MSM Diary: When Ratings Don't Come Your Way, Try Starting A Race War (the Henry Lewis Gates story) pt 5

Let’s add up some “knowns”:

1) Gates is a Harvard professor of humanities, making a career of Afrocentrism.
2) He is a self-described adherent of identity politics.
3) He has produced several PBS series on various African American subjects, including one that aired in February of this year and another soon to air.
4) Barry’s push for socialized health care will not come before the legislature before the August recess, and when the congressmen return from it, they will be very leary of passing it as he wants it due to fear of upsetting their re-election chances in 2010.
5) Barry is friends with Gates, and shares his attitude about the dominant race in America.
6) Barry needs sympathy from America to stem his declining poll approval numbers, and to possibly rescue his UHC dreams after August.

Knowing all of this, it seems very possible that Barry’s venture into what should have stayed a local (non)issue concerning the Cambridge police’s arrest of a disorderly professor Gates, was nothing more than a cunning ploy to distract attention from his failed UHC bill and further attempt to both racially divide this country and garner sympathy for him as a “black man in America where the black man is still a victim.”

It also seems very possible that Gates purposely inflated the situation with officer Crowley, knowing that the attention he manufactured from it would help sell his books, dvd’s and future projects.

And perhaps unrelated is the fact that CNN aired its much-hyped “Black In America” series for the last two nights. The massive promotions and lead-in to the shows were dramatically sensationalized by featuring the breaking news of the Gates case. The reporting on the Gates case by CNN has been decidedly one-sided, and after two days officer Crowley’s side was finally aired, but has been treated as if it is too-little-too-late and completely unconvincing. The interview with Soledad O’Brien today was particularly telling of a CNN perspective.

If you have the curiosity and patience for it, I have actually chronicled the CNN segments featuring this Gates case for the last three days on my new channel at Youtube. You can survey them at your leisure here.

Barry In Charge: Starting A Race War The Old Fashioned Way: Stupidity

For a Harvard-educated law graduate to make this kind of a pre-judgement is embarrassing. For our American president to say it is shameful.

These police officers put their lives on the line every time they respond to a call from you and me. To condemn them as "stupid" shows an elitism from a man who has never gotten his hands dirty with anything that taught him some basic principles of life: namely, that police have an enormously hard job and you don't backtalk them or give them any of your attitude. They are ready to die for you and me, and they surely don't get paid as much as a Harvard professor who has made a lifetime of arousing black suspicions about whites, police brutality, unfair justice practices, and overall victimhood for blacks in America.

Poor Barry here is associating Gates' arrest with the fact that Gates showed his credentials of identification and address, as if that's why Gates was arrested [with an African American police officer assisting during the entire episode, by the way]. The racemonger president knows better, but is choosing to further endanger the Cambridge Police officer's lives with these reckless statements.

Just to refresh Barry's beleagured mind a bit: Gates wasn't arrested for not being who he said he was, or for breaking and entering his house. He was arrested for disorderly conduct for mouthing off [even Gates' lawyer admitted that his client acted thusly] and acting beligerent during a routine response call from a neighbor.

It takes a couple of Harvard-educated idiots to not know that you answer politely and comply completely with the police or you suffer the consequences, no matter how important you think you are.

MSM Diary: When Ratings Don't Come Your Way, Try Starting A Race War (the Henry Lewis Gates story) pt 4

MSM Diary: When Ratings Don't Come Your Way, Try Starting A Race War (the Henry Lewis Gates story) pt 3

MSM Diary: When Ratings Don't Come Your Way, Try Starting A Race War (the Henry Lewis Gates story) pt 2

MSM Diary: When Ratings Don't Come Your Way, Try Starting A Race War (the Henry Lewis Gates story) pt 1

CNN has been lagging so far behind in cable news ratings that they started scandalizing the benign long ago, much as the Hearst-era dailies of the past did in order to drum up sales. What is nothing more than a silly story of a grown man acting like a child makes national news under the special banner, "Divided Nation".

Where there is nothing more here than the division of people who appreciate a neighbor being concerned enough to call police when witnessing two people breaking into a nearby house versus those who ignore such things like the bystander effect noted in the famous Genovese case, CNN tries to amplify this embarrassing case of overrreaction by a grey-haired professor ("Yeah, I'll speak with your mama outside", indeed) into a national case in order to portray America as something it isn't: broken.

But as the famous news publishers of the past have bellowed, "The American people don't know what to think until I TELL THEM WHAT TO THINK."

MSM Diary: A Reporter's Life Is More Precious Than An American Soldier's pt II

As reported here weeeks ago, the msm went to great effort to keep the identity of a kidnapped journalist out of America's headlines, but in stark, amazing, despicable contrast, they gleefully report the kidnapping of an American GI by the same Taliban that captured one of theirs.

Here's a follow-up story about how even the soldier's hometown tried to keep their local serviceman's fate a secret.

HAILEY, Idaho – The Pentagon said Monday that troops are "sparing no effort" to find an American soldier captured by the Taliban as his family pleaded for privacy and residents in his hometown tied yellow ribbons on trees along Main Street in a show of solidarity.

The actions came two days after the Taliban released a video of Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl in captivity expressing his fear that he would never see or hug his family again. The footage showed Bergdahl with his head shaved, eating a meal and sitting cross-legged on what appeared to be a bunk.

"We've been overwhelmed with the outpouring of support and concern towards Bowe and our family," the family said in a statement read by Blaine County Sheriff Walt Femling. "As you know, the situation is extremely difficult for everyone involved. We'd like to remind all of you our sole focus is seeing our beloved son Bowe safely home."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates condemned the video Monday, saying he was disgusted by the exploitation of a prisoner. "Our commanders are sparing no effort to find this young soldier," Gates said at a Pentagon news conference.

Bergdahl, 23, grew up just outside Hailey, a central Idaho resort town where residents said he was home-schooled, danced ballet and rode his bike everywhere in town. They also called him adventurous and said he joined the Army at least in part because he wanted to learn more about the world. He had been stationed at Fort Richardson, Alaska.

Bergdahl's parents, Bob and Jani Bergdahl, have refused requests to be interviewed, and the sheriff declined to answer personal questions about Bergdahl in a news conference that was televised nationally from this town of 7,000 people.

And few in town would speak openly about Bergdahl because of fears that any remarks might hurt the possibility of his safe return. The town learned about the capture in early July but kept quiet about the ordeal.

The circumstances of Bergdahl's capture on June 30 weren't clear.

On July 2, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press the soldier had "just walked off" his base with three Afghans after his shift. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

On July 6, the Taliban claimed on their Web site that five days earlier "a drunken American soldier had come out of his garrison" and was captured by mujahedeen.

Details of such incidents are routinely held very tightly by the military as it works to retrieve a missing or captured soldier without giving away any information to captors.

Officials with U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., declined to give additional details of his capture.

Bergdahl's family learned of his capture when a member of the Idaho National Guard came to their home in early July. Over the weekend of July 4, four service members who specialize in hostage events visited and told them what their son might be experiencing in captivity as well as what the military was doing to have him released.

Military officials in Afghanistan refused a request from the AP to interview fellow soldiers from Bergdahl's Army unit. Spokesman Navy Lt. Robert Carr in Kabul said the military was controlling the flow of information so nothing could be used against the other American forces or Bergdahl.

Not all family members of captured soldiers stay quiet about such situations.

Keith Maupin, whose son was captured in Iraq in 2004, was vocal during the four years his 20-year-old son Pfc. Matt Maupin was missing before his body was found.

"I know if they stay quiet, they're not going to get any information," Maupin told the AP from his home in Ohio. "They've got to stay on top of it."

Some say the discretion exhibited in Hailey fits with the region's history of respecting the privacy of part-time celebrity visitors and residents such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore

"It's just the way we are," said Hailey Chamber of Commerce Director Jim Spinelli. (source)

The Wisest Latina

Out of masochisim I found myself watching CNN on Saturday. It was coverage of the Sotomayor hearings from last week, and they were asking for viewers to comment on their companion website about the proceedings.

I decided to do my bit as a concerned citizen, and left this message you see below. It was taken down by the site moderators within three hours of being placed there. I was suspicious of their Leftist sensitivities and allergic reaction to anything that defended the opposite side of their obvious bias, so I took a screenshot of my comment post right after I posted it, which you can see below.

Here is the link to the site to see the type of comments CNN prefers instead of mine:

http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/17/sonia-sotomayor-are-you-convinced/#comment-19726

Decide for yourself if CNN caters to only the reactionary brain-dead in our country:

I watched intently many hours of the CSPAN 2 broadcast coverage of the Sotomayor hearings, and came away with the thought that Judge Sotomayor was well prepared for this process.

Having received Arlen Specter’s questions far in advance to this hearing, as he repeatedly admitted while questioning her, it became apparent that many more of the questions were also given in advance to Ms Sotomayor in order to practice and refine her responses.

Upon reflection, I am unable to say for sure whether we saw the “real” Sotomayor. After all, can someone watch an actor perform on stage and claim to “know” the real actor?

