Entries by David Allen

Missouri hatemonger runs racist radio ads... to get elected to U.S. Senate
New York Daily News

A Missouri man is counting on write-in votes - and racist radio ads - to catapult him into the United States Senate.

69-year-old bigot Glenn Miller, a leader of the White Patriot's Party during the 1980s, has paid for a series of offensive advertisements to be played on a local station. And there apparently is nothing the radio station can do about it.

“The company is required by federal law to run these spots and to do so without any edits,” Neil Larrimore, KMBZ program director, told the Kansas City Star. “Our hands are tied.”

One of the statements Miller makes in his ads includes, "Jews control the federal government and the media. Surely you don't still believe white men are in control, do ya? It's the Jews, stupid."

Hmmmm...

Jews control the media, yet he was able to get this ad run. Seems to me like an Elder of Zion is falling down on the job.

Thousands gather for 'Tea Party Express' event in Harry Reid's hometown
Las Vegas Journal

"We're Republican by registration, but I'd even vote for a communist right now if they would start to change the way we're running the country," Halfpenny said, adding he thinks Democrats in power are leading the nation toward socialism, a Tea Party lament. "We need to get our Constitution back."

Perhaps all this "difference of opinion" might be solved if we came up with a federal program to buy everyone a dictionary, so that people can understand the words they are using.

Dude, let me restate what you just said in a manner which might make the absurdity of what you said a bit easier to understand.

"I would vote for a Soviet commissar before I would vote for a British Member of Parliament."

"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,"

Jim Demint
7/16/09

On behalf of Barack "Duke of Wellington" Obama:

"The majority vote is tyranny of the minority."

Mary Matalin on CNN
(via Washington Monthly)

I believe the great philosopher Spock once said, "The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. [Or the one]". Rather sad when this concept falls into disrepute, especially considering that it is pretty much the foundation of that whole "Christianity" thing.

When you need something stupid said, who ya gonna call?

Newt Gingrich!

And Newt does not disappoint. On Fox News (where else) he gives us this gem:

Well, I think that what you’re seeing is a Chicago machine politics approach that basically says, if we can run over you and mug you, then we’re going to get away with it. And I think what they don’t understand is that this is not Chicago. That the United States is not going to tolerate a group of people trying apply kind of a Hugo Chavez majoritarian rule in the Senate. I don’t it’ll happen.

Oh wait, besides stupid, I forgot tinged with racism.

Ooooo, the scary black man is going to mug you!

Then he warns us against "majoritarian rule"

Huh? You mean rule by the majority? You mean DEMOCRACY?!!!!!!!

Oh wait, he did mention Hugo Chavez, the AUTHORITARIAN leader of Venezuela, so he does a great job of smearing American democracy by claiming it is the same thing Hugo Chavez is doing.

Gee, didn't we have "majoritarian rule" under George W. Bush? Don't seem to remember Newt whining about that. Don't remember him accusing Dick Cheney of mugging anyone (actually, he prefers just to shoot people).

This is the second "Jedi Mind Trick" trotted out by the GOP this week. The first was to completely redefine the phrase "the nuclear option", a term THEY coined to describe changing the senate rules to prevent DEMOCRATS from filibustering. Now it means passing a health care bill via reconciliation (a process they themselves have used 16 out of 22 times since 1980! Reconciliation requires a simple "majoritarian" vote to pass.

The corporate media is, of course, falling in line with the talking points, and CNN is doings it Fox News best to promote only the Republican side of the issue.

Among the media elites there seems to be a question about whether Joseph Stack, the terrorist who crashed his plane into the IRS building in Austin is, in fact, a terrorist. Now to you or I, this seems a pretty simple question that your average 4th grade English student could answer. A terrorist is a person or group who practice terrorism, which is:

the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion

Merriam-Webster

violent action, or the threat of violent action for political purposes

Cambridge University Dictionary

(the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature; this is done through intimidation or coercion or instilling fear)

Princeton University Dictionary

the term “terrorism” means premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents;

22 U.S.C. 38, § 2656f
United States Statute

Domestic terrorism is the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or Puerto Rico without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof in furtherance of political or social objectives.

Policies & Guidelines
Federal Bureau of Investigation

So, we have definitions from multiple dictionaries, actual U.S. statutes, and FBI policy. So let's review Mr. Stack and his actions.

1) He flew his plane into the IRS building in Austin. This qualifies as a violent and unlawful act.

