They Hate Us For Our Miss America

Giuliani likes to echo President Bush's talking points about why so many people and terrorists hate America these days. The two of them (and a whole host of pundits and elected officials) say that they hate us for our freedoms. Well the newest right-wing talking point is going to be that they hate us for Miss America. The evidence? The audience at the Miss Universe competition, where the crowd booed Miss America Rachel Smith. The Young Turks talk about it (skip ahead to the 2:30 min mark to catch the relevant material).

Dishonoring The Dead

Each soldier that falls in battle, regardless of where and when should be honored with dignity. Each soldier deserves their own memorial for their ultimate sacrifice and the loss for the families. Soldiers were honored individually at Fort Lewis but now they will join a growing number of bases that have mass ceremonies. The reason for this is due to the large increase in soldiers killed who were based out of the fort.

From The Olympian:

Fort Lewis, which this month has suffered its worst losses of the war, will no longer conduct individual memorial ceremonies for soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, the post will hold one ceremony for all soldiers killed each month, the Fort Lewis acting commanding general, Brig. Gen. William Troy, wrote in a memo to commanders and staff last week.

“As much as we would like to think otherwise, I am afraid that with the number of soldiers we now have in harm’s way, our losses will preclude us from continuing to do individual memorial ceremonies,” Troy wrote in the memo, according to a copy obtained by United for Peace Pierce County and posted on the group’s Web site. A post spokesman confirmed the policy change Tuesday. It will start in June.

The Fort has lost 124 soldiers in the last five years of war, with 16 just this month. I see no reason why they cannot do individual services despite the increase in those that have fallen. Shame on William Troy for changing the policy and even more for the architects of this failed war. The President and the military do not support the troops while they are alive and fighting. Now they will not even honor them after they have died, leaving a trail of mourning families that Bush and his warmongers cast aside.

A Violent Superpower

As the world's only superpower (for now at least) we have been a terrible example to be followed when it comes to peace. An index was created based on two dozen indicators including arms sales, the amount of wars a country is involved with and violent crimes. The United States currently ranks 96th out of 121 countries. To cite a comparison, Iran was 97th and Yemen was at number 95. Most of the countries at the top of the list were in Europe.

I honestly thought we would be lower than that, so I guess not being dead last is a good thing. With the amount of arms sales, over 11,000 handgun deaths every year, having troops in dozens of countries across the globe and fighting at least two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) officially, there is a lot there to justify being placed at the bottom. Of course when you think about it, Russia is far worse, being named #118 and Iraq (obviously) is at the very bottom.

O'Reilly And McCain: Fighting to Keep WASP Power

John McCain was one of Bill O's guests on his show last night and O'Reilly wanted to talk about immigration. He expressed his fear about people coming across the border (in search of a better life) and how he thought McCain was doing too much to allow immigrants to come to the U.S. He let his guard down (at the 5 min mark) and said exactly why he is so afraid of the immigration from Latin America.

Combating Predatory Lenders

The problem of predatory lending has been widespread across the country and particularly here in New York. Over 4000 foreclosures that are linked to the practice were discovered in Brooklyn alone. Senator Schumer recently spoke out about the need for change but we need action and not just words. Well the New Yorkers for Responsible Lending have come up with a model bill for the Legislature to enact.

From the DMI Blog:

III. REMEDIES
* The law is enforceable by the NYS Attorney General, Banking Superintendent, or any party to a loan covered by the law.
* Actual and statutory damages may be awarded; statutory damages shall be $5,000 per violation or two times actual damages (whichever is greater). Injunctive relief to stop unlawful practices, as well as declaratory and other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate, may be granted. The court may award reasonable attorneys' fees to a prevailing borrower.
* The loan transaction may be rescinded if the lender is found to have violated prohibitions against making unaffordable loans and/or negative amortization loans.
* Borrowers may assert defenses against loan purchasers ("assignees") that they could assert against the original lender.
* The law includes good faith exceptions. No violation of the law shall be found if the lender:
* Notifies the borrower of the compliance error and provides and an opportunity to cure, within 30 days of making the loan; or
* Can show that it failed to comply with the law because of bona fide error.

And those are just the remedies, click on the link for the full list of what the bill would do. Now the only thing is to get the bill into action and passed by our Legislature. Will New York's Statehouse do what is necessary to help it's citizens that have been victimized by predatory lenders? Time will only tell. So make sure to let your own representative know how important this issue is.

