Wilson Called Avowed Segregationist And Confederate Flag Lover A “Patriot”
GOP Rep. Joe Wilson, last seen heckling the president during a speech to Congress, praised an avowed segregationist with a history of Confederate Flag worship as a “patriot” in 2001.
“He’s a patriot,” Wilson said, in a reference to Maurice Bessinger, a barbecue baron who generated a great deal of controversy for his views about race and slavery, according to an Associated Press article dated January 24th, 2001. “I want people to know that despite any perception.”
Wilson, then a South Carolina state senator, even invited Bessinger to the Statehouse, despite his views, the AP article reported.
In July of 2000, Bessinger hoisted a Confederate Flag atop every one of his nine South Carolina restaurants, to protest South Carolina’s decision to lower the flag from their Statehouse, according to a 2001 New York Times article. The paper also noted that he kept a framed letter from arch-segregationist George Wallace at his main restaurant.
Bessinger paired his embrace of segregation with a low regard for Jews. According to the Times article, he defended segregation in his 2001 book, Defending My Heritage, writing that ”blacks prefer the company of blacks while whites prefer the company of whites” and describing early Jewish customers of his restaurants as ”quite stingy and difficult to serve.”
After Bessinger came under fire from black leaders, a number of big food retailers yanked his barbeque sauce from their shelves.
Bessinger also ran the National Association for the Preservation of White People in the 1950s and 1960s, according to a 2000 Times article. Though he subsequently renounced his views about racial superiority, he began distributing controversial tracts, such as one called ”Biblical View of Slavery,” in which a Baptist minister argued that slavery is not inherently evil because it is allowed in the Bible.
”Don’t let anyone try to load you with guilt and say you need to make reparations for what your forefathers did,” the tract read.
Despite all that, Wilson defended Bessinger in the 2001 AP article. “I think a false impression was generated,” Wilson said of Bessinger at the time. “He’s never mentioned anything racial to me…I know him well enough not to be cautious.”
Wilson’s spokesperson didn’t return repeated emails and calls from our reporter, Amanda Erickson.
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Well what does anyone expect? Wilson is a member of the Sons of the Confederacy. Wilson was one of the strongest proponents of South Carolina keeping the confederate flag flying. Wilson denied Thurmond’s patrimony after Thurmond admitted it.
Sense a pattern here folks? Wilson doesn’t seem to like African Americans being free and voting and stuff. Wonder how he feels about Women’s Rights? O let me guess.
And Obama and Valerie Jarret called (call?) an avowed communist like Van Jones an economics guru.
shorter wilson – i’m a kkk and a racist peeg.
And cue the “confederate” references to the 9/12 demonstration.
sbj – are you claiming there weren’t any? Dude – the Mississippi Freedom Riders were there – do you not know who and what they are?
Whoa – what just happened – did the site crash? I couldn’t access the page at all – I kept getting an Apache Tomcat page.
One Picture from the rally,that shows that the bearer does not even want to be a citizen of the USA.
Since she has renounced her citizenship, throw her out of the country.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march29.jpg
DeMint(as in demented)
Armey(as in Dick Armey, as in P*rick Soldiers)
Pence(as in not worth a plugged nickel)
That is who addressed the rally.
All three are Far Right Wing Republicans leaders.
It was a Right Wing Republican Rally, plain and simple, and all the lipstick in the world will not make that partisan pig, look like a political virgin.
This women is trying to protect
Granny Palin.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march26.jpg
This guy is calling for a violent insurrection against the duly elected government.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march23.jpg
Those Dyslexic Teabaggers are demanding Representation Without Taxation!
Liam – in Max Blumenthal’s video of the “event”, there is a guy wearing a “9-11 was an inside job” tee shirt and he tells camera he believes it was. But he still hates Obama and the Democrats.
These people are all a walking advertisement for mental health care coverage – STAT.
And today Rush Limbaugh said that more people showed up at the event yesterday than did for Obama’s inauguration.
And you know what? His idiot listeners will believe it.
Off topic
From the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
“62.9% of physicians nation wide support proposals to expand health care coverage that include both public and private insurance options.”
http://www.rwjf.org/healthreform/quality/product.jsp?id=48408
Did anyone see the photo from a much earlier rally the conservative sites were posting? It showed a really huge crowd but was debunked as being prior to 2004 so most of them removed it from their sites. Still trying to swell the numbers.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/14/912-tea-party-photo-false_n_286082.html
@Greg:
While I do enjoy pointing out what a giant waste of a congressional seat Rep. Wilson is…let’s move on, please. This is the kind of thing Miller’s campaign should be digging up.
There’s a new study out from the New England Journal of Medicine showing Doctors support a government run health care program at the tune of 73%. That’s 63% that support the public option, and 10% that support single payer. I’m assuming that single payer advocates would take a public option over nothing at all.
We CONSTANTLY see articles claiming the public option is dead (including here), but time and time again polls show strong support for it.
Tena: “Wonder how he feels about Women’s Rights?”
Ambinder tried to defend Wilson against the charge of racism by arguing that he would have said the same thing to Hillary if she were President. He’s right, the guy’s no doubt a sexist, as well as a racist.
Doh, forgot the link:
http://www.rwjf.org/healthreform/quality/product.jsp?id=48408
“He’s right, the guy’s no doubt a sexist, as well as a racist.”
When they are one, they are inevitably the other.
These people are proud to be on Team of Granny, The Quiter, Palin.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march20.jpg
First you decide not to run for relection.
Then you complain that decision of yours, has made you a lame duck, so of course that means that you must quit, half way through your first term.
Guess what Granny Palin. The Presidential Office works just the same way, so, at best, you would only be seeking to serve for half a term.
Yup! Yup! You Betcha!!!
@BBQ
Please provide a link to that physician poll. Can’t find it in the current issue of NEJM. Thanks.
Palin isn’t going to get within a hundred miles of the presidency.
But it’s sure fun watching that dumb but mean and cunning piece of work try.
Oops, didn’t refresh. thanks.
“are you claiming there weren’t any?”
Um, no? I’m saying it’s quite silly to try to delegitimize a demonstration of tens of thousands by pointing to a few nutjobs.
“Since she has renounced her citizenship, throw her out of the country.”
Your proposal for illegal aliens as well?
This Mega Tub Of Lard is talking about leading a revolution.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march32.jpg
Planet Lard could not lead a far*t out of a paper bag.
Now, take a look at this couple who attended the rally.
They appear to be having a great time, and they appear to be very decent people, without any disgusting sign carrying.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march34.jpg
Liam – did you see the picture on BAGnewsnotes of all the demonstrators taking pictures of an Obama poster covered with horseshit?
The guts on those people – every one of them is seriously overweight. What is it with the 30 percenters? – that is one heavy bunch of people who don’t want guaranteed healthcare coverage. I wonder how quickly they will regret that when their mycardial infarction blows their hearts to pieces.
O that’s right, there has been shown to be a correlation between education and weight. The less education you have, the more weight.
Wow! “O that’s right, there has been shown to be a correlation between education and weight.”
The list of groups you are insulting and stereotyping just keeps getting bigger and bigger! Way to go, Tena!
sbj – Get this straight, for once: Just like your mother told you: You are judged by the company you keep.
And get this straight for once, sbj: you cannot insult me – are you kidding? You defend torture. I consider you as having no character at all. Therefore, what you say has no power. At all.
@converse & @Greg (hint hint)
Here’s the PDF:
http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/48408physician.pdf
The link to the site I posted above.
“You are judged by the company you keep.”
If that’s the case then why on earth would you support Obama?
This sign from the rally is probably the most disgusting, and insensitive of all.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march31.jpg
These people were using the holocaust against the Jewish people, as a vicious political device, to smear President Obama.
The fact that the organizers, from Dick Armey, to Senator DeMint, to Congressman Pence, to Fox News, did nothing to stop this sign from being openly paraded around, shows how low the Republican Party has sunk.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/images/gallery-912march31.jpg
“If that’s the case then why on earth would you support Obama?”
Bingo!
Why do I support Obama? Because he’s brilliant, he sincerely wants to fix the country – that’s exactly why he ran, he’s young and has new ideas and understands that things have changed, he’s a wonderful person and so is his wife. Why wouldn’t I support Obama?
Thanks, tena – you made me smile!
Here is where President Obama got his facial features, his smile, and yes, even his ears from.
http://www.kansasprairie.net/kansasprairieblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/copy-of-barac-kand-stanleyht_beach_080131_ssv-small-2.jpg
This a great picture of President Obama, as a young boy, having a great time with his grandfather.
“And today Rush Limbaugh said that more people showed up at the event yesterday than did for Obama’s inauguration.”
I’m sure the WSJ will go to some lengths to correct his statement.
@bernie: You might be interested:
http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/protests_and_media_coverage/
Thanks sbj – you made me vomit inside my own mouth a little..