Much has been made about the composition of the Senate panel. Apparently, it upsets many people that white men proceeded to ask Ms Sotomayor questions. Indeed, Rick Sanchez reported just an hour or so ago how Latinas he interviewed, who weren’t just common folk, but well-educated and experienced women felt indignant at the questions.

An impossible bar is placed upon the men on that panel who are demanded by the Constitution to discuss and ask questions in order to determine any nominee’s fitness for SCOTUS. If they ask probing questions about a prepared public statement Sotomayor made not once, but 7 times concerning racial superiority of her ethnicity, they are accused of trying to deny a person’s “life experience”. If they ask casual, unassuming questions such as “Can you live on what we pay judges?”, they are criticized for presuming that her Bronx upbringing was inconsequential.

From what I saw, the white men asked about the only things they had to go on: her rulings, her speeches, and her advocacy work. What is so wrong about that? Previous nominees from Republican administrations not only had to answer questions from those areas, but had to also answer question on incidental memos, casual unofficial comments, jokes, and even their video rental purchases.

For such a fuss to be made over the lines of questioning Ms Sotomayor had to “endure” by these white men ignores not only the mandate of the Constitution, but the history of previous nominees as well. To continue with this act of being offended leads one to think that Latinas can’t handle a thorough vetting process. Or at least the ones that men must endure.

[click to enlarge]

Sotomayor Hearings, Day 3: Angry Arlen Contribution

Sotomayor Hearings, Day 3: The Franken Contribution

What Happened To Ya', Phil?

Minority Broadcasters: "We Matter More Than You"

"Minority Broadcasters Ask For Bailout"

Who suggested any such rescue for white broadcasters like me? After nearly twenty years as a successful drive-time announcer in several middle to large markets, I was faced with either reading the writing on the wall or crying “unfair” and going on welfare.

So I put myself through nightschool at a local trade college for two years in Microsoft Network Engineering while working full time at a Clear Channel station by day. I started the AS degree in ‘06, after I saw how miserable the future of electronic broadcasting was. RADIO IS DYING, and you can talk to the thousands of announcers who have been replaced by voicetracking software if you don’t believe me.

Ad revenue has been drying up steadily since the internet came on the scene. The two largest radio companies in America, Clear Channel [almost dead] and Cumulus, have been a nightmarish revolving door of sales people for about ten years, now. The sales rep is tasked with trying to milk ad dollars from local businesses in a time when the competition for radio’s main attraction-music-is delivered with better quality and infinite variety thanks to the digital world we call the internet. The same is true for your favorite AM talk shows, of course. I have long said that the future of terrestrial radio is that of an Amber Alert/weather/Emergency Alert system here in America. Ugly but true.

We are the proverbial ice man in the face of the new invention, the refridgerator.

This current recession is only the final blow to the thousands of AM and FM stations across America that have been firing your favorite dj’s, overplaying stupid public service announcements because they don’t have a 30 second spot to replace them with, and trying to sell their entire stations for a decade or more, now.

Typical minorities looking for a handout will try to spin this as only a recent catastrophe being bore out on their “communities” worse than others, but the truth is that their time has come, and they are no more special than the poor white communities in Appalachia who love and depend on their local country radio stations. But you don’t see them trying to throw a pity party to rob our beleagured US treasury.

Minority Broadcasters Try Direct Appeal to Geithner, Ask for Industry Help Key legislators also ask treasury secretary to consider financial backing

By John Eggerton — Broadcasting & Cable, July 13, 2009

Fourteen minority broadcasters have sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asking for help for their industry, which they argue is in danger of extinction.

That direct appeal for help followed a letter to the secretary from some key legislators including Majority Whip (and father of FCC commission nominee Mignon Clyburn) Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), and Democratic Reps. Barney Frank (MA) and Charlie Rangel (NY) asking Geithner to "pay attention" to the plight of minority broadcasters. That includes considering help to free up credit and financing government-backed bridge loans, similar to steps taken to help the ailing auto industry.

Helping the auto industry would help broadcasters by extension since, for many, the biggest category of local ad dollars is from car dealerships. But the broadcasters are looking for some direct assistance as well.

In the letter adding their voices to that of the legislators, representatives of Entravision, Inner City Broadcasting, and a dozen others, including National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters James Winston, outlined a stark scenario.

"Unlike the auto business, broadcasting has been healthy for many years and, upon a recovery, could shortly be restored to a path of growth with some temporary assistance," they wrote. "Given the global credit crisis, plummeting ad revenues, no-minority dictates by advertisers, and changes in Arbitron audience measurement, which have further deflated ad pricing, the short-term financial outlook for our broadcasting companies is not good. Many of us are now, or will soon be, weathering significant defaults of our credit facilities. Ironically, the loss of automobile advertising revenues, a substantial source of revenue for broadcast stations, is also weighing heavily on our businesses."

Without that help, they warned, minority ownership, already only in the low single digits as a percentage of all owners could sink even lower. "What will happen to the communities we serve," they asked, "if this once in a lifetime financial crisis completely severs our access to capital and we lose our stations?"

While they said they were not "diminish[ing] the worthiness" of other bailout beneficiaries, they also said it would be "unconscionable to have financial institutions that have accepted billions of federal government assistance foreclose on these vital American voices," voices they pointed out were the "the primary source of news and entertainment for millions of minority communities."

The FCC is currently collecting data on the number of minority owners. The broadcasters’ letter suggests that unless the government steps in that collecting process should be relatively easy since there won’t be very many to count. (source)

Anniversary of a Castroite Massacre

I am reminded of two people every time the subject of Cuba arises:

1) My 70 year-old Cuban neighbor two doors down from me who saw the horrors of Fidel's "glorious revolution" up close and personal in 1959. My girlfriend Pam and I brought some homemade quiche to her and her husband just the other day. For two hours we admired her paintings, pets, and vivid stories of both her escape and family members who haven't yet made it.

2) My former co-worker Braulio who sat in the cubicle next to me. He was the only intellectual in my department who could carry on a conversation about the Left in America, having been himself an immigrant from Cuba. His story is one of incredible perseverance, struggle, and sorrow as he was forced to wait for over ten years to bring his daughter to America, 5 years for his wife.

I always told him that he was more American than most Americans I know. In his late 40's, he worked two jobs in this failing southwest Florida economy, yet considered himself enormously lucky to be in the Land Of The Free.

In the predawn darkness of July 13, 1994, 72 desperate Cubans - old and young, male and female - sneaked aboard a decrepit but seaworthy tugboat in Havana harbor and set off for the U.S. and the prospect of freedom.


Let Jack Nicholson label their captive homeland "a paradise!" Let Bonnie Raitt rasp out her ditty calling it a "Happy Little Island!" Let Ted Turner hail their slavemaster as a "Helluva guy!" Let Democratic party honcho Frank Mankiewics proclaim Castro "one of the most charming men I've ever met!" Let Michael Moore hail the glories of Cuba's healthcare in Sicko. Let Barbara Walters add gravitas while soft-soaping Castro during an "interview": "you have brought great health to your country."


The people boarding that tug knew better. And for a simple reason: the cruel hand of fate had slated them to live under his handiwork.


The lumbering craft cleared the harbor and five foot waves started buffeting the tug. The men sprung to action as the impromptu crew while mothers, sisters and aunts hushed the terrified children, some as young as one. Turning back was out of the question.


A few miles into the turbulent sea, 30-year-old Maria Garcia felt someone tugging her sleeve. She looked down and it was her 10-year-old son, Juan. "Mami, look!" and he pointed behind them toward shore. "What's those lights?"

"Looks like a boat following us, son," she stuttered while stroking his hair. "Calm down, mi hijo (my son). Try to sleep. When you wake up, we'll be with our cousins in a free country. Don't worry." In fact, Maria suspected the lights belonged to Castro patrol boats coming out to intercept them.


In seconds the patrol boats were alongside the tug and - WHACK!! - with its steel prow, the closest patrol boat rammed the back of the tug. People were knocked around the deck like bowling pins. But it looked like an accident, right? Rough seas and all. Could happen to anyone, right?


Hey, WATCH IT!" a man yelled as he rubbed the lump on his forehead. "We have women and children aboard!" Women held up their squalling children to get the point across. If they'd only known.


This gave the gallant Castroites nice targets for their water cannon. WHOOSH! The water cannon was zeroed and the trigger yanked. The water blast shot into the tug, swept the deck and mowed the escapees down, slamming some against bulkheads, blowing others off the deck into the five-foot waves.


"MI HIJO! MI HIJO!" Maria screamed as the water jet slammed into her, ripping half the clothes off her body and ripping Juan's arm from her grasp. "JUANITO! JUANITO!" She fumbled frantically around her, still blinded by the water blast. Juan had gone spinning across the deck and now clung desperately to the tug's railing 10 feet behind Maria as huge waves lapped his legs.


WHACK! Another of the steel patrol boats turned sharply and rammed the tug from the other side. Then - CRACK! another from the front! WHACK! The one from behind slammed them again. The tug was surrounded. It was obvious now: The ramming was NO accident. And in Cuba you don't do something like this without strict orders from WAY above.


"We have women and children aboard!" The men yelled. "We'll turn around! OK?!"


