The salient thing about J. Christian Adams‘s accusation that the Obama administration deliberately let off the New Black Panther Party after it engaged in voter intimidation is that, if true, it constitutes a pure exercise in the abuse of power. The other wrongs it represents — the perversion of the electoral process, the violation of civil rights — are secondary. The most serious allegation in the whole affair is that the certain officials countenanced a crime because they wanted to. The most concentrated expression of tyranny is malice in the service of caprice.
Adams was a Department of Justice lawyer who resigned in disgust after “we were ordered to dismiss the case. I mean we were told drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party. It’s the easiest case I ever had at the Justice Department. It doesn’t get any easier than this. If this doesn’t constitute voter intimidation, nothing will. .. ”
Like the recently concluded Robert Wone case — in which three gay men were acquitted of the murder of a man in their apartment — the New Black Panther incident pits a politically powerful minority against ordinary victims. The public is asked to understand the situation from the perspective of the underdog. What does it matter if men in New Black Party uniforms paced across a voting precinct? They’re just evening the score. Or so we are told. But in situations where the world’s largest midget fights the world’s smallest giant the “correct narrative” is no longer so obvious; just who is bigger is no longer clear and the system by rights should fall back on the law itself and ask itself “who really violated the law.”
But the habits of political correctness are so ingrained that even this logical parachute fails to open. In the Wone case, even when the judge is inclined to find the stories of the three defendants preposterous, the word “guilty” can hardly be pronounced. The Washington Post reports that Judge “Leibovitz said she believed that the three defendants know who killed Wone, but that the prosecution failed to prove that they did. It came down to the reasonable doubt standard, she said.” The Wone case is singular for the questions that were not asked and the media coverage that never materialized. The Washington Post question and answer gives a flavor of what was left off the books.
I want to raise a bit of an uncomfortable topic. In the early stages of the investigation, the media reported that human semen (perhaps his own) was found on the body of Mr. Wone. I did not read anything about it once the trial started. Were the reports accurate? If so, was it raised at the trial, and what were the conclusions? …
Keith Alexander: It is indeed a delicate question but a question I have been getting from readers via email and letters for weeks now. Yes, when the men were arrested in 2008 for obstruction of justice and conspiracy, prosecutors said Wone had been sexually assaulted. They based their conclusion on the fact that his own DNA was found on him, well, in his rectum area. Defense attorneys said Wone was never sexually assaulted and produced a medical expert during motions who said the Wone may have discharged the semen as he was dying. The government decided not to pursue the sexual assault theory primarily because this was a conspiracy trial, not a murder or sexual assault trial, so such details would have just distracted a jury from the actual case. So they agreed to leave it out, before the defense requested not to have a jury trial and instead allow the judge to hear the case.
Despite the sensational elements in both the Black Panther and Robert Wone cases there has been very little media coverage of the incidents. Wikipedia notes that “Camille Paglia commented that the relative lack of news coverage for the crime ‘appears to be a blatant case of politically correct censorship’”. The Washington Post was asked about the empty media seats at the Wone trial. It was as if they had been forced to witness a plague.
Washington, D.C.: Are you aware of 20/20 or Dateline doing an episode on this case? It would seem perfect for their audience.
Keith Alexander: Dateline had a reserved seat in the courtroom during the trial, but I only saw someone in that seat a few times. So I really don’t know. Never saw anyone from 20/20.
It was left to elements of the gay community to appoint themselves the strongest advocates of justice for Robert Wone. Some of them banded together to start the website Who Murdered Robert Wone? and the depth of their coverage, its professionalism and thoroughness, has put much of the MSM to shame. They at all events had not forgotten that they shared a common humanity with Robert Wone. Perhaps they were emboldened, and not a little empowered by the knowledge that in demanding justice for the victim, they could not be accused of the greater crime of homophobia. It is demotion of crime — even murder — to the shibboleths of political correctness that is the most remarkable aspect of both cases. Albert Camus had remarked on it before: “on the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence — through a curious transposition peculiar to our times — it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself.” Camus’ mistake was to believe this reversal was peculiar to Hitler or Stalin. It now threatens to become a fixture of the modern world.
So though it is theoretically irrelevant, it is probably unfortunate that J. Christian Adams, the Justice Department lawyer who resigned over the mishandling of the New Black Panther case, is white. In our politically correct world, it would have been far better had he been black, because just as those who are seeking justice for Robert Wone are themselves gay, the case against voter intimidation would have been immeasurably strengthened if the complainants had been persons of color.
The greatest damage that political correctness has inflicted on society is to make each of us forget that underneath the accidents of color, nationality and creed, that all of us are men. By dividing humanity into hyphenated buckets, each sequestered in its hate, the puppet masters have managed to set one against the other so thoroughly that the sharpers, wheeler-dealers and fixers can operate undisturbed. In a world where every one thinks of himself as white, black, gay, straight — we have forgotten that the real distinction is between who holds power and who does not. Nothing else matters. The Black Panthers and the three men who are suspected of killing Robert Wone are not impotent underdogs. On the contrary, they wield far more power than we, in our normal lives, could ever dispose of. God grant we never meet them, for if we do, we meet them alone. W.H. Auden, himself a homosexual man, understood that survival in hyphenation was impossible. He wrote:
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
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all of us are men
Now you have done it wretchard. Elena Kagan would rip you to shreds if she gets the chance. You could become a candidate for womyn’s empowerment through community based delayed post fertilization rectification.
Yeah. What he said.
My perception is being managed to think that a race war in America will be agit-prop’ed into riots that can then be used as an excuse to declare Martial Law and suspend elections that they never intended to have.
The politically incorrect High-T segment has just about had enough provocation to react, which is exactly what TPTB are waiting for.
Having just read Peter Schweizer’s “Architects Of Ruin”, and seeing what sort of administrations have been elected in both the US and Australia in recent years, I have to surmise that we have already passed the point where the average voter has any chance at grasping the realities – given the way daily events in our world are rewritten almost the instant they occur. Political correctness is the constantly reappearing zombie, the indelible shadow across our nations. Everything is reinterpreted through a PC prism, and the re-education doesn’t have to be done in gulags. It is beamed to every modern media outlet, just like some ghoulish Dr Who episode where the mass mind controller has the evil Santas on the march through Greater London.
Cannoneer No. 4 @3: “My perception is being managed to think that a race war in America will be agit-prop’ed into riots that can then be used as an excuse to declare Martial Law and suspend elections that they never intended to have.”
Almost right.
I am one who thinks the man calling himself “Barack Obama” is a puppet. I realize that others think him an evil genius, but he seems conspicuously stupid to me.
Anyway, his inventors expected much, much more mileage out of his self-proclaimed “gift”. And, I must say, the 2008 election gave them reason to so expect. But it’s now clear that, as they say, “money talks and bullshit walks”, and their gifted puppet is not getting the job done.
I think they will eliminate him, to serve two purposes: First, he’s gone as far as he can, and, second, to precipitate an enormous crisis, the likes of which we haven’t seen since 1861.
After all, 3 days after Jackie Kennedy complained that JFK’s death was meaningless because, in her own words, “he was killed by a stupid little communist”, the MSM had the whole country believing that he was done in by “right-wing hate”. The opportunity for a reprise here, with an Executive Branch comprised of Stalinists at the second to fifth echelons, is just too good for the Left to pass up – so they won’t.
Remember that you heard it here.
Remember the summer of 2008? The bank runs and fuel spikes that some are convinced (me for one) were set up to go off ‘on their own’, but were dragging into June without any running crowds or parabolic graph lines YET, and so, with November’s election making for antsy, Chuck Schumer was trotted out to say –from his position as senator from wall street –that if he had his money in Indybank he’d get it out ASAP.
Bingo, bank run. Nobody ever much questioned the astonishing spectacle of a senior US Senator blabbing up a bank run (all such moral nuance having long since been collapsed by “Legal Crime Bill” Clinton.
Anyhoo, the twin race-hate statements of Rev Wright and Minister Farrakan a few days ago, struck me as the same sort of ”who me?” incitement that Schumer did. Schumer’s defense had been, “Wouldn’t YOU want to know if your bank was in trouble?”
“Yes, but….”
***
What is the ‘social’ doing on ‘social justice’? It can’t be a subset of ‘justice’ because the adjective has no substitute and if dropped it makes a different meaning (the correct one, but not the same one) for ‘justice’. So it needs a unique heading, maybe close to ‘justice’ but maybe not, as it has its own meaning.
So what is the word ‘justice’ even in there for? Ask senator Schumer. He might answer “If you were angry, wouldn’t YOU want to get even?”
“Yes, but….”
“But” what ?
***
And what about crime? Somebody on one of these nearby threads felt it necessary to include in the story he was telling, that when he used the word ‘crime’ in the tale, what he meant was ‘actual, real’ crime.
So, what is that other, then –what is plain old ‘crime’? The stuff that ain’t worth worrying about no more, lik gramaaar an sPeElign RoOlz >>
GM/5; you, and Glenn Beck –the same fears –
Wretchard wrote;
“The most concentrated expression of tyranny is malice in the service of caprice.”
That pretty much boils the last eighteen months down right there. Laconic and elegant in it’s brevity, terrifying in it’s implications.
The only question in this case; Is it caprice that is being served? or a larger, darker purpose?
By corrupting the foundation stones of our society (elections, the rule of law, the duty of the government to the people) the darker purpose can weaken and then bring down the entire edifice without disturbing the slumber of the masses. When the walls crumble and the roof falls it will be far too late to act.
Permission to use the quote is humbly requested.
Red line/Trigger point – take your pick.
http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/2010/06/29/forecast-category-5-riot-expected-to-hit-oakland-soon/
Anton 8. wrote: “The only question in this case; Is it caprice that is being served? or a larger, darker purpose?”
I don’t know, that’s a good question. But it begs other questions. Are these people really all that smart? Really intelligent people know that, once you set something in motion, you have very little control over the flow of events. I believe it was Wretchard who said those Prussian generals didn’t know they were starting World War I. That only became clear much later. There are far too many details that you just don’t know about that can derail everything. Someone said that no battle plan survives the first 30 seconds of actual fighting.
Are we watching arrogant incompetence or real skullduggery? Either way, no one can predict for sure how it will turn out. Don’t despair just yet. Besides, I think the American people are a lot smarter than any one gives them credit for. They might have been taken in for a while, but not any more. It’s the officially intelligent people, not ordinary people, who are the last to figure out they’ve been conned.
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2464-Become-a-Big-Bank,-Ignore-The-Law.html
(snip)
If you’re a big bank, when things go south the government will force those who dealt with you to give up their right to sue you for your misrepresentations!
“This really suggests they [the government] had myopia and they were looking at it entirely through the perspective of the banks,” Mr. Skeel said.
No, it says in plain English that if you’re a bank there are no laws.
There are no laws about money-laundering that will be enforced.
There are no laws about bribery that will be enforced.
There are no laws about bid-rigging that will be enforced.
There are no laws about emitting fraudulent securities that will be enforced.
And there are no laws about intentionally screwing counterparties that will be enforced.
Everyone else has to follow these laws.
But if you’re a big bank, you can do all these things and more, and there is absolutely no criminal or civil enforcement available to anyone to do anything about it.
May I ask, quite politely, why the American public peacefully accepts this state of affairs?
(ends snip)
Identity politics infused into an otherwise open society is, as Wretchard points out, the most sublime incarnation yet of the ancient “divide and rule” strategy. Done effectively, as it has been done in the USA and West, the strategy takes on a life of its own, without any need to reference a canon of the true masters, who – consistent with their strategic needs – slip into the background of squabbling dupes, and then vanish entirely. The final result will be that all are atomized, down to the individual, whose private hates can be nurtured in the cocoons woven for them by the psychologists, whose only real net-effective contribution has been in its impetus to create an effective pharmacology. Which of course only reinforces the room full of mirrors, and closes the mouth of the cave of shadows.
So now, to take an atomic example, we have people who call me because they want to sue their former employer for racial discrimination, even though it is obvious they were in a low-skill high-turnover position, others of the same race were both let go and not let go, they live in economically moribund areas to fortunes of which their positions were particularly sensitive, and, when asked whether they can produce any – even a shred – of their managers’ antipathy for their race, they pause…. very long… and say “well, in this day and age it’s more subtle than that, you know.” To which i respond, “Mrs. X, [a very intelligent 62-year old black woman] you realize it is my job to work through all the phases of a lawsuit and ultimately go before a judge and jury – complete strangers – and say to them, ‘your honor, members of the jury, Employer Y owes Mrs. X $30,000 because their termination of her was wrongful, as it was motivated by racial discrimination – although we have no proof of it, other than that she is African-American, and her two managers were not.”
To which she responds, missing the point entirely, “Well, you’re a lawyer aren’t you?”
This is just one example of probably 150 specific individuals I, myself, have personally interviewed over the past year. It becomes pretty obvious pretty quickly that this person’s “education” – the impression on her soul – was primarily received at the feet of a Reverend Wright type.
Two thoughts;
First, If he (J. Christian Adam) had gone to a doctor and gotten the right shots, he could have been black. That would have been a priceless political statement. I wonder if it would help some otherwise anemic politician get elected?
Second, Kagan fabricated evidence while she was in the Clinton white house;
http://article.nationalreview.com/437296/kagans-abortion-distortion/shannen-w-coffin?page=1
A blatant violation of both law and custom, it should be enough to block her nomination to the Supreme Court. It won’t be.
The next time you read about how corrupt some foreign nation is, remember that the US Congress is worse. WE can change that in November.
I’ve said it before to anyone who would listen – The Ominous Parallels by Peikoff. Our leadership across the board seems to be consistent in one thing, the propagation of cognitive dissonance that is Orwellian in nature. Our education system has been undermined to such an extent that even professionally degreed people (MD, JD, MBA, PhD) facilely say one thing and then immediately contradict it and see no conflict. It’s maddening in the extreme. The powers that shape the consensus opinion marginalize the consistent thinker and call them extremists (for insisting on clarity and consistency) and inflexible (because they cannot accept A and !A simultaneously as being true), further marginalizing sanity.
The current popular mindset regarding economics, racial politics, foreign affairs, and climate change is a giant pool of gasoline permeating society. When the spark occurs that sets it aflame, the speed and breadth of the burn will be astounding. I observe that no laws are evenly applied, so we already live in a lawless society – the abovementioned cases, the Chrysler bondholders, the bailouts of fraudulent entities on Wall St., etc. I have prepared the best I can for the Ansturm. As far as I am concerned, it will be me and my immediate family against the world – the only law will be the Hobbesian law of the jungle. Isn’t this exactly what the powers that be are trying to achieve – divide and conquer? Just ’cause I’m paranoid, doesn’t mean that it is unfounded!
The West is not the only team on the field. The Political Class may have succeeded in neutering the West through their pervasive Political Correctness (RIP, Whiskey). But other teams are playing by different rules.
A Chinese immigrant I work with was recently preparing for a visit from her parents from Mainland China, so she signed up for a cable TV package of Chinese channels. When I asked her if she enjoyed seeing Chinese TV again, she made a face. “All they talk about on TV is how great China is”, she said. “Really boring”.
Quite a difference from what the Best & Brightest in the West are feeding the serfs through the Alphabet networks, eh?
10. Prologue
I think that these people (a.k.a. Teh One’s Administration) are actually pretty simple, and naive to boot. The darker forces that I alluded to are the operators behind the scenes. The Gramscian March is nearing it’s completion, who knows what will come of it? One thing I do know is that Leftists love wrecking things.
When thinking of Obama I always try to remember the old saying; “Never attribute to malice that which can be adquately explained by stupidity”. I also keep in mind the collorary that I first saw on a prior Belmont posting; “But if neither malice or stupidity alone can completely account for the mess you may have to conclude that you are dealing with malicious idiots”
Obama is just another grubby, lazy, cheap, dirty Chicago politician, the real question (asked by our host a long time back) is “Who sent you?” There is where the Dark One lies.
Dan #12:
Thanks for the report, not that it is a surprise.
But you might add that it is not just private lawsuits. The Department of Labor is happy to sue employers on the exact same basis.
Several years ago a man who had lost a paternity lawsuit and was supporting the child of a woman he had never married had DNA testing done and proved that the child was not his.
Not surprisingly, he requested the court revisit their earlier decision. The court looked at the evidence and stated that since the man had agreed to support the child, and since “someone” had to do it, he had to keep on doing it, even though it was not his child.
That really sums it up, whether in cases in which a child is born out of wedlock or those infamous John Edwards ones in which the child has a defect that is supposedly assocaited with the failure to perform a cescarian section: “someone” has to pay. If a woman is unemployed or has less than her preferred degree of success in her career then “someone” has to pay. It’s not about justice; it’s about formally designating suckers.
In some ways, the New Black Panther and Robert Wone cases are related to incidents like Comedy Central refusing to air an episode of South Park because it had a portrayal of Mohammed and PayPal’s attempt to shut down Pamela Gellar’s account because they deemed her web sites were promoting hate speech, or even the incident where Rep. Lewis alleged that racial epitaphs were shouted at him and he was spat upon.
The common link is that preferred groups are given the widest latitude to operate in, while proscribed groups find their behavior increasingly restricted and even criminalized. In dropping the New Black Panther case, the DOJ has made it clear that some groups are free to use, at least, threats of violence. The John Lewis incident, had it been successful, could have delegitimized the entire TEA party movement as racist.