DeMint Is A Disgrace

Senator Jim DeMint is now in the minority of the U.S. Senate, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing the Republican strategy of attacking Democrats far outside the lines of human decency. DeMint called Democrats "wimps," zeroing in on Harry Reid for supposedly declaring defeat in Iraq. He also mentioned that it is the fault of Democrats for the high level of mayhem and chaos in Iraq. Basically, the guy has completely flipped his lid.

From The State:

During a luncheon speech to 100 constituents in Spartanburg, DeMint also took issue with the now widespread belief that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, saying the executed Iraqi dictator had “stockpiles of chemical weapons” that still exist.

DeMint devoted most of his comments to the current immigration debate in the Senate. But he spoke about the war when a woman in the audience stood and asked him how long U.S. troops will remain in Iraq.

“Al-Qaida knows that we’ve got a lot of wimps in Congress,” DeMint said. “I believe a lot of the casualties can be laid at the feet of all the talk in Congress about how we’ve got to get out, we’ve got to cut and run.”

DeMint must clearly be off his rocker if he thinks that statements made in Washington can be attributed to the rising death tolls of our troops and civilians in Iraq. He clearly has no idea about what is going on and the complexities that drive the situation. Let me explain it in a nutshell. The Sunnis and Shias are fighting it out to the death for Baghdad (with many different groups on each side), the Kurds want their own turf in the north and almost everyone wants us out of there. It isn't because the Democrats are expressing the will of most Americans, it is because they want to deal with their own country.

A full explanation would require a novel, so if DeMint wants to learn everything about Iraq's past and present that would be fantastic. Of course he would rather play the politics of fear so he can manipulate any susceptible constituent out there. Like those willing to ascribe to his games, DeMint is clearly demented.

Going Back To Baghdad

After leaving the city of chaos, Ausama finds his hometown to be even farther on the path to total destruction than when he left:

Questions For Lieberman Go Unanswered

On Wednesday afternoon, Senator Joe Lieberman (CT for Lieberman-CT) was scheduled to meet some of our troops in Baghdad over a lunch of roast beef and turkey sandwiches. The 'lucky' soldiers picked to dine with the Senator were bombarded with questions from their fellow troops to be asked of Mr. Lieberman. It is doubtful that any of these touched Joe's fragile ears.

From McClatchy:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Spc. David Williams, 22, of Boston, Mass., had two note cards in his pocket Wednesday afternoon as he waited for Sen. Joseph Lieberman. Williams serves in the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., the first of the five "surge" brigades to arrive in Iraq, and he was chosen to join the Independent from Connecticut for lunch at a U.S. field base in Baghdad.

The night before, 30 other soldiers crowded around him with questions for the senator.

He wrote them all down. At the top of his note card was the question he got from nearly every one of his fellow soldiers:

"When are we going to get out of here?"

The rest was a laundry list. When would they have upgraded Humvees that could withstand the armor-penetrating weapons that U.S. officials claim are from Iran? When could they have body armor that was better in hot weather?

Since Lieberman left that luncheon spouting the same old GOP talking points, it is highly unlikely Joe was asked the tough questions. Even if he did, he wouldn't bother giving the soldiers a second thought. The event was a press event for Joe to use our troops as a backdrop to his support for the war. He wore his flak jacket and helmet around Baghdad while a massive force was called up to defend his high-priority-target ass. Then he got the hell out of there, leaving the men to be shot at while they drive around Baghdad. Those aren't just my words, they are the thoughts of the very soldiers interviewed for the article above.

Southampton Bans First Amendment

Suffolk County is officially within the boundaries of the United States, but one of its exclusive towns wants to distance itself from our founding fathers and the First Amendment that they drafted to the Constitution. Free speech is a cherished protection afforded to people in our country but Southampton begs to differ when protesters do not look and sound as the people and the messages that are similar to them.

From 1010 WINS:

Officials in this swanky village on eastern Long Island, apparently fed up with anti-day laborer protesters gathering in front of the mayor's house, have passed a local law making it illegal to demonstrate at a private home or on any residential street.