WHACK! the Castroites answered the plea by ramming them again. And this time the blow from the steel prow was followed by a sharp snapping sound from the wooden tug. In seconds the tug started coming apart and sinking. Muffled yells and cries came from below. Turns out the women and children who had scrambled into the hold for safety after the first whack had in fact scrambled into a watery tomb.


With the boat coming apart and the water rushing in around them, some got death grips on their children and managed to scramble or swim out. But not all. The roar from the water cannons and the din from the boat engines muffled most of the screams, but all around people were screaming, coughing, gagging and sinking.


Fortunately, a Greek freighter bound for Havana had happened upon the scene of slaughter and sped to the rescue. NOW one of the Castro boats threw out some life preservers on ropes and started hauling people in, pretending they'd been doing it all along.


Maria Garcia lost her son, Juanito, her husband, brother, sister, two uncles and three cousins in the maritime massacre. In all, 43 people drowned, 11 of them children. Carlos Anaya was 3 when he drowned, Yisel Alvarez 4. Helen Martinez was 6 months old.


And all this death and horror to flee from a nation that experienced net immigration throughout the 20th Century, where boats and planes brought in many more people than they took out - except on vacation.(despite what you saw in The Godfather, actually, in 1950, more Cubans vacationed in the U.S. than Americans in Cuba, as befit a nation with a bigger middle class than Switzerland.)


Thirty one people were finally plucked from the seas and hauled back to Cuba where all were jailed or put under house arrest. They hadn't been through enough, you see. But a few later escaped Cuba on rafts and reached Miami. Hence we have Maria Garcia's gut-wrenching testimony presented to the UN, the OAS and Amnesty International, who all filed "complaints," reports, "protests.".


This was obviously a rogue operation by crazed deviants, you say. No government could possibly condone, much less directly order such a thing! Right?


Wrong. Nothing is random in Cuba. One of the gallant water-cannon gunners was even decorated (personally) by Castro. Perhaps for expert marksmanship. A three-year old child presents a pretty small target. A six-month old baby an even smaller one. "Magnificent job defending the glorious revolution, companero!"


And what about the net result of all the "petitions," "protests," etc. by OAS, the United Nations - by all these revered "multi-lateral" organizations?


Well, just last week OAS president Jose Insulza, between sputtering insults at the antiseptically constitutional government of Honduras, proclaimed his "great respect and admiration for Fidel Castro."


And barely a year and a half after his pre-meditated massacre of women and children, Fidel Castro received an engraved invitation to address the United Nations on its glorious 50th anniversary. Castro was actually the guest of honor. "The Hottest Ticket in Manhattan!" read a Newsweek story that week. "Fidel Takes Manhattan!" crowed Time magazine.


After his 'whoopin, hollering, foot-stomping ovation in the General Assembly ("Castro got, by far, the loudest and warmest reception," Time wrote) Castro plunged into Manhattan's social swirl, hob-knobbing with dozens of gliterattigliteratti, pundits and power brokers.


First, over to Mort Zuckerman's 5th Avenue pad as the guest of honor for a glamorous luncheon. A breathless Tina Brown, Mike Wallace, Bernard Shaw, Dan Rather, Peter Jennings and Barbara Walters were all on hand, clamoring for autographs and photo-ops. Diane Sawyer simply lost it in the child-murderers presence. She rushed up, broke into that toothy smile of hers, wrapped her arms around Castro and smooched him warmly on the cheek.


"You people are the cream of the crop!" Beamed the bearded man of the people to the rapt guests.


"Hear-hear!" chirped the delighted guests while tinkling their wine glasses in appreciation and glee. According to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, on that visit Castro received 250 dinner invitations from American celebrities and power brokers. And who wants to bet a dollar to a donut that today all 250 moan and wail about the "horrors" in Guantanamo.


So what's the alternative if you can't flee Cuba? Well, in 1986 Cuba's suicide rate reached 24 per thousand - making it double Latin America's average, making it triple Cuba's rate during the unspeakable Batista era, making Cuban women the most suicidal in the world, and making death by suicide the primary cause of death for Cubans aged 15-48.


At that point the Cuban government ceased publishing the statistics on the self-slaughter, disguising them as "violent deaths," etc. The implications horrified even Cuba's Stalinist rulers. (source)

MSM Diary: Michael Jackson Was One Of Us; Soldiers And Their Families Are The Little People

Watch CBS Videos Online

Barry In Charge: Hiding Behind Your Attorney General, The Bill Clinton Way

When Bill Clinton failed to send in reinforcements to a disastrous battle in Mogadishu in 1993, which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of 19 US soldiers who were there to dispense food to starving Africans, Clinton asked "What's he so mad at me for? I'm not the General." when a grieving father of one of our dead from that battle told him, "You're not fit to be our commander in chief."

When Waco was used as an example of the crackdown to come from the Clinton administration against its own citizens, Bill hid behind the skirt of a woman who had more testosterone than he did-Janet Reno. 80 innocent Christians, including 20 children, were burned alive as Billy watched on tv, secure in his Oxford-educated mind that none of this tragedy would fall on him.

These are the lessons learned by the student Barry Obama.

Yet another lie from this administration has been rolled out on stage, here, as Barry tries to tell us that he doesn't want criminal investigations to be held against the Bush/Cheney administration over torture issues. Like he said when he told us that he would limit himself to public funding levels during the presidential campaign--and then reneged only months later--we have been treated to a glimpse of things to come for 4 very long years (God help us to make it only 4) from this boy we call Barry.

Here's the latest from his Attorney General, who called Americans a bunch of cowards about race as we put two African Americans at the helm of our great country:

WARNING: You are about to read incredible propaganda from one of the high priests of the MSM. Prepare yourself for fantastical delusions such as: Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration.

(Alberto Gonzales is the first Latino to ever be appointed AG, and the press yawned about that from the beginning of his appointment. You only read of him that his firing of US Attorneys amounted to a breach of the American trust and that he will forever be remembered in terms fit only for agents of Nazi criminals.

Never mind that not only are US Attorneys regularly fired and hired by each administration in American politics, but, indeed, Janet Reno fired more of them in Clinton's first year than President Bush did with both of his AGs in 8 years.)

It's the morning after Independence Day, and Eric Holder Jr. is feeling the weight of history. The night before, he'd stood on the roof of the White House alongside the president of the United States, leaning over a railing to watch fireworks burst over the Mall, the monuments to Lincoln and Washington aglow at either end. "I was so struck by the fact that for the first time in history an African-American was presiding over this celebration of what our nation is all about," he says. Now, sitting at his kitchen table in jeans and a gray polo shirt, as his 11-year-old son, Buddy, dashes in and out of the room, Holder is reflecting on his own role. He doesn't dwell on the fact that he's the country's first black attorney general. He is focused instead on the tension that the best of his predecessors have confronted: how does one faithfully serve both the law and the president?

Alone among cabinet officers, attorneys general are partisan appointees expected to rise above partisanship. All struggle to find a happy medium between loyalty and independence. Few succeed. At one extreme looms Alberto Gonzales, who allowed the Justice Department to be run like Tammany Hall. At the other is Janet Reno, whose righteousness and folksy eccentricities marginalized her within the Clinton administration. Lean too far one way and you corrupt the office, too far the other way and you render yourself impotent. Mindful of history, Holder is trying to get the balance right. "You have the responsibility of enforcing the nation's laws, and you have to be seen as neutral, detached, and nonpartisan in that effort," Holder says. "But the reality of being A.G. is that I'm also part of the president's team. I want the president to succeed; I campaigned for him. I share his world view and values."

These are not just the philosophical musings of a new attorney general. Holder, 58, may be on the verge of asserting his independence in a profound way. Four knowledgeable sources tell NEWSWEEK that he is now leaning toward appointing a prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration's brutal interrogation practices, something the president has been reluctant to do. While no final decision has been made, an announcement could come in a matter of weeks, say these sources, who decline to be identified discussing a sensitive law-enforcement matter. Such a decision would roil the country, would likely plunge Washington into a new round of partisan warfare, and could even imperil Obama's domestic priorities, including health care and energy reform. Holder knows all this, and he has been wrestling with the question for months. "I hope that whatever decision I make would not have a negative impact on the president's agenda," he says. "But that can't be a part of my decision."

Holder is not a natural renegade. His first instinct is to shy away from confrontation, to search for common ground. If he disagrees with you, he's likely to compliment you first before staking out an opposing position. "Now, you see, that's interesting," he'll begin, gently. As a trial judge in Washington, D.C., in the late 1980s and early '90s, he was known as a tough sentencer ("Hold-'em Holder"). But he even managed to win over convicts he was putting behind bars. "As a judge, he had a natural grace," recalls Reid Weingarten, a former Justice Department colleague and a close friend. "He was so sensitive when he sent someone off to prison, the guy would thank him." Holder acknowledges that he struggles against a tendency to please, that he's had to learn to be more assertive over the years. "The thing I have to watch out for is the desire to be a team player," he says, well aware that he's on the verge of becoming something else entirely.