This leaves the question, what happens, some time in the future, if one of these preferred groups infer that they are free to engage in physical violence without fear of reprisal?
Boring as it may be, procedural fairness is an essential ingredient in a democracy. The violation of procedural fairness will be the most corrosive legacy of this administration and indeed of this era in American life.
No single piece of legislation alone can ruin this country, but the disregard of the Constitution and the traditions of procedural fairness will.
I recently had the experience of finding a census worker at my gate. I called off the hounds (yes, real ones) and talked to him.
It immediately occured to me that I was dealing with a federal agent (no matter how petty). He came to verify that two “white” people lived in this house.
I live in New Mexico and have the distinct impression that I need to Leave. My friends who are involved in State government have told me that the OFFICIAL policy in NM is hispanics first. This comes from the top and is being implemented formally via training for state employees (gee thanks Bill). State officials are being officially told that the white people have to step aside, because the brown people are going to show them how to do things now.
Unfortunately I am all to familiar with clan warfare and feudal power structures. I’ve seen them in the stone age (childhood in papua new guinea) and I’ve seen them in the 21st century (new mexico government). Things are going downhill fast and the Juarez mentality has come home to rural NM.
I believe we will see massive bloodshed here in ethnic purges. Any suggestions on places to move?
Aaron
I will point out that in the Clinton days, perhaps their biggest sins, Filegate and Travelgate, occurred very early in the administration, and thus (!) were never taken seriously. I suggest either alone was sufficient for impeachment and removal, as were the threats by Hillary against Monica. These were all gross criminal abuses of power – FULLY DOCUMENTED ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES. No further investigation was required. The White House’s own public statements were entirely sufficient for conviction and removal. Yet, nothing happened – in large part because Ken Starr was a dufus, he saved Clinton(s) I suppose by accident.
But, were any lessons learned? Appparently not.
Leaving the law in place but applying it only to certain persons is one of the ways that an aristocracy is established. The Privledged Classes are exempt from the law as it applies to the common folk.
When the Franks first entered the decaying remains of the Roman Empire in Gaul their leader was simply the primus inter pares, in a very short time the position became an unquestionable hereditary Kingship.
We are kidding ourselves if we think that it is not happening here and now.
When the announced goal of economic “redistribution” is articulated in full (it never will be, the entrenched media would never allow it), it would uncover the same genesis as is now taking place in justice.
“Restributive justice” or “justice via redistribution” would contain all of the same elements.
It presumes a need to level the playing field by force. It seeks to create not fairness, but intentional unfairness toward members of the “perceived” class of persons who previously held an “unfair advantage”.
Stated differently, it seeks injustice to “remedy” past grievances. It allows for intimidation, thuggery, bullying, fraud, …apparently even murder without prosecution or even condemnation.
Taking money from the “rich” and giving it to the “poor” makes one a Redistribution Robin Hood, you see. Taking votes by way of intimidation and threat at the polling booth, is cut from the same cloth.
Once one class is established as “permanently aggrieved”, it cannot be held responsible for any act, no matter how heinous…committed on behalf of the class itself. Nor can any accusation stand against that class member…including double murder of an ex-wife and a waiter friend returning sunglasses.
Jury nullification is not enough of a sure thing, so governmental executive fiat nullification must be employed. Why risk the question mark of jury nullification when you can erase the entire prosecution with one swipe of a pen.
It’s payback time. Your money or your life…uh, make that…your money, your vote…or your life. Welcome to the 57 Untied States of America.
Nother pull quote from W:
“In a world where every one thinks of himself as white, black, gay, straight — we have forgotten that the real distinction is between who holds power and who does not. Nothing else matters.”
Isnt that the basis for the oft cited constantly ignored Rule of Law? Tribalism based on anything other than humanity leads directly to war. Us is better’n ‘em. Kill ‘em. That’s human nature. ‘Tis ever thus. Except when an objective law is in force.
OT: this is one ugly stock market chart friends.
http://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=$INDU&p=D&yr=1&mn=0&dy=0&id=p00685210613
looks like we’ll drop another thousand points on the Dow before things find any support at all.
The old cliche is “sell in May and buy again on Labor Day” looks like the PPT is following that advice … and will get a much better price that way hey hey.
What exactly is the purpose of law and the definition of “justice” in this age of selective minimal enforcement? Kagan’s quote along the lines of it being ok to pass a law banning books because the Federal Govt. would not enforce it should be raising red flags all over the damned Republic!
I was hoping Mr. Adams’ would come out with his side of the story.
Sometimes it still amazes me that in less than 18 months, America descended into such a lawlessness state. Unprecedented! indeed.
The most disheartening thing of all, is the suspicion that Obama and his gang are just the symptoms on the surface, and America is rotted through in its core. Some days there are hopeful signs that people are (or are starting to be) aware of it. While other days you hear ‘news’ like ObamaCare gaining popularity and can’t make head or tail out of it.
Kae #18
“This leaves the question, what happens, some time in the future, if one of these preferred groups infer that they are free to engage in physical violence without fear of reprisal?”
That is the original reason the KKK was formed after rteh Civil War, or at least served as the justification for its continued existence. It was no less racist and organiization than the Black Panthers but it was no more so, either.
And thus that way lies madness.
This was my full comment:
Kae #18
“This leaves the question, what happens, some time in the future, if one of these preferred groups infer that they are free to engage in physical violence without fear of reprisal?”
That is the original reason the KKK was formed afterr the Civil War, or at least served as the justification for its continued existence. It was no less racist an organization than the Black Panthers but it was no more so, either.
A White Flight to the KKK is not at all likely but there is no reason to think the formation of an “LLL” or an “MMM” or and “NNN” would not result in the event of the scenario you mention, perhaps under the overall guidance of a “Southern Rich and Not So Rich Law Center.” The Tea Parties are not that, but they could become the “Shinn Fein” of a American Republican Army.
And thus that way lies madness, death and destruction
@6 buddy larsen-
What is the ’social’ doing on ’social justice’? It can’t be a subset of ‘justice’ because the adjective has no substitute and if dropped it makes a different meaning
‘Social’ in this case is a meaning-reverser. It removes the ‘universal’ idea from justice, and reduces it to gratification for special interests only.
Interesting that ‘social’ is also a meaning-reverser when applied to the Ponzi scheme of Social Security. When the demographic curve starts falling and the number of collectors nears the number of payers, ‘security’ drops out of the equation – unless additional payers are conscripted.
y’all listening to the Kagan hearings at all? Rush is yammering about them this morning. My take on Kagan is that she hasn’t a clue what she’s doing there or what a judge can do or should do. Kind of like a short, plump, female Obama. Yeah, let’s put that on the court. That’s not because she hasn’t been a judge, but because she doesn’t seem to do judgement. Just radical empiricism, take everything fresh and new and on its own. Don’t work that way, dear.
By way of some context:
The same year as the Mathew Sheppard case there was a case in Arkansas where two gay men raped a 13 yr-old boy to death, and it never made national news.
Over at DOJ, the appointment of the radical lawyer Dawn Jonhsen to head the dept.’s OLC was successfully blocked, only to have a former al Qaeda defense attorney appointed to the post instead.
From Classical Values :What did the Post know and when did they know it?, here is a posting connecting Dave Weigel and Panthergate.
While it’s rather tough to defend Dave Weigel’s unhinged rantings about Matt Drudge or his arrogant attitude in general, it has increasingly become apparent that something about the release of personal remarks that he had emailed to a private site just smelled funny.
My suspicion was that the Post — for reasons unknown — wanted to get rid of him. Yet none of the possible reasons made a whole lot of sense, so I was inclined to think that someone had been jealous of him, and leaked his incriminating remarks in the hope of getting him canned.
But now, via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Dave Wiegel was apparently the only Post reporter to cover the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation scandal:[links at the original Classical Values posting:originally at Powerline.]
How convenient, now that the only guy who covered it for the Post is out of the way!
Something to consider. Regarding the assertion that Weigel was the only one at the WaPo who covered the voter intimidation case, that appears to be the case for 2010. Here is a search for ”new black panther party” last 60 days in WaPo: all Weigel, all the time.
From the WaPo on December 22 2009, buried on page A6, written by Carrie Johnson:
Why has the WaPo not covered the voter intimidation case this year outside of Dave Weigel’s blog?
27. always right
Don’t give up hope old boy! America isn’t rotten at it’s core, it is pretty smelly in the big cities along both coasts but the core is pretty solid. Just think how much saner this country would look if we could jettison the Boston-DC and LA-San Fran axis (in a twenty mile deep corridor), the budget would probably balance pretty well to boot!
Is there a way to kick them out of the pool? Sort of a reverse seccession?
RWE #17:
One of my favorite stories of DOJ abuse was a small manufacturer that was located right beside a river. On the same bank as the factory, the area was mostly white. The opposite bank was mostly black. The DOJ declares that unless your workforce matches the surrounding area, you are guilty of racism, and there is no acceptable defense. The define area by drawing a circle around the factory. I don’t remember the exact diameter of the circle.
The problem in this instance is of course the river. The closest bridges were several miles upstream and down. The factory was easy to get to for whites, hard to get to for blacks.
The factory was sued, and found guilty. The factory eventually went out of business because it was unable to entice enough blacks to make the long journey necessary.
#18- “This leaves the question, what happens, some time in the future, if one of these preferred groups infer that they are free to engage in physical violence without fear of reprisal?”
It’s already happening in Europe. In Sweden, women are being raped at unprecedented levels by immigrant Muslims, and the powers-that-be blame global warming. In France, “youths” riot and torch cars, and send police skedaddling. The vilest hatred is spewed by imams at mosques all the time, yet a priest criticizing homosexuality is charged with a hate crime, and anyone daring to criticize Islam is hauled before a “human rights” court and charged with racism.
In the PC hierarchy of victimhood, Muslims are the uber-victim, and can act out with impunity without any fear of reprisal or condemnation.
In America, if you ask a hispnic voter for his driver’s license, that is a violation of his “civil rights”, but if the black panthers intimidate voters, that’s OK. This just might be the “civilian army…more powerful than the military” that will keep Obama in power in 2012. Don’t count on republicans making this an issue, Obama has something going for him that insures re-election: he is black, and anyone who criticizes him is racist. When McCain was running, he cared more about whether or not he sounded racist than about winning.
The creation of a bevy of different hyphenated Americans is the wellspring that this discord comes from. But whence comes the source of these creatures that are neither wholly one thing or another? Why, my freinds, the government itself is just that source!
My wife, as a suburban housewife, cannot get a college loan to return to school; but, when she transforms herself by tanning for a few weeks, donning her sari and putting a dot on her forehead (all legitimate as she is 50% Indian) suddenly the BureauRats (spelling intentional) are falling over her as they can count her as part of their quota. She has stopped being “white” and is now a special interest person. If she divorced me she could easily get grants (i.e. free taxpayer money that doesn’t have to be paid back) to start a business.
The source of the splintering of America is our own goverment and it’s “well-intended” agenda. Politicians are transient things (as even Robert KKK Byrd proved), bureaucracies are immortal. There is the seat of the Power of which Wretchard spoke. If the Beltway Bureaucracies can keep us at each others throats they can become the new Preisthood of the Papers, the new Aristrocracy of the Ink-jet Printer.
Looking at DC on Google Earth just now I am struck by the phrase “…one Ring to Rule them All”
Just remember, November 2010, vote ALL the bums out! A clean slate is our only chance for new direction.
Well friends, I think now is a good time to start organizing with like minded individuals in your respective areas. Find ways out of your respective cities to replenishable water sources. Store some non-perishables, fuel, and buy a self powered radio. It’s become evident that Obama and his thugocracy are intent on takin over the country. Listen to Maxine Waters if you doubt me. Color or origin is not important in the final scheme of things. It depends on whether you believe in freedom or not. By that I mean the ability of people to live their own lives as they see fit in the confines of the law as laid out by a literal reading of the Constitution. Contacting police and military and asking them to decide where they stand here and now is also a vital component of survival. It’s difficult because a single person is easy to topple. For instance if a single person stands up and calls for seccesion he I’d quickly put down as the FBI or local police will round him up quickly. If millions stand up, it’s not so easy.
Wow! Just Wow! This is the most profound post I have read on the internet, in twenty years of reading. No other has been able to quote Camus and make it stick. But you did. Sir, if you decide to create a resistance movement, all my resources are at your disposal. (No, this is not sarcasm.)
Mark #35:
I recall hearing of a small clothing factory in NYC that did not choose to hire a black woman who applied there. She complained and the Dept of Labor investigated the factory. Now, of their 20 or so employees, at any one time at least 15 were minorities, including men, woman, blacks, whites, asians, hispanics, etc. But they were found to be in non-compliance and were fined. The fine was so large that the last I heard they would almost have to go out of business.
Then there was the high school in Calif in the early 80′s that had people shaking their heads. It was about 75% white and 25% minority. A Federal judge ruled that it was inadequately desegregated. I guess he wanted it 50-50.
Well, email me dude and we’ll see what we come up with. BTW, to which Camus do you refer?
Richard – I’m one of the editors of the Robert Wone murder site. Busy week I know with Kagan in the headlines, but I’m curious, from this right-of-center set, what the thoughts are on the aquittal in this bench trial, by a Bush43 law and order appointee. Thanks.
At the Swiss bank in Zurich where I work, they recently created several positions in HR to promote “diversity” under a new “diversity officer”. We are in the midst of our second reorganization in under a year, and I was amazed to hear that the new American CIO from Connecticut who had had no time to explain the second reorganization to us had flown out to Zurich to head a half day “diversity event”. I heard that all the upper IT management had attended, and that she had gone on and on about the need to promote more women to the upper levels of IT management (in the entire department, only about 1 in 20 is female).
Anyway, this new CIO had added several new performance metrics to every IT employee’s performance goals, one of which is “diversity awareness”. This week I had my mid year performance review, and my supervisor informed me that at my rank it is not sufficient to be “diversity aware”, but that I am required to actively “promote diversity”.
My supervisor asked me to explain the ways that I have “promoted diversity awareness” in the last half of a year. Of course, I couldn’t provide a single example, and I told him I thought that the Swiss Minaret ban was good and that they should ban all Muslim immigration into Switzerland. I got an “underperforms” on that goal, but I have become aware that America has messed up the world up in numerous not so subtle ways.
2 questions:
1. Will we have an election in November?
2. Will it be more or less fair than previous congressional elections?
ConfederateH @43 and others talkin’ ’bout “diversity.” Yes, in my experience (17 years in a Fortune 100 corp) there is a reign of terror underway and its name is Diversity. None dares call it Bulls*** for fear of being investigated, castigated and defenestrated. All with appropriate cooings about hate speech and unreconstructed antediluvian mindsets. It is racism pure and simple, and I think it has hit corporate America hard (apparently EU also? with different races needing to the boost and the bust?), and the reason that it has hit so hard of late, is that enough of the PC racist crowd have now made it far enough in the Long March through the Institutions that they own the HR shops and some seats in the boardroom and, yes, a lot of chairs in the Legal Divisions (remember all the affirmative action hires a decade or so ago? They are now paying this dividend). That internal alteration of values and attitudes is coupled with external pressures from Dept of Justice and EEOC and activists and media. The secret of big corporations is that they are complete cowards and will do a great deal to avoid bad publicity and prosecutions. If the CEO is a narcissist (and yes, there are some) then the anxiety about being seen to “do the right thing” is all the greater. Bottom line, this is no surprise. The rot is deep and it is a real morale-killer and time-waster. Getting rid of it will be a long hard job. …Although the business that can call it BS and avoid these inefficiencies and distractions will, in fact, prosper all the more. So maybe there’s hope. Next few years will see the crisis of it, I think.
ConfederateH @43: the way to fool these idiots, without making yourself sick or crazy, is to use the term “diversity” in its best sense. Which is not the “counting by color” crap they want, but the intellectual diversity, the marketplace of good ideas and different viewpoints, that can drive best results (and is fun). Whenever they ask you to “promote diversity” you could brag about how you’ve started or encouraged some great debates on better ways to solve a problem at work, or you’ve hired/encouraged people who think differently about the world and bring their creativity to the tasks. Don’t be too obvious about it but at least you can have some fun messing with the PC police as they try to get the ideological cuffs on you.
I have been reading the recently released Clinton papers on Kagan’s involvement in crafting the 1997 hate crimes “industry” (there is no other word for it). With Eric Holder, Ted Kennedy and others, the administration, including Kagan, navigated the choppy issues of counting women out (because there are too many crimes motivated by gender) and designed a giant bureaucracy to “train” and “educate” prosecutors to create a set of statistics that satisfied the activists.
It’s a horrifying example of the politicization of our entire justice system — not just the part that is directly involved in “hate crime” law but also the rest of criminal justice — because these people believe the only real injustice is something they have labeled injustice.
SP/39; –imho this place is already a resistance movement –has been for years –but what it does is refine nebulous materials into utilitarian caulking phrases available to go and righten capsized thinking in watery minds ever closer to the rocks and reefs of washing tundy sea.
Headline picked from “Local News” that the LSM doesn’t care to cover.
A couple of snippets:
snip…
snip…
I think you need to read it all…twice. But then again what difference do a few black militants make?
What difference at all?