2) He is an American citizen (an individual), and Austin is in the United States, even though some Texans believe they ARE another country.

3) His attack, while directed at a government building with government employees, posed a violent threat to civilians in the area who could have been injured or killed by his action.

4) He planned his attack carefully, meaning that it was both premeditated and calculated.

5) Even a cursory glance at the fellow's manifesto/suicide note will glean that he was acting out of political ("...the monsters are the very ones making and enforcing the laws;", "...I live in a country with an ideology that is based on a total and complete lie.", "as usual they [the U.S. Government] left me to rot and die while they bailed out their rich, incompetent cronies WITH MY MONEY!", "The recent presidential puppet GW Bush") and religious ("...vulgar, corrupt Catholic Church", "monsters of organized religion", "...the inquisition is still alive and well today in this country.") ideology.

6) Coerce the government or the people? Yep! ("I would only hope that by striking a nerve that stimulates the inevitable double standard, knee-jerk government reaction that results in more stupid draconian restrictions people wake up and begin to see the pompous political thugs and their mindless minions for what they are.")

7) Fox News says he isn't a terrorist, and when Fox News asserts something as factual, you should always assume the opposite.

So, how does Newsweek see the situation?

Did the label terrorist ever successfully stick to McVeigh? Or the Unabomber? Or any of the IRS bombers in our violence list?

Here is my handy guide:

Lone wolfish American attacker who sees gov't as threat to personal freedom: bomber, tax protester, survivalist, separatist

Group of Americans bombing/kidnapping to protest U.S. policies on war/poverty/personal freedom/ - radical left-wing movement, right-wing separatists

All foreign groups or foreign individuals bombing/shooting to protest American gov't: terrorists

Kathy Jones
Managing Editor

The most charitable thing we could say about Ms. Jones views is that they are xenophobic, as well as inane and intellectually indefensible. The fact that it might please me to define "Newsweek Managing Editor" to mean "shameless hack and cretinous imbecile (or was it imbecilic cretin?)", doesn't make it so. You don't get to change reality to suit your personal prejudices.

And to answer your question, Ms. Jones, the label didn't stick to McVeigh or the Unabomber because people like YOU refused to do your job and call a terrorist a terrorist.

Perhaps you could hire some 4th graders to help you use a dictionary?

Spying on L. Merion students sparks probes by FBI, Montco detectives
Philadelphia Daily News

A federal invasion-of-privacy lawsuit may be the least of the Lower Merion School District's problems.

Allegations that the affluent suburban district used webcams on school-issued laptops to "spy" on students in their homes has now caught the attention of Montgomery County detectives and the FBI, both of which are looking into whether the practice violated wiretap and privacy laws.

The district is also fighting off a coast-to-coast onslaught of negative publicity that appeared to be growing more intense yesterday.

So, how did the school spy on students? By turning on the camera on their laptops while they were at home, and without their consent.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday on behalf of Harriton High School student Blake Robbins, claims that an assistant principal reprimanded the 15-year-old for "improper behavior in his home" that was captured by the embedded camera on Robbins' school-issued Apple MacBook.

Robbins told reporters outside his house last night that the improper behavior he was cited for was eating Mike & Ike candies, which he said the school mistook for illegal pills.

District spokesman Doug Young acknowledged yesterday that officials had remotely activated computer webcams 42 times, but only in an attempt to recover missing or stolen laptops, and never to spy on students. He said families had not been notified about the possibility that the cameras on the 2,300 laptops could be activated in their homes without their permission.

OK, a couple of points here. Apparently the schools lawyers are asleep at the switch, or incompetent, because the school admitted to using the cameras on 42 occasions. Now, the reason they did this is completely irrelevant, because unless the school district involved the police and the police secured warrants, they broke the law and someone is going to prison for a LONG time.

Let me throw some words out here:

15 year-old
web camera
bedroom

OK, with that mix, what can possibly go wrong? Add to this a creepy IT guy who revels in secretly spying on people and you have a new episode of Family Guy.

Somehow, I don't think people will be laughing much in the near future. We are talking about some serious criminal charges like Illegal wiretaps, conspiracy, and criminal invasion of privacy. Should pictures turn up of naked teens, the child porn laws come in, and they are pretty Draconian (and rightly so). Of course, should the school be erasing logs, pictures, and other files relevant to this case, you can add obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice. Of course, if someone were sitting on any pix of naked teens, I think they'd be happy to cop to an obstruction charge after they destroyed the evidence.

If these charges are born out, many of these people should do hard time. Excuses about "protecting the children" don't cut it when you victimize the children in the process.

Pamela mentioned Bob Marshall's comments on abortion in passing, but didn't go into them, so I will. Even though most readers here have probably heard them, I think there are a few points worth going into.

"The number of children who are born subsequent to a first abortion with handicaps has increased dramatically. Why? Because when you abort the first born of any, nature takes its vengeance on the subsequent children," said Marshall, a Republican.

"In the Old Testament, the first born of every being, animal and man, was dedicated to the Lord. There's a special punishment Christians would suggest."

You know, it must be terrible to worship a "god" who is such a dick that he punishes innocent children for the "sins" of the mother/father, someone who is petty, tyrannical and viciously, psychopathically vindictive. Why, in the name of all that is rational and decent would any "supreme being" advertised as all knowing and all powerful want to inflict misery on an infant solely because he wants to punish the infant's parents? This is love? This is compassion? This is just?

Also, could someone explain to me why "God" is obsessed with who is first out of the vagina? This seems to be one of those obsessive/compulsive behaviors we have medication for these days.

I would also appreciate if Bob would explain how he squares his statement with this one from that Jesus fellow he claims to worship?

And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man which was blind from birth.

And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.

John 9:1-3

This would seem to contradict what Bob is telling us. Jesus, the guy who as a self-described Christian, Bob claims to follow and worship, flat out says that a man afflicted with blindness as an infant, was NOT being punished for the sins of his parents.

Bob is, of course, quoting from the Old Testament, which as I have pointed out here before has ZERO relevance to anyone claiming to be a Christian. Like most "Christians" of Bob's ilk, he really loves the stern daddy god of the Old Testament who is fairly bloodthirsty and as capricious as any Greek god. But since the OT god has lots of practices that appeal to their bigotries, prejudices and sociopathies, they turn to it when they wish to justify their bigotries, prejudices, and sociopathies.

How can one be a "Christian", which the dictionary defines as:

1 a: one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ

while disregarding those very teachings in order to advocate for the teachings of the Old Testament, which is the Jewish canon of scriptures recounting the alleged covenant between the Jews and their god?

Bob! Pick a theology and stick to it! When the atheist has to explain your religion to you, you are certainly doing it wrong.

James O'Keefe charged in alleged plot to bug Senator Mary Landrieu's office
Washington Post

The conservative young filmmaker whose undercover sting damaged a liberal activist group last year faces federal criminal charges in an alleged plot to tamper with the phones in the New Orleans office of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.).

For some reason the Washington Post is now running away from the original text of the story that said he was their bugging the place. Instead, he was "tampering" with the phones.

James O'Keefe was among four men who created a ruse to enter the lawmaker's downtown office, saying they needed to repair her telephones, according to court records unsealed Tuesday. O'Keefe used his cellphone to take pictures of two men, Joseph Basel and Robert Flanagan, who are accused in an FBI agent's sworn affidavit of impersonating telephone company workers. Stanley Dai is accused of aiding the Jan. 25 plot.

According to the FBI affidavit, Flanagan and Basel were dressed in blue denim pants, blue work shirts, light green fluorescent vests, tool belts and white construction-style hard hats when they entered the Hale Boggs Federal Building on busy Poydras Street. The pair told Landrieu's staff members that they were telephone repairmen and needed access to the office's main reception desk telephone.

I believe that the traditional costume for this farce is plumber's overalls.

Obama Administration To Propose Freezing Non-Military Discretionary Spending
Talking Points Memo

President Obama will propose freezing non-security discretionary government spending for the next three years, a sweeping plan to attempt deficit reduction that will save taxpayers $250 billion over 10 years.

When the administration releases its budget next week, the discretionary spending for government agencies from Health and Human Services to the Department of Treasury will be frozen at its 2010 level in fiscal years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

This pretty much guarantees the economy will tank since it will be cutting off fiscal oxygen at a time when it is already in intensive care. Hello President Palin!

Exempted from the freeze would be Pentagon funding, and the budgets for Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security.

Because we must keep the military industrial complex fed, and we can't encourage young men and women to walk into the buzz saw if we cut back on veteran's care.

The officials said the process is "healthy," and framed it as similar to how families make decisions about where they put their household dollars.