“sbj” Hmmm. If that’s what I think it is, I saw a guy do it once on a very weird site. Guy had to really bend completely over and get in a totally contorted position in order to accomplish it. Seemed to enjoy it though.
Be careful, Jax – that can cause serious tooth decay!
“If I have caused just one person to vomit then I know it will all have been worth it.”
Let me make you smile more: we were both born in Hawaii, we both have DNA from Kenya, we both are Jay Z fans, he’s the coolest president ever –
He’s a dialectitian; he has the best looking aide ever in Reggie Love, Michele is fresh and has brought a whole new aesthetic to one of the most staid, dumpy towns as far as style goes, in the country.
I like their daughters – I think they are gorgeous and very smart and very self-possessed and very nice.
He’s not an alcoholic. He doesn’t chase other women or little boys or Congressional pages. He respects women.
“Why do you think a dog licks himself?”
Because it can.
Steve Martin in LA Story: “I could never be a woman, ’cause I’d just stay home and play with my breasts all day.”
“Be careful, Jax – that can cause serious tooth decay!”
..which can be fixed with a dentists visit. What can be done about the cerebral decay brought on by modern day conservatism?
And now I’m going to make you really smile, sbj: he’s the best looking and most elegant president ever, too.
LOL are you sure he did not call him a poopie head?
Damn you people are freakin DESPERATE!
I will fly my confederate flag anytime I damn well choose it just shows how stupid you folks really are.
You embrace killing unborn children, murders, communists, tin horn dictators so go kiss your commie loving Van Jones!
As far as how Wilson treats women I am positive he would not leave any woman to die in his car at the bottom of a river like your hero did.
you folks should really do a reality check on your souls if you can find them!
Some recommended reading for those whose ignorance is showing.
http://www.scv674.org/booklist.htm
Yippie – o please do fly that flag – I wanna know you when I see you coming.
yippie-
I finally get your schtick. Hilarious, ol’ chap. Sorry I was slow on the uptake-I tend to take what people write on blogs seriously. Cheers!
Tena I highly doubt you would see me coming unless you trespass on my property then you will see my flag!
So tell me, why should those in the South have to erase history to make you happy?
I seem to recall many Mexican flags being flown at an illegal immigration protest did that bother you?
Does it bother you to see an islamic flag flown in America?
A commie flag flown in America?
Or is it just white people that aren’t lunatic liberal that you hate and want to take not only their history away but most of their freedoms if you could!
Matter of fact liberals love to burn the American flag then get their pants in a wad over someone flying the confederate flag!
I think it’s time to force a name change on liberals to professional hypocrites!!
You lunatic liberals should not have a problem with that since you LOVE changing the meaning of words and insisting every one else uses those words!
So keep on trying to erase America and see how many more folks show up at the tea party rallies and the voting booth’s in 2010 to ensure that the lunatic left is stopped in it’s tracks with the bonus of throwing out a few more on the repug side!
from sbj: “@bernie: You might be interested:”
A bit of a stretch from the fellow. I recall the anti-war march on Washington quite clearly and its lack of coverage. And it wasn’t bracketed by numerous other such marches so as to make it seem just a normal weekend activity.
Still, there’s a point in looking to media “boredom” as a significant factor here. Last weekend was something different in many ways and that catches media attention. But relative numbers isn’t one of them.
Consider that earlier anti-war march. What if millions of dollars had been poured into promoting it via the expertise of professional and very experienced marketing companies over a period of months prior and much of it designed precisely to gain media attention. Consider if it had been the case that a TV network had devoted hundreds of hours, over a period of months, to forward that marketing campaign and to promote emotional responses and to increase participation. Vastly different outcome.
The proper way to understand last weekend is to study how well strategists on the right have learned to manipulate media systems and coverage (as Newt put it, “we will change America through the media” or as Rove, almost certainly put it, “we create our own reality now”.
But
chuck if you think I am an ol’chap then you don’t get it!
Cheers!!
No, yippie is no “ol chap,” he’s apparently the real thing.
The Civil War was over 145 years ago and the Confederacy lost. Do you hear Germans whining about getting beat in WWII and wanting to know what’s wrong with flying the Nazi flag?
You know what the problem is – you know very well what it is. You know what the South fought for and don’t give me any of the old State’s Right BS – you know it was to continue the institution of slavery. You know exactly what you stand for.
Reality Check.
Where The American Civil War Began
Decades of growing strife between North and South erupted in civil war on April 12, 1861, when Confederate artillery opened fire on this Federal fort in Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter surrendered 34 hours later. Union forces would try for nearly four years to take it back.
The Confederates acted no better than those who attacked Pearl Harbour, or those who attacked the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001.
The Confederate forces were lead by a group of, West Point trained, traitors to the country that educated them, and made military officers of them.
They were just a group of renegade officers who choose to back the evils of slavery over honor and country.
“Andersonville Civil War Prison, located in the village of Andersonville, Sumpter County, Georgia, became notorious for its overcrowding, starvation, disease, and cruelty. It was in operation from February 1864 to April 1865.
Andersonville Prison was established as a “stockade for Union enlisted men”. The prison consisted of 27 acres and was enclosed with walls made of pine logs, which stood 15-20 feet high. The “stockade” held a hospital but no barracks were ever constructed for the prisoners. Originally intended to hold 10,000 men, Andersonville at one time held over 33,000 men. According to records, a total of 49,485 prisoners went through the gates of Andersonville Prison.
Prisoners suffered from hunger, disease, medical shortages, and exposure. The death rate at Andersonville was the highest of all Civil War prisons. A staggering 13,700 men died within thirteen months!
The superintendent of the prison was Captain Henry Wirz. It is said he was heartless and high-handed. John L. Ransom, a Michigan sergeant and Andersonville prisoner, wrote in his diary on May 10, 1864: “Captain Wirz very domineering and abusive, is afraid to come into camp any more. A thousand men here would willingly die if they could kill him first. The worst man I ever saw.” Captain Wirz was tried and hanged by a military court after the war. John Ransom’s Diary has been published and can be ordered here.”
Robert E. Lee should have been hanged for leading a war against the government of the united states. He was a traitor who abandoned his honor, to protect the evil slave owners.
He should never have been allowed to go home, after the war.
Hell, if you read how he callously wasted all those southern lives, with Pickett’s charge, it is plain to see that Robert E. Lee was, in addition to being a traitor to his country, just a bloody thirsty psychopath.
Ignoring the chap above seems a prudent course of action.
the miss yippie chap, I ought to clarify.
Though I do wish to remind everyone that we Canadians whupped American wimp-*** in 1812. Just saying.
# Bernie Latham | September 14th, 2009 at 07:52 pm
Though I do wish to remind everyone that we Canadians whupped American wimp-*** in 1812. Just saying.
………………………..
Do you realize how close you came to being a part of the USA?
Had the US Government and military, not impeded them, The Fighting Irish were on the verge of capturing Canada.
http://www.bivouacbooks.com/bbv2i3s6.htm
Bernie – it is prudent.
It just remains to be seen who here is prudent, as well. LOL
I’ll behave.
“Consider if it had been the case that a TV network had devoted hundreds of hours, over a period of months, to forward that marketing campaign.”
Okay Bernie, you’re gonna have to prove that one – hundreds of hours?
“The proper way to understand last weekend.”
According to you? No other opinions or analyses need apply? Much as I value your opinion Bernie – and I do – I think I’ll stick with Joyner here. You do not have a monopoly here on perspective.
LIam said: “The Fighting Irish were on the verge of capturing Canada.”
We were ready. We had lots of whiskey.
Now this is the kind of re-fighting of old wars I really enjoy.
It’s got a certain “Tristram Shandy” feel.
@BBQ at 06:35 pm
“This is the kind of thing Miller’s campaign should be digging up.”
Every little bit helps. I just sent this link to the Miller Campaign
To Greg
Thanks for this post…keep it coming!
SC does have issues with others who don’t look like them.
Remember when Lindsey Graham was up for re-election in 2008? Buddy Witherspoon ran against him, mostly because Graham believed(s) in a path to citizenship. Just google “Lindsey Grahamnesty.”
Buddy Witherspoon held a prominent position in the SC GOP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Witherspoon
Buddy “was” a member of the Council of Conservative Citizens (the CCC)
“In South Carolina, Republican National Committeeman Buddy Witherspoon is a member of the group. It was at his invitation that Barr addressed a national council meeting in Charleston last year.
Witherspoon said: “I’m a member. I’m not that active, I don’t go to all the things.” ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/jan99/south13.htm
but, under pressure, he resigned
“The official, Buddy Witherspoon, told the state party’s executive committee on Saturday he would no longer be part of the conservative group.”