The move follows nearly two months of protests in front of Mayor Mark Epley's home after he suggested allowing day laborers to gather in a village-owned park near a convenience store. The day laborers, many of whom are suspected of being in the country illegally, stand near the site every morning waiting for contractors, landscapers and construction workers to hire them at hourly wages for the day.

(snip)

An attorney for the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, said she was concerned about the blanket nature of the ban. She said the First Amendment protects all speech, whatever the message.

"It's very dangerous,'' she said, "when government tries to promulgate rules to silence an entity whose message is unpopular or for the convenience ... of any individual.''

The new law carries a fine and possible jail time for the "crime" of protesting. If Mayor Epley and the city council out there think they are going to get away with this, they have another thing coming. This attempt at eroding our Constitution has no place in Suffolk County, New York or anywhere in the United States of America. We are better than this type of abrogation of our nation's laws.

Is The 110th Congress Good For Business?

In my opinion it is far superior to the 109th, but Congress still has a long way to go to even-out the playing field so that the only winners in our society aren't corporations. CNBC had a debate today with a panel of economic pundits from CATO, Center for American Progress and the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Sci-Fi National Security

The Homeland Security Department must be pretty nervous about their ability to protect our country from terrorist attacks. The latest group to be enlisted on the War on Terror^TM is a consortium of science fiction writers who have a talent to look towards the future. The supposed benefit is that their ideas might just become the next method for our adversaries to attack America.

From USAToday:

"We'll play 'What if?' with anything," says Sage Walker, an emergency medicine physician turned sci-fi writer and the only woman in the group. She says the discussions with government officials "tend to be very intense and far-ranging."

So are discussions between the writers. During a coffee break at the conference, Walker, Bear and Andrews started talking about the government's bomb-sniffing dogs. Within minutes, they had conjured up a doggie brain-scanning skullcap that could tell agents what kind of explosive material a dog had picked up.

The 9/11 Commission called the 2001 terrorist attacks a result of the government's "failure of imagination." For this group, Walker says, there's no such thing as an "unthinkable scenario."

It is nice to see people thinking about how we might combat future terrorism attacks. Counter-intelligence is a diverse business and enlisting these writers (with advanced technical degrees of course) might actually inform our government and create policy for whatever may come our way.

However, flying planes into buildings wasn't an unknown. In fact, the government knew about the plan. The President was briefed on it a month before September 11th. Instead of acting on the information George Bush sat on his ass in Crawford and did nothing. So even if these sci-fi guys conceptualize the next attack, who knows if anything will be done to prevent another tragedy?

Some Adulterous Behavior Is Better Than Others

Tom DeLay, former Majority Leader and master hypocrite is up to his usual antics in a highly unusual way. He spoke up about adultery the other day, both about his own, Bill Clinton's and the Speaker of the House at the time, Newt Gingrich. He proclaims that his adultery wasn't as bad as Newt's while the impeachment proceedings were going on because he wasn't having an affair at the time. Well Tom, in that case, I guess you are the better man (*cough, cough*).

From The New Yorker:

In the book, DeLay criticizes Gingrich for, among other things, conducting an affair with a Capitol Hill employee during the 1998 impeachment trial of Bill Clinton. (The woman later became Gingrich’s third wife.) “Yes, I don’t think that Newt could set a high moral standard, a high moral tone, during that moment,” DeLay said. “You can’t do that if you’re keeping secrets about your own adulterous affairs.” He added that the impeachment trial was another of his “proudest moments.” The difference between his own adultery and Gingrich’s, he said, “is that I was no longer committing adultery by that time, the impeachment trial. There’s a big difference.” He added, “Also, I had returned to Christ and repented my sins by that time.”

In fact, DeLay speaks of Gingrich with undisguised contempt. “He’s got this new shtick now—‘solutions,’ he calls it, like government is the new solution. Government isn’t the solution; it’s the problem.” DeLay smiled. “Did you see that he had a love match with John Kerry on global warming?” he said. “That’s not going to help him with the Presidential race.”

Well, well. As long as you have returned to Christ, then that makes it all okay (in your own mind). Even now that he is out of the House, under indictment and promoting a pathetic little book, the man cannot stop being his hypocritical self. Newt may not be able to set any kind of moral tone, but that does not give DeLay the right to criticize him without atoning for his own misdeeds. The fact is they are both amoral Republican scumbags....and that pretty much sums it up.