumphs cleansed what he does to every public sphere he touches? In…


Defensive Patents Are Bad Patents

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:35 am by HL

Defensive Patents Are Bad Patents
This is well-put by Julian Sanchez. A strategy of defensive patents only works if the “innovation” you’re patenting isn’t worthy of patent protection: But now think about how defensive patents work. Companies aren’t buying them—or buying into the services of companies like Intellectual Ventures—because they provide otherwise unavailable technical insights. The point, rather, is to […]

This is well-put by Julian Sanchez. A strategy of defensive patents only works if the “innovation” you’re patenting isn’t worthy of patent protection:

But now think about how defensive patents work. Companies aren’t buying them—or buying into the services of companies like Intellectual Ventures—because they provide otherwise unavailable technical insights. The point, rather, is to acquire (or have access to) a bundle of patents that any potential litigant who sues you is likely to be “infringing” in their own products. Like nuclear weapons, the point is not to actually use them—but only to be able to threaten to use them if anyone else should deploy theirs against you.

This only works, however, if other companies are almost certain to have independently come up with the same idea. A patent that is truly so original that somebody else wouldn’t arrive at the same solution by applying normal engineering skill is useless as a defensive patent. You can’t threaten someone with a countersuit if your idea is so brilliant that your opponents—because they didn’t think of it—haven’t incorporated it in their technology. The ideal defensive patent, by contrast, is the most obvious one you can get the U.S. Patent Office to sign off on—one that competitors are likely to unwittingly “infringe,” not realizing they’ve made themselves vulnerable to legal counterattack, because it’s simply the solution a good, smart engineer trying to solve a particular problem would naturally come up with.

The whole idea of patents is, as Aaron Swartz pointed out to me yesterday, pretty odd. A copyright forbids copying. A patent forbids independent discovery as well. And it does so even though it’s famously common for certain ideas to be “in the air” and independently developed by different people.

GOP Sen. Thune: Tweaked Reid Plan Probably Won?t Be Filibustered, Could Pass House
Appearing this afternoon on Fox News, Sen. John Thune (R-SC) said that if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings his debt ceiling plan up, it will get a vote in the Senate. In other words, enough Republicans would support Reid to prevent a filibuster. Thune also suggested that, if the Reid plan was “strengthened” […]

Appearing this afternoon on Fox News, Sen. John Thune (R-SC) said that if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) brings his debt ceiling plan up, it will get a vote in the Senate. In other words, enough Republicans would support Reid to prevent a filibuster. Thune also suggested that, if the Reid plan was “strengthened” it could collect 216 votes in the House, enough for passage. Watch it:


Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:34 am by HL

Judge blasts prosecution of alleged NSA leaker

A federal judge harshly criticized U.S. prosecutors’ treatment of a former spy agency official accused of leaking classified material, calling delays in the now-closed case “unconscionable” and comparing it to British tyranny in the colonial era.

In 2007, FBI agents raided the house of Thomas Drake, then an official at the National Security Agency, but it took another 2 1 / 2 years for officials to indict him, Judge Richard D. Bennett said at a sentencing hearing earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, according to a transcript released Friday by the Secrecy News blog.

Read full article >>

Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert roast Congress over debt limit

With recent polls showing Americans increasingly frustrated with the debt-ceiling fight in Washington, Comedy Central’s late-night comedians are finding a goldmine of material — and no party is safe from satire.

In a segment titled “Armadebtdon 2011” on Tuesday, Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” lambasted President Obama’s plea for Americans to make the case for compromise directly to their members of Congress.

“That’s your idea, call your congressman?” Stewart chortled. “Did the president just quit?”

Read full article >>

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Senate headed for critical debt vote Sunday

The Senate is driving toward a climactic and dramatic vote at 1 a.m. Sunday that could determine whether a bipartisan deal to raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit is possible or a government default is likely.

What that deal might look was still deeply uncertain Friday, but talks were underway between Democrats and Republicans in the Senate about methods to circumvent some of the chamber’s most cumbersome procedures to allow the Senate to act more quickly if a compromise is reached.