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/01/us/national-news-briefs-gop-official-to-leave-conservative-group.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/R/Republican%20National%20Committee
see what the Southern Poverty Law Center said about the CCC
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=487
Racism is in all states but it is more covert in the South — and it is certainly covert here in SC. I see it, and I’m white.
sbj – Hundreds of hours is my estimate but I tune in to FOX most every day and have a good sense of what’s covered, how and how much. If there are more than a few days over the last four months where Hannity hasn’t referred to teabagger protests, I’d be very surprised. That’s just one. How many hours of his show do you suspect has been free of mention of it? O’Reilly? And every other show on FOX news has pushed this in varying degrees.
As regards ‘proper way to understand’…if it wasn’t or isn’t obvious, any opinion I might forward here has to be understood as just that. If it weren’t so tedious to read and to write, I’d put something like “I posit that…” or “my tentative thesis is…”
There’s just no way I’m going to get everything right. All I can do is read as much as I can and try to fathom event, then yak about my conclusions here. But I’ll be wrong sometimes.
Tena
You know, I’ve never read nor studied that famous work. Is it as delicious as fans claim?
Yes, Bernie you can’t back up your estimate. Hyperbole does not serve you well. Hannity and O’Reilly are on two hours a nite, five nites a week. If each devoted even 5 minutes (generous) per nite, every nite they were on, that’s 200 minutes a month. There’s simply no way to approach your “estimate” – very careless of you.
Both of your responses here are devoid of facts – very un-Bernie like.
And speaking of FOX and Beck, he’s lost over sixty advertisers now and according to the piece linked below, it is costing FOX. As I argued last week, quite regardless of what FOX representatives say, it must be hurting. Further, one can imagine the advertising sales unit getting a lot of “Well, no I don’t think we ought to advertise on this show at this point…we’ll see what happens. But do call back in six months.”
Ailes being Ailes, he won’t back down for political reasons unless orders come from above. And as Murdoch finds it convenient to his purposes to fund the welfare queens at Weekly Standard with over a million a year that that institution loses, it’s hard to know how he’ll weight this out. But it is exactly the right sort of pressure to bring to bear on these amoral and destructive twerps.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-rucker/glenn-beck-has-lost-over_b_286228.html
If only a Democrat would have stood up in 2003 and yelled “You Lie” to Bush prior to the Iraq invasion, maybe others would have had the courage to stand up to the administration without fear of being labeled unpatriotic.
Any good photoshoppers out there? Here’s a mental image from George Will that could be damned funny if realized…
“[Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell] of the Mona Lisa smile…”
Bernie:
If there are more than a few days over the last four months where Hannity hasn’t referred to teabagger protests, I’d be very surprised. That’s just one. How many hours of his show do you suspect has been free of mention of it? O’Reilly? And every other show on FOX news has pushed this in varying degrees.
I watch Brett Baeir every night, and O”Reilly probably 3 days a week. Hannity on occassion, but certianly not regularly. I never heard any of them mention this event. In fact, I had no idea it was happening until Greg posted about it here on Friday.
Beck probably promoted it all the time (I never watch him), but I think you are wrong that FOX as a channel was promoting it incessantly.
Bernie:
these amoral and destructive twerps.
Do you mean Ailes and Murdoch? What evidence do you have that they are amoral?
Tena:
[Obama] has new ideas
Name one.
Rachel Maddow just showed video of the 912 event and what no one else showed – there was a counter demonstration by Billionaires for Wealthcare, all dressed in evening wear and they had signs like: Fight Socialism! Abolish Medicare; and “Warning: health care reform could lead to a terrible drop in profits” And “Protect the Status Quo!”
They also rewrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic to fit their points about the obscene profits the insurance industry rakes in. And the 912ers were so clueless about what was being said some of them shook their hands.
It was without a doubt the most beautiful piece of political theater I’ve seen in 40 years.
mike-
re; standing up in Congress: so, you agree with Wilson’s tactic?
Bernie SO WHAT!
Are you seriously complaining that hannity or any other media outlet mentions the Tea Party?
I find this too funny when it is a well established fact that the left has George Soros not only funding their every agenda using media outlets, Moveon and who know what else to promote every protest and opposition to Bush.
Can you be any more of a hypocrite?
What is it with you people? Seriously you expect millions of Americans to be silenced?
You certainly are not tolerant or even open minded!
haha we won’t be silenced fox news will spread the word for us for FREE we don’t need Soros dirty money but YOU do!
Of course it is now becoming clear that the next move will be big obama government shutting down our voices and telling us we can only watch or listen the government control media Abc, NBC, MSNBC/GE and CNN.
The hysterical paranoia is not only damaging their health but it’s damaging our political discourse. I’m trying to heed your words about ignoring Bernie but it was a long weekend listening to this.
Scott the left have lost their cookies because other Americans are protesting their agenda. To them it matters not if Fox promoted it or not, it matters not that is is really a grassroots movement.
They don’t like it and can’t tolerate it. Nothing will stop them from totally desecrating anything and everything involved in it.The Tea Party movement is their new Bush. Instead of fixing the issue’s in America they will spend their time letting special interests groups write legislation they don’t read but force down the throats of Americans and the rest of their time will be spent spewing their hate for their fellow Americans that don’t agree with their HISTORIC spending spree (and it ain’t over yet) and expansion of government with Van Jonesbots.
This is the MO has been since the 60’s. Hell they will attack and eat their own and right now that will be the Blue Dog Democrats.
This is not the Peace, Love, Dove Crowd like they claim to be!
Mike, a million people marched in Washington and they were ignored and got very little publicity. I don’t think standing up and calling the president a liar would have helped much. They were hell bent on the war and there just weren’t enough of us to stop it.
# mike from Arlington | September 14th, 2009 at 08:43 pm
If only a Democrat would have stood up in 2003 and yelled “You Lie” to Bush prior to the Iraq invasion, maybe others would have had the courage to stand up to the administration without fear of being labeled unpatriotic.
–
LOL!! man they sure have chugging the kool-aid.
Instead the dems were the majority in the senate and they voted to send our troops to war only to turn their backs on them and use them for political fodder. As like they have done in the past and will do in the future as soon as a Repug is CIC. Now they just ignore our troops even though the last 2 months in Afghan has cost the lives of more US Soldiers then the whole time we have been in Afghan.
Interesting conversation overheard tonight on my way home.
Man 1: This health care thing is getting out of control.
Man 2: I know what you mean.
Man 1: I mean, I voted for Obama.
Man 2: Me too.
Man 1: But now I’m regretting it. He was supposed to be this post-partisan force.
Man 2: It’s bad, I know.
Just two working stiffs on the train. Maybe entirely insignificant. But I think Obama is losing the relatively apolitical people who put him over the top, and I think it is because of the likes of people on this board, who mistakenly think that his election signalled a national move to the left, and was a mandate for large progressive change.
The fact is the average joe simply doesn’t want what you want, and you guys are in serious danger of overplaying your hand.
Just a thought.
# Bernie Latham | September 14th, 2009 at 07:50 pm
Ignoring the chap above seems a prudent course of action.
-
YIPPIE I am honored!
And I can see why you need to ignore me! I have proven you wrong quite a few times chap and you stay silent!
So while you are ignoring me think about why you have no problem with soros millions backing the democrats agenda but you do with fox backing an agenda you don’t agree with.
the sound of silence!
@Scott you are exactly right and the folks on this blog don’t like the average joe as we all have read with our own eyes!
This blog is a view into the hate the lunatic left has for anyone that doesn’t agree with their agenda. It’s like the real world does not exists.
They ignore reality hence why Bernie from Canada has to ignore me.
Scott, it’s funny because I overheard another conversation today.
Old man 1: I’m a life long NRA member, #1 Fox fan, but I think Obama’s doing great.
Old man 2: Darn tootin’. I’m gonna trash my RNC membership and use it as toilette paper.
Old man 1: Me too.
Old man 2: Then I’m gonna take my Palin/Bachmann bumper sticker and throw it in the trash.
Old man 1: Can I have it?
Old man 2: No you idjit.
Old man 1: Awe shucks. Can I keep my Sarah Palin poster?
Old man 2: What you want that thing for?
Old man 1: Well, when the miss leaves town, I put it on the ceiling above me and…
Old lady on train: *Smack!* How dare you! Pervert.
Times are a changin’.
Mike:
Times are a changin’.
Not as much as you might think or hope. But keep your head in the sand…or in the clouds…if you want. I’m indifferent.
hmmm the other night I posted an document about slaves in the North and it never posted, I even got a duplicate message when I tried to repost it! gee wonder why that is!
If the confederate flag bothers you because you claim it ONLY represents slavery and hate then so should the American Flag.
The American flag flew over many Northern Slave towns.
I’m sure you will tell me how it’s so different and only the confederate flag is the only flag that should be banned in the US and blah blah blah because if their is one thing I have learned from this blog it is that reality and facts mean squat to many here.