Apparently, somebody was out of class the day they explained the differences between "macro" and "micro" economic processes and decisions. We are talking about the WORLD economy, not whether Aunt Bea can afford a new hat.

Congratulations to the Obama team, they have now blazed new trails into the realms of stupidity.

The first casualty of this ruling is going to be net neutrality. Telecomms are going to pull out the stops to smear any politician or official who supports it. If a law does pass, Scalia will strike it down, since it will "infringe" on corporate free speech. With a law protecing the level playing field gone, it's all down hill. Once the media (print, broadcast, and online) realize that they can use this ruling to destroy any official or candidate who wants to reverse the alarming media consolidation that has happened in the last half century (less than a dozen companies now own 80% of American newspapers, magazines, TV stations, radio stations and networks), action will be taken. Jerome Corsi will be hired as a programming director for "documentaries" that will air in prime time "exposing" anyone who opposes the corporate will. Liberal voices won't be banned outright, but will be marginalized, then pushed out because they can't afford to pay for bandwidth (net/satellite/broadcast). Deals will be struck with the big boys to initially give their stuff (all corporate-approved, anti-consumer) priority handling, then, the little guys will be hit with "premium" fees until they are bankrupt.

The gist of this ruling is, the people with money are entitled to the loudest voice and can drown out everyone who disagrees with them and doesn't have money, i.e. 99% of the populace.

To paraphrase George Orwell, "Imagine 1000 channels and all of them Fox News - Forever!"

Supreme Court rolls back campaign spending limits Washington Post

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations may spend freely to support or oppose candidates for president and Congress, easing decades-old limits on their participation in federal campaigns. By a 5-4 vote, the court on Thursday overturned a 20-year-old ruling that said corporations can be prohibited from using money from their general treasuries to pay for their own campaign ads. The decision, which almost certainly will also allow labor unions to participate more freely in campaigns, threatens similar limits imposed by 24 states. It leaves in place a prohibition on direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

This is why no matter what happens, we lose. We lost years ago, the minute the Vichy wing of the Democratic party helped install Alito and Roberts (back when we were told that filibustering would not be tolerated by His Chimperial Majesty). We have lost the Supreme Court for the next half century, thirty years at least. EVERY reform we might institute will be struck down. EVERY protection of Religious/Corporate fascism will be upheld. Even if Obama and the Dems found their spine, we lost the battle, because the only solution would be to impeach Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas for their conduct in Bush v. Gore, and that ain't gonna happen. Now some will argue that both sides are allowed spend money, corporations and unions, so it balances out. Such naivety would be precious if it were not so deadly. Corporations outspend unions about 100-1, and now it will be a 1000-1, and lots of that money will go to restrict, then ban unions, putting an end to ANY contrary opinion. Politicians who threaten any corporate bottom line will be smeared out of existence, and many providence have mercy on your soul if you run on a platform of reforming the media. For the media, this is Rupert Murdoch's darkest masturbatory fantasies made reality. And so, we bid farewell to democracy, and slip on the chains of our new master, Corporatism.

Once upon a time, in a land not too far away, there was a road. The road was very long, but very narrow, and it ran through the country with traffic going one way.

On the left side of the road, there lived Left Side of the Road Possums. Some lived just beside the road, some lived further away from it, but all considered themselves very proper Left Side of the Road possums.

On the right side of the road there lived Right Side of the Road possums. Some lived just beside the road, some lived further away from it, but all considered themselves very proper Right Side of the Road possums.

Some times, a Left Side of the Road possum would decide that things were better on the Right Side of the Road, and he would set off across the road to become a Right Side of the Road Possum.

Sadly, most didn't make it for they were run over in the middle of the road by cars and trucks whizzing on their way. Those that did make it, found that the Right Side of the Road Possums never really accepted them, or trusted them, believing that they were not “true and proper” Right Side of the Road Possums.

Some times, a Right Side of the Road possum would decide that things were better on the Left Side of the Road, and he would set off across the road to become a Left Side of the Road Possum.

Sadly, most didn't make it for they were run over in the middle of the road by cars and trucks whizzing on their way. Those that did make it, found that the Left Side of the Road Possums never really accepted them, or trusted them, believing that they were not “true and proper” Left Side of the Road Possums.

Sometimes, on both sides of the road, some possums were born who were dropped on their head at birth. These possums were never quite “right” (or “left” if you prefer), and yearned to live in the center of the road.

All of these possums are dead.

The moral of our story is, “Pick a side, nature abhors the middle of the road”.