Speedier action would require unanimous agreement from all senators, including conservatives who have vowed not to raise the debt ceiling without congressional approval of a balanced budget amendment to the constitution, and it wasn’t clear that would be forthcoming.

Read full article >>

Perry stresses personal opposition to gay marriage but doesn’t refute earlier comment about NY

DENVER — Potential Republican presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry of Texas repeated his personal opposition to gay marriage in a speech to conservatives in Denver Friday.

But Perry didn’t backtrack on his statement last week in Aspen that New York’s recent decision to allow gay marriage is “their business.” That’s despite a direct attack earlier in the evening from a rival GOP presidential hopeful, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who took Perry to task for the comment.

“There are some in our party who say, ‘Well, if someone in New York wants to have gay marriage, that’s fine with me.’ … States do not have the right to destroy the American family,” Santorum said to applause from many of the 1,000 conservatives gathered at the Western Conservative Summit.

Read full article >>


The Failure of Central Planning Lite

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 30th, 2011 4:31 am by HL

The Failure of Central Planning Lite
Robert Tracinski, RealClearMarkets
Robert Samuelson recently described the current economic upheaval as “the crisis of the old order,” a collapse of the economic dogmas and institutions of the past few decades. I was particularly struck by one of the items he lists as the pillars of the old order, “faith in routine economic expansion.” Except that this doesn't describe what he's really talking about. What he's actually talking about is faith that government officials can manage and control economic growth. “Economists exaggerated their understanding and control. They seem to have…

Tea Party’s Terrorist Tactics
William Yeomans, Politico
It has become commonplace to call the tea party faction in the House “hostage takers.” But they have now become full-blown terrorists.They have joined the villains of American history who have been sufficiently craven to inflict massive harm on innocent victims to achieve their political goals. A strong America has always stood firm in the face of terrorism. That tradition is in jeopardy, as Congress and President Barack Obama careen toward an uncertain outcome in the tea party- manufactured debt crisis.

The President Is Not on the Sidelines
Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post
The headline of Jackie Calmes’s “White House Memo” today in the New York Times is a source of great consternation and agitation for me. “President on Sidelines in Critical Battle Over Debt Ceiling” reflects the Beltway meme that President Obama is invisible in this epic fight over raising the debt ceiling. That he was pushed off the stage by Congress to get this done. As the chatter in the echo chamber reinforced itself, folks glossed over or forgot that the president ordered Congress to come up with a plan. At a dramatic,…


It’s technically morning in America

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 29th, 2011 4:47 am by HL

It’s technically morning in America
You know things are bad when you look to Rupert Murdoch stories to lighten things up.

Who actually won last night, the hypocrites, the assholes or the insane? Oh yeah, it is still a tie and also all of them.

Oh well, too bad we’re not influenced by honorable people in this country, like in the UK.

Sara Payne, whose eight-year-old daughter Sarah was abducted and murdered in July 2000, has been told by Scotland Yard that they have found evidence to suggest she was targeted by the News of the World…[through]…a phone given to Payne by [Rebekah] Brooks as a gift to help her stay in touch with her supporters.

And…wait for it…

[Brooks stated] The idea of her being targeted is beyond my comprehension.

Late Late Night FDL: Hungarian Dance No. 5
Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tomomi NishimotoHungarian Dance No. 5 by Brahms.

Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tomomi NishimotoHungarian Dance No. 5 by Brahms.

What’s on your mind?


U.S. Soldier Admits to Planning Attack on Fort Hood

Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on July 29th, 2011 4:46 am by HL

U.S. Soldier Admits to Planning Attack on Fort Hood
A U.S. soldier who has been absent without leave since early July was arrested Wednesday in a motel room hear Fort Hood in Texas where FBI officials announced Thursday that he had been found with guns and bomb-making materials. The AWOL soldier admitted to planning an attack on the base, an Army alert said Thursday. “Concerned citizens” in the area near Fort Hood, the same Army post where 13 people were killed in a shooting spree in 2009, alerted local police. FBI officials said there was no evidence that Naser Abdo, the 21-year-old soldier who also happens to be Muslim, was working with others, and that any threat the young soldier once posed is now over. —BF The Associated Press via The Wall Street Journal: The infantry soldier, whose hometown the military lists as Garland, Texas, had applied for conscientious objector status last year, saying his religious beliefs would prohibit his service in any war. A military review board recommended this spring that he be separated from the Army. The discharge was delayed after Pfc. Abdo was charged with possessing child pornography. A military hearing last month recommended he be court-martialed. He has said he thought he was charged with a crime because he was seeking to leave the Army as a conscientious objector. Read more

A U.S. soldier who has been absent without leave since early July was arrested Wednesday in a motel room hear Fort Hood in Texas where FBI officials announced Thursday that he had been found with guns and bomb-making materials. The AWOL soldier admitted to planning an attack on the base, an Army alert said Thursday.

“Concerned citizens” in the area near Fort Hood, the same Army post where 13 people were killed in a shooting spree in 2009, alerted local police.

FBI officials said there was no evidence that Naser Abdo, the 21-year-old soldier who also happens to be Muslim, was working with others, and that any threat the young soldier once posed is now over. —BF

The Associated Press via The Wall Street Journal:

The infantry soldier, whose hometown the military lists as Garland, Texas, had applied for conscientious objector status last year, saying his religious beliefs would prohibit his service in any war. A military review board recommended this spring that he be separated from the Army.

The discharge was delayed after Pfc. Abdo was charged with possessing child pornography. A military hearing last month recommended he be court-martialed. He has said he thought he was charged with a crime because he was seeking to leave the Army as a conscientious objector.

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Christie, Still Not Running for President, Runs Into a Medical Detour
Chris Christie, who maintains he will not run for president although he recently made a visit to Iowa and Mitt Romney declared the New Jersey governor as his second choice for running mate, was hospitalized Thursday after an asthma attack. Conventional wisdom would suggest that someone of Christie’s obese proportions would not stand a chance in presidential politics—where entire newsrooms scrutinize waistlines and bald men stand a chance only if they are running against Hitler—but his name has been bandied about recently. Time—and surely pollsters—will tell whether this medical episode affects Christie’s chances of winning an office he says he does not want. He seems to be doing fine, by the way. We cannot let an item about Christie end without drawing your attention to the “This American Life” episode, embedded below, that exposes his major claim to fame—a case that many are calling an abuse of the justice system.—PZS AP via Google News: The blunt-talking governor, who some Republicans have been trying to persuade to run for president, was taken to a hospital Thursday after he had difficulty breathing. Christie, who uses an inhaler for asthma, was headed to a bill signing when he felt unwell. The 48-year-old walked into Somerset Medical Center at around 10:30 a.m., said Maria Comella, his deputy chief of staff. Christie’s EKG, blood work and chest X-ray were normal, and the governor expects to be discharged from the hospital Thursday evening, Comella said. Read more

Chris Christie, who maintains he will not run for president although he recently made a visit to Iowa and Mitt Romney declared the New Jersey governor as his second choice for running mate, was hospitalized Thursday after an asthma attack.

Conventional wisdom would suggest that someone of Christie’s obese proportions would not stand a chance in presidential politics—where entire newsrooms scrutinize waistlines and bald men stand a chance only if they are running against Hitler—but his name has been bandied about recently.

Time—and surely pollsters—will tell whether this medical episode affects Christie’s chances of winning an office he says he does not want.

He seems to be doing fine, by the way.

We cannot let an item about Christie end without drawing your attention to the “This American Life” episode, embedded below, that exposes his major claim to fame—a case that many are calling an abuse of the justice system.—PZS

AP via Google News:

The blunt-talking governor, who some Republicans have been trying to persuade to run for president, was taken to a hospital Thursday after he had difficulty breathing.

Christie, who uses an inhaler for asthma, was headed to a bill signing when he felt unwell. The 48-year-old walked into Somerset Medical Center at around 10:30 a.m., said Maria Comella, his deputy chief of staff.

Christie’s EKG, blood work and chest X-ray were normal, and the governor expects to be discharged from the hospital Thursday evening, Comella said.

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