It’s all about the repugs calling the dems poopie heads!
reality check for liam t
Camp Douglas was a Union training camp and later prisoner-of-war camp in Chicago, Illinois, USA, during the American Civil War.
It is estimated that from 1862–1865, more than 6,000 Confederate prisoners died from disease, starvation, and the bitter cold winters (although as many as 1,500 were reported as “unaccounted” for). The largest number of prisoners held at any one time was 12,000 in December, 1864. Accounts vary as to precise numbers. According to 80 Acres of Hell, a television documentary produced by the A&E Network and the The History Channel, the reason for the uncertainty is that many records were intentionally destroyed after the war. The documentary also alleges that, for a period of time, the camp contracted with an unscrupulous undertaker who sold some of the bodies of Confederate prisoners to medical schools and had the rest buried in shallow graves without coffins. Some were even dumped in Lake Michigan only to wash up on its shores. Many, however, were initially buried in unmarked pauper’s graves in Chicago’s City Cemetery (located on the site of today’s Lincoln Park), but in 1867 were reinterred at what is now known as Confederate Mound in Oak Woods Cemetery (5 miles south of the former Camp Douglas).
Nobody was ever held accountable for the conditions and actions at Camp Douglas, in fact the only Union general to gain the rank without seeing combat was an overseer of Camp Douglas. This is also to this date the largest mass grave in the western hemisphere, as documented by the book To Die in Chicago.
Conditions
Henry Whitney Bellows, president of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, wrote to Colonel Hoffman his superior after visiting the camp: “Sir, the amount of standing water, unpoliced grounds, of foul sinks, of unventilated and crowded barracks, of general disorder, of soil reeking miasmatic accretions, of rotten bones and emptying of camp kettles, is enough to drive a sanitarian to despair. I hope that no thought will be entertained of mending matters. The absolute abandonment of the spot seems to be the only judicious course, I do not believe that any amount of drainage would purge that soil loaded with accumulated filth or those barracks fetid with two stories of vermin and animal exhalations. Nothing but fire can cleanse them.” (in the documentary 80 Acres of Hell).
According to the History Channel documentary, the commander before Sweet imposed the following harsh conditions: 3oz daily meat portions, sitting naked in the winter, crippling sittings on a sawhorse device, and beating or shooting of those trying to circumvent food rations — even, for example, to punish the eating of snow. [1]
During Colonel B.J. Sweet’s command of Camp Douglas, he used reduced food rations — removing vegetables and decreasing the 3oz daily meat portions — to control the prison population and reduce escape attempt numbers. The reduced rations increased instances of diseases such as scurvy and helped to increase mortality rates. Sweet rewarded guards for shooting prisoners, restricted prisoner movement, and enforced nightly quiet hours. Acting on rumors of a pre-election Camp Douglas Conspiracy to break prisoners free, Sweet extended martial law from the blocks surrounding Camp Douglas to the city of Chicago and arrests about a hundred citizens suspected of treason (reference: 80 Acres of Hell).
Prisoners were tortured to try to extract information. Prisoners were hung by their thumbs or forced to ride the “wooden horse” or “mule”, with weight hung on their feet to make the experience more painful (reference: 80 Acres of Hell).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Douglas_(Chicago)
Every New World colony was, in some sense, a slave colony. French Canada, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Cuba, Brazil — all of them made their start in an economic system built upon slavery based on race. In all of them, slavery enjoyed the service of the law and the sanction of religion. In all of them the master class had its moments of doubt, and the slaves plotted to escape or rebel.
Over time, slavery flourished in the Upper South and failed to do so in the North. But there were pockets of the North on the eve of the Revolution where slaves played key roles in the economic and social order: New York City and northern New Jersey, rural Pennsylvania, and the shipping towns of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Black populations in some places were much higher than they would be during the 19th century. More than 3,000 blacks lived in Rhode Island in 1748, amounting to 9.1 percent of the population; 4,600 blacks were in New Jersey in 1745, 7.5 percent of the population; and nearly 20,000 blacks lived in New York in 1771, 12.2 percent of the population.[4]
The North failed to develop large-scale agrarian slavery, such as later arose in the Deep South, but that had little to do with morality and much to do with climate and economy.
slavenorth.com/
When the Northern states gave up the last remnants of legal slavery, in the generation after the Revolution, their motives were a mix of piety, morality, and ethics; fear of a growing black population; practical economics; and the fact that the Revolutionary War had broken the Northern slaveowners’ power and drained off much of the slave population. An exception was New Jersey, where the slave population actually increased during the war. Slavery lingered there until the Civil War, with the state reporting 236 slaves in 1850 and 18 as late as 1860.
The business of emancipation in the North amounted to the simple matters of, 1. determining how to compensate slaveowners for the few slaves they had left, and, 2. making sure newly freed slaves would be marginalized economically and politically in their home communities, and that nothing in the state’s constitution would encourage fugitive slaves from elsewhere to settle there.
But in the generally conservative, local process of emancipating a small number of Northern slaves, the Northern leadership turned its back on slavery as a national problem.
Greg’s Server must be sick today!
Does it free health insurance from the government? hope so, poor thing needs a checkup.
Scott, you know what I saw at the town halls and the teabagging parties?
A bunch of Republicans that can’t believe they were rejected and think walking side by side with some segregationists, ultra-nationalists, quite a few racists, libertarians that hate all government and mindless serfs being misled by their corporate masters.
I know people get upset that people bring up the Obama is Hitler posters, or the Democrats are nazi posters, or the posters referencing boy, or the Obama isn’t a citizen posters that are clearly riddled with racism and claim they aren’t representative of the majority. But, until mainstream Republicans come out and denounce this rather than embracing these groups, only the far right are benefiting by what’s going on.
When you all walk along with these people and remain silent there is a serious problem. Your silence to means your approval of their actions to others.
So, am I surprised people are upset with this administration?
Not at all.
After all, 46 million voted for McCain and like 30 million of those people are Bush apologists and consider his presidency a huge success. Their grip on reality doesn’t quite fit since this has now been considered the lost decade where incomes decreased and wealth has disappeared.
“since this has now been considered the lost decade where incomes decreased and wealth has disappeared.”
And the Census Report proves that conclusively.
That darn liberal bias census report!
Yippie
Typically when we borrow the words others have written we give them credit and link the article or paper.
“Instead the dems were the majority in the senate and they voted to send our troops to war only to turn their backs on them ”
The Democrats were the majority in 2003? Really, yippie?
If the South is gonna rise again, the IQs down there are going to have to rise first.
Tena:
Still searching for one of Obama’s “new” ideas?
Scott C.
I got one.
Trying to be civil to an opposition that is intent on seeing him fail.
# Tena | September 14th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
If the South is gonna rise again, the IQs down there are going to have to rise first.
–
says the self proclaimed mathematically deficient progressive.
Tena you make it known that you hate the south and many white people but me thinks you really hate yourself!
Please tell me again how you care so much about all Americans and only want the best for them,
Tena, LOL.
mike from Arlington – One of his best new ideas was to put Van Jones into the White House. Van has an entire plan to convert the country to a green economy that would make us number in the world again.
Every time anyone comes up with a new way of seeing things, the Right freaks smooth out -
Mike:
When you all walk along with these people…
I don’t walk along with anyone. Never been to a protest or a march in my life.
Number 1 in the world again –
But the Right don’t want us to do any of that there science stuff. They want the country to go back to ducking witches to see if they drownded, cause that means they weren’t really witches.
Because that there science stuff proves that we all not only equal, we all have the same genetic mother and are 99% identical, genetically. And then there’s evolution…
yippie, I’ll say this for you – you never know when you’ve said enough.
Yeah, my math defiency got me through the LSAT, law school and the Texas State Bar Exam.
I think I made up for it.
I imagine if Palin were to trick 51% of the country to vote for her, she’d rip out the evolution displays in the Smithsonian and replace them with scenes from Genesis.
okay…bed time for me.
# mike from Arlington | September 14th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Scott C.
I got one.
Trying to be civil to an opposition that is intent on seeing him fail.
–
Bush already did that and exceeded. Obama can’t get past go.
Civil words from Obama
Cambridge Police acted stupidly
Kanye is a jackass
Oh and this new little gem civilly lying to America. Oh please Pelosi give Rep. Wilson a scolding on the house floor!
Rising Calls for President Obama To Apologize To The Nation
E-mail | Print | PDF .September 14, 2009 (MMD Newswire) — The national non-partisan immigration enforcement organization known as ALIPAC is calling on President Barack Obama to publicly apologize to the Congress, media, and the entire nation for lying about illegal immigrants having access to health care reform benefits.
“Considering the large volume of evidence suggesting President Obama lied in his speech before Congress, he should follow Congressman Joe Wilson’s example and apologize immediately,” said William Gheen of ALIPAC. “Many people feel Joe Wilson was rude, but that is pale by comparison to the President of the United States of America intentionally lying to Congress, the media, and every American.”
Obama’s claim that illegal aliens would not be covered by his health care reform plans have been disproved by the lack of enforcement measures in HR 3200, Democrat party line votes blocking any enforcement amendments to the bills, the fact that the US Senate is now moving to close loopholes Obama said did not exist, and the Congressional Research Service analysis showing Obama’s comments to be incorrect.
Further evidence that Obama intends to offer these benefits to illegal aliens are found in the fact his initial national estimates of the number of uninsured in America included over 6.6 uninsured illegal aliens.
President Obama also told Katie Couric in a recent interview he plans to push for a “path to citizenship” for illegal aliens and that would qualify them for all taxpayer benefits and American jobs.
http://www.mmdnewswire.com/obama-apologize-5730.html
Scott – we agree on something! Yeezy is a giant ******! And I hate his voice and always have.
I wish he’d get the hell off stage and stay off.
giant d*o*u*c*h*e.
That’s Kanye.
The Confederate flag stands for treason against the Union and total degradation of fellow human beings. It should have been outlawed just like the Nazi one was; so said a friend to me last night whose parents are Holocaust survivors.
Rep Wilson’s outburst shows exactly why there are Tea Partys and the 9/12 huge march on DC.
This man knew along with the rest of congress that Obama was lying and he could take it no more! In a lapse of emotional judgement (something all liberals should understand) Rep Wilson could take no more of the lies from the professional liar and lost the control and manners he has always displayed according to even MSN reporters. So keep ignoring those you hate soley because they don’t agree with you. You don’t even know the first thing about the millions of people you insult with your hate daily on this blog. Best part of all of it is that your hate is also viewed by thousands of the people you hate but don’t even know their names. Most won’t even dare speak at this trash dump unlike me and a few others! You can act like you ignore me but I know you read my every word!
BBQ – Thanks for the link to Physician Views on the Public Health Insurance plan. I am spending some time with my family this weekend, and they will not believe me that my rheumatologist is in favor of single payer. I think it makes a difference if you live in a blue state (where typically Medicare is fully funded) or a red state (where Medicare is usually underfunded). I live in blue, they live in red.
Well well isn’t this typical of the haters! And I will get the typical hater remark fox news is lying. Yeah right!
FOX News is reporting the Congressman’s website is under Cyber attack after raising close to 1 Million dollars in the few days following his “You Lie!” outburst.
Tena – yeah, but how cool was Beyonce’s response in calling Taylor Swift back up. Classy.
Actually, once you’ve read one post you’ve read them all, I pretty much skip them. Instead of spewing all your venom at Obama and the democrats, why don’t you go after the real villains, the banks, wall street, insurance companies and all their lobbyists.
“President Obama also told Katie Couric in a recent interview he plans to push for a “path to citizenship” for illegal aliens and that would qualify them for all taxpayer benefits and American jobs.”
All? YOu really want to stick with that? That was Bush’s plan, you know – part of it. A way to give those who have lived here for years and paid taxes, which they do, and paid into Social Security what they’ll never see out of it unless they become citizens a way to fix that.
And if you try moving against Hispanic voters on immigration, there goes what was left of what was left of what was left of your shred of a chance of every getting elected again. I saw what happened when the Republicans tried that while Bush was in office.
Please, start hating on the Hispanics now. You’ve about exhausted your African American hate.
mike:
intent on seeing him fail.
To be honest I never understood this particular canard from the left. What does it mean that they want him to “fail”? They don’t want him to him to succeed in imposing his agenda – an agenda which they oppose and against which they campaigned to teh people that elected them?
Gee, shocker that! What a nefarious change in the way of our politics! Never before has an opposition party actually opposed the majority or the president. Usually they just roll over and vote for all those policies they campaigned against because, afterall, they’re in the minority.
Are you guys serious?
If defeating policy proposals with which they disagree is not what you mean by wanting him to fail, then what do you mean?
# Angela | September 14th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
The Confederate flag stands for treason against the Union and total degradation of fellow human beings. It should have been outlawed just like the Nazi one was; so said a friend to me last night whose parents are Holocaust survivors.
–
Get out of here now the south=holocaust?
I guess Sherman’s march destroying the south was humane and necessary to kill, rape, maim or burn everything in their path?
As far as treason all states have the right to succeeded unless this is a country run by a federal dictator.
Do you think it is treason for a US Senator to team up with the KGB?
“As far as treason all states have the right to succeeded unless this is a country run by a federal dictator.”
Teh stupid it burns! No, no state has that right. Not at all. And that’s the law. That’s over – no one secedes. And there are days when I’m really sorry that’s the case.
Treason is what that flag stands for — and how many blacks died in slavery? Yeah, I think my friend who was raised by Holocaust survivors was spot on.
Do you approve of dropping the A-bomb? Sherman’s march to the sea was just 1865’s version of saving lives.
Tena:
Still waiting for you to name just one of Obama’s “new” ideas. Can’t you come up with even one?
@tena NEWSFLASH America did not like Bushes plan either and that includes me. What is your major malfunction?
Why can’t you EVER respond without resorting to well Bush did it or your hate towards white amercans that oppose your agenda. An agenda I might add that you can only defend with the two responses I just stated. You have yet to give any facts about squat! All emotional ranting filled with hate for others or Bush.
And you have the nerve to claim the IQ in the South needs to be raised. Girl you need to freakin find your IQ!
And you know what, yippie – why don’t y’all try? I’d love to see the South try to exist on its own. Every southern state except Texas gets government welfare to run the damn state, barely.
Please go on your merry way and degrade fully.
“H America did not like Bushes plan either and that includes me. What is your major malfunction?”
Hon, your idea of America consists of about 70,000, from the pictures mostly overweight, Fox News viewers. That’s not America.
Go ahead – hate on Hispanics – go ahead. The largest demonstration in Dallas history – that was the result last time. Makes your 70,000 look small – they turned out over 400,000 people to demonstrate against your idea of immigration reform.
yippie – you’re too much fun cause you’re too damn easy cause you aren’t very bright.
So I’m outta here.
lata
Obama has many of his own ideas that I’m sure Tena doesn’t want to mention.
close gitmo
fund abortion clinics world wide that mention adoption
nationalize the auto, financial, health care, energy and any other industry he can get his hands on.
unionize the work force
expand americorps into a bigger civilian security force than the US Military
free college education for all
free single-payer healthcare
RIP Patrick Swayze you were one of the best an honorable man! My heart and prayers go out to your wife of 34 years and your family!
And the walls are crumbling down!
This is just the beginning vote yes to fund Acorn and say bye bye to your free ride on the hill!
No doubt these community organizor were trained in tax fraud. Obama=Acorn let’s see his hand on this one!
reality check you won’t get from the MSM or Greg!
Brooklyn Prosecutors investigating Acorn
Senate votes to deny funds to ACORN
Sep 14 06:50 PM US/Eastern
By ANDREW TAYLOR
Associated Press Writer
Comments (9) Email to a friend Share on Facebook Tweet this Bookmark and Share
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, a community organization under fire in several voter-registration fraud cases.
The 83-7 vote would deny housing and community grant funding to ACORN, which stands for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
The action came as the group is suffering from bad publicity after a duo of conservative activists posing as a prostitute and her pimp released hidden-camera videos in which ACORN employees in Baltimore gave advice on house-buying and how to account on tax forms for the woman’s income. Two other videos, aired frequently on media outlets such as the Fox News Channel, depict similar situations in ACORN offices in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C.
The Senate’s move would mean that ACORN would not be able to win HUD grants for programs such as counseling low-income people on how to get mortgages and for fair housing education and outreach.
Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said that ACORN has received $53 million in taxpayer funds since 1994 and that the group was eligible for a wider set of funding in the pending legislation, which funds housing and transportation programs.
Just last week, the Census Bureau severed its ties with ACORN, saying it does not want the group’s help in outreach efforts on the decennial count.
breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9ANCH580&show_article=1
Tena – Love your “If the South is gonna rise again, the IQs down there are going to have to rise first.” Ain’t that the truth.
Bernie – Welfare queens at weakly standard – Ain’t that another truth.
yippie = bilgeman = nutter
Greg, congrats on getting back on your feet.
yippie – May all your wishes @ 11.57 come true. Can’t wait to see the wingnuts’ collective heads explode when that happens.
Well well of course IL say NO don’t stop funding acorn. So these 7 senators have no problem with government fraud and using underage illegal immigrant girls in the *** slave industry.
And of course liberals scream Acorn getting home loans illegally did not have a thing to do with the housing market collapse!