Unless of course you don’t think it will just remain a “few”.
Papa Ray
48. buddy larsen
Thanks for your ‘perspectove’ and lighthearted ways around truly horrendous times that we are in – keep the faith.
Keep your head whilst those around you lose theirs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soylentgreen23/3562476128/
+++++++
If—
by Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling
(‘Brother Square-Toes’—Rewards and Fairies)
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
It is demotion of crime — even murder — to the shibboleths of political correctness that is the most remarkable aspect of both cases. Albert Camus had remarked on it before: “on the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence — through a curious transposition peculiar to our times — it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself.” Camus’ mistake was to believe this reversal was peculiar to Hitler or Stalin. It now threatens to become a fixture of the modern world.
…………..
Matthew 10:28 (King James Version)
28And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
buddy What exactly were you trying to say here?
“but what it does is refine nebulous materials into utilitarian caulking phrases available to go and righten capsized thinking in watery minds ever closer to the rocks and reefs of washing tundy sea.”
I’m the only one allowed here to drink and type, cause I got pains and such that give me that concession.
Buck up (slap yourself) and attempt that comment again.
Papa Ray (smiley face here)
In his speech on Immigration today Obama said this:
“Being an American is not a matter of blood or birth, it’s a matter of faith,” President Obama declared at a speech he gave on immigration.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/07/01/obama_being_an_american_not_a_matter_of_blood_or_birth.html
Think about that for a second. Set aside the suggestion that O is a prime example of American not by blood or birth but rather by faith. Consider how O is abrogating to the state the place held by Jesus.
Similarly Camus statement above–“on the day when crime dons the apparel of innocence— through a curious transposition peculiar to our times — — maps over onto what in Christianity is called imputed righteousness–only it is the state who is doing the imputing and not God himself
But what was the original imputing about?
The 10 commandments are impossible to keep. We are all sinners in the sight of God. But for those who are in Christ Jesus, an exchange takes place– we give our sins to Jesus and Jesus imputes his righteousness– to US in the sight of God– and we are reconciled to God–and God’s wrath is turned away.
Ephesians 2:8-9 (New International Version)
8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.
ConfederateH #43:
In his book “The Dragons of Expectation” Robert Conquest describes how universities teach useless things and then see to it that the government and industry devise useless jobs to employ such people.
One aspect of the Diversity Industry is that, hilariously enough when you think about it, it employs a very high percentage of minorities. This is but one small step away from a gang of heavyset men in dark suits and white ties and carrying violin cases striding roughly into a store in Chicago or New York and saying “Nice little place ya got here. Would be a shame if somethin’ was to happen to it. Youse need some protection, don’tca think?”
The “1 Hispanic person, 6 votes” outrage in New York fits into this tapestry of multicultural/group identity nuttiness, doesn’t it?
It was an astonishingly naked display of the lawlessness perpetrated by the legal system itself that we’ve seen of late. Firstly, that this should be “legislated” from the bench by a lone judge, when even the NY state assembly doesn’t have the constituional authority to make such a law except by initiating an amendment process that still wouldn’t pass muster with the national Constitution, let alone the state one. Secondly, that a large number of — and perhaps a majority of — the hispanics in that community are undoubtedly there illegally seems to not matter to our political class and their fellow travellers one bit.
Speaking of “diversity,” Obama is the ultimate revenge of affirmative action. His story is the culmination of two generations of deliberately carrying certain people through their entire lives, as he himself has been. What we are discussing in this thread is what has lead to him being President.
It isn’t just about the specific policy of the racial/ethnic/gender/lifestyle quota and spoils system called Affirmative Action, but the underlying mentality that has allowed it. As I see it, it is of a piece with grade inflation, dumbing down SAT tests, massive mortgage forgiveness for deadbeats, light sentences for violent crimes, etc., you name it.
If Daniel Patrick Moynihan were still alive, he’d amend his famous statement that “we’ve defined deviancy down” to include the whole panoply of societal behavior and expectations.
but I’m curious, from this right-of-center set, what the thoughts are on the aquittal in this bench trial, by a Bush43 law and order appointee. Thanks.
You would think such things mattered, but maybe they don’t. J. Christian Adams spends a long time for example, detailing the extensive background in civil rights prosecutions of those who were assigned to the case; the argument being that these individuals have proved by beyond a doubt they are on the side of the angels. You might just as well ask why veteran civil rights crusaders should be set against the Black Panthers as ask why a Bush appointee should exonerate the 3 men.
What is operative is the power relationship. There’s an interesting video excerpt and report at Fox showing the suspects being interviewed and describing the twists and turns of Judge Lynn Leibovitz.
The report suggests that the defendants themselves did not want a jury trial and asked for a judge and that Leibovitz came to preside when the original retired; but that in any case they were gratified from their first moments into the trial at the way she was handling it. Leibovitz herself gave conflicting signals. In the end she said that it looked bad for the defendants; that she was inclined to think something fishy was up but that it didn’t reach the legal standard to convict. It sounds as if she wanted to be very careful not to make a single mistake and you can see why.
The defendants defense team was the best you could get. The scale of the resources available to the defense is illustrated by the Washington Post report that it paid a researchers $20,000 to cast doubt on allegation that the knife near the victim had been planted. The Washingtonian tried to calculate the cost of a single hour’s defense.
And down at the bottom of the article is a comment suggesting that toting up the cost was the act of a ‘lynch mob’. That was a reminder that the three could raise not only a legal defense, but come to it, a PR one.
What to make of it? Now there is nothing wrong with getting a good lawyer. But at the minimum, Judge Leibovitz knew she had to be very careful; dot every i, cross every t. My guess — and its a guess — is that the political subtext was also clear. If she could not put them away with a wide margin of evidence, anything that could generate this scale of defense could also take her to task for it. When you look at the box reserved for the press and find the 20/20 and Dateline seats empty, you know that unless you have a slum dunk then you are treading on thin ice. So who’s to blame her for playing it safe?
Maybe this is the way it has always been. Privilege has its ranks, to invert the phrase. It is just that ‘wider society’ hasn’t quite realized the extent of power that some special interests have achieved. They will either get used to it, or resist it, or create a power base of their own. In any case, it won’t be justice for all but survival of the fittest. One day the Black Panthers or some other guys are going to find themselves on the other end of the power calculation and cry ‘lynch mob’. They will be right, and so too the notion that things go round in circles.
52 PR
Buoyant, only occasionally listing construction means he’s a shipwrite.
Gee..where were all you guys when Bush/Cheney overthrew the constitution, blocked congressinal oversight, violated personal liberties, lied about a war, took a budget with a surplus and gave us tremendous deficits,comprimised our personal liberties, violated the separation of powers..filled the Washington jobs with incompetent cronies, had secret energy meetings, tortured people, and classified a record number of documents as top secret so no one could investigate them.. and then left us with 2 wars and the total collapse of economy…yeah we need that type of government back..
The Supreme Court is broken when 4 justices can not accurately read the 2nd Amendment. There has been a movement to circumvent the legislative branch through the judicial branch for some time and we have allowed it to go unchallenged, by and large as a nation of citizens, to our great peril. I fear we are headed for civil war once again my friends unless our nationalism can be awakened. Prepare for war but pray for peace.
Racism at the DOJ Part One
Those of us who wanted to believe that the election of Barack Hussein Obama as president would signal the end of racial politics in America have been rudely awakened to stark reality.
Not only are racial politics alive and well in the United States but they have begun to take on the aura of racism as it exists in Zimbabwe today. It’s a modified racism but not very far removed in spirit from the black racist policies of the president of the formerly prosperous nation of Rhodesia in southern Africa.
Robert Mugabe practiced retributive, revenge, politics against the successful and productive white farmers of Rhodesia by expelling them from their lands and replacing them with inept Zimbabwean blacks with his “land reform.”
He managed to convert the new Zimbabwe into a virtual wasteland.
Barack Obama and his Attorney General Eric Holder are far from accomplishing that feat in America, primarily because African Americans constitute a mere 13% of our population. Based on Holder’s actions, it’s a damned good thing for American whites that we still maintain a healthy majority, until Hispanics supersede us.
At the very end of George W. Bush’s second term, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1764)
“what it does is refine nebulous materials into utilitarian caulking phrases available to go and righten capsized thinking in watery minds ever closer to the rocks and reefs of washing tundy sea.”
A powerful picture painted with great economy of words. An example of prose as art.
Subtle are you, Herr wretchard.
“The public is asked to understand the situation from the perspective of the underdog. … the system by rights should fall back on the law itself and ask itself ‘who really violated the law.’”
I remember reading this ancient book called the Bible, and it makes two demands, inter alia, of a justice system: (i) it should ensure that the underdog is not discriminated against; (ii) it should not favor the underdog. The latter point is mentioned in two separate places.
But hey, that book is just an ancient collection of worthless superstitions; we have progressed immeasurably since then, Gloria Homo Rex.
gokart-mozart (#5): “money talks and bullshit walks”
These days, it seems more like the opposite. The bullshit talks from the highest pulpits, and as a result, the money is walking. Away.
Don Rodrigo (#55):
No offense, but you might want to refresh your memory on that case.
JW:
Where were we? On this very blog. Obviously you weren’t. And you don’t show signs of currently being a regular either.
#64. Bob
No offense, but you might want to refresh your memory on that case.
I’m sorry . . . What?
Did I miss something on the Port Chester, NY voting case? I see no update saying this was struck down, did you? Or, are you implying that I misinterpreted what the ruling meant? Please clarify.
What strategic advantages do we have remaining as a country?
One huge reason that the US has remained a store of value for the financial markets, aside from the tremendous expertise and capability of our military, is our observance of the rule of law. No country is pristine, but only the UK and Germany have been able to come close here as recognized safe havens for adherence to transparent and reliable legal justice with minimal corruption. Once one comes off of that pinacle, it’s a slippery slope down. Like a company that loses its AAA credit rating, the trust and confidence required to get that back is enormous. So it’s very rare for a company to lose that rating and subsequently regain it.
This has enormous implications for how everyone looks at the US, from allies to investors to enemies. Such damage is force multiplied to the great damage of us all and it is going to be hard to repair that. But I believe, like L3 suggested yesterday, that we can do it in spite of how dark things look now. It’s going to be a hell of a job.
37. anton
“Just remember, November 2010, vote ALL the bums out! A clean slate is our only chance for new direction.”
Agree, but just like the New York Yankees, their farm system just might be a lot deeper than any of us can possibly imagine.
J. Christian Adams did not just resign because the case was abandoned, he resigned because he was not permitted to respond to what he states is a legal subpoena from the US Civil Rights Commission. Now that he is resigned, he is free to respond and plans to do so. It will be interesting to see how his response differs from that of his political-appointee superior, Tom Perez. “Night and Day” would be an apt description if under oath he says the same things he said to Megyn Kelly. If there is documentary evidence that Mr. Perez lied, we could see yet another government official go down for perjury, because Perez was under oath as well.
We may have to add a corollary to the old saw that “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” In this case it may well be that it’s not the non-prosecution of the crime, it’s the cover-up of the non-prosecution — but I am not holding my breath. If the DOJ is willing for political purposes to ignore what is clearly a crime, then they can ignore anything that is clearly a crime.
14. novanglus
I think I may have read “The Ominous Parallels” at your suggestion. My copy is now in the hands of a friend, who is likely to find it as eye-opening as I did. When laws are made but not enforced, or enforced at random, we’re getting awful close to the destruction of reason that Pelikoff warned us about.
Don Rodrigo (#65):
While this might not be what you meant, your quote strongly implies that Hispanics, and Hispanics only, get 6 votes, which is not the case.
Second, I interpreted the rest of your comment as stating that such a voting system is unconstitutional, which is clearly not the case. If you meant that it is the imposition of such a system on Port Chester that is unconstitutional, I express no opinion.
While this might not be what you meant, your quote strongly implies that Hispanics, and Hispanics only, get 6 votes, which is not the case.
How is it not the case in this Port Chester instance? The judge made the ruling because he maintained that Hispanics were underepresented in Port Chester. If he did not use the Term “Hispanics,” he meant for underepresented minorities to benefit from this type of ruling. Besides, any and all accounts that I, and most people, read about this case were very obvious about making this an Hispanic issue. Why be disingenuous and pretend that somehow this ruling — as a precedent — might be construed as “fair” if applied to others besides Hispanics? It was meant, for all practical purposes, to benefit people who happen to be Hispanic in this specific case, and — if the practice is widened — it’s intended to create an outcome artificially on behalf of minorities.
How is it not unconstitutional? If a judge makes a ruling that amounts to legislation, it is indeed unconstituional. If a legislature had created a law that put this mechanism in place, it might, and I say just barely might be considered “constitutionally sound.” But, since it was a judge doing the equivalent of creating a law, that is clearly not allowed by the Constitution, notwithstanding the fact that judges have gotten away with such stunts for decades.
48. buddy larsen:
Like he said!
Josh 21 – I think the Clintons’ biggest sins were:
1. Allowing Loral Space corp, over the objections of the State Dept, CIA, Pentagon, etc., to teach China how to fly their rockets straight
2. Losing nuclear secrets to the Chinese, i.e. miniaturization of warheads to fit on rockets, and shucking it off as though this happened on every other president’s watch.
Where was the outrage?
O/T: Just saw pics of A-Whale, the oil skimmer sitting there at the docks in Lousiana, waiting to get started on the oil. Dang that ship is huge, I marvel seeing the enormity of it. This is a much bigger deal than I imagined. That it was offered 70 days ago, is only just now here, and still isn’t out there skimming is simply indefensible. This lapse has got to constitute the biggest ongoing crisis of competence in civilian US history. It’s a wonder this lot hasn’t been run of DC on rails already. Is Old Salt right, are we really become sheep? I hope for L3′s eloquent case for an enduring American spirit. The cynic in me reminds me of Cicero’s Republic, or Hayek’s Road To Serfdom where you’ve to look out when dysfunction rules the day. Those are the times that call out for a strongman, one who can make the trains run on time as it were. There’s a big shudder there.
I suspect it was even worse than that, shivermetimbers. Clinton just didn’t lose secrets, he sold them. Remember the Loral deal, and the Chinese bagman with all those sequentially numbered checks? I was sure Clinton was going to get impeached and go to jail over that stuff. But along came a stained blue dress, and that overcame all events for the rest of his second term pretty much. I frankly couldn’t believe his dumb luck, yes, luck, for getting impeached over that instead!
#7… Glenn Beck is very interesting
H’s one of the first of the MSM types to bring us real truths that we can check out for ourselves. The Obama puppet mill tries to destroy those that uncover their misdeeds and Beck is always in their sites..
Glenn Beck and #5…not fear, just logic…
_All_ the power of the Federal government comes from
the redistribution of tax dollars to the states and the
people; The sum is already decreasing, and soon enough
will be small enough that the Feds can no longer buy the
obedience of the states or the votes of the Underclass.
Do not waste your time complaining about abuse of power
that the Feds will lose soon, but on planning to transfer
that power to the states, peacefully, so that they can
help the nation survive the coming Hard Times.
key word: Subsidiarity
Humorous cartoon related to the topic titled “Good vs. Evil” at http://drawfortruth.wordpress.com/2010/05/01/good-v-evil/
The biggest scandal during the Clinton Administration was not well reported at all: the Bank of NY/Clearstream penetration by the Red Mafia and Holder seeking to get a pardon for Marc Rich who helped draft the laws that would allow the Red Mafia to operate.
Starting with the YBM/Magnex scandal (and the hundreds of millions in securities fraud in the US and Canada) and moving up to the Bank of NY penetration, the scale of funds moving through criminal operations was staggering: over $70 billion for 7 years. And that is only the known amounts due to the immediate work of the Berlin couple and their offices… due to the work of Simon Reuben it can be said that there was far more than that going on… like the Oil For Food scandal that also featured Marc Rich who by then had established his oligarch contacts in Russia.
But no one wants to talk about the contacts between the elite political class and the criminal class of transnational organized crime. The Clintons came up chock-a-block with them of all sorts, a number of Republicans have worked for and visited Russian Oligarchs, and men like Holder have more than a passing acquaintance of how to move money and power around out of public sight but to the detriment of the public. No one wants to talk about this as the connections between crime, politics and terrorism go long and deep, crosses party lines and leaves few untainted. Because we did not have a media able to do that in the 1990′s, we now find the highest office in the land connected to some very nefarious individuals internationally. The incurious nature of the media has reached a point where those connections between trenchant idealogues, criminal empires and political hacks pays off for all those in the know and to the destabilizing detriment of those who have no idea of those contacts and connections.
The gross attitude of the DoJ is not the disease, at all, but a symptom of it and not even a primary symptom at that. That makes for very dangerous times… and yet the American People, as Paine noted, remain a very civil people even as chaos descends upon them. The reaction when Americans get ticked off at those bringing the chaos is well known and the Japanese thought that the Nation was just a paper tiger. The current elites believe something similar. Which means rough times ahead.
Back on the “What the Russian Sleepers Did” thread my #109 linked J. Christian Adams, Navy Seals, and the rush indictments of Russians. A bit of a hat trick if I say so myself. The Oligarchs have given those with the goods on them nothing to lose and every indication that delay increases risk. That is a dangerous position to put anyone in.
Don Rodrigo (#70):
Just to make sure we’re not talking past each other: you are aware that everyone (Hispanic, White, etc) in Port Chester gets six votes?
If so, then (i) surely you agree that your characterization of this as “1 Hispanic person, 6 votes” is misleading (ii) while I strongly condemn the Department of Justice’s action and the imposition of a results-oriented voting system on Port Chester, that voting system in itself is perfectly constitutional (is all I’m saying).
(Regarding the “judge … creating a law”, that strikes me as a somewhat facile description. The US legislature passed the Voting Rights Act. The US executive (DoJ) (supposedly) attempted to apply it, by bringing suit against Port Chester. What the US Judiciary did was (supposedly) rule on this case and attempt to get the parties to come to a settlement in agreement with the VRA. If you want to make the judge the primary target of my ire, you’ll have to make a case for it.)
Does anyone remember that Poland was not a democratic republic when Hitler attacked? It was ruled by a military junta because the democratic political parties had totally screwed things up. Hitler just took advantage of that. This seems to be happening to us now.
Who is going to be the new Hitler?
Am I the only one who can, without effort, recite Al Pacino’s entire opening statement?
Lifeofthemind:
What does your post regarding “Elena Kagan” have to do with the “New Black Panther” voter intimidation case that was dropped by the current AG justice department???
Please try to stay on theme. Thank you!
Zelda, I wish to thank you. As wretchard is a very busy man, it is good to have one of the blog veterans such as yourself step in when some newcomer flouts our customary adherence to tightly-focused discussions.
shivermetimbers @ 72: Josh 21 – I think the Clintons’ biggest sins were …
I think his *biggest* sin was making a laughingstock out of the white house so that the republicans as a patriotic duty – and because they had failed to impeach him for good or bad reasons – instead tried to block nearly everything he tried in the last two years. Yes, that charge by the Democrats is valid – but with a reason, a good reason. And his second biggest sin was putting Hillary in a position of power where she polarized and radicalized the parties in a way that has lead directly to the Obamanation.
Then that nuclear warhead business, yeah sure. But nuclear war is second fiddle to destroying the credibility and operations of the government. Well, that is, nuclear weapons and missile guidance, I will note that nothing has actually gone boom in the last fifteen years, not counting tomorrow.
OT – This is your gummint on botox!. (Pelosi: Unemployment Checks Fastest Way to Create Jobs)
O/T Just hear on Greta that:
“A large-caliber bullet went through a west-facing wall Tuesday afternoon at [El Paso, TX] City Hall. The bullet entered the ninth-floor office of Assistant City Manager Pat Adauto. There were no injuries.”
I seemed to miss that in the news.
Upon being notified President Obama turned and asked his aid, “So, what’s your point?”
/sarc.
“In our politically correct world, it would have been far better had he been black, because just as those who are seeking justice for Robert Wone are themselves gay, the case against voter intimidation would have been immeasurably strengthened if the complainants had been persons of color.”
Get ready…please. Buy all the ammo you can get your hands on. The scum will…the panthers will….the Acorns will…the union thugs will…how much are you ready to give up without a fight against the PC protected class?
82. Bob
Am I the only one who can, without effort, recite Al Pacino’s entire opening statement?
Sure, why not? You mean Any Given Sunday?
“The most serious allegation in the whole affair is that the certain officials countenanced a crime because they wanted to. The most concentrated expression of tyranny is malice in the service of caprice.” –Wretchard
That is a good summation.
Let us not forget the big Zero’s “Beer summit” to humiliate a low level police officer. Both The big Zero and Eric Holder should resign – if not they should be impeached and/or removed from their positions. They are clearly acting with racial prejudice, blatant disregard for the law and malice.
On related note, I see that one of the Russian spies has skipped bail. I blame the Big Zero and Eric Holder.
[WSJ]
‘All but one of the 11 members of the alleged ring remain in federal custody. One suspect apparently jumped bail Wednesday. Christopher Metsos, who the Federal Bureau of Investigation said shuttled between Moscow and the U.S. to coordinate the spy network, had been arrested Tuesday in Cyprus while preparing to board a flight to Budapest, Hungary. He posted bail as the U.S. sought extradition on charges of conspiracy to conduct espionage and money laundering.’
‘”After he failed to show up at the police station by 8:00 p.m., we sought him at his hotel to see if he was okay, and there we determined that he had fled,” said a senior Cyprus police official speaking on condition of anonymity.’
http://tinyurl.com/2fg5nkr
It doesn’t get any easier than this. If this doesn’t constitute voter intimidation, nothing will.
This is clearly mistaken. Reverse the races of the parties and it would obviously be voter intimidation.
Sgian Dubh:
No.
[...] Like the recently concluded Robert Wone case — in which three gay men were acquitted of the murder of a man in their apartment — the New Black Panther incident pits a politically powerful minority against ordinary victims. [...]
Hehehe – do you remember last year’s Lombard (teacher of heath care oppression at duke U) case? The gay dude who put his adopted 10 years old son for sale for sex on e-bAy?
A quick flare in the media, then poof! Everything gone, no news, no nothing, nothing to see here, move, move –
Oh – I forgot! Actually all MSM, before shutting off the case, went at great lengths to note that Lombard at the time had been living in a committed monogamous relationship with another guy -
My – I was very impressed –
Still – how can one who works for MSM still can say that he/ she are committed and observe the highest standards of jounalistic integrity?
Heck – quod licet jovis, non licet bovis -
“And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.”
@RWE #54:
In the diversity department white males are without a doubt under represented, it existent at all. Anyone rising up in the organization due to a diversity program will in the future obviously be positively disposed towards this approach to affirmative action, and it then spreads like a cancer.
Some points that I failed to mention in my post #43 were:
1) The CIO had fired or attrited about 20% of the IT workforce in 2008/2009. Being at the forefront of “diversity” allows her to prove that she has “empathy” for all the employees. This is just a typical lie from this kind of person, like all of Obama’s pledges of “hope”.
2) In Switzerland, very few women become software “techies”, I know this because my daughter is doing a computer programming apprenticeship and there is only one other girl in her class at technical school. Women who enter IT here in Switzerland tend to end up in “softer” specialties like project management, business analysis and just plain management. This means that in upper management terms women are over represented (probably 2x more in proportion to those that are techies). And yet the CIO goes on and on about the need for more women in upper management.
3) Most of the employees fired in 2008/2009 were white males. Now that “profits” have returned the CIO has the chance to rehire following her diversity goals. We know exactly what that means.
4) When she became CIO, she let several existing Swiss managers, all male, go. She replaced them with about 50% females. This means that at her level of management women are approximately 50% of the workforce whereas at my level the represent about 5%.
@Kinuachdrach #15: When you said “RIP Whiskey”, I thought you meant that he had died. I had to search several past threads to find out that some PC police contributors had managed to get Wrechard to muzzle him. I want to go on the record as saying that I think this was a great loss to Belmont Club. Looking at that thread it would seem to me that the posts are about 20:1 in favor of Whiskey (also, no one admitted to stabbing him in the back), and I think his banning has some parallels to my recent lessons in “diversity” in that a small percent of “aggrieved” should not be allowed to stifle free speech and corrupt an organization.
Zelda,
This is my idea of fun. As those who I call Oligarchs shred the bonds of comity that bind people into a law abiding society there will be increasing pressure on those with a traditional sense of their role as protectors of society. My speculation was that in the three cases of the. Black Panthers, the Seals, and the rush to indict the Russians we are seeing the unraveling of the bonds between the sheep dogs and those who claimed the respect due to legitimate rulers.The treason of Educators, Academics, and Politicians is netrayal by those who should be the guiding Shepherds.
To be blogged under the title “Who Let the Dogs Out?”
Steeple: See Argentina.
JW: One word: projection.
Wretchard: If we are to the point where things truly “go round in circles”. If POWER has become so ingrained…regardless of who wields it, our republic is truly lost.
Lifeofthemind (#96):
Who let the dogs out? Who do you think?
LotM, itsa bit more complicated than that. But in essence, the shepherds are being replaced by wolves. Odd wolves at that, that think there is too many sheep and that shepherds are to blame. Something about sheep not being that yummy, weakly and diseased with too much fat to muscle ratio. But on occasion, the sheep were seen to surround a wolf and he had to depart with tail between legs and with growling tummy, lest be trampled.
Don Rodrigo, it’s called redistributive justice. The barbarians are over-running Rome. To the victors go the spoils, and the spoils will be taken.
On a side note….this Jewish fellow from Cambridge MA, wrote this op-ed praising the good WASP. Cant really blame him, can you? The Left is doing the same thing to Israeli Jews. Poetic justice, I guess. Maybe this fellow is a good Jew? The Right of Return and the end of the Jewish State, self disempowerment, making yourself a minority via mass immigration and the smooth transference of power to “the Other.” The Triumphant Dissolution of the Jewish State. The distruction of the Jewish state is ACTUALLY Jews greatest triumph!
——————
The Triumphant Decline of the WASP
By NOAH FELDMAN
Published: June 25, 2010
Cambridge, Mass.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/28/opinion/28feldman.html
Unlike almost every other dominant ethnic, racial or religious group in world history, white Protestants have ceded their socioeconomic power by hewing voluntarily to the values of merit and inclusion, values now shared broadly by Americans of different backgrounds. The decline of the Protestant elite is actually its greatest triumph.
——————-
Values shared broadly by Americans of different backgrounds, heh?
to the rocks and reefs of washing tundy sea
Buddy Larsen
Now that is just beautiful, sublime.
72. shivermetimbers –
Josh 21 – I think the Clintons’ biggest sins were: 1. Allowing Loral Space corp, over the objections of the State Dept, CIA, Pentagon, etc., to teach China how to fly their rockets straight
2. Losing nuclear secrets to the Chinese, i.e. miniaturization of warheads to fit on rockets, and shucking it off as though this happened on every other president’s watch. Where was the outrage?
—————
Read Bill Gertz’ book “Betrayal”. You’ll find plenty of outrage, photostats of documents, and sources.
Is your blood boiling yet? No? Then read this, at Ace of Spades:
Good News: Liberals Find Spending They Want To Cut
(I saw Whiskey in the comments.)
102. Old Salt
Yep, I remember hearing about that stuff at the time, and was dumbfounded (and disturbed and horrified) when the Congressional Republicans chose to make the impeachment all about a stupid sex scandal.
RE: JW — ahhh, there’s one. I was getting concerned that some of you boys had taken all the lefty’s who usually swarm around places like this out behind the shed and done very bad things to them.
But there *is* one, posting his/her/its ludicrous bitterosity, and being duly ignored.
Very good. Carry on.
@84 Bob
LOL! Well done, sir
On the whole, this discussion brings Bastiat to mind~
http://www.constitution.org/law/bastiat.htm
The relevance of his ideas about the law isn’t limited to economics, in particular his comments about plunder speak directly to the current DOJ
(quote)
~ “The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. These two evils are of equal consequence, and it would be difficult for a person to choose between them. The nature of law is to maintain justice. This is so much the case that, in the minds of the people, law and justice are one and the same thing. There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because law makes them so. Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it. Slavery, restrictions, and monopoly find defenders not only among those who profit from them but also among those who suffer from them.” ~
(end quote)
Woe unto the nation indeed
The judiciary was intended to be the most limited of the branches of government, because the founders knew well its potential for abuse and corruption. It moves at such a strange pace as the judges in these cases are Johnson/Carter/Clinton appointees, but not always exclusively.
And when these forms of ward heelers were bumped upstairs years back to appease the “legal” constituency they corrupted at the academic (university) level many years back, they serve as petri dishes to grow the pathogen no matter the party in power, only to leave the laboratory itself entirely once their sheer vanity itself sees the opportunity to distinguish themselves (from their “peers”, their competitors in “the legal community”) once a case with all the trappings of racially motivated, P.C., kanga-rood, justice, (or, thugstice) appear on the scene (but not even race p.c. anymore, hence the Robert Wone case…)
The freak show of those “justices” who see all the publicity and the all important “precedent” that will result from their decisions, and, more importantly, the unintended consequences that will result from their actions, are as the crack cocaine to their ambitions.
So the killers of Robert Wone are rewarded, and the new black panthers are given a nice warm blanket of amnesty, because the judges, or justice department crones, don’t want to appear ungrateful, in their now non-fifteen minutes of fame (judging by the media yawns concerning the non-news worthiness of these cases), because their precedent, and their names, will come up again, as precedent, when their judgements resurface in other cases- to the only people that matter (to them)- other justices in other cases down the road.
We had at least a hint of such unintended consequences with the Terri Schiavo case. After all, she was not in a terminal state, she was, before the law, technically disabled. [The idea of euthanasia had previously been predicated on cases of terminal illness as a means to avoid suffering for the terminally ill]. And, of course, there is a law “on the books” in Florida forbidding anyone from denying food and water to a disabled person. But the judge there laughed at the law and ordered people to violate the law, and murder the disabled woman, by dehydration and starvation. Forget that the judge had a ghoulish background in support of euthanasia (which did not apply in this case, by its definition then), and he should have recused himself.
I’m sure he knew that his abuse of power would not be lost on those that matter- (the other judges throughout “the community” of the legal profession) those, whose vanity would surely be stoked by his actions. But, oh, the humility of it all! Those “unintended consequences”! He was saying, “I can murder and get away with it, but so can you!” “You can “si se puede” yourself to a nice clean aquittal, If your group politics intersect with the ambitions of those in this oldest of professions, the “legal community”! It’s not just for akeedeemics no more! It’s for you little people too!”
It’s rather upsetting, to say the least, to think that the stanzas- “If you can keep your head, when all about you are losing theirs” would need clarification (to stress it’s obvious, and implicit meaning- to reassert it’s intended meaning…) that “when others have lost their sanity, and you can keep yours, in the midst of such insanity…” and so forth, makes you now wonder whether or not you can keep your head on your shoulders, when all about you losing theirs to the caprices of the red queen. Judge, jury, executioner. Slam dunk.
Turn on the tv, maybe there’s a ball game.
On your tomorrow’s visit of the local supermarket you may be greeted by this Globe Cover.
An old lady with her libdaughter:
“Look, your O’bum is a criminal!”
“Mom, it’s just a supermarket rag.”
“Yea? Remember Edwards? What about Gore?”
@ ConfederateH (95)
I don’t know if Whiskey is banned or not but I do know that Wretchard has given him a link in the blogroll. Whiskey hasn’t posted anything since April 22nd, however. He posted a lot more frequently on this blog than he did on his own. Perhaps that’s because he had more readers here on Belmont than there? But I don’t know for sure.
As for backstabbing, I criticized several of Whiskey’s posts both in public, i.e. in comments made to this blog, and in private, i.e. in emails sent to the host of this blog. So what of it?
No sense complaining about human nature. People form groups and persecute others, whom they wrongly believe are inferior. It’s what they do. Attempts to circumvent this by supplying new groups based on belief instead of skin color (Whites stole everything from Blacks) or culture (Greeks are superior, everyone else is a barbarian), say for example, Islam or Communism, only create new rules for oppression and persecution, or in those two’s cases mass murder on scales that only the great Kahn could achieve.
In most countries the majority race (Zimbabwe) and majority religion (Saudi Arabia) are allowed moments of lawless superiority (e.g., racism in Chicago, Boston, Atlanta in the 1950s; Days of Rage in the 1960s;… better stop there). The only mystery here is why minorities have lawless rule in the USA.
* * *
Whiskey has been banned? Does PJ Media offer t-shirts as consolations? I had to make my own “Banned at LGF” t-shirt. Charles isn’t light-hearted enough to offer them. Is PJM? A “Banned at PJM” t-shirt would make a good pair with an the LGF shirt.
Sorry, correction; thats- Judge, jury. Executioner, by proxy.
And, P.S. @#8 Anton- “The only question in this case; Is it caprice that is being served? or a larger, darker purpose?”
The honest, simple answer that I can provide is anarchy, and “streeet” justice, but we all knew that was what he meant by “community organizer” to begin with, we just hadn’t seen it fleshed out yet.
Boy, the training wheels are really coming off the Leviathan now.
If we don’t keep the bums in office, it could all just start to fall apart! I’m starting an Incumbency movement, because RINO’s in my state are the only one’s helping to smooth things over in D.C.
@#57 wretchard- “When you look at the box reserved for the press and find the 20/20 and Dateline seats empty, you know that unless you have a slam dunk then you are treading on thin ice. So who’s to blame her for playing it safe?”
The prosecution maybe should have brought in the box that had Robert Wone in it, as he was, apparently, the one on trial there, and therefore bore the burden of proof…
Of what, exactly? If he’da rose up an said” Hey, I’ve been murdered already!”
them high prassed lawyurs wudda said in response “So… you admit that your murder is in question? Right?” (Real Perry Mason like… for Al Franken’s benefit)
…Maybe I’m just crazy from the heepin’ helpin’ ’0′ crazy lately….
…cuz I can barely hear myseff rant, much less think, with all this talk talk talk goin’ on.
now if y’all would just shut up and listen to me for one minute!
starling/109
mmm’kay.
Here is as I see it. Richard made his decision to ask Whiskey refraining from posting and Whiskey agreed (no “ban” actually took place). No doubt, Richard had a whole bunch of reasons (some of which can be deduced and some which may not) for his decision and it may not have been an easy one. I may disagree (and anyone can check that I vehemently disagreed with Whiskey on many points–that is the nature of discourse), but this is Richard’s blog and he is the ultimate arbiter here.
Now, it is possible that your private critique of Whiskey may have influenced that decision. Richard mentioned “several” people, so you were not the only one. To your credit, you admitted it, and that should be that. I hope there is no witch hunt commencing after your admission. That would be unfortunate because people that are implying a witch hunt would be engaging in precisely the same thing.
ConferderateH @95,
I concur that banishing Whiskey, however politely the host might have done it, was a great loss to the conversation. By focusing on practical anthropology Whiskey brought a sense of reality that is otherwise missing. Obama’s aim is the reduction of the power/influence of the Calvinism of white Americans that made this country great. This aim cannot be addressed without discussing racial tendencies. Does this viewpoint make me a racist? I do have a racist background. My brother married a woman named Park from Korea; my sister married a man named Galvez from Manila; I, my brother and my father risked our property and personal safety in Birmingham in 1962-1965 to support universal civil rights.
Do I feel betrayed by the majority of present-day African-Americans? Yes, I do. I also feel contempt for anyone who contacted the host privately to request that Whiskey be silenced. That is outside the rules of the game.
111. Gaffe Prices; “…..simple answer that I can provide is anarchy…”
I agree, but as human societies tend to be self-organizing (at some level) who is it that would profit from the descent into anarchy? Who intends to move in and fill the organizational vacuum? Several different players spring to mind, none of whom I would like as rulers.
Being King of the Hill means that everybody is trying to push you off, thus you have to protect yourself all-around. It also means that you can wear yourself out dealing with the little kids while the guy who is really gunning for your spot is resting up in the shade. These constant irritants (individually offensive, but not crippling) are acting as a “death of a thousand cuts”
weakening our nation, sapping both our will and strength.
Obama isn’t the problem (OK he is a problem, but he isn’t THE problem), he is a symptom of the problem. He is the tumor, not the virus. Getting rid of the tumor is normally a good idea, but you have to follow-up with the chemotherapy or it is of little avail. The virus is Totalitarian Leftism, the chemotherapy is the Constitution.
Unfortunately the treatment has been left ignored for far too long and I fear that when it is applied the patient will be in for a very rough time.
88. Abdul Kareema Wheat; “…buy all the ammo you can get your hands on..”
I concur, too much is a good place to start.
Here’s a novel thought; could the VA or PA attorney general charge the civil/voting rights division of the DOJ under the federal RICO statute? RICO is not my particular expertise, but it would seem so as long as they can ground jurisdiction in their state.
Strange times in which we live, that the DOJ itself may meet the elements of a corrupt organization under RICO. We have descended into third world despotism.
ridgerunner/113
This aim cannot be addressed without discussing racial tendencies.
A good point. However, that does not mean that the solution to racial tendencies is to embrace them and have more of it, per Whiskey (which was my main contention, beside his wide brush of femalian capriciousness).
In any case, Whiskey did open a can of worms and I am not sure what would prevent us to incorporate that can into our discourses. Apparently, it was the serving that was the problem, not the notions that racial tendencies are alive and thriving.
Unfortunately, since our “Justice” (just us by us) Dept. won’t step in, the answer to the Black Panthers terrorizing voters will have to be found in the black hole staring out of the black barrel of my black 12 gauge. Hey Shazbazz, wanna intimidate me? Look closer – BOOM. Repeat as necessary.
I do miss Whiskey a bit as well. His fetish for blaming everything on genetics and the presence, or lack of, external genitalia was a annoying but I could read past it. When he wasn’t ranting he made some pretty good points. It is interesting to have the full array of viewpoints, you could always skip his posts if you are violently opposed to his thoughts.
We do get our share of Lefty trolls, they seem to leave soon enough (I doubt they have been banned) and even some fairly monomanaical types that try to bend every issue to fit their pet problem. I may even fit that profile with my bitter contempt for Communism and it’s many cult-like permutations.
I read Wretchard’s blog everyday for a quick peek into a mind that is far more expansive, better read and more expireinced than mine, I read the comments to remind myself of how many people out there that are both smarter and more preceptive than I am. The occasional doofus reminds me that I’m not a complete ignoramus.
I saw Whiskey commenting elsewhere the other day, he seems to have toned down a bit but not changed much.
Mad in Texas/117
I presume that the BOOM was a warning shot into air based on an impending threat of violence from the intimidator. Even that may bring you into a trouble with law enforcement.
There are likely other means to neutralize the intimidators’ intimidation.
Can’t wait to see Kagan’s head on a Pike!
icetrout/120
Ah, the icetrout trolls smell in the morning!
Ridgerunner said: Do I feel betrayed by the majority of present-day African-Americans? Yes, I do.
Starling: so do I a lot of the time–difference is, they’re my people. Your sense of betrayal pales beside mine.
Ridgerunner: I also feel contempt for anyone who contacted the host privately to request that Whiskey be silenced. That is outside the rules of the game.
Starling: I’m not being coy when I say here that I haven’t the slightest idea what set of rules you’re referring to. I said in private what I also said in public and neither was a request that Whiskey be silenced. I read his blog and am disappointed he doesn’t post there more often. Not sure why that’s a problem. I’ll be on vacation until July 15th and won’t be checking in here. But you can follow the link from my name and email me directly.
M. Report @ 76: “key word: Subsidiarity”
M. — I concur with your assessment that the Federal Government is running out of money, just like so many other governments (China & Russia excepted). And there certainly will be the predictable (and not necessarily bad) consequences of bankruptcy.
However, your prescription of “Subsidiarity” is pure unadulterated Euro-trash talk. You are a victim of the latest Politically Correct scam.
The key word is “Federalism” — which antedates “Subsidiarity” by over two centuries.
“Subsidiarity” is the self-selected elites at the center allowing the subject peoples at the periphery to clean their own toilets (provided they meet standards for toilet bowl cleanliness set by the in-crowd at the center).
In contrast, Federalism is a proud people delegating to the center certain strictly enumerated powers (subject to revocation if the center falls into the hands of unsavory types).
No – to Euro-scam “subsidiarity”. Yes – to original US-style Federalism
Anton, I may even fit that profile with my bitter contempt for Communism and it’s many cult-like permutations.
I would submit that your bitter contempt is fully justified and though it is focused, it is not monomaniacal. In fact, our current predicament may be a result of not expressing that contempt (and reasons for it) often enough.
I think that Bill Whittle on PJTV had the best analysis. If I may paraphrase a bit.
“Is Obama: A) Incompetent, B)An Islamic Neo-Marxists, C) Psychologically damaged? The answer is, Yes.”
So far there have been skirmishes on election front. A big battle will be the November election. So far the polling is looking good.
The question in my mind is how much damage can the left take and still hold together?
I just read a comment by a “Whiskey” over on Zombie’s article on the coming court decision in Oakland. It is lucid and calm, and never mentions the male/female thing.
Possibly a different Whiskey, or perhaps this one has been double/triple distilled?
BTW does anybody know where Habu and Subotai have gone?
“diversity officer”
I.e., Soviet-style political officers. How about we all agree to, when we meet such people in a social situation, to openly treat them with the contempt due to such scum? Ask them how they like following in the footsteps of Stalin and Mao?
Starling @122,
I take you at your word that you did not request that the host silence Whiskey. The basic rule of the game in an open relationship, as between siblings, is to keep it open, rather than running to Momma behind the other sib’s back and demanding punishment of him. I am glad you weren’t someone who did that. I think any BC commenter who did contact the host and ask that Whiskey be banned feels that he/she is superior to the rest of us, with all the baggage that entails.
The bottom line is that there are going to have be a lot more conservative African-Americans like you, or the worst implications of Whiskey’s observations will come to fruition. It will be disaster for your people if they are mostly arrayed in support of socialism.
125. toad, “The question in my mind is how much damage can the left take and still hold together”
I think we are rapidly approaching an inflection point, things will break one way or the other. The Gramscian March is like an infection (to continue my earlier metaphor) that has penetrated the defenses and deeply harmed the body, the temperature rises quickly as the now alerted immune system kicks into high gear. The issue at hand is whether the immune system will stop the disease in time or collapse and the body dies. My hope is that the defense succeeds and the body will emerge with an immunity to this pathology.
It is now a situation of All or Nothing for the Lefties, that is what worries me the most. All of their cards are on the table and the eyes of many people have been opened. They must win or collapse.
Marxists have never shown an ability to go forward with their program unless it is across a field of corpses.
pst314, Soviet-style political officers = politruk (политрук, from политический руководитель).
My father was a Lieutenant-Colonel in CZ military counterespionage and he hated them with passion. Usually invited them for a bottle of wine and then made a fun of them, thus proving that his notion they were utter sheer idiots was correct.
@ ridgerunner (122): It will be disaster for your people if they are mostly arrayed in support of socialism.
I know, ridge, believe me I know.
Anton, Marxists have never shown an ability to go forward with their program unless it is across a field of corpses.
Sometimes I think that the field of corpses is the ultimate goal and the movers picked the best sure tool to accomplish it (marxists).
A bit of levity…
A beautiful fairy appeared one day to a
destitute Mexican refugee outside an Arizona
immigration office.
“Good man,” the fairy said, “I’ve been sent
here by President Obama and told to grant
you three wishes, since you just arrived in
the United States with your wife and eight children.”
The man told the fairy, “Well, where I come
from we don’t have good teeth, so I want new teeth,
maybe a lot of gold in them.”
The fairy looked at the man’s almost
toothless grin and — PING!– he had a brand new
shining set of gold teeth in his mouth!
“What else?” asked the fairy, “Two more to go.”
The refugee claimant now got bolder. “I
need a big house with a three car garage in Annapolis
on the water with eight bedrooms for my family and
the rest of my relatives who still live in my country.
I want to bring them all over here” — and — PING!
in the distance there could be seen a beautiful mansion
with a three car garage, a long driveway, a walkout
patio with a BBQ in an upscale neighborhood
overlooking the bay.
“One more wish”, said the fairy, waving her wand.
“Yes, one more wish. I want to be like an
American with American clothes instead of these torn
clothes, and a baseball cap instead of this sombrero.
And I want to have white skin like Americans”
and — PING! — The man was transformed – wearing
worn out jeans, a Baltimore Orioles T-shirt and a
baseball cap. He had his bad teeth back and the
mansion had disappeared from the horizon.
“What happened to my new teeth?” He wailed,
“Where is my new house?”
The fairy said:
“Tough shit, Amigo, Now that you are a White
American, you have to fend for yourself.”
Starling, you had a blog a while ago, if I recall correctly. What happened to it?
Starling is a class act and I think his is the example as to why we don’t “self-censor” like some Eastern Block commissar but why we maintain a level of decorum that does not impugn the dignity of our friends and colleagues. It takes more than a little guts to come clean like he did and he had no other obligation than to be true to his beliefs to do so. I take him at his word too.
Have you ever found yourself a party to a conversation and asked yourself “what would my mother think of that?” Sometimes we can act a little shameful because we are accustomed to believe our thoughts are isolated but that is true less today then it was yesterday and completely baseless in a public forum such as this. Whiskey can be an object lesson that I can learn from and reminds me that I too tend to blame a lot of “others” for being less than I am but there is always room to rise above one’s own shortcomings and to find a way clear that doesn’t devolve into Lord of the Flies.
Terror — and Candor
The administration’s denial of “radical Islam” is dangerous, dishonest, and demoralizing.
There’s a final reason why the administration’s cowardice about identifying those trying to kill us cannot be allowed to pass. It is demoralizing. It trivializes the war between jihadi barbarism and Western decency, and diminishes the memory of those (including thousands of brave Muslims — Iraqi, Pakistani, Afghan, and Western) who have died fighting it.
Churchill famously mobilized the English language and sent it into battle. But his greatness lay not just in eloquence but in his appeal to the moral core of a decent people to rise against an ideology the nature of which Churchill never hesitated to define and describe — and to pronounce (“Nahhhhzzzzi”) in an accent dripping with loathing and contempt.
No one is asking Obama or Holder to match Churchill’s rhetoric — just Shahzad’s candor.
(when Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square attacker, pleaded guilty, he explained :
“One has to understand where I’m coming from. . . . I consider myself a mujahid, a Muslim soldier.”)
Perhaps we should henceforth refer to all ‘Diversity Officers’ as Political Officers. It would be instructive to observe how many take offense and how long it takes them to realize the implications.
The phrase on our coinage is ‘E Pluribus Unum’. The ordering of that phrase is important, but apparently overlooked fairly often.
Darren, afraid my father was right. They may take an umbrage, but I think the implications would go past them. They would have to know the import and have some notion what it actually meant. I would suspect history is not their forte.
135. Annoy Mouse said…
“Starling is a class act and I think his is the example as to why we don’t “self-censor” like some Eastern Block commissar but why we maintain a level of decorum that does not impugn the dignity of our friends and colleagues.”
—
While this is generally true on this forum, my line above, “Terror — and Candor” makes clear why need not reach to some Eastern Block Country for an example.
The PC Speech and Thought Police scare the Hell out of me.
@113 ridgerunner
I disagree with your assessment of whiskey’s contribution. He had his points but he was a bit obsessed with a couple of them. To say he brought to the conversation “a sense of reality that is otherwise missing” is pretty funny since at least half his references were to television or some other aspect of pop culture – hardly the eternal verities. It also makes me wonder what you think wretchard and others here are talking about most of the time.
I also don’t understand your “contempt” for anyone who may have privately communicated their concerns about whiskey’s rhetorical excesses to our host. Why shouldn’t they? It’s wretchard’s blog after all. And if he makes a decision to ask whiskey, or me, or anyone else to cool it, he’s undoubtedly got reasons of his own for doing so. He’s always seemed like a man who keeps his own counsel. I’ve never e-mailed him about whiskey, but I once did about someone else (take a wild guess) and I can assure you the individual in question was not silenced.
Funny, it always used to bug me that whiskey’s posts would get us talking about him and his attitudes, and here we are carrying on just the same without him!
Edit Function Missing:
Correction to 139 above:
“While this is generally true on this forum, my LINK above, “Terror — and Candor” makes clear why WE need not reach to some Eastern Block Country for an example.”
Doug,
PC is a disease and we would only give it creedence in the worst of our excesses as a society and none here at all. I don’t think a crime was committed, either in the robust exchange of ideas or in the notion there may be a limit to what rises to common decency. I am not say whiskey over stepped those bounds but we caucasions are probably much less sensitive to where the boundary may be, that being somewhat subjective, but when my host asks me to remove my shoes before entering his house I gladly comply. It isn’t asking that much to preserve the hard work that went into building the edifice over so many years. When you come to my house, bring beer.
marymcl @140,
“I disagree with your assessment of whiskey’s contribution. He had his points but he was a bit obsessed with a couple of them. To say he brought to the conversation “a sense of reality that is otherwise missing” is pretty funny since at least half his references were to television or some other aspect of pop culture – hardly the eternal verities. It also makes me wonder what you think wretchard and others here are talking about most of the time.”
Well, since you asked, what I think Wretchard and many others are talking about, often at least, are epiphenomena which ride upon the grand themes of human biology, such as those which Whiskey focuses on.
Whiskey used references to pop culture as time-inexpensive ways to buttress his points. I would have preferred that data were available for him to use. Either it wasn’t or he was unaware of it, but his references to pop culture were not irrelevant to his points.
Whiskey being asked to leave is a loss for the BC community. I rarely post (like the vast majority of visitors), but I do read everything and refer people here all the time.
Whiskey frequently bashed my religion and said harsh things, but he always caused me to *think*. Critical thinking is lost when all we hear is what we already agree with. Like so many others, I come here for growth. I stretch my mind and beliefs. Whiskey was a part of that and I looked forward to his comments – especially when I did not agree with what he posted.
I will still visit, but hearing that a valuable member was asked to stop posting has tarnished the shine a little…
Duh… (as the kids say)…”I also don’t understand your “contempt” for anyone who may have privately communicated their concerns about whiskey’s rhetorical excesses to our host. Why shouldn’t they?”
If you ask that question, the answer to it will go right over your head or be ignored. So nobody will attempt to answer it. But most know the answer and live by it.
Myself, well I get along to go along, but I never speak in forked tongues or say what I don’t mean.
I mean what I say and to hell with what anybody else thinks. You don’t like it, don’t read it. Ban me? well, I’ve been banned many times in many places, mostly Islamic places and liberal places but also in some so-called conservative “right wing places”. As far as I’m concerned every person has the right to say what they think. If those around them disagree, let them argue the point, debate and prove me wrong. But if they would rather ban me and others of the same ilk, well there are plenty of other places on the web to go.
Don’t forget that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander and it soon may come to both that they are silenced.
Then the time for talk will be over and the time for other more drastic and terrible actions will be upon us.
Papa Ray
Transcript of Obama’s Immigration Speech:
Shared values that we all hold so dear:
(Contempt for America, it’s history, the Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, devotion to Alinski, Marx…)
“…being an American is not a matter of blood or birth.
It’s a matter of faith.
It’s a matter of fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear.
That’s what makes us unique. That’s what makes us strong. Anybody can help us write the next great chapter in our history.“
Doug @ 146: thanks for the link to Obama’s speech. What a travesty. Not just the worn-out rhetoric and the string of obvious prevarications. But the indifference to the laws that bind and shape our common life. How he ever made it through law school and kept a “job” as a “professor” is a great mystery. His solution to lawlessness on a grand scale is –more lawlessness. Just: give up and disguise your surrender with sweet nothings. Whatever happened to that oath on January 20, 2009: wasn’t there something in there about “execute the laws faithfully”? Another stale-dated promise. As a political matter, he keeps doubling down and when the inevitable backlash and anger emerge, he paints them as reactionary, racist, hateful, etc. This cheat-and-retreat/bully-and-fingerpoint game has worked for him ever since he was a manipulative little boy. Which, in many ways, he still is. I don’t see him ever changing; but I sure hope we can. November elections will be key to containing this.
@starling #109
As I said above, at first I was concerned that he had died, so I wanted to point out “RIP Whiskey” was misleading.
There was a long thread about Whiskey in the thread “what-the-russian-sleepers-did” where a few contributors expressed the opinion that whoever had complained about him should come forward. In that thread no one did.
I have no way of knowing what transpired between you and Wretchard as far as Whiskey goes, but you did show that you have the spine to step forward. I will also say that I have read some of your work in the past and I have great respect for it. I consider Reggie Middleton at Zerohedge to be my favorite black blogger, and as Martin Luther King said the content of a man’s character should be of far more relevance than the color of his skin.
However, I have had more than my fill of diversity police. Today I was discussing the “diversity awareness” goal with a couple of colleagues of equivalent rank who have the same supervisor and I asked them if they had been asked what they had done to promote diversity. Both said that they had been rated as “meets” the goal and both had not been asked what they had done to promote diversity. We all agreed that this must be some kind of a hidden signal that management considers me a racist. I have a muslim friend in the office and get along extremely well with several Nigerians that I work with. The only conclusion I can come up with is that management considers me a racist because of my conservative views.
So Mr. Starling, perhaps you can understand how with all this PC bullshit that originated in the US spreading like cancer across the globe that I might have been keenly interested in the opinions of someone like Whiskey who was willing to lay it all out on the line and did not care what the PC police said or did.
Unfortunately, you have had a hand in depriving myself and many others of Whiskeys entertaining and provocative comments.
ConfederateH, all this PC bullshit that originated in the US
A quip… no, it didn’t. It was a brilliant (not in the sense of admiration) handiwork of KGB, refined by luminaries such as Gramsci and Marcus and Frankfurt School and sundry of their US based acolytes. It was the content of the first phase of conquest of USA–demoralization, to break bonds and moral fiber or the society and feed mistrust. That the original impetus is now gone is irrelevant, the thing was devised to bootstrap itself and be left on an autopilot. This phase is almost completed. The followup phases are even less pleasant.
ConfederateH, one other thing… your deprivation has a remedy. Look up, under Blogroll. Whiskey’s blog’s there.
This is the first time I have ever posted here, though I have been coming to Wretchards every day since Steven Den Beste recommended it in the fall of 2003. It is one of the most enlightening & thought provoking places on the web. Richard is awe inspiring and ya’ll are great contributors, but as JoeB said “a valuable member was asked to stop posting has tarnished the shine a little”. That said, I will continue to visit & learn. Again, thanks to all of you who make this such a great sight.
132. twobyfour;
The Forces of Evil (doesn’t that sound like a line from a ’40s action movie?) have chosen Marxism many times in the past century to enact their program as it is the most evil political cult ever conceived. As Wretchard stated above it is really all about Power, and the Marxist/Stalinist version of statism concentrates the most amount of Power in the fewest of hands thereby allowing the greatest amount of Evil to be perpetrated in the shortest amount of time.
So far this poison has always occurred at a national level, even at the height of the Soviet Union’s power there were several other nations (and a host of subject peoples) to oppose the evil. If the Shining City on the Hill were to fall where then would Freedom find succour?
As I have said before Dark Forces are afoot, and it up to each and every person to work to the limit of their strength to stop it. If we fail Freedom’s flame will be extinguished for centuries to come.
The Marxists know this and rejoice in their gains.
Twobyfour @149: It sounds entirely too plausible. Scariest word in your post: “autopilot.” Like their Doomsday Bomb in “Dr. Strangelove” except this one is real. I need to learn more about how the Soviets went about creating conditions for World Revolution and messing up their rivals. Any sources or best books you can recommend would be a big help. Thanks.
marymcl @ 140: “I also don’t understand your “contempt” for anyone who may have privately communicated their concerns about whiskey’s rhetorical excesses to our host. Why shouldn’t they?” and Pappa Ray’s response at 145 –
I don’t always agree with Pappa Ray, but he is spot on here.
Mary, think of the disgust we all share for the slimy office-politician who goes around knifing others in the back; he makes himself the tallest tree in the forest by cutting down others. Or think of the old westerns, where the bad guy who called the Sheriff out for an open gunfight was accorded more respect than the contemptible bushwacker firing from the undergrowth. (Was that an image that Whiskey himself might have used?).
It is the unwillingness to stand up which brings contempt on those who manipulate from the shadows. Deserved contempt.
As I have said before, Wretchard may have had to choose the “least unacceptable” alternative here, and it certainly is Wretchard’s blog/Wretchard’s rules. But Whiskey is effectively dead as far as this forum is concerned. And more died than just Whiskey. I am sure I am not the only one who now finds himself parsing unrelated comments wondering — Is this one of the contemptible secret complainers who lacks the courage & decency to step forward?
80. Bob
Don Rodrigo (#70):
Just to make sure we’re not talking past each other: you are aware that everyone (Hispanic, White, etc) in Port Chester gets six votes?
No, I was not aware of that, but now I am, which means that some of my points are not valid.
Also, the judge did not “make law” as I claimed, and even made a statement to the effect that it was not his jurisdiction to do so.
I was wrong in my interpretation. Thanks for being persistent.
Speaking of PC, is it the last obstacle to finally firing Michael Steele? He’s been an utter disaster and his latest comments weaken the GOP at a critical point (again!) by stirring a firestorm over him and his mouth. Does he really want to just abandon Afghanistan to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda?
Here’s Fox News’s William Kristol calling for Steele’s immediate resignation:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/letter-michael-steele
Dear Michael,
You are, I know, a patriot. So I ask you to consider, over this July 4 weekend, doing an act of service for the country you love: Resign as chairman of the Republican party.
Your tenure has of course been marked by gaffes and embarrassments, but I for one have never paid much attention to them, and have never thought they would matter much to the success of the causes and principles we share. But now you have said, about the war in Afghanistan, speaking as RNC chairman at an RNC event, “Keep in mind again, federal candidates, this was a war of Obama’s choosing. This was not something that the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in.” And, “if [Obama] is such a student of history, has he not understood that you know that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan?”
Needless to say, the war in Afghanistan was not “a war of Obama’s choosing.” It has been prosecuted by the United States under Presidents Bush and Obama. Republicans have consistently supported the effort. Indeed, as the DNC Communications Director (of all people) has said, your statement “puts [you] at odds with about 100 percent of the Republican Party.”
And not on a trivial matter. At a time when Gen. Petraeus has just taken over command, when Republicans in Congress are pushing for a clean war funding resolution, when Republicans around the country are doing their best to rally their fellow citizens behind the mission, your comment is more than an embarrassment. It’s an affront, both to the honor of the Republican party and to the commitment of the soldiers fighting to accomplish the mission they’ve been asked to take on by our elected leaders.
There are, of course, those who think we should pull out of Afghanistan, and they’re certainly entitled to make their case. But one of them shouldn’t be the chairman of the Republican party.
Sincerely yours,
William Kristol
No more Whiskey, no more Drudge?
Can Walt write something rhymes with sludge?
I think that Holder should resign, and if it can be shown that Obama ordered or supported the dismissal of this case, which was defaulted by the defendants, there should be impeachment hearings. I know he’d never get impeached, because Democrats have no consciences, but the congressional hearings should publicize this case.
oMan _some contributor on National Review was an ex-colonel with the KGB somewhere in Eastern Europe, the particulars escape me, wrote something to the effect “The Democrats Stole My Speech” outlying the word for word agitprop the KGB was feeding to Left wing anti-establishmentarians and other anti-war, anti-this anti-that people and how the would read it back verbatim sometimes not even transcribing awkward prose.
They will aggregate any cause that is against their enemy and as Pogo so clearly pronounced, “they is us”.
oMan, Bezmenov
a/152; …the Marxist/Stalinist version of statism concentrates the most amount of Power in the fewest of hands thereby allowing the greatest amount of Evil to be perpetrated in the shortest amount of time …with the least accountability.
adding that to bring in the fact of America having been founded on local relationships of individuals playing a number of roles accountable at the least remove. Thus an American village of the 18th century Enlightenment could be morally & ethically efficient without existential angst, on the ass-kicking basis that you got your just returns quickly and surely, properly meted per local rule –and then likely forgiven inside the Sunday meeting house.
Lamentable that this very efficiency sowed its own destruction, as ‘everybody knows everybody’s business’ was the small town trait that sent us running to urban anonymity.
or better said, flight from irksome judgementalism landed us in non-judgementalism, AKA PC moron-hell –hell because the act and the consequence lack human-scale alacrity and clarity –”reason”.
Eloquent, salient comment, Larsen. That distance or lever arm from immediate accountability does make a difference.
But, isn’t PC also judgementalism, albeit it one that well-intentioned to cynically substitutes societal/ shared responsibility for individual praise or blame worthiness?
Listing here, but still afloat…
I’ve been informed that my one minute was already over during the first comment.
false alarm.
Don’t look now, but this does have a familiar ring…
“On August 9, 1932, the government decreed the death penalty for those convicted of ‘political’ murder. The next night a band of Nazis invaded the home of a Communist worker in the Silesian village of Potempa and stomped him to death, kicking his larynx to pieces. When the killer s were arrested, tried, and sentenced in accordance with the new law, Hitler responded with threats and demonstrations. On Sept. 2, the government gave its answer: the death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment. The killers were freed by Hitler next year.”
“The civilized men in the country did not know what to do. In the words of one historian, the moderates voiced desperate “appeals to reason… [But] their techniques were distinctly out of tune with the wild emotionalism that seemed to have gripped a large part of the nation” The civility cherished by the civilized men had finally been defeated by their ideas, although they did not know that this was the cause. ”
After years of preaching contradictions and of evading principles with an anti-ideological shrug, these men were astonished to see the nation conclude that man cannot live by principles, that reason is no guide to action, and that anything goes. After years of institutionalizing interest-group warfare, which they had justified as sacrifice or collective service, these men were astonished to see hostile gangs take to the streets and demand one another’s sacrifice. After years of undercutting the mind by preaching the primacy of gentle feeling (whether ‘progressive’, religious, or skeptical), these men were astonished to find that they had nothing more to say, and that there was no one left to listen. The moderates were helpless. The authorities were helpless. The killers were taking over.
On January 30, 1933, after due attention to every requirement of German law and of the Weimar Constitution, Nazi rule was made official… It took six months for the Chancellor to transform the country into a totalitarian state.”
Leonard Peikoff – The Ominous Parallels
Thanks twobyfour, I’m listening to the other parts of his interview now. I think everyone should listen, learn and tell of these warnings from Bezmenov about the ongoing subversion of America from within.
While I was unhappy with the repubs for years and with bush in his reach for the middle which extended to the left and aided the democrats in more ways than were visible to most, when McCain was chosen for the repubs I knew that we would lose to the crats and that when the Hildibeast or Obama were elected our goose would be laid out, gutted and prepared for the feast. The feast for the socialists and all the shadow enemies of our Republic.
As we are being turned slowly over the coals of our enemies, being basted with platitudes, lies and contempt, here we are discussing mostly calmly and with high intellectual content – when time is not only running out – but soon we will be cooked to a turn where we may not be able to get off the skewer to either run or fight.
The fire is low now, the aroma of the herbs and spices inticing, mesersizing and still we can do little but look forward to an election of people that in the end really don’t stand much chance of damping the fire or changing the Shadow Chef’s menu.
And that is only if the elections are held and if they be honest.
Papa Ray
Political correctness has changed the terms of discourse without changing the underlying concepts or attitudes. PC speech simply rephrases bigotry and racism into expression that is presently acceptable to cultural watchdogs.
I explored this with examples at my own site in “How liberals say segregation.”
CH/162; i’d say so –its the oldest story, the false god, and not even with a trippy name, just Rosa krebs’ “non-judgementalism” –which as a creed becomes non-judgementalismism, and a believer a non-judgementalismismist. You can skip the hard part of ‘truth makes free’ sez the false god, and be free. Well, we’re testing that idea, right now –and since that test is yielding some hard truth, i’d say the test is failing, and revealing the false god, who is so ugly that the sight is becoming a terrible experience, like a five year old whose stupid teenaged uncle took him to see “The Creature from the Black Lagoon” –
***
Oman/153; re Nemesis organizations, here’s a treasure trove of ”let’s look at worst cases, shall we?” –and you can see several years of descriptive titles at a glance, and make your own judgement as to the perspicacity:
http://www.financialsensearchive.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/main.html
109. starling
In crude terms Whiskey is a unionist. He does not have another language to express unionism in southern California except in terms of race–because in his neck of the woods there is no other race with a history to understand unionism. (blacks are being driven out of LA but they don’t act like they have any dog in the fight. their leadership betrays them even more profoundly than does white leadership there.) So if you’re a fan of Abe Lincoln you’re going to have to come up with a language to express unionism–that is not racially centric. Why? Because there is a great contest coming that threatens the union. The outcome is very uncertain. There is a great danger that abe lincoln’s revolution will be over turned. two consequences will follow. one will be that the union will crack up — or merged into meaninglessness. the second will be that the black race–because it will no longer be promoted by american whites–will fall into disfavor world wide. (I saw a black minuteman on on the Arizona border two years ago express something like this & understood instantly. You would too if you had family history in the USA.)
There’s not much chance that a guy who has been sitting under Jeremiah Wright for 20 years has much love for the people he is called to represent. So you will kindly understand Whiskey’s tone.
likely you weren’t rubbed so wrong by Whiskey’s talk on women. Still, this is another thread of his thinking that you not have understood. southern California is the most impressed by American media culture. American media culture has turned pre Hebrew pagan.
I understand you’re based currently in the gulf. if you have the time read up on ancient Mesopotamia. There’s a break in their tradition about 2000 bc where they shift from worshiping female gods to male gods. (Genesis may be a strand of this. Gilgamesh may be another.)
Southern California is experiencing a reversion to these more primitive ancient female deities. As part of their temple practices the priestesses were temple HO’s. If you wanted to f-ck the state. Well there were some temple HO’s just for you. (As well there were male temple HO’s for those with more exotic tastes.)
Once again Whiskey did not have a language to express what was going on except in crude terms. But these forms were what I saw buried in his language. That is to say– what’s the difference between college women or gangsta women who are promiscuous for alpha males and temple HO’s.
The big problem with these female deities is that they render a people utterly prostrate and defenseless. Female homosexual societies work best when there are no enemies on the border–because they do not produce good warriors.
Why not? Because the men don’t have much of a stake in the society that looks like a black or white congregation that mostly women attend. Why are warriors important? Because warriors are defenders of the boundary.
I hold this against George Bush and John McCain. Both pushed american soldiers from small towns around their states all over central asia while they allowed the borders of their own states to be utterly collapsed by hostile aliens. How many soldiers have returned from the east to find their towns over run by foreigners. How many soldiers have returned to the USA only to be murdered by illegal aliens.
This is the worst death. Their blood cries out.
Starling so once again if you can’t hack Whiskey’s racially centric way of expressing the need for national boundaries–then you’re going to have to figure out a way to say it without race.
Obama brought the Chicago Way to the White House and our Federal Government. Eric Holder enabled the most corrupt pardon in U.S. history with the Marc Rich pardon. If we didn’t think we were going to get total corruption, what did we think we were getting?
WD/164; –that is absolutely hair-raising. Salon logics, wafting down to the street, where they make people kill each other. Three of them, in mounting order of horror, are, along with their reactions, the history of the modern West. France, Russia, Germany, roughly one per century, 18th, 19th, 20th. What kept the last two from learning from the Reign of Terror?
A thinker at Belmont grew frisky
When prodded and pricked, and tired a bein’ tricked
by femininist bullies and and guys fully ass-kicked.
He drafted a nonPC rant that was risky
calling out clots, and connecting the dots,
tween traitors and plans and whose calling the shots —
doctrinaire pukes who’d sell you their sister
and genuflect madly for any “A-lister…”
Did protest make W bring out a whisk? He
suffers opining, disputing, and whining
in every conceivable language but signing.
Maybe TPTB needed to cover its ass.
To honor brave Whiskey, let’s all raise a glass.
As the electrician said, the meter seems to be out of order…
169. valwayne:
“ what did we think we were getting?”
No mystery there, Reverend Wright told us.
America’s Chickens are coming home to roost:
“…the ink on our Constitution was barely dry when, amidst conflict, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which placed harsh restrictions of those suspected of having foreign allegiances.
A century ago, immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, other European countries were routinely subjected to rank discrimination and ugly stereotypes.
Chinese immigrants were held in detention and deported from Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay.
They didn’t even get to come in.
So the politics of who is and who is not allowed to enter this country, and on what terms, has always been contentious. And that remains true today. And it’s made worse by a failure of those of us in Washington to fix a broken immigration system.”
—
Buddy,
I am appalled, infuriated, and deeply saddened by the MSM’s burying of the ongoing disaster in the Gulf and the administration’s continued corrupt, obstructionist ways.
I’m proposing we all start a writing campaign to influential bloggers arguing for another swarm of the magnitude of the Dan Blather Affair.
Why should that have been the first and last major campaign to alter the outcome of history?
—
All different fields of expertise should once again be focused on airing and rectifying this tragedy.
@ ConfederateH (148):
As an active equities and futures trader, I too read zerohedge and also like Reggie’s work.
As an academic who teaches and does research in management, I too have had my fill of every form and variety of PC-multicultural monger. There’s no room for it in my courses on management, organizations, or strategy.
As for the my comments to Wretchard concerning Whiskey, let me provide you with a brief bit of background about what prompted them. It’s not a defense, mind you, because none is needed. I offer it just as a clarification and for context. There was post on this blog a few weeks back entitled “The Ideologue.” There was a comment following the post that referenced Whiskey but that was not made by him. The reference was to his oft-stated (and I think genuine) desire to be black. He’s apparently concluded that life would be much better for him in many regards. The comment, however, suggested in a joking manner that his actual motivation was so that he’d have a larger phallus. Not the exact words that were used, but you get the idea.
That comment prompted me to write to Wretchard. I figured he’d want to delete it. He did. In my email to our host I also pointed out that one of the problems with having sustained discussions about race in public forums, even moderated ones, is that the conversation can descend to the lowest common denominator.
Finally, I pointed out to him that if the Belmont Club had become a place where it was okay to make jokes about the size of black men’s junk, then I was going to exclude MYSELF from reading or commenting in the future. I also told him that if I did exclude myself, the loss would be largely mine. I didn’t ask that Whiskey be banned but if my remarks contributed to that decision, then I’ll accept my rightful portion of the credit/blame.
Thank you Richard for posting this line from Albert Camus. “it is innocence that is called upon to justify itself.”
I was ignorant of it. It is a sad relief to know I was not the first to see where our intelligentsia has been herding us. How many other “leaders” saw it but chose not to, failed to, or feared to remark upon it?
I wrote this in 2006:
Our betters have now taken Camus one more step indeed: Innocents needing to justify themselves! “I’m innocent Dr. Emmanuel. I beg you: grant me access to a doctor.”
God bless you Richard daring to go on to note:
We need new shepherds. Sadly, the organized religions are infested with Leftists.
I’m sure Charles agrees that we should follow Him and not esteemed men, but I’ve my doubts he’d agree with me on much else.
Charles: “Get thee behind me Satan” was directed not only at Satan. It seems to me, with the luxury of hindsight, that that line was a warning for all time to the body of His church. Yes?
Revelation speaks of the vast deluded. Then need we be careful of contemporary, new-age infected exegeses? Yes, that means perhaps mine included.
Well, how about old ones that have also led men to sin?
There is a very real unbridled ego of which we have long known. Man is rarely grateful for long, and never satisfied. The moral of Eden. And, yes, the test (the s’tan) never ends.
And so we come to this age.
And we find men who have within their grasp the judging of the innocence of all other men, weighed on the basis of their usefulness and not upon whether or not they’ve ever done any harm to another, fits His warning all to well.
Unbridled ego says: “*I* am worthy to Judge. ”
Tremble people.
Papa Ray, what Bezmenov talks about is just a layer a set of a game that a group of people is utilizing. It is my belief that they want this world to burn. Because the want to build a “better world” and they want reset. In their better world, the distance between two groups of people–these that rule and these that are ruled–compared to communistic serfdom is even more pronounced and they look back to times of Sparta before Helots got too numerous. But the new Helots won’t get freedom, the separation would become permanent.
Who the Better Worlders are? The are at this time nameless and faceless, but you can sometimes hear them. The inflect sustainability in all the possible modes, it is their new god. They are nameless and faceless so they can delegate the handiwork necessary to build the better world to others so their conscience is pristine. They consider progressives (e.g. communists) the best killers to dispose of 6 billion people, adding Islamists too, to the equation.
They think that they have their chess board set and properly rigged. But their better world will never materialize. They’ll just get an awful lot of people killed before they are swept when they would think it is all going according to plan and their names and faces would become known.
Buddy at 170,
You are kidding aren’t you?
Mad Fiddler, no, he is not. Read 93 from Victor Hugo? Montezuma would have been proud of them Frenchies.
2×4 @ 175: Hello.
Have we always agreed so strongly?
Well, Buddy is a bit off on the timeline, the distance between Russia and Germany is a mere couple of decades and in a sense there was almost a concurence. But 20th century was so far the bloodiest era in the history on mankind. Unfortunately, I suspect that the 21st century would give it a run for its money.
Pascal, yes, we did. We just used each own brush to paint the picture.
149. twobyfour…
“MarcusE”
Please! Let’s give the great man the respect he deserves!
“The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in their automobile, hi-fi set, split-level home, kitchen equipment. ”
Herbert’s Words of Wisdom
In memory of the dearly departed Whiskey:
““Not every problem someone has with his girlfriend is necessarily due to the capitalist mode of production. ”
— Herbert Marcuse
If I saw this happening at my polling booth I would have gotten 5 of my friends and fixed it myself. When there is no justice, who is then responsible for it. My solution isn’t right, but when those who are suppose to enforce the law fail their duty, you get response like mine. That is the sole purpose of government, to enforce laws. If the government refuses to do that basic job, what good is the government?
Doug, Typos’r'Me.
Yes, some people do find their identity in their commodities. After all, what is left when there is nothing else to identify with, when the god was slayed and icons burned?
So, some think they are exalted and the cream of cream and more sublime when they identify with power.
At least the first kind is honest and unpretentious.
183. twobyfour…
And sometimes ignorance is bliss:
When I lived in the Bay Area, I mostly appreciated Angel Island for it’s beauty.
Not knowing it’s sordid history as a way station for wayward Chinamen.
As does our highly learned (in all things negative and shameful about the country) President.
Doug, still at it, I am just identifying with my kitchen ware and my food I don’t want to burn, thus the segmentation.
In 1967, there was a thaw in Czechoslovakia, a precursor of Prague Spring (1968) and some books slipped through. I read at the time one of Erich Fromm’s tomes, don’t remember the name, it was translated anyway so maybe it differed from the English label.
I read it once… I did not get it. Why this book was amongst Libri prohibiti in the first place?
Then I read it second time and started connecting dots. The book was highly corrosive and I realized: “No wonder it was verbotten, this is intended for Western consumption!”
2×4 @ 180: I’m glad for the company, whatever the brush.
Please ping me at my blog off-topic when you write more stuff like that. I’m not spending that much time here since my posts started disappearing. I sometimes miss it when Wretchard is being extra bold in defense of human life, and do like it when he is.
Twoby/179 & MF/176; since Lenin was already busy before the turn of the 20th century, and Marx wrote mid 19th, and the question of tomorrow is where does it stand in what pattern –well the modern west’s pattern is roughly one eruption of the Beast every century.
doug/172; few things shake me up quite so much –i’m using the google email alert feature on the investigation –and some mighty wild things are coming up, and as you say, not being reported.
if i can muster the heart and will to rassle it into blog comment brevity, i’ll do so.
@154 Kinuachdrach
Well, backstabbing is one thing, and certainly despicable, but having a private word with wretchard isn’t necessarily manipulating from the shadows. Presumably his e-mail address is posted up there for a reason. For my own part, when I wrote to him last year (not about whiskey btw it was about Habu, after a protracted, angry and very public argument that’s there in the archives for anyone who cares to dredge it up) it was not to ask for Habu to be banned but rather to apologize to wretchard for losing my temper in his house and to let him know I was going to take a breather myself. By way of explanation I also voiced my concerns about the real-world consequences of self-righteous macho posturing, not because I’m a feminist (I’m not) or because I believe in sanctimonious PC speech codes (I don’t) but because I’ve seen those consequences often enough at work (I’m a nurse.) What I said to wretchard in private was mild compared to what I said publicly to Habu. In any case, Habu didn’t go away, I did. End of story.
For the record, I don’t like the idea of anyone being banned here. So yes, I see your points but I also think people are over-reacting. Granted I haven’t been paying close enough attention lately to know what actually happened regarding whiskey’s posting here, but so far as I know he is not dead (though your RIP comment @5 made me wonder – seriously) and if I were one of his supporters I’d go visit his blog where he can say whatever he likes to his heart’s content. Belmont Club isn’t a public utility – as you say, it’s wretchard’s house, which makes it private property as far as I’m concerned. Again, if he asked whiskey to take a break or whatever, (and I don’t actually know what happened there) I’ve no doubt he did it for his own reasons and not because he’s overly concerned with what some secret finger-wagging busybody has to say.
And I sincerely hope you don’t censor what you have to say because of the possibility such persons exist. I can’t help thinking of a story I heard about the writer Philip K. Dick. Apparently he was obsessed for years with the notion that the FBI had targeted him for undercover surveillance. He wrote lots of letters demanding to see his file, and when he finally got hold of it through FOIA, the only thing in it turned out to be his own paranoid correspondence. A cautionary tale
Duke @ 115 asked:
Here’s a novel thought; could the VA or PA attorney general charge the civil/voting rights division of the DOJ under the federal RICO statute?
FWIW, the atty general of PA, Tom Corbett, is running for governor on the Republican ticket. Right now he’s comfortably ahead of the Dem candidate, Dan Onorato (county executive of Allegheny County) but not so far that he can afford to shoot himself in the foot and still win. I doubt Corbett would want to stir up the hornet’s nest of the NBP case when he’s running for governor.
On the completely practical side, I doubt he has time to prosecute both items.
I’m not wild about Corbett BTW. I think he’s a career politician type who won’t address some of the radical changes needed in Harrisburg, one of which would be downsizing the legislature. OTOH as a resident of Allegheny County I can say I would vote for Alvin Greene were he the only other choice before I would vote for Dan Onorato.
Pascal, sure, pings’be’yours.
185. twobyfour…
I was reading Eric Berne while you were reading Erich Froom, not entirely unconnected, to be sure.
Hard to forget the name of one of his books:
“Games People Play”
“Although he shared, to a large extent, their critique of capitalism, Fromm was rejected by the psychoanalytic Left. His former colleagues of the Frankfurt School, particularly Herbert Marcuse, dismissed him as a conformist unwilling to support the radical action necessary to change society.”
Always good to have some radical action,
…using other people’s bodies, of course.
Doug, read Berne too. He was a good observer of human behavior and I can still find validations for his keen analytical sense.
The book from Fromm was written a while before the “purge”, so it was still largely in the School framework.
Re Marcuse… Bodies and monies of other people, or anything of other people for that matter. What is yours is mine and what is mine is none of your business. Well, they usually don’t formulate it that way, but they acquire the pattern by osmosis. Unadulterated pod people.
Right, Buddy, young Ulyanov was already on the Okhranka radar in 1887.
Claude Steiner wrote
“Scripts People Live”
which had some pretty amazing family tales.
Wish I shared his optimism on the power of TA to effectively tackle the media:
TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS IN THE INFORMATION AGE
“It seems that many in Transactional Analysis are impatient with the state of transactional analysis as a dynamic, developing theory. For myself, I have thought at times that Transactional Analysis has had its day. Many of its ideas have been silently incorporated into the psychiatric culture, but on the whole its point has been missed and it has not been given a place among the great psychiatric theories of the century and I was ready to put it to rest. Accordingly I followed my interest in power and its abuses away from Transactional Analysis into propaganda, journalism and Central American politics. From the distant perspective of an investigator into media and information, in a dawning Information Age I came to see Transactional Analysis in a brand new light; as a visionary theory of Information Age psychology and psychiatry. As the world peers into the twenty first century with every one wondering how they will be affected by the looming millennial changes, we, in Transactional Analysis, are in possession of a legacy which is only now becoming clear:
we have the tools and the insights of an Information Age, communication-based psychology and psychiatry.“
twoby/175; re that more and more often noted ‘one world’ goal of eliminating a large part of the world population:
note the good looking redheaded russian spy is also under MI5 investigation for her work setting up several hedge funds seeking cap and trade and alternative energy investment –the type funds leveraged esp well to not just profit from the one BP disaster, but from the sales point that what happened April 20 could happen again and again –anytime, anywhere –if someone was intent on making it happen.
A couple years ago, living in London, she hobnobbed with the cream of the ‘London Mile’ while working for a Warren Buffet-owned private-jet service.
Note the uberwealthy greenie eliminationists are always private-jetting off to world conferences in the far places from the dense urban areas where a real or an ersatz nation-to-nation nuclear exchange would be of population-reduction-efficient city-killer weapons.
***
see sorta nutty site here (above is not a quote –just musings from me after reading it):
http://www.abeldanger.net/2010/06/revisited-bp-naked-shorts-beyond.html
(can’t vouch for the site –it’s one of the google-alert my keywords brought up. But as always, the hard verifible facts in the piece can be checked out)
Doug, when Stainer wrote it, the IA was at its inception, when looked at retrospectively. He had no idea, yet, how dynamic it would be.
Buddy,
Would appreciate your opinion of my proposal @ July 2, 2010 – 2:19 pm
—
The Pelican is the Louisianna State Bird.
BHO well on his way to wiping most of them out.
Enviros silent.
doug, sure, i’ll do what i can –already trying to buck up some might down south Louisianians, AKA the family n the in and out laws.
meanwhile, a good update on investigation into April 20 event:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-02/severed-pipe-hard-hats-seized-by-u-s-government-in-well-probe.html
(snips, paragraphs at random, not contiguous in original –emphasis mine)
The 50-foot (15-meter) section of pipe was attached to a stack of safety valves on the sea floor known as a blowout preventer, said Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Jeff Bray.
Investigators plan to examine the pipe at a Coast Guard base in New Orleans for clues about what caused BP’s Macondo well to spew out of control on April 20, Bray said today.
Transocean has also been ordered to hand over any debris from the wrecked rig and personnel logs that cover the period from when the Deepwater Horizon arrived at the Macondo site about 40 miles off the Louisiana coast earlier this year, the documents show.
The investigative panel is scheduled to resume hearing testimony from survivors and company executives on July 19, Bray said. The panel has yet to determine who it will summon to provide testimony, he said.
At the last round of hearings in late May, Robert Kaluza, one of two BP managers involved in directing the drilling project aboard the rig, declined to testify, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Poor Health
Donald Vidrine, the other BP manager who oversaw the project aboard the Deepwater Horizon, postponed a May appearance before the panel, telling investigators he was in poor health.
In a June 23 interview outside his home in Lafayette, Louisiana, Vidrine declined to say whether he will testify when the hearings resume later this month. Vidrine said he had been on administrative leave from the company since the catastrophe.
In addition to the Coast Guard and Interior Department, investigations are under way by the Justice Department, U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board and several House and Senate committees.
(end snip, read more at link)
***
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2544616/posts
( is this by the same Bray quoted above, Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Jeff Bray? –dunno –yet )
***
–forgot to mention, the redheaded spy girl –her dad was Russian ambassador to Kenya while she was in middle school. wonder if he knew Obama’s family?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/30/anna-chapman-russian-spy-ring%20%20%20
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/7864494/MI5-investigates-Russian-spy-Anna-Chapmans-time-in-Britain.html
.
Anton @126,
Be reassured about Subotai. I was able to chat with him a couple of nights ago, and he had upcoming family commitments. He will be back. Thankfully.
As long as I can remember, progressives, democrats, liberals, socialists, Marxists, and fulminating communists have ever been ready to call Republicans and conservatives “Nazis” with never an apology or acknowledgment of the insane hyperbole. They either have no actual knowledge of the vast atrocities perpetrated by the NAZIs, or they are delusional, or both.
Saying that, I estimate that no liberal I’ve ever met is constitutionally capable of considering the well-documented history of Chancellor Hitler’s consolidation of power, nor acknowledging the profoundly disturbing parallels to current events and actions. They have chosen to superglue historical blinders to their faces; their view of the world is through a political soda straw.
(Special on pureed metaphors today!)
I can’t claim to be free of blind spots, but I have a compelling sense that there are crucial lessons to be learned from history, both remote and recent.
First, I direct your attention to the life of Herr Baldur Benedect von Schirach, who became an early admirer and intimate of Hitler.
As early as 1929, Adolf noticed his participation in the Nationalsozialistischen Deutschen Studentenbund (National Socialist German Students’ League) and tasked him with organizing first the Hitler Youth program, and then extending control over the rest of German youth programs. In 1933 following Hitler’s elevation to the Chancellorship, von Schirach met with his fellows and planned an occupation of the Reichs Committee of the German Youth Leagues. From the plans and orders issuing from this meeting, a few weeks later a crowd of armed Hitler Youth burst into the offices of the Reichs Committee of German Youth Associations, which administered a number of youth programs throughout Germany, with some SIX MILLION participants. They ejected with threats and intimidation the elderly retired WWI officers serving as administrators, and told the staff to continue working their jobs, as they were now under the authority of the Hitler Jugend.
They combed the records they’d “liberated” to plan further raids on other groups, and within months (with the full support of Hitler’s rule) almost every single competing youth group of any stripe — religious, political, or other — had disappeared: disbanded or absorbed.
This was just one small part of the larger plan of Gleichschaltung (loosely, “forcing into line”) which the infamous “Enabling Act” had given Hitler — more or less unlimited power to transform the laws and the structures of the German nation.
Here’s the opening of the Wikipedia article on The Enabling Act:”
“(German: Ermächtigungsgesetz) was passed by Germany’s Reichstag and signed by President Paul von Hindenburg on March 23, 1933. It was the second major step, after the Reichstag Fire Decree, through which Chancellor Adolf Hitler legally obtained plenary powers and established his dictatorship. It received its name from its legal status as an enabling act granting the Cabinet the authority to enact laws without the participation of the Reichstag for four years.
The formal name of the Enabling Act was Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (English: Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation).”
Is any of this sounding familiar yet? For many decades we’ve had a number of federal and state agencies whose appointed administrators and agents have been given authority to promulgate regulations AND DECISIONS by individual agents, that have the full force of law, to set and enforce a system of punitive fines, fees, licensing charges, et cetera. We have accepted this situation because until the last few decades we have not had a sense of sustained or consistent abuse by those agencies, however intrusive or wrong-headed we might deem programs like OSHA or the Department of Education.
This has mushroomed in the present administration, with the ass-licking acquiescence of the traitorous Main Stream Media. Can you name more than three of the 40-odd “CZARS” the Sanctified One has placed above us to tell us how much straw we may have to make our bricks?
Based on his pusillanimous behavior elsewhere I believe the Bully-in-Chief simply doesn’t have the plain fiber to order anything as conspicuous and suspicion-arousing as the infamous Reichstag fire, an act of arson which severely damaged the German national legislature, and which the NAZIs pinned on Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist who’d arrived in Germany only recently. Hitler used this as a pretext to issue a number of interlocking decrees suspending civil liberties, and targeting all the NAZI party adversaries, which they proceeded to round up and eliminate.
I challenge ANYONE to defend His handling of the oil spewing from the Deepwater Horizon well, and show that it is anything other than a deliberate act of sabatoge, in which every act of the Federal government has been intentionally calculated to cause and allow the greatest possible fouling of the waters, beaches, estuaries, flora and fauna of the Gulf. Not only does this mean our President is responsible for what will likely be TRILLIONS of dollars of damage to the U.S. economy that inarguably COULD HAVE BEEN PREVENTED. It also lays the United States open to legal action from all the other countries and Islands which have Gulf shorelines and which depend on the Gulf for their economies.
O shows breathtaking cynicism in using the spill as the justification to stifle further oil production, not just by unlawful Executive Order, but by the less public but even more extensive withholding of licenses and permits for all sorts of oil development applications around the country. Presumably each of those will have to be individually appealed at great expense. He has deliberately allowed what should have been a finite problem to hemorrhage into a crisis which he then is using as a reason for the coordinated suppression of the private petroleum industry by fiat.
The thing to remember is that Hitler pre-positioned a parallel NAZI shadow government, with counterparts to the former government, then simply assigned the funds and tasks to the NAZI officials, and stopped letting the former officials exercise their functions.
C’est beaucoup plus qu’est nécessaire.
My next scheduled rant will consider the gentle and artistic side of Obama.
Buddy,
Thanks for all the great info.
I’ve taken a break from it, but feel we can’t stand by as mere witnesses to this slow motion march to oblivion.
As the Heartless Won Fiddles with the SEIU et al
I know i’m overdoing a short answer to doug –all this off thread stuff –justy one more BP thing, the financial significance as it relates to what many here are seeing as a multi-front coordinated attack (including the cresting attack on Arizona):
http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/gordon-t-long/bp-potentially-more-devastating-than-lehman
***
Lastly, in re the several posters above remarking on Eric Holder’s place in all this, here’s something really weird. The Communist “magical realism” author Gabriel Marcia Marquez is from a Colombian town named Aracataca. In his Pulitzer-winning novel “One Hundred years of Solitude” he used his hometown, and its banana plantation, as a central metaphor for modernist corruption of a native ideal. In the novel the town was renamed “Macondo”.
In the real life Macondo, Aracataca, the banana plantation belongs to United Fruit Company, AKA Chiquita Banana. This company has been seriously accused of, and sued for, being ‘behind’ a series of narcoterrorist FARC attacks and murders of Chiquita’s local competitor.
Chiquita’s defense lawyer, until his appointment as AG, was Eric Holder (who also BTW arranged Clinton’s pardon of the FALN terrorists in NY).
And the name Macondo is a one-offer. Marquez invented it. Everywhere you find it, it is an homage to Marquez, presumably to the sensibility of capitalism’s ugly face as exploiter of an idyllic third world; it is on some far-left intellectual enterprise honoring by its use, the tenets of Marquez’s book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macondo
So, question, who at BP named the Mississippi Canyon well, the American gulf coast ruining and American offshore oil industry wrecking runaway well that is destroying America’s biggest oil strike since the North Slope, and Amertica’s potential release from the foreign-oil-stockholm syndrome, not to mention a huge decrease in the 2/3 of America’s trade deficit that is foreign oil, the “Macondo Prospect”?
Is it the same person, or of the same clique, to whom Jimmy Harrell the toolpusher, dripping wet on the rescue boat, was overheard by witnesses screaming into the sat phone minutes after the explosion, “Are You F**King Happy? The rig’s on FIRE! Are you f**king HAPPY now?”
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/06/rigs-fire-i-told-you-was-gonna-happen
***
http://www.bing.com/search?q=gabriel+marcia+marquez+aracataca+macondo&go=&form=QBRE&qs=n&sk=
http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&ie=utf8&oe=utf8&q=Aracataca+Chiquita&rlz=1I7GGLL_en
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Aracataca+chiquita+united+fruit&src=IE-SearchBox&oma=toggle_off
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Aracataca+chiquita+death+squad+lawsuit+covington&go=&form=QBRE&qs=n&sk=
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Aracataca+death+squad+lawsuit+eric+holder+covington&go=&form=QBRE
****
okay, all done, please return to regularly scheduled topic, and accept my apologies please –
A slick overruns a fragile island rookery
Reporting from Queen Bess Island Pelican Rookery — The rocky island off Grand Isle was intended as a haven for brown pelicans, a centerpiece of environmentalists’ efforts to rescue Louisiana’s state bird from the federal endangered species list.
On Monday, wildlife rescue workers came to the Queen Bess Island Pelican Rookery to capture the giant birds as oil from BP’s blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico despoiled the state’s largest pelican sanctuary.
you bet, doug –i did a longer post –dunno where it went –i’ll give it awhile then try again –
fiddler, i’m afraid we signed the enabling act back when Lip-Biter was president and good hair meant treason was A_OK, pardner!
174. Pascal
Charles: “Get thee behind me Satan” was directed not only at Satan. It seems to me, with the luxury of hindsight, that that line was a warning for all time to the body of His church. Yes?
………..
yeppers. but yours is not the luxury of hind sight. its scriptural. Jesus uses the line twice. once in the context of satan himself and once in the context of his disciples who were trying to make a name for themselves.
…..
Luke 4:5-8 (King James Version):
4:5 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
4:6 And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
4:7 If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.
4:8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
……………….
Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection
21 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.
22 Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”
23 But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”
Take Up the Cross and Follow Him
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
188. marymcl
I can’t help thinking of a story I heard about the writer Philip K. Dick. Apparently he was obsessed for years with the notion that the FBI had targeted him for undercover surveillance. He wrote lots of letters demanding to see his file, and when he finally got hold of it through FOIA, the only thing in it turned out to be his own paranoid correspondence. A cautionary tale
I remember an old Saturday Night Live sketch like that. Somebody wrote to the FBI requesting to see his file under the Freedom of Information Act; they didn’t have one; so they said, “OK, let’s start a file on this guy.”
Thank you Charles. I think we are agreed on an important observation.
What I meant by hindsight wasn’t due to lack of familiarity with the scriptural repetition, but that the prophecy stands proven. All not yet gifted with belief may take notice if you point it out. God should not be held accountable for those who mislead in His name, as our silence adds power to those aiming to mislead.
And, BTW, this is by no means apologetics either. The warnings are clear to me, as I think you see even if you do not agree with all my interpretations.
What I find heartbreaking are the great number of deluded due to the machinations of those seeking unbridled ego gratification. I cannot sit silent witness to the harming of the least of us. I say all our institutions have rot and are seeking to become more rotten as they evict the few who dare speak out.
If you think you know of some institution that is as yet untouched, I think you’ve overlooked something.
@starling #173
You write “I too read zerohedge and also like Reggie’s work.” and yet you also write “if the Belmont Club had become a place where it was okay to make jokes about the size of black men’s junk, then I was going to exclude MYSELF from reading or commenting in the future.”.
One aspect of Zerohedge that I love is the no holds barred commentary where these kinds of bawdy comments are not only allowed but are frequent. I agree that this kind of commentary would ruin Belmont Club, but if these comments would drive you away from Belmont, why don’t they drive you away from Zerohedge? Do I detect a double standard?
c/207 –he said above somewhere he was leaving on vacation til mid month –so he can’t very well carry on the banter.
206. Pascal
If you think you know of some institution that is as yet untouched, I think you’ve overlooked something.
……….
I trust this is not a justification for not being involved in your local church.
it is a complete abuse of power!
Sometimes I forget that younger people don’t know things I know. My youngest grand son came over yesterday to put some new pads in one of our swamp coolers for me. After he finished he came in and sit a while with me while I was on the computer. I happened to be reading BC comments on this thread. He wanted to know what I was reading about. I told him about the voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers.
He had no idea of what I was talking about.
So…I had to try and explain it. I jumped in to the last part and by his questions I determined that for him to understand completely I had to start at the beginning.
So, once again, YouTube had some material. I found a series on the Black Panthers, both the old and the new.
I wrote down the URL and told him to watch the five part series and then to start reading about the voter intimidation that happened in 08.
The New Black Panther Party PT.1
I also told him to remember the bias of the media when he watched the videos and if he wanted to get more info he would have to go to internet and look up some books to get our library to borrow.
Today he called and said that something had to be done. I asked him what he thought should be done. He said:
When the law only works for some, it ain’t gonna work for anybody and that Holder and everybody else should be arrested and convicted. I asked him who could arrest people in the U.S. Justice Dept., especially with Obama as our President.
He suggested the FBI and I said maybe they could but I didn’t think they would, then he said if they couldn’t or wouldn’t to get our Military to arrest them. I suggested that it wasn’t their duty unless the President ordered it done and that I knew that would not happen.
He was at a loss. But later he called and said that someone needed to make a citizens arrest.
I was impressed but assured him that they would not succeed and would be laughed at. His answer was that even so, maybe it would get enough or the right peoples attention and something might come of it. I inquired who the “right” people were?
He was once again stumped, but I know he is still thinking about it.
Kids nowadays, what are you going to do with them?
Well, my idea is that you had better start teaching them how to think for themselves and not believe everything they hear, read or even see and to stand against injustices.
Papa Ray
Don Rodrigo (#155):
Qui confessus fuerit et reliquerit ea misericordiam consequetur.
Some of the initial reporting was somewhat sensationalistic and could have easily led to misunderstandings, especially as the cumulative voting system is not well known. If the situation had been as you had understood it, “unconstitutional” would have been way too mild a term.
As it is (and as it was discussed in wretchard’s post) it’s bad enough. There was good reason for the Voting Rights Act, but as discussed in this post, we seem to have devolved into fighting fire with fire.
Papa Ray (#211): “When the law only works for some, it ain’t gonna work for anybody”
As some wise people once chanted, “No justice, no peace”.
The Alien in the White House
The deepening notes of disenchantment with Barack Obama now issuing from commentators across the political spectrum were predictable. So, too, were the charges from some of the president’s earliest enthusiasts about his failure to reflect a powerful sense of urgency about the oil spill.
There should have been nothing puzzling about his response to anyone who has paid even modest critical attention to Mr. Obama’s pronouncements. For it was clear from the first that this president—single-minded, ever-visible, confident in his program for a reformed America saved from darkness by his arrival—was wanting in certain qualities citizens have until now taken for granted in their presidents. Namely, a tone and presence that said: This is the Americans’ leader, a man of them, for them, the nation’s voice and champion. Mr. Obama wasn’t lacking in concern about the oil spill. What he lacked was that voice—and for good reason.
Those qualities to be expected in a president were never about rhetoric; Mr. Obama had proved himself a dab hand at that on the campaign trail. They were a matter of identification with the nation and to all that binds its people together in pride and allegiance. These are feelings held deep in American hearts, unvoiced mostly, but unmistakably there and not only on the Fourth of July.
A great part of America now understands that this president’s sense of identification lies elsewhere, and is in profound ways unlike theirs. He is hard put to sound convincingly like the leader of the nation, because he is, at heart and by instinct, the voice mainly of his ideological class. He is the alien in the White House, a matter having nothing to do with delusions about his birthplace cherished by the demented fringe.
A Shrink Asks: What’s Wrong with Obama?
By Robin of Berkeley
If my assessment is accurate, what does this mean?
It means that liberals need to wake up and spit out the Kool-Aid…and that conservatives should put aside differences, band together, and elect as many Republicans as possible.
Because Obama will not change. He will not learn from his mistakes. He will not grow and mature from on-the-job experience. In fact, over time, Obama will likely become a more ferocious version of who he is today.
Why? Because this is a damaged person. Obama’s fate was sealed years ago growing up in his strange and poisonous family. Later on, his empty vessel was filled with the hateful bile of men like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers.
Obama will not evolve; he will not rise to the occasion; he will not become the man he was meant to be. This is for one reason and one reason alone:
He is not capable of it.
A frequent AT contributor, Robin is a psychotherapist in Berkeley and a recovering liberal. You can e-mail Robin at robinofberkeley@hotmail.com. She regrets that she may not be able to acknowledge your e-mail.
Stanley and Madelyn raised Obama from around age l0 through high school. Stanley, an impulsive and hard drinking man, made one of the most twisted of parental decisions — to have Barry mentored by the elderly Frank Marshall Davis, purportedly a Communist who worked on behalf of the Soviet Union; a pedophile who wrote a book entitled “Sex Rebel: Black,” an alcoholic, a racist, and a misogynist.
Well regarded bloggers have raised the provocative question about whether Davis violated Obama, perhaps by molesting him. (Read Obama’s college era poem Pop, especially the lines, “Pop. . . points out the same amber stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and makes me smell his smell, coming from me,” and see what you think.)
Obama himself has said, in his autobiography, that “Frank” made him feel uncomfortable. Grandpa Stanley and Davis would sit around getting loaded, talking trash about women, and making up smutty limericks.
Doug,I always wondered why Ann Dunham was so screwed up. Now I think I know. She was named after Grandpa Stanley. He always wanted a boy. Her real name was Stanley Ann Dunham. http://www.rense.com/general82/stan.htm She was teased as a kid for her name, and she hated it.
Did young Ann play around with her Dad’s libertine black Commie friend Frank to get back at her dad?
Check out the pictures at:http://www.dittowire.com/.a/6a010534d2b08f970b010535bc9f4b970b-800wi
Frank Marshall Davis is the one on the upper right with the same long face, nose, mouth, eyes and chin as Buraq.
Barack Sr. is on the bottom left with no resemblance at all to Buraq.
…and we mocked the “smoke-filled room” method of picking candidates –and so broke up the cigar party (look –see? can’t even say ‘cigar’ anymore –my point! No, not THAT kind of point –the OLD kind of point!) and got Carter, who attracted Killer Rabbits the way Obama attracts flies.
please democrats, go back to the smoke-filled room –
Sounds too much like we’re heading in the direction of the PLO v Hamas as far as elections are concerned. Panther and the narratives of the NOI walk hand in hand with those wannabe Ara-fats.
Thanks Unsk,
A DNA test couldn’t be much more convincing.
Cain’t Judge a Book by it’s cover, Fiddler!
Maybe MARADONA had a troubled childhood?
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5,343 Comments…
MARADONA WAS UNDOUBTEABLY A GREAT PLAYER, BUT THE TOTAL OPPOSITE AS A PERSON, AS A COACH HE’S EVEN WORSE FOR ALL HE HAS IS AN INFLATED EGO AND A BIG MOUTH…
THIS TIME HE FOUND OUT THERE WAS NOWHERE TO HIDE WHEN HE COULDN’T WALK THE TALK…
WHAT A SORE LOSER HAVING THE NERVE TO SAY THAT “THE SCORE DIDN’T REFLECT WHAT HAPPENED ON THE FIELD“…
SURE, THE GERMANS MISSED TWO OR THREE MORE GOALS!!! EAT SOME HUMBLE PIE DIEGO… AND TRY TO GROW UP.
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“the OLD kind of point!”
Yeah, gimme that Olde Tyme Tar and Nicotine!
Unsk,
I ain’t no biologist,
(actually, I was, kinda, but not of great renown, as tho I needed to tell you that)
BUT
Check out the mustache areas of the three “men.”
Need to check out the ears in the Dunham Clan:
Stanley Anne’s are covered by her hair.
On the topic of Obama’s paternity, I have previously pointed out that his untanned pigmentation appears too light for him to be at the midpoint of the Von Luschan scale, as he should be if Barak senior was his father. Paternity by Davis, who undoubtedly had a Caucasian component to his own ancestry, could explain the discrepancy.
Von Luschan sends us back to the woodshed for enlightenment.