When Holder and his wife, Sharon Malone, glide into a dinner party they change the atmosphere. In a town famous for its drabness, they're an attractive, poised, and uncommonly elegant pair—not unlike the new first couple. But they're also a study in contrasts. Holder is disarmingly grounded, with none of the false humility that usually signals vanity in a Washington player. He plunges into conversation with a smile, utterly comfortable in his skin. His wife, at first, is more guarded. She grew up in the Deep South under Jim Crow—her sister, Vivian Malone Jones, integrated the University of Alabama—and has a fierce sense of right and wrong. At a recent dinner in a leafy corner of Bethesda, Malone drew a direct line from the sins of America's racial past to the abuses of the Guantánamo Bay detention center. Both are examples of "what we have not done in the face of injustice," she said at one point, her Southern accent becoming more discernible as her voice rose with indignation. At the same party, Holder praised the Bush administration for setting up an "effective antiterror infrastructure."

Malone traces many of their differences to their divergent upbringings. "His parents are from the West Indies..he experienced a kinder, gentler version of the black experience," she says. Holder grew up in East Elmhurst, Queens, a lower-middle-class neighborhood in the shadow of New York's La Guardia Airport. The neighborhood has long been a steppingstone for immigrants, but also attracted blacks moving north during the Great Migration. When Holder was growing up in the 1950s, there were fewer houses—mostly semi-detached clapboard and brick homes, like the one his family owned on the corner of 101st Street and 24th Avenue—and more trees. Today the neighborhood is dominated by Mexican, Dominican and South Asian families, with a diminishing number of West Indians and African-Americans.

As we walk up 24th on a recent Saturday, Holder describes for me a happy and largely drama-free childhood. The family was comfortable enough. His father, Eric Sr., was in real estate and owned a few small buildings in Harlem. His mother, Miriam, stayed at home and doted on her two sons. Little Ricky, as he was known, was bright, athletic, and good-natured. As we walk past the baseball diamond where Holder played center field, he recalls how he used to occasionally catch glimpses of Willie Mays leaving or entering his mansion on nearby Ditmas Boulevard. Arriving at the basketball courts of PS 127, Holder bumps into a couple of old schoolyard buddies, greets them with a soul handshake and falls into an easy banter, reminiscing about "back in the day" when they dominated the hardcourt. "Ancient history," says Jeff Aubry, now a state assemblyman. "When gods walked the earth," responds Holder, who dunked for the first time on these courts at age 16.

Holder doesn't dispute the idea that his happy upbringing has led to a generally sunny view of the world. "I grew up in a stable neighborhood in a stable, two-parent family, and I never really saw the reality of racism or felt the insecurity that comes with it," he says. "That edge that Sharon's got—I don't have it. She's more suspicious of people. I am more trusting." There's a pause, and then, with a weary chuckle, one signaling gravity rather than levity, Holder says, "Lesson learned." And then adds, under his breath: "Marc Rich."

The name of the fugitive financier pardoned—with Holder's blessing—at the tail end of the Clinton administration still gnaws at him. It isn't hard to see why. As a Justice Department lawyer, Holder made a name for himself prosecuting corrupt politicians and judges. He began his career in 1976, straight out of Columbia Law School, in the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section, where prosecutors are imbued with a sense of rectitude and learn to fend off political interference. And though Holder has bluntly acknowledged that he "blew it," the Rich decision haunts him. Given his professional roots, he says, "the notion that you would take actions based on political considerations runs counter to everything in my DNA." Aides say that his recent confirmation hearings, which aired the details of the Rich pardon, were in a way liberating; he aspires to no higher office and is now free to be his own man. But his wife says that part of what drives him today is a continuing hunger for redemption.

When I ask Malone the inevitable questions about Rich, she looks pained. "It was awful; it was a terrible time," she says. But she also casts the episode as a lesson about character, arguing that her husband's trusting nature was exploited by Rich's conniving lawyers. "Eric sees himself as the nice guy. In a lot of ways that's a good thing. He's always saying, 'You get more out of people with kindness than meanness.' But when he leaves the 'nice guy' behind, that's when he's strongest."

Any White House tests an attorney general's strength. But one run by Rahm Emanuel requires a particular brand of fortitude. A legendary enforcer of presidential will, Emanuel relentlessly tries to anticipate political threats that could harm his boss. He hates surprises. That makes the Justice Department, with its independent mandate, an inherently nervous-making place for Emanuel. During the first Clinton administration, he was famous for blitzing Justice officials with phone calls, obsessively trying to gather intelligence, plant policy ideas, and generally keep tabs on the department.

One of his main interlocutors back then was Holder. With Reno marginalized by the Clintonites, Holder, then serving as deputy attorney general, became the White House's main channel to Justice. A mutual respect developed between the two men, and an affection endures to this day. (Malone, a well-regarded ob-gyn, delivered one of Emanuel's kids.) "Rahm's style is often misunderstood," says Holder. "He brings a rigor and a discipline that is a net plus to this administration." For his part, Emanuel calls Holder a "strong, independent attorney general." But Emanuel's agitated presence hangs over the building—"the wrath of Rahm," one Justice lawyer calls it—and he is clearly on the minds of Holder and his aides as they weigh whether to launch a probe into the Bush administration's interrogation policies.

Holder began to review those policies in April. As he pored over reports and listened to briefings, he became increasingly troubled. There were startling indications that some interrogators had gone far beyond what had been authorized in the legal opinions issued by the Justice Department, which were themselves controversial. He told one intimate that what he saw "turned my stomach."

It was soon clear to Holder that he might have to launch an investigation to determine whether crimes were committed under the Bush administration and prosecutions warranted. The obstacles were obvious. For a new administration to reach back and investigate its predecessor is rare, if not unprecedented. After having been deeply involved in the decision to authorize Ken Starr to investigate Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, Holder well knew how politicized things could get. He worried about the impact on the CIA, whose operatives would be at the center of any probe. And he could clearly read the signals coming out of the White House. President Obama had already deflected the left wing of his party and human-rights organizations by saying, "We should be looking forward and not backwards" when it came to Bush-era abuses.

Still, Holder couldn't shake what he had learned in reports about the treatment of prisoners at the CIA's "black sites." If the public knew the details, he and his aides figured, there would be a groundswell of support for an independent probe. He raised with his staff the possibility of appointing a prosecutor. According to three sources familiar with the process, they discussed several potential choices and the criteria for such a sensitive investigation. Holder was looking for someone with "gravitas and grit," according to one of these sources, all of whom declined to be named. At one point, an aide joked that Holder might need to clone Patrick Fitzgerald, the hard-charging, independent-minded U.S. attorney who had prosecuted Scooter Libby in the Plamegate affair. In the end, Holder asked for a list of 10 candidates, five from within the Justice Department and five from outside.

On April 15 the attorney general traveled to West Point, where he had been invited to give a speech dedicating the military academy's new Center for the Rule of Law. As he mingled with cadets before his speech, Holder's aides furiously worked their BlackBerrys, trying to find out what was happening back in Washington. For weeks Holder had participated in a contentious internal debate over whether the Obama administration should release the Bush-era legal opinions that had authorized waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods. He had argued to administration officials that "if you don't release the memos, you'll own the policy." CIA Director Leon Panetta, a shrewd political operator, countered that full disclosure would damage the government's ability to recruit spies and harm national security; he pushed to release only heavily redacted versions.

Holder and his aides thought they'd been losing the internal battle. What they didn't know was that, at that very moment, Obama was staging a mock debate in Emanuel's office in order to come to a final decision. In his address to the cadets, Holder cited George Washington's admonition at the Battle of Trenton, Christmas 1776, that "captive British soldiers were to be treated with humanity, regardless of how Colonial soldiers captured in battle might be treated." As Holder flew back to Washington on the FBI's Cessna Citation, Obama reached his decision. The memos would be released in full.

Holder and his team celebrated quietly, and waited for national outrage to build. But they'd miscalculated. The memos had already received such public notoriety that the new details in them did not shock many people. (Even the revelation, a few days later, that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and another detainee had been waterboarded hundreds of times did not drastically alter the contours of the story.) And the White House certainly did its part to head off further controversy. On the Sunday after the memos were revealed, Emanuel appeared on This Week With George Stephanopoulos and declared that there would be no prosecutions of CIA operatives who had acted in good faith with the guidance they were given. In his statement announcing the release of the memos, Obama said, "This is a time for reflection, not retribution." (Throughout, however, he has been careful to say that the final decision is the attorney general's to make.)

Emanuel and other administration officials could see that the politics of national security was turning against them. When I interviewed a senior White House official in early April, he remarked that Republicans had figured out that they could attack Obama on these issues essentially free of cost. "The genius of the Obama presidency so far has been an ability to keep social issues off the docket," he said. "But now the Republicans have found their dream…issue and they have nothing to lose."

Emanuel's response to the torture memos should not have surprised Holder. In the months since the inauguration, the relationship between the Justice Department and the White House had been marred by surprising tension and acrimony. A certain amount of friction is inherent in the relationship, even healthy. But in the Obama administration the bad blood between the camps has at times been striking. The first detonation occurred in only the third week of the administration, soon after a Justice lawyer walked into a courtroom in California and argued that a lawsuit, brought by a British detainee who was alleging torture, should have been thrown out on national-security grounds. By invoking the "state secrets" privilege, the lawyer was reaffirming a position staked out by the Bush administration. The move provoked an uproar among liberals and human-rights groups. It also infuriated Obama, who learned about it from the front page of The New York Times. "This is not the way I like to make decisions," he icily told aides, according to two administration officials, who declined to be identified discussing the president's private reactions. White House officials were livid and accused the Justice Department of sandbagging the president. Justice officials countered that they'd notified the White House counsel's office about the position they had planned to take.

Other missteps were made directly by Holder. Early on, he gave a speech on race relations in honor of Black History Month. He used the infelicitous phrase "nation of cowards" to describe the hair trigger that Americans are on when it comes to race. The quote churned through the cable conversation for a couple of news cycles and caused significant heartburn at the White House; Holder had not vetted the language with his staff. A few weeks later, he told reporters he planned to push for reinstating the ban on assault weapons, which had expired in 2004. He was simply repeating a position that Obama had taken on numerous occasions during the campaign, but at a time when the White House was desperate to win over pro-gun moderate Democrats in Congress. "It's not what we wanted to talk about," said one annoyed White House official, who declined to be identified criticizing the attorney general.

The miscues began to reinforce a narrative that Justice has had a hard time shaking. White House officials have complained that Holder and his staff are not sufficiently attuned to their political needs. Holder is well liked inside the department. His relaxed, unpretentious style—on a flight to Rome in May for a meeting of justice ministers, he popped out of his cabin with his iPod on, mimicking Bobby Darin performing "Beyond the Sea"—has bred tremendous loyalty among his personal staff. But that staff is largely made up of veteran prosecutors and lawyers whom Holder has known and worked with for years. They do not see the president's political fortunes as their primary concern. Among some White House officials there is a not-too-subtle undertone suggesting that Holder has "overlearned the lessons of Marc Rich," as one administration official said to me.

The tensions came to a head in June. By then, Congress was in full revolt over the prospect of Gitmo detainees being transferred to the United States, and the Senate had already voted to block funding to shut down Guantánamo. On the afternoon of June 3, a White House official called Holder's office to let him know that a compromise had been reached with Senate Democrats. The deal had been cut without input from Justice, according to three department officials who did not want to be identified discussing internal matters, and it imposed onerous restrictions that would make it harder to move detainees from Cuba to the United States.

Especially galling was the fact that the White House then asked Holder to go up to the Hill that evening to meet with Senate Democrats and bless the deal. Holder declined—a snub in the delicate dance of Washington politics—and in-stead dispatched the deputy attorney general in his place. Ultimately the measure passed, despite Justice's objections. Obama aides deny that they left Holder out of the loop. "There was no decision to cut them out, and they were not cut out," says one White House official. "That's a misunderstanding."

Holder is clearly not looking to have a contentious relationship with the White House. It's not his nature, and he knows it's not smart politics. His desire to get along has proved useful in his career before, and may now. Emanuel attributes any early problems to the fact that "everyone was getting their sea legs," and insists things have been patched up. "It's not like we're all sitting around singing 'Kumbaya,' " he says, but he insists that Obama got in Holder exactly what he wanted: "a strong, independent leader."

There's an obvious affinity between Holder and the man who appointed him to be the first black attorney general of the United States. They are both black men raised outside the conventional African-American tradition who worked their way to the top of the meritocracy. They are lawyers committed to translating the law into justice. Having spent most of their adult lives in the public arena, both know intimately the tug of war between principle and pragmatism. Obama, Holder says confidently, "understands the nature of what we do at the Justice Department in a way no recent president has. He's a damn good lawyer, and he understands the value of having an independent attorney general."

The next few weeks, though, could test Holder's confidence. After the prospect of torture investigations seemed to lose momentum in April, the attorney general and his aides turned to other pressing issues. They were preoccupied with Gitmo, developing a hugely complex new set of detention and prosecution policies, and putting out the daily fires that go along with running a 110,000-person department. The regular meetings Holder's team had been having on the torture question died down. Some aides began to wonder whether the idea of appointing a prosecutor was off the table.

But in late June Holder asked an aide for a copy of the CIA inspector general's thick classified report on interrogation abuses. He cleared his schedule and, over two days, holed up alone in his Justice Depart ment office, immersed himself in what Dick Cheney once referred to as "the dark side." He read the report twice, the first time as a lawyer, looking for evidence and instances of transgressions that might call for prosecution. The second time, he started to absorb what he was reading at a more emotional level. He was "shocked and saddened," he told a friend, by what government servants were alleged to have done in America's name. When he was done he stood at his window for a long time, staring at Constitution Avenue.(source)

MSM Diary: Making The World Safe From Conservatives

Shhh....listen. Can you hear that? It's the sound of frenzied "journalists" ripping their hair out as they look under every and any rock to persecute Conservatives.

Poor things. They can't find even ONE article from Conservative press that comes as close to slamming Barry as they had during the 8 years of Bush/Cheney. When the newscycles weren't charging President Bush with putting the entire nation on the verge of annihilation over the Iraq War, they regularly turned to his twin daughters-from the case of them partying to sticking out a tongue from a limo, they found NO problem trying to encourage hate and animosity towards him.

Now they are manufacturing idiotic cases of REASONS WHY WE HAVE TO STOP CONSERVATIVES. Out of all of the mismanagement of the US treasury and economic future by the Obama administration, the salient point that the press wants to have us believe is that it really is the Conservatives we have to watch out for.

When they can't find a bona fide article written in the Conservative media or even talk radio to squeal over, they turn to...the comments section on a blog!

"A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."


These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.


The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."


Though this may sound like the sort of thing one might read on an Aryan Nation or white power website, they actually appeared on what is commonly considered one of the prime online locations for U.S. Conservative grassroots political discussion and organizing - and for a short time, the comments seemed to have the okay of site administrators.


Moderators of the blog left the comments - and commenters - in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.


"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?" wrote one commenter.


"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps," wrote another.


Such was the onslaught of derision on the site that the person who originally complained about the slurs, a Kristin N., claims only one comment in the first hundred posted actually criticized the remarks as inappropriate.


A note on the front of the blog reads, "Free Republic does not advocate or condone racism, violence, rebellion, secession, or an overthrow of the government," but one comment on the thread read, "This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution," while another read, "I never actually wnated [sic] to be a pistol before but..."


After attention from other blogs, the thread was suppressed and placed under review, but before long it was returned to the site intact, and attracted a new series of racial slurs when the original complaint email was posted publicly to the site, with the sender's email address intact.


"The writer has a point," wrote site owner Jim Thompson sarcastically. "We should steer clear of Obama's children. They can't help it if their old man is an American-hating Marxist pig."


"I agree Jim," wrote commenter, by the nickname NoobRep. "The kids didn't pick their commie pinko pansy of a father. Nor did they choose to be put into the spotlight. But Obama/Soetoro is fair game and so is his witch of a wife."


"Poor kids. I hope they're not 'punished with a baby'," wrote another. "Hopefully they won't deal cocaine like the Kenyan."


"DIRTBAGS! All of them. Our [White House] is now a joke to the rest of the world. We have no respect and this is not going to turn out well, mark my words. We will be hit, and much worse than last time. We are now seen as weak and vulnerable. Ghetto and Chicago thugs have taken over."


Only after significant negative attention from a host of left wing political blogs did the maintainers of the Free Republic site place the thread under review for a second time, before finally pulling it.


In the wake of the controversy, some Free Republic posters complained about the vitriol.


One poster by the name of "fullchroma" wrote, "To Jim Thompson: The recent uptick here in racist vitriol, aimed at Barrack, Michelle and their children has made me wonder if I belong. My objection to Obama has nothing to do with skin tone. Is the ugly stereotype of Conservative racism true?"


Another, going by the name of TChris, wrote, "Free Republic is a political discussion forum. It SHOULD be beneath us as a group to stoop to such juvenile tactics as I see increasing here lately. Do we REALLY have to insult Mrs. Obama's appearance like a clique of nasty 14-year-old girls?"


But such opinions were not shared by all. Said Roses of Sharon, "Poor libs .... Too late, the battle has been joined." (source)

The Typical Supporter Of Obama: Dr John Duesler, Jr, Of Philadelphia

This is the story of a community leader in Philadelphia who lobbied hard to elect Barry last fall. His name is Dr John Duesler, Jr, of Philadelphia, and he is the man in the suit on the left side of the above picture.

Far from drawing strict generalizations about the wider population of white northeastern liberals, let me just say that it doesn't surprise me to read of this case of bigotry.

Campers "Complexion" No Problem for New Pool

U.S. Senator looking into accusations of racism

For kids in the summertime, there's nothing better than jumping full-speed into a pool to cool off.

So when 65 kids from a Northeast Philadelphia camp were banned from taking a dip at a private swim club because of fears they would "change the complexion" and "atmosphere" -- they couldn't understand why.

Creative Steps Day Camp paid The Valley Swim Club more than $1900 for one day of swimming a week, but after the first day, the money was quickly refunded and the campers were told not to return.

At first there was no explanation, but some of the campers recalled overhearing comments about the color of their skin while at the club.

Then the swim club president John Duesler issued this statement: "There was concern that a lot of kids would change the complexion … and the atmosphere of the club."

But what does that matter? They just wanna swim.

So the staff at Girard College, a private Philadelphia boarding school for children who live in low-income and single parent homes, stepped in and offered their pool.

"We had to help," said Girard College director of Admissions Tamara Leclair. "Every child deserves an incredible summer camp experience."

The school already serves 500 campers of its own, but felt they could squeeze in 65 more – especially since the pool is vacant on the day the Creative Steps had originally planned to swim.

"I'm so excited," camp director Alethea Wright exclaimed. There are still a few logistical nuisances like insurance the organizations have to work out, but it seems the campers will not stay dry for long.

The banning has caused so much controversy that U.S. Senator Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) plans to launch an investigation into the discrimination claim.

"The allegations against the swim club as they are reported are extremely disturbing," Specter said in a statement. "I am reaching out to the parties involved to ascertain the facts. Racial discrimination has no place in America today." (source)

So what are we to make of this country club president, Mr John Duesler, Jr? Sounds like your typical Conservative, you say?

Not so.

Indeed, we see that Mr. Duesler is the leader of a civic group alligned with Barry, which openly campaigned for his election.

This typical parlor room liberal even fronts as a community leader who lectures others on peace in formally European-run African nations and preaches about healing, reconciliation, and the elimination of apartheid.

Ironic, isn't it? The good liberal holds clinics during the week to show how multicultural he is, but what's really inside him and all false liberals is the heart of an apologist for racism.

MSM Diary: When They Finally Get It Right (the John Ziegler radio interview with Sarah Palin)

Of course I don't mean to besmirch the excellent work of John Ziegler with the moniker of MSM (mainstream media), but this report of mine is part of a series on this blog, and thus is labled under my "MSM Diary" series.

I respect the immensely important work that Mr Ziegler has accomplished for the past couple of years, and advise anyone reading this blog to check out his website, howobamagotelected.

If you're like me, a long-time student of American politics, you have no doubt about the overwhelming tilt of American television and print news agencies to the left. Part of the reason I started this blog was to chronicle the daily events in American politics, highlighting the way that our media serves us their take on the news.

Luckily, John Ziegler's painstaking work is available in video form, for those of us who find it exhausting to keep up with the massive amount of lies, distortions, and propaganda that our electronic and print media try to force us to believe. His documentary is called Media Malpractice, and you can order it here.

MSM Diary: We Hate It When The Table Is Turned On Us (the Sarah Palin/David Letterman episode on MSNBC)

MSM Diary: The Lynching Of Sarah Palin

MSM Diary: With Blood On Our Hands, We Still Want To Hurt Sarah Palin

How It All Came To Be: Media Malpractice Trailer

How It All Came To Be: A Refresher Course On The Racial Aspect Of Obama's Support

How It All Came To Be: A Refresher Course On The Average Obama Supporter

Independence Day Rally At Cape Coral, Florida, 7/03/09: Tom Walsh

Independence Day Rally At Cape Coral, Florida, 7/03/09: Businesswoman Kris

Independence Day Rally At Cape Coral, Florida, 7/03/09: The Calendar Girls

Independence Day Rally At Cape Coral, Florida, 7/03/09: Mike Chanopolis Delivers A Great Lesson On The Constitution

Barry In Charge: Keeping A Muzzle On Your Vice President (how we own Israel's response to threats against their nation)

At 4:03 in this next clip, you can hear CNN help clear up the confusion of the Obama administration over whether Israel should make the determination of their own self defense without America applying pressure in the form of "open doors" [meaning to allow Iran more time to develop their nuclear strike capability in order to achieve their oft-recited goal of destroying Israel].

Of course, you have to sit through a bookend of softball questions from the CNN reporter that NEVER happened for George W Bush or Ronald Reagan in this embarrassing clip.

The US has "absolutely not" given Israel a green light for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, US President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

Obama was qualifying comments Vice President Joe Biden had made Sunday that left the impression the US would not stand in the way of an Israeli action.

"We have said directly to the Israelis that it is important to try and resolve this in an international setting in a way that does not create major conflict in the Middle East," said Obama, currently in Russia, during a CNN interview.

Obama said it was "very important that I'm as clear as I can be, and our administration is as consistent as we can [be] on this issue."

The president said that Biden had simply been stating the "categorical fact" that "we can't dictate to other countries what their security interests are. What is also true is that it is the policy of the United States to resolve the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities in a peaceful way through diplomatic channels," he said.

On Sunday, Biden was asked on ABC's This Week whether the US would stand in the way militarily if Israel decided to take out Iran's nuclear program.

The US "cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do," he said.

"Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else," he said.

Israel had no formal comment on either the Obama or Biden remarks.

Nevertheless, the IDF has taken into consideration the possibility that it will not receive US permission to fly over Iraq on the way to Iran, and has drawn up an operational plan for this contingency. While its preference is to coordinate with the US, defense officials have said in the past that Israel was preparing a wide range of options for such an operation.

The Washington Times reported Tuesday that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his top deputies had not formally asked for US aid or permission for a possible military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, since they feared the White House would not approve.

The report quoted two unnamed Israeli officials.

An anonymous senior Israeli official was quoted as saying that Netanyahu was determined that "it made no sense" to press the matter after the negative response former US president George W. Bush.

Bush gave the prime minister's predecessor, Ehud Olmert, a negative answer when he asked early last year for US assistance for possible military strikes on Iran.

"There was a decision not to press this because it was probably inadequate for the engagement policy and what we know about Obama's approach to Iran," the official said.(source)

Sweetness & Light: Illegal Immigration

This little exchange between myself and "bronzeprofessor" serves as something of an illustration about American politics. There are those who try to tell Conservatives (and Republicans, even though the two camps aren't interchangeable), that for us to remain a viable party in future campaigns/elections, we need to change or "soften" our message.

But the same simpletons who point at George W. Bush as the standardbearer of Conservatism conveniently forget that he tried to grant millions of criminals an amnesty disguised as a "track to citizenship" repeatedly during his terms.

They cite poll statistics that never show a cataclysmic reduction in our numbers (Barry got 52.7% of the general electorate this time around, in a year that saw massive effort by the MSM, George Soros, and "brand fatigue" against the GOP all add up to an election result that was completely written even before John McCain scolded the first Conservative on the campaign trail.), but some people think that every tiny movement in numbers deserves a "redefining" of our message.

We don't "alter" our message because one-tenth of any particular voting bloc switches against our party in any given election cycle. Banana republics buy votes with socialistic promises of goodies from year to year, so eager to research what new bribe they can ply a win with from the masses.

After a while, you have a nation full of people who not only can't think for themselves, but are accustomed to having politicians pander to them. They don't vote for ideals. They vote for charlatans.

This is the article at Sweetness & Light which started the discussion thread:

U.S. Shifts Strategy on Illicit Work by Immigrants
By JULIA PRESTON

July 3, 2009


Immigration authorities had bad news this week for American Apparel, the T-shirt maker based in downtown Los Angeles: About 1,800 of its employees appeared to be illegal immigrants not authorized to work in the United States.

But in contrast to the high-profile raids that marked the enforcement approach of the Bush administration, no federal agents with criminal warrants stormed the company’s factories and rounded up employees. Instead, the federal immigration agency sent American Apparel a written notice that it faced civil fines and would have to fire any workers confirmed to be unauthorized.

The treatment of American Apparel, which has more than 5,600 factory employees in Los Angeles alone, is the most prominent demonstration of a new strategy by the Obama administration to curb the employment of illegal immigrants by focusing on employers who hire them — and doing so in a less confrontational manner than in years past.

Unlike the approach of the Bush administration, which brought criminal charges in its final two years against many illegal immigrant workers, the new effort makes broader use of fines and other civil sanctions, federal officials said Thursday…

On Wednesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency known as ICE, said it had sent notices announcing audits of hiring records, like the one it conducted at American Apparel, to 652 other companies across the country. Officials said they were picking up the pace of such audits, after performing 503 of them in 2008…

The Obama administration’s new approach, unveiled in April, seems to be moving away from the raids that advocates for immigrants said had split families, disrupted businesses and traumatized communities. But the outcome will still be difficult for illegal workers, who will lose their jobs and could face deportation, the advocates said…

Executives at American Apparel were both relieved and dismayed after receiving the warning from the immigration agency of discrepancies in the hiring documents of about one-third of its Los Angeles work force. The company has 30 days to dispute the agency’s claims and give immigrant employees time to prove that they are authorized to work in the United States, immigration officials said. If they cannot, the company must fire them, probably within two months.

But no criminal charges were lodged against the company and no workers have been arrested, American Apparel executives and immigration officials said…

American Apparel and its outspoken chief executive, Dov Charney, have waged a campaign, emblazoned on T-shirts sold across the country, criticizing the immigration crackdown of recent years and calling on Congress to “Legalize L.A.” by granting legal status to illegal immigrants…

At a news conference last year, Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa of Los Angeles publicly lauded Mr. Charney for helping the city with its faltering economy by providing “the dream of a steady paycheck and good benefits for countless workers.”

While it has been no secret that American Apparel’s largely Latino work force probably included many illegal immigrants, Mr. Schey said the company had been careful to meet legal hiring requirements. Many illegal immigrants use convincingly forged Social Security cards or other fake documents when seeking work…

Immigration officials, who asked not to be identified because the case is continuing, said the fines to American Apparel so far were about $150,000…

Angelica Salas, the executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, an advocacy group, said she welcomed the end to “showboat enforcement raids.” But in the end, Ms. Salas said, “there is still enforcement of laws that are broken,” adding, “The workers will still lose their jobs.”

Mr. Obama is effectively de-criminalizing the hiring of illegal aliens.

Which, lest we forget, was the major sop to the opposition in the initial amnesty legislation, the so-called Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, that was passed during the Reagan administration:

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
The law criminalized the act of knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant and established financial and other penalties for those employing illegal aliens under the theory that low prospects for employment would reduce illegal immigration. It introduced the I-9 form to ensure that all employees presented documentary proof of their legal eligibility to accept employment in the United States.

[Admin comments]

So what is Mr. Obama’s message here to employers?

Who will not be willing to risk the piddling fines, when you can save much more money by hiring illegal aliens?

[Reader comments]
GetBackJack July 3, 2009 at 2:45 pm
I’m confused.
Labor Unions are primary backers of the Obama Syndicate.
Many of the jobs illegal aliens take are jobs formerly in the sphere of Unions.
I don’t see how it’s possible to split this fence rail into equal parts both sides will like.

Reply
bronzeprofessor July 3, 2009 at 2:52 pm
Bingo, GetBack. I was about to post something to that effect.

The key here is to understand not what the Times reports, but rather, how the NY Times is trying to spin it. Essentially there isn’t much difference between Obama and Bush on this question; Bush was NEVER hard-headed about immigration raids, and that’s why conservatives attacked him on that issue.

The NY Times is trying to

(1) reinforce the myth that Republicans hate, while Democrats love, Latinos,

(2) reinforce the myth that Democrats are markedly different from, and better than, Bush.

(3) reinforce that Bushism and Republicanism are the exact same thing, and

(4) make it seem as though the Democrats are simultaneously helping Latinos and helping labor unions, when in fact they are doing neither and breaking promises to both.

Conservatives, we must stay on top of this. Kudos to Steve Gilbert; more sites like this one are needed — every time a spin is spun such as this, immediately, conservatives have to publish point-by-point clarifications so liberals cannot camouflage who they are in a cloud of language.

I think, to our credit, we are getting better at exposing liberals, which is why the polling has moved out of the Democrats’ favor. Keep up the good work.

Robert O. Lopez

PS. I think, I should add, I have many reasons to hope that Latinos are in play for 2010 and 2012. The Right should never fall into identity politics, but at the same time, it’s a good idea to articulate what the Right’s position is on all these issues without resorting to cheap shots that sound (even if they aren’t) racist. I do believe Latinos and Republicans would be a match made in Heaven. Pretend, for a while, that there is a courtship between the two and the initial Jane-Austen-like resistance has to be melted with gentle nudges.

tranquil.night July 3, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Well the union loyalists are taken care of. They’ll get placed on union boards or invited to join ACORN, haha. The blue-collar workers who lose their jobs – well that’s just the bad economy which is Bush’s fault or it’s the fault of the greedy business for trying to hold onto it’s unjust profits. And finally of course, the number of Americans that will not get hired now because of this simply won’t be reported.

There’s quite a few irrational splits like this in Liberal ideology that one would think would logically expose their hypocrisy. Most intelligent Liberals know this and have come up with lies or spin to combat it for decades; false premises and distracting (emotional) arguments which were then carried by the media until they eventually became ‘truth.’ (Kudos to B.P.’s comments there).

It’s likely with the libs in complete control these oddities are more and more going to be noteworthy for the masses. Afterall, with little to no republican opposition to demonize the libs will just start hating eachother. They already are. And yes, as this is happening, such is the golden opportunity for conservatives to articulate the alternative to this murky sophistry and reach people of all races, nationalities, and demographics. Thank you internet.

Howard Roark July 3, 2009 at 3:30 pm
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Great point, GBJ.

As we follow this line of thinking, though, I think we need to apply some brakes to our race to the conclusion that we can appeal to “Latinos” on this issue of illegal immigration alone. It is all too easy to assume that “Latinos” are a monolithic voting bloc, driven to equal conclusions on the matter of deportation, illegal raids, etc.

We edge towards the point of political suicide when we sacrafice our principles for the sake of gainning a few more votes. Our message becomes too fuzzy, and eventually there won’t be a clear flag to rally behind. Worse yet, after we water-down our stance on such issues, the other side will be able to define us (already happened) because they own the MSM.

Having lived in south Florida for the last 5 years, witnessing the 85,000 Latino march in my local streets in 2006, it was refreshing and surprising to listen to my Latin co-workers who hated the illegals who formed that swell. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard the Cuban/Mexican/Honduran ex-pat here in America extol the reasons why they legally emmigrated to the USA, and further decry the many criminals from their country who arrive here illegally. We all need to pinch ourselves when we think that we can appeal to Latinos in 2010, 2012, or anytime in the future because we show them a “softer” approach to the criminals in our midst we call “illegals”.

bronzeprofessor July 3, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Howard, AMEN! Thank you very much for a wonderful and astute post.

Take it from a Latino Republican, folks: Time is on the side of conservatives! Most Latinos are deeply religious, hard working, and pro-military. It’s true — we’re “macho” in the sense that we admire strength, traditional families, and self-reliance. We hate sissies, laziness, and people who talk out of both sides of their mouth.

We also don’t care as much about school as other ethnic groups — but that’s a good thing. Fewer of us are being indoctrinated in the gauntlet of elite liberal colleges.

And most importantly, we are much more than the immigration issue. For 2006 and 2008, the Democrats’ scare tactics worked and they convinced the brown voters taht the Republicans were out to get us and we would be backing racists if we voted conservative. But like all scare tactics, that canard has a short shelf life. Eventually more substantive issues surface, and Hispanics will get irritated with the pointless condescending identity politics (Sotomayor), the bad economy (how ‘ bout those utility bills?), the cuts to defense (great — fewer slots open for those millions of gung-ho Latinos who want to be Marines), and the abortions (ever talked to a Latino Catholic or evangelical about abortion?)

My one plea to conservatives is, just be patient, stay your ground! Howard is right; many Latinos who are voters do not like unfettered illegal immigration since our neighborhoods bear the brunt of the illegal saturation. One week ago, there was a stabbing across the street from my apartment — a black gang and a Hispanic gang. Illegal immigration makes the gang violence worse, and eventually latinos will reward Republicans for speaking for those of us who follow the law, want to serve our country, and expect decency in our neighborhoods.

The most important thing is simply to strive always to articulate the anti-illegal-immigration position in a clear way that the Democrats cannot caricature as racist. It’s sad we have to be so self-conscious, but a dose of self-consciousness and careful choice of words will pay off in 2010 and 2012. I have high hopes.

proreason July 3, 2009 at 7:07 pm
“Most Latinos are deeply religious, hard working, and pro-military.”

You said it Professor.

Libwits are working hard to turn Latinos into a dependent class, just like they did with African Americans.

You know, we all are angry about illegal immigration…..but the reason you don’t hear me railing about it as much as other things is because the vast majority come here and work their asses off. Maybe they get some free benefits, but they sure are working hard when I see them.

Hispanics and conservatives share a lot of values. I hope they realize what a con man the Moron is.

Howard Roark July 4, 2009 at 12:15 am
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Hispanics and conservatives share a lot of values. I hope they realize what a con man the Moron is.

Right on, PR. We all are waiting patiently for not only those unconvinced Latinos to see the Conservative in their mirrors, but all of the union men and women who vote Dem every cycle, as well.

If I’ve read your musings accurately, PR, I believe that you are a lawyer. I can understand your feelings about illegal immigration, if that is so. I’m not sure how many adult years you may have spent doing something other than law, and I certainly don’t want to assume where your heart is concerning such…but I come to the issue of illegal immigration as a man who has had to swing a hammer for a living a few times in my life, along with washing dishes, painting cars, and such.

Perhaps I am sensitive to the issue because I realize that the wages for those jobs (which I still occasionally find myself needing, despite 2 college degrees) don’t keep up with the cost of living, come with no benefits, and are unfairly depressed yearly because of the loose immigration policies of this country I went to war for almost 20 years ago.

Let’s just say that it is sadly ironic that returning vets aren’t greeted with better jobs and security in America, where an illegal and his family can be treated to better health care, better wages than what he knew in his home country, and less stress and worry over paying the bills that comes from playing by the rules (paying car insurance, a lifetime of taxes/medicare/medicaid/ss/health insurance/etc).

So many of the bills that must be paid by an honest American who makes 10 dollars an hour siding houses with no benefits are forgiven for the illegal who also makes 10 dollars an hour siding houses.

Again, I’m not saying that you aren’t sensitive to this reality, PR. I’m just expressing why I feel the way I do about illegal immigration, as long as we’re bearing our souls about this issue. When you’ve spent a lifetime groping for that better pay, while still remaining an honest man who doesn’t drive without car insurance, or start a family without the means to pay for it, or abuse the emergency room system for health care, you begin to understand the Civil War a little better.

The plantation owners who used slave labor operated from a system that they inherited, to be sure. We all focus on only one aspect of it: the racist angle. What is forgotten is the other evil of it: the depressed wages and lack of jobs for the rest of us who need those jobs. Indeed, the biggest arguments of the 19th century in American Congress were over whether the new territories/states would be slaveholding states or not. Labor was the crux of it, not the racist aspect of it, mostly. The war between the states went a long way to fixing it, then. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the only way we’ll fix it now.

And through it all, you don’t hear ONE time me say that it is a Mexican/S American problem, and focus this on them. Neither do any of the redneck, tobacco-spittin’ blue collar workers I grew up with and encounter now. This unfair fear that we Conservatives all have a racist tendency towards illegals and that we need to be extra careful isn’t born from any reality I’ve encountered, and it is going to be the death of us.

What instead needs to be articulated is to name names when you encounter some racist behavior, and quit taking the isolated incident out on the whole class. I dare say that when you hear the language of bigotry towards Latinos, 9 times out of 10 it is an uneducated dolt who never shows up on this forum or even understands what Conservatism means.

But, unfortunately, the myth that Southerners are all racist Archie Bunkers is still practiced by professors and other elitists on both coasts and in between. I’m tired of it, and I’ve seen 40 years of our coffin being nailed shut because of it. We have nothing to apologize for, and we need to stand up for ourselves before our epitaph is written.

bronzeprofessor July 4, 2009 at 12:31 am
Howard, Just to back you up, most–in fact, nearly all–of the racism I have encountered as a 1/2 Latino and 1/2 Asian male, has come from white Democrats, AFrican Americans, or assimilated Latinos who think like white liberals and view recent Latino immigrants as embarrassingly sexist relics.

I still look at the relationship between Latinos and conservatives as a courtship. Latinos identify as “conservative” at about the same rate as the general population. But only about 30% of Latinos are Republican. So in a sense, conservatives and Latinos would be wedded much more strongly, if their shared values were clearer. The challenge, however, is that conservatives are inherently against identity politics, so they do not like the idea of approaching Latinos as a group [Rush said very eloquently at CPAC that conservatives do not naturally speak to people as groups, but as people.] I think conservatives should be authentic, and stick to their values, and eventually the ice will melt with Latinos and the old stereotype of RIght=racist will melt away.

I say, think of it as a courtship. When a man and a women who would make a great match are first getting to know each other, just a little bit of heightened consideration goes a long way into making each other comfortable. On the first or second date you won’t joke about a woman’s weight, or tell her hairspray smells too strong. Once you’re comfortable you go deeper.

Same thing as conservative whites and Latinos get to know each other better. Talk about religion, the military, taxes, our mutual struggles. Don’t feel that you need to bring up immigration when you’re talking to a Latino, just because he’s Latino; if the topic comes up, don’t feel like you have to avoid it just because he’s Latino. But focus the bulk of the conversation on shared interests and keep discussion of immigration to a minimum, since it’s a sore issue for lots of Hispanics, like talking about dieting with a woman on the first date.

Howard Roark July 4, 2009 at 1:39 am
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Thanks, BP, for buttressing my emotions on the subject.

I understand your desire for a “courtship” between Conservatives and Latinos. I caught that when you originally said that the initial Jane-Austen-like resistance has to be melted with gentle nudges. I just don’t go for the reasoning that the target which needs to learn that lesson is Conservatives. (of course there are exceptions to every rule, but I’m speaking generally, here.)

I mean, if you’ve lived a life like I have, you’ve encountered average Conservatives meet, mix, and love people from other ethnicities/cultures all of your life. When I was in S Korea I served with uneducated, inarticulate, simple men who were definitely Conservative in their value system/worldview who ended up meeting, dating, then marrying S Korean women who came from POLAR OPPOSITE origins than them.

I saw average Conservatives volunteer for hardship military tours just so their foreign wives could be closer to their kin for another year. I saw average Conservative men give up their day’s rations for the native children who ran up to them in foreign villages. I saw average Conservative men risk their lives for the Mexican with them.

These aspects of average, rural, redneck people who call themselves Conservative aren’t surprising to my kind of people. When you go to churches that are nothing more than clapboard shanties in the mountains, you see the kindness towards blacks, Latinos, and others pour forth in very humbling ways. The mountain folk who have never been outside their state eagerly reach into their pockets to give to those who don’t look like them at all.

I just don’t know why you think we need to be taught your lesson of “courtship” more than any other group. I mean, it’s a nice thought, but in my life, I’ve seen that the most alarming prejudice and lack of understanding comes from the pompous, self-assured elite (the Left) concerning those of us they consider “in need of education.”

bronzeprofessor July 4, 2009 at 1:54 am
Howard, I think you might be focusing a little too much on the “professor” part of my name. (I caught your remark about professors being elitists). I’d change the screen name to something less obnoxious, maybe that will help.

I’m not teaching you a lesson, and no, I don’t think conservatives need to hear that lesson more than anyone else. I’m just reflecting on the issues you raised and sharing some strategies, take it or leave it. I apologize if it comes across as condescending, but there were some real historical events that made me feel like posting a small paragraph at the end of my first post in this thread. The fact remains that in 2008, Obama won a national election and now I am bound to serve him as Commander in Chief, because of several swing groups that did not react well to a conservative message. One swing group was Latinos, who went from voting 44% for Bush to voting 31% for McCain. If a different strategy might in the future help me avoid having to serve under a CIC with whom I disagree, then I would be happy to promote such a strategy.

The original article was from the NY Times, and if you read what I first wrote, I said it’s important that conservatives react to liberal spin and that’s where this whole discussion came from. You have a lifetime of experience and I like hearing about it. I also come from a lifetime of experience, which includes working in factories and signing up for the military and struggling and being born again as a Christian and all that fun stuff. I’ve worked with hammers too! And I’ve packed boxes and moved stuff, and soon I’ll be in boot camp, if it makes my statements any more authoritative.

Included in my experience are observations of the way political discussion unfolds. Liberals often distort what conservatives say. As you point out, conservatives are often less racist than liberals, but liberals are shrewd at twisting everything around. I wish Latinos weren’t susceptible to liberal distortions, but many of them are.

Just so you know, I often challenge liberals on the way they discuss race, and I am much harsher toward them because I disagree with their actual philosophy about race (I don’t disagree with conservatives.) I often complain about liberals when I post on this site. But liberals don’t read this site, so when I post on here, I am usually not giving them “lessons.”

I hope that clears up any misunderstanding. To be honest, I really don’t care enough about race to feel all that strongly about these issues. BUt if I were to go back and erase my original posts, then a lot of this discussion thread wouldn’t make sense. So take my current stance as a white flag — I surrender. :)

Howard Roark July 4, 2009 at 3:08 am
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I appreciate this exchange, BP, but at the risk of beating a dead horse, I will quote one of my favorite thinkers, Dennis Prager: I prefer clarity to agreement. And just to clarify:

I’m not focused on your moniker, “professor”. Having spent many hours in debate/discussion with my own professors in my college career, I am not enamored, impressed, or distracted by someone who names himself “bronzeprofessor” on the internet. Whether you believe it or not, I can focus on your words instead of your name or race. You’re not talking to one of your students, here.

My mentioning of “professors and elitists” wasn’t directed at you at all. After all, you’ve repeatedly identified yourself as a Conservative (plus I am familiar with your orientation from when you were Latinos4JohnnyMac on the old site, Get Drunk And Vote 4 McCain.) So please don’t think I’m indirectly speaking to you when I mention professors in the context I did.

And as far as “sharing some strategies”, I didn’t know that I (or the fine contributors to this site) was in need of them. I, too, appreciate your experiences, but my post on this thread wasn’t one of “what do we do about this?” Your response was full of ways that we Conservatives need to conduct ourselves, and I’m thinking that you may have rushed to an answer that didn’t have a question. Some of us have learned about race relations in our everyday travels, and that is all I was trying to relay.

After all, since we’re the ones who forged a warm, tolerant, charitable place for Latinos to escape their origins to, isn’t it possible that after all of the examples of Conservative principles we’ve shown and politely discussed, it isn’t US that need to further explain ourselves, but THEM who need to listen?

And don’t worry about emploring us to ply your strategies of talking about common struggles and shared experiences to Latinos. We already have been, and that’s what I was trying to tell you. You can’t read statistics on Latino voting turnout from year to year and conclude that it is us who need to change. When we do that, we end up being played by people who are used to voting for he who promises the biggest goodies at election time. Most Latinos I know understand that.

bronzeprofessor July 4, 2009 at 3:54 am
Howard, happy July 4th. This is getting very personal and there isn’t more to be said. (source)