Nice!! No wonder Greg’s server is sick! It will probably puke when the natives start defending acorn breaking the rules actually law. Are these rules/laws that everyone should follow or is Acorn exempt like the Black Panthers. Sure seems like Holder thinks so. What DOJ would close their eyes at this level of alleged corruption using federal funds? Where is the IRS auditing these crooks? Acorn only has about 285 groups nestled in a nice shady way and all including the SEIU tie back to an address in New Orleans.
nays
•Dick Durbin (D-IL)
•Roland Burris (D-IL)
•Robert Casey (D-PA)
•Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)
•Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
•Bernie Sanders (I-VT)
•Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)
amk love you too! smooch!
So morally superior natives who want all to follow the rules what about Acorn?
# Angela | September 14th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Treason is what that flag stands for — and how many blacks died in slavery? Yeah, I think my friend who was raised by Holocaust survivors was spot on.
Do you approve of dropping the A-bomb? Sherman’s march to the sea was just 1865’s version of saving lives.
—
I disagree with you and your friend. Do I agree with the A bomb?
Nope and the analogy is not at all comparable.
I will say that the civil war was horrible on both sides of the fence. Something I doubt you would even consider. But again I was not there and I certainly can see that the Federal government has no respect for state rights and appears most out here don’t either. So I can understand why there was a civil war and I can also understand why both sides acted savagely. It’s war but not one in this war did anything comparable to Hitler’s slaughter of the jews.
For you to try to beat me with your morality stick and use a holocaust surviver as a reason you are correct and only you is pretty low you might as well just sling insults!
I happen to think that the death of 1.6 million unborn children in America each year is more comparable to the holocaust then the civil war and actually many wars. This time it is a war on the unborn disguised as choice!
I find it quite fascinating that those on the right in this thread – sbj, ScottC, yippie, and others – keep trying to make the point that despite the results from the last two elections, this country is not moved to the left politically. What is the basis for such ridiculous statements? How decisively does your side need to be beaten before you concede that the Republicans have failed – have failed in governing and failed to win the trust of the American people?
If the Republicans had produced any results during the previous 8 years of their control in Washington, they would not have taken the drubbing that they did at the polls.
The Republicans have twice lost the only real poll that counts – the election results. Ideas, results, a willingness to work with political opponents and a whole lot less hypocrisy will do more to win over the American public than crowds of guano crazy morons screaming about faked Kenyan birth certificates or other equally insane drivel.
The historical revisionism, racism, and direct Republican advocacy of FauxNews has been well documented. A quick check of FauxNews clips on YouTube reveals discrepancies between on air footage and transcripts, documents their voluminous promotion of the teabaggers, and chronicles Beck’s and other FauxNews hosts’ on-air racism. To claim otherwise, you must either be congenitally or willfully stupid or actively part of the campaign of lies yourself.
Your side is top heavy with imbecilic buffoons that believe anything they are told and ugly, bigoted racists that will never accept a black president. Until you rid your side of those spreading caustic, malevolent, anti-American views, you will continue to lose. It’s that simple.
uh huh gasman guess you are all out of gas when it comes to Acron corruption of federal funds. Acorn a group that heavily donates to the democrats and also that Obama gave $800,000 to one of their splinter groups.
yeah sure you care about your party only, not corruption or America!
reality check
—
The Murtha Method
Computer Analysis Shows 12 of 16 House Defense Subcommittee Members in Controversial Circles of Lobbyists, Earmarks, and Campaign Cash
By The Center for Public Integrity |
September 08, 2009
For months, a cloud has swirled around Congressman John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, and the relationship that Murtha and other subcommittee members had with the PMA Group, a lobbying firm filled with former subcommittee aides.
Murtha and fellow panel members Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) steered a host of earmarks to PMA clients, and those clients and PMA staffers gave campaign contributions to the lawmakers. Aspects of those relationships are the subject of a Justice Department probe, which is thought to be looking at whether there were explicit quid pro quo exchanges of favors for cash, which would make crimes out of relationships that are otherwise legal. The House ethics committee is also looking at the situation, and the PMA Group closed following an FBI raid late last year.
Now, a computer analysis by the Center for Public Integrity has revealed that fully three-quarters of the subcommittee members have been involved in similar patterns of behavior — in circles of relationships fraught with potential conflicts of interest, involving former congressional staffers-turned lobbyists, earmarks, and campaign cash. In these circles, former staffers became lobbyists for defense contractors; the contractors received earmarks from the representatives; and the representatives received campaign contributions from the lobbyists or the contractors.
The Center’s analysis, which covered fiscal year 2008, found these relationship circles included not only PMA but 10 other lobbying firms. More than 50 earmarks are involved, totaling more than $100 million, while the campaign contributions amounted to more than $1 million. The examination relied on data from Taxpayers for Common Sense, the Center for Responsive Politics, and the U.S. Senate’s Office of Public Records.
,,,
http://www.publicintegrity.org/articles/entry/1643
Rangel-ing: Charlie Pays ‘Angels’ In Ethics Probe
Harlem Congressman Gave Campaign Contributions To 3 Dems On Ethics Committee Charged With Investigating Him
Reporting
Marcia Kramer
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
CBS 2 HD has learned of more alleged back-door dealings and political power peddling by Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel.
The reigning member of Congress’ top tax committee is apparently “wrangling” other politicos to get him out of his own financial and tax troubles.
Here’s a look at Charlie’s so-called “angels” involved in his ethics investigation.
Congressman Rangel has been arrogant in refusing to discuss how, as the man who writes this country’s tax laws, he failed to report over $1 million in outside income and $3 million in business transactions as required by the House, lapses under investigation by the House Ethics Committee.
“I recognize that all of you have an obligation to ask questions knowing that there’s none of you smart enough to frame it in such a way that I’m going to respond,” Rangel said.
There may be a reason for Rangel’s arrogance. CBS 2 HD has discovered that since ethics probes began last year the 79-year-old congressman has given campaign donations to 119 members of Congress, including three of the five Democrats on the House Ethics Committee who are charged with investigating him.
Charlie’s “angels” on the committee include Congressmen Ben Chandler of Kentucky, G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina and Peter Welch of Vermont. All have received donations from Rangel.
Only Welch sees something wrong with being financial beholden to Charlie.
“In an abundance of caution, he has returned all campaign contributions from Mr. Rangel,” said spokesman Bob Rogan, Welch’s Chief of Staff.
It amounted to nearly 20 grand.
Experts say the congressman’s largess makes him crazy like a fox.
“Certainly money does make friends and influence people and perhaps make him a little bit more popular and at this particular moment that might help,” said pundit Micheline Blum of Baruch College.
“Buying insurance, you know? Don’t bite the hand that’s feeding you. Clearly he sees himself as having a problem and he is contributing to members who might look favorably,” added Doug Muzzio of Baruch.
Congressman Rangel has said he expects the House Ethics Committee to rule quickly on the ethical charges that are being brought against him. The problem is he’s been saying the same thing for well over a year.
Rangel’s office did not return a request for comment on the question of whether the congressman thought members receiving donations from him should step aside and let others rule on the ethics charges.
wcbstv.com/topstories/charles.rangel.ethics.2.1160326.html
btw gasman you don’t think that it was the libs that put the repugs out of business do you? The same folks are going to put the dems out of business. They have failed faster than the repugs and tripled spending at the drop of the hat. Those you hate don’t care what you ignore or that you hate us we will see you in 2010 your party is doomed without Acorn!
Let Freedom Ring!
yippie – one thing we both can agree upon. The corruption is congress & senate is bipartisan. There, are you happy now ?
gasman:
What is the basis for such ridiculous statements?
To be (perhaps too) brief, the fact that Obama ran as essentially a reasonable centrist rather than the left-wing radical that he almost certainly is suggests to me that even he knows that the country isn’t nearly as far left as you guys seem to think it is.
Scott C said: “the fact that Obama ran as essentially a reasonable centrist rather than the left-wing radical that he almost certainly is”
Well, you do demonstrate the capacity to quote a central (and predictable) National Review/FOX propaganda line.
We wonder if you can compliment it with some actual (by which we mean ‘real’) instances. For example, his campaigning on healthcare reform included what centrist element which he now rejects? His campaigning on the two wars or on treatment of prisoners of war were based on what centrist policy projections which are now shown, by statements or actual bills, to have been deceitful because he is proceding in a more radical left direction? Or his statements on executive power or on signing statements? Or his campaign claims regarding Wall Street contrasted with his present policies?
Should be a snap for you.
“Trying to be civil to an opposition that is intent on seeing him fail.”
Like mocking his opponents with the smirking statement that he didn’t want to hear any talk from them while he cleaned up their mess?
Like going to the well of the house and explicitly declaring that his opponents are acting in bad faith and lying?
The original post by Greg is classic leftwing smear constructed from cheap innuendos. What is most marvelous about it is the hypocrisy on the part of Greg and all his supporters here are demonstrating. This is the same crowd that, just a few months ago, found it outrageous and beyond the pale that anyone would judge Obama by the company he kept for 20 years, to borrow Tena’s phrase.
You do all recall that, right? Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Gameliel, et al? Remember how Obama claimed to have weekly attended the church where Wright preached hatred of America and whites? And Obama knew it very well, since he shut Wright out at the last minute from speeking at Obama’s announcement of his candidacy. Later, when Wright’s inflammatory teachings (ravings?) could no longer be spiked, Obama denounced him and said that wasn’t the Wright he knew. Just one of a train of associates Obama would come to say were not the persons he knew.
You all thought it was outrageous when conservatives criticized Obama for his association with the terrorists and America haters Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. I well recall the defense put up by the left. First it was, you can’t judge him by his friends! Then it was, Ayers and Dohrn are rehabilitated, respected members of the Democratic establishment.
It just all once again proves the limitless capacity for hypocrisy and self blindness of the left.
Does anyone here really read qb’s rants ? Poor fellow seems to be lost in his own world.
I recommend Glenn Greenwald’s piece this morning… http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
Not long after Greg started up his blog here, a bunch of us were talking about the economic crisis and the potential that arises from it for populist anger.
sbj argued earlier that we lefties ought not to be sanguine regarding the sincerity of this emerging anger nor to discount it as merely irrational. He’s right on both counts, I think. But not in quite the way he has it figured.
Anyone, left or right, has cause for anger where they correctly perceive that their representatives are working on behalf of someone other than them whether it is corruption that lines their own pockets (Cunningham, Abramoff, Jefferson, Blagojovich) or institutional corruption that serves some powerful segment(s) of society instead of citizens broadly.
We discussed, earlier, the likelihood that the Republicans would try to tie the Democratic party to Wall Street and business as an (upside down) means to focus this populist anger. They have tried but much less so than I expected. Partly, that is because it is a beast they do NOT wish to unleash because it works against the Republicans most important and powerful base. But also because the existing predispostion in heartland American has been well cultivated to hold government itself (that is, those citizens’ own representatives) as the ‘elite’ deserving targeting.
In a sense, they have that correct. But it is in the sense of wanting/expecting the government to broker their interests against the structures in society which hold wealth and power and who want more of it and definitely don’t want to share it. As Perlstein astutely noted recently, the problem with redistribution of wealth is that it is redistribution of power.
Glenn’s piece is very good on all of this.
amk asks: “Does anyone here really read qb’s rants ? Poor fellow seems to be lost in his own world.”
I give each of these folks two or three chances then allocate to worthwhile/not. The ‘nots’ are no longer read. He’s a not.
Goodness. Who’dathunkit? Joe (You lie!) Wilson looks like he maybe told a lie.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/did_joe_wilson_lie_about_having_been_an_immigratio.php?ref=fpblg
Bernie:
Well, you do demonstrate the capacity to quote a central (and predictable) National Review/FOX propaganda line.
The “propaganda” schtick is getting old, Bernie. Just because an opinion differs from yours does not make it propaganda. In fact, making the claim so incessantly that those who disagree with you politically are propagandists looks remarkably like…a propaganda technique.
As for the rest, you clearly misunderstand. I never said he was governing further left than the policies he ran on. Indeed the whole point of my original was that the far left, which (rightly, I think) views Obama as one of its own, is bound to be disappointed by him. He’s too smart to think that he could impose the kind of agenda that people on this board really want, because he knows the country wouldn’t be with him. His approach will be incremental, presumably in the hope of making further moves to the left inevitable.
Now, back to what I asked you last night, and which you have yet to respond to…What evidence do you have that Ailes and Murdoch (and Beck?) are “amoral”.
Scott can obviously speak for himself when he looks here again, but Bernie of course is trying to use a little verbal sleight of hand to avoid Scott’s point.
Scott’s point was that “Obama ran as essentially a reasonable centrist rather than the left-wing radical that he almost certainly is,” which is one indicator that the country in fact did not move radically left.
As Bernie surely understands in his great erudition, that statement in fact implies nothing at all as to whether Obama has tried to govern to the left of where he campaigned. To the contrary, in fact, if he has not moved left again, that is further confirmation that the country has not moved left, and Obama knows it.
Thus, for example, everyone who pays attention knows that Obama deeply wants a single payer, socialized medicine system. That was his position before he campaigned for President, but he then began denying it and continues to deny that he supports that goal. This tells us that Obama indeed campaigned as a centrist rather than the radical he “truly” is and that he continues to behave in a way that shows awareness that the country does not share his more radical views.
I for one never could understand people who did not see Obama for the radical he is. I thought he simply wrapped his generally radical policy positions in centrist and even conservative rhetoric and was masterful at deceiving many people that way. But there is no doubt that he took great pains to modulate his radicalism and make it sound conservative, and he continues to do precisely that. It fools the ignorant and naive, but no one else.
quaterback:
At least someone understands.
I am so hurt by Bernie’s disregard, he being such an intellectual heavyweight and all. Bernie can’t respond because I am thoroughly versed in his type of pseudo-intellectual bs and cut off his sophistry at the knees. I’m not like the video store clerks and bag boys he impresses with his great learning.
Yikers. Wonder what would have happened to this brave fellow if the cops weren’t there?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Q7XH8lfGMc&feature=player_embedded#t=77
Scott C. If Obama is not governing as a ‘radical leftist’ nor is governing in a manner different from his campaign suggested, how do you establish that he ‘almost certainly is’ a radical leftist?
As to Murdoch and Ailes… let’s stipulate our terms. How do you define ‘amoral’?
amk,
I gather that you are speechless in trying to explain away the hypocrisy of the left in smearing Joe Wilson this way after a few months ago being outraged that Obama’s associations with Wright, Ayers’ would be raised. In the “world” I inhabit, either a politician’s associations and endorsements are valid indicators of his judgment and character, or they aren’t. In this liberal fantasy world of yours, you have it both ways.
Bernie:
how do you establish that he ‘almost certainly is’ a radical leftist?
His associations and policy positions prior to running for president. And the fact that the far left seems so enamored of him. Presumably that is for a reason, and it is not because he is a blue dog.
let’s stipulate our terms. How do you define ‘amoral’?
You made the assertion, so it is up to you to define your terms.
One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers astutely parses a motto:
“…the answer is tucked neatly in the phrase, “I want my country back.” What that means is, the country that recognizes me and people like me as the cultural core of the nation, deserving of disproportionate influence and income. Race is the dominant theme — but running through the same current are appeals to religion and cultural values, including education, or lack of it. While it might seem radical, even crazy, that a certain segment of the population strongly devalues education and educated people, it’s part of the American experience. That’s why many hyper well-educated elected officials, including presidents, try to pretend that they are “just folks.” “
SCott C said: “His associations and policy positions prior to running for president.”
Which policy positions? As to his associations, you refer, predictably, to Ayres and the preacher. That’s a cartoon and one could mention Reagan socialist associations as head of the Screen Actor’s Union. You really know next to nothing about the range of his associations earlier and ought admit it.
As to ‘amoral’…nope, I’ll only have that discussion (silly me) if we begin with your stipulated definition of the term.
I suppose I ought to have you note some people who you would consider match your definition of ‘amoral’ too.
qb, I will answer this one time only. While Obama’s “terrist associations” have been vetted and cried over none other than your wingnut faux news channel (and they all came to nada, zip, zilch in the end), joe, the liar was stoopid enough to raise his ugly head now and hence he is getting whacked around on his head by everyone for his past associations. Funny that he has been strangely silent on his “associations” unlike Obama, who met the terrist poutages head on and peed on the rabble rousers.
Now, don’t bother me anymore.
Shorter amk:
“Yes, we are hypocrits, but, hey, we’re entitled.”
Golly. Poll out of Mount Sinai finds that a majority of doctors support the public option…
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=
“One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers astutely parses a motto:
“…the answer is tucked neatly in the phrase, “I want my country back.” What that means is, the country that recognizes me and people like me as the cultural core of the nation, deserving of disproportionate influence and income.”
It is interesting, then, that in the past two major elections the major theme of Democrats was to “take back America” from the putatively illegitimate usurpers known as Republicans and conservatives. How many times did we hear Democrats spout the same imperative to “take back our country”? They even held annual “Take Back America” conferences.
Sully and Bernie were not so distraught over those calls, I will hazard a guess.
On “taking back” the country:
http://www.democrats.org/a/party/a_50_state_strategy/
“We are going to lift up our Party and take back this country for the people who built it.”
Forgot to attribute the quotation — Howard Dean 2008.
So, once again, the moral of the story for the liberals is, good if liberals say it, evil if conservatives say it.
I like this one a lot. This morning on FOX, Beck says the crowd was 1.7 million. Yup. And he supports this claim by saying it was an estimate from a university. Can’t recall which one. But it doesn’t really matter because when you want to get the credible truth of things, there’s nowhere better to go than the universities. I love this guy.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/glenn-beck-tea-party-march-had-17-million-people.php?ref=fpb
Bernie:
That’s a cartoon…
Look, I realize that to people like you, there is nothing particularly radical about Ayers, the Annenberg Challenge, Reverend Wright, ACORN, Saul Alinsky, the Socialist International, nationalized health care, or the notion that the Constitution grants foreign enemies of the US legal rights in US courts. But that is rather my point. To most of the people in the US, this stuff is pretty radical.
nope, I’ll only have that discussion (silly me) if we begin with your stipulated definition of the term.
That is not only childish, but logically absurd. You might as well say simply “I refuse to discuss it” and leave it at that. We are analyzing the substance of an assertion you made. For me to offer a definition of your terms would be useless. No matter what I offer, you could simply say “That is not what I meant, guess again”.
The issue before us is whether there is any evidence to substantiate your claim that Ailes and Murdoch are “amoral”. For this claim to have any credibility, you must first define what you mean by amoral, and then provide evidence to support it. I certainly can’t do that for you.
Bernie:
I suppose I ought to have you note some people who you would consider match your definition of ‘amoral’ too.
I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head that I would call “amoral”.
@Bernie,
Who are you going to believe, Glenn Beck, or your lying eyes?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TehFZ38kt6o
For conservatives and liberals alike, a very bright observation from Bill Buckley (he was referring to Irving Kristol)…
“Parties are accountable to movement purists, while purists incur no reciprocal obligation to the party, despite its institutional authority.”
QB:
Sully and Bernie were not so distraught over those calls, I will hazard a guess.
The hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of some of these people is really quite staggering.
Speaking of cognitive dissonance:
consider all those Teabaggers who want the Federal Government to stay out of their health care decisions, while also demanding that the Federal Government continue to issue Social Security Checks to them, and also pay their Medical and Prescription Drugs bills,through the Federal Government Medicare program.
You need to re-calibrate your Cognitive Dissonance Detector, so that it’s screen can also display the massive amount of blips that should be showing up on it’s extreme right side.
Scott C.,
If President Obama, “ran as essentially a reasonable centrist” as you yourself maintain, how can you cite that he is even more liberal? In a single sentence, you state that he ran to the center “rather than the left-wing radical that he almost certainly is.” The two statements are mutually exclusive.
The two statements could not be more contradictory. On what basis do you conclude that he is a “left-wing radical?” Provide tangible evidence to back up your statement. As evidence that he most definitely is not left wing at all, look at the outrage from the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party. They are not exactly happy with President Obama’s performance. If he was indeed a “left-wing radical” as you maintain, wouldn’t the progressives be cheering wildly? That they are not undercuts your argument.
Additionally, your side labels him an ineffectual bumbler AND an insidious charmer capable of indoctrinating our children with his inexorably powerful rhetoric. Again, two ideas that are mutually exclusive.
The invocations of ACORN from the right have become a tiresome wingnut dog whistle. It indicates a lack of factual evidence to rebut Obama and falls back on this baseless emotional appeal to racism by proxy. The only people who take that **** seriously are those who hyperventilate over the birther, deather, Bircher, and fascist=communist charges. Like the latter, the former is fodder for buffoons only.
Liam:
…consider all those Teabaggers who want the Federal Government to stay out of their health care decisions, while also demanding that the Federal Government continue to issue Social Security Checks to them, and also pay their Medical and Prescription Drugs bills,through the Federal Government Medicare program.
I agree. Ths is hypocrisy/cognitive dissonance.
You ably demonstrate the danger in stepping on the slippery slope of socialism. Allow a little, and and its advocates will use that in itself as justification for socializing ever more things.
@Gasman,
It looks like Scott was very careless in how he handled the “Cognitive Dissonance” meme, that he loves to toss around.
He now has contracted a severe case of it, and needs to be put in an isolation ward.
# Scott C. | September 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Liam:
…consider all those Teabaggers who want the Federal Government to stay out of their health care decisions, while also demanding that the Federal Government continue to issue Social Security Checks to them, and also pay their Medical and Prescription Drugs bills,through the Federal Government Medicare program.
I agree. Ths is hypocrisy/cognitive dissonance.
You ably demonstrate the danger in stepping on the slippery slope of socialism. Allow a little, and and its advocates will use that in itself as justification for socializing ever more things.
…………………………
I do not want to put words in your mouth, so would you please confirm if that means that you would like to eliminate the Social Security, and Medicare programs? If the answer is yes, would you also want to eliminate all the SCHIP and CHIP programs, and would you also want to eliminate all public school funding from property taxes?
Why not just post the link instead of the entire article?
Bernie-
Re: university quote: I’m sure it was a right wing university. You know how they hate all the librul ones…
gasman:
The two statements are mutually exclusive.
No they aren’t. Certainly a person is capable of holding certain staunch views while moderating those views for a wider public audience.
As evidence that he most definitely is not left wing at all, look at the outrage from the most liberal wing of the Democratic Party.
You should consider the possibility that Obama is disappointing the hard left not because he wants to, but because he has to. That was precisely my original point. Those of you on the hard left who think that the election of Obama and a Democratic congress signaled that the wider American public is ready for your policies are probably reading things incorrectly. Yes, Obama is probably by far the most left-leaning president in recent memory. But Obama is, I think, pressing for as much “change” as he possibly can without losing the support of the very people that made his election possible, and that is not the hard left. (As I pointed out above, my sense is that he is failing at this nonetheless.)
Additionally, your side labels him an ineffectual bumbler AND an insidious charmer capable of indoctrinating our children. Again, two ideas that are mutually exclusive.
No they aren’t. A person is perfectly capable of being a charming and engaging personality but incompetent at a given task like actually governing. I think Obama is undeniably a charming and effective public speaker. His competency to govern is still up in the air as far as I am concerned.
It indicates a lack of factual evidence to rebut Obama…
I am not interested in “rebutting” Obama. I will, of course, rebut his claims or claims about him, when and as necessary.
Scott C said: “I can’t think of anyone off the top of my head that I would call “amoral”.”
Not a surprise.
PAGING SCOTT G.
I asked you a question, in an earlier post. You may have missed it, so here it is,again.
# Scott C. | September 15th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Liam:
…consider all those Teabaggers who want the Federal Government to stay out of their health care decisions, while also demanding that the Federal Government continue to issue Social Security Checks to them, and also pay their Medical and Prescription Drugs bills,through the Federal Government Medicare program.
I agree. Ths is hypocrisy/cognitive dissonance.
You ably demonstrate the danger in stepping on the slippery slope of socialism. Allow a little, and and its advocates will use that in itself as justification for socializing ever more things.
…………………………
I do not want to put words in your mouth, so would you please confirm if that means that you would like to eliminate the Social Security, and Medicare programs? If the answer is yes, would you also want to eliminate all the SCHIP and CHIP programs, and would you also want to eliminate all public school funding from property taxes?
Sorry for the typo. My kingdom for a preview feature on this Flintstones era blog.
Should read: Paging Scott C.
Liam:
[Does] that means that you would like to eliminate the Social Security, and Medicare programs?
No, it means precisely what I said…that the existence of socialist programs will inevitably be used by socialists as justification for yet more socialist programs. “We have X, therefore there can be no principled argument against Y.”
However, if you want to know my opinion of these programs….
If SS were administered by a private organization rather than the government, it would be an illegal ponzi scheme. It is unfortunate that an entire generation of Americans has been encouraged to allow themselves to become dependent on government largesse, and that the traditional notion of familial or community obligation towards those close to them has been destroyed in the process. Given the dependence fostered by a lifetime of SS, it would be unjust to simpy eliminate it immediately, but certainly steps ought to be taken to phase it out over some years. Regardless of what is done, SS as it is now known will eventually disappear, as it quite simply cannot be sustained as more and more people live longer and longer.
would you also want to eliminate all the SCHIP and CHIP programs
I am not as familiar with these, but I have less of a problem with programs targetted towards a fairly limited demographic.
and would you also want to eliminate all public school funding from property taxes?
As I have said in the past here, local taxes, which may be escaped relatively easily should one find them intolerable, are more acceptable to me than a nationwide tax regime designed to be inescapable. So I don’t have an especially strong objection to local tax regimes using property taxes to fund schools. (Although whether government owned and operated schools is a necessary ingredient to an educated population is debateable. We have a well fed population without government owned and operated food production.)
Bernie:
Your stark refusal to address the accusation against Ailes and Murdoch suggests it was little more than an intentional smear, with no substance behind it. You may fancy yourself to be the educated voice of reason and deep thinking here, but this episode proves that you are little more than a flamethrower with an extensive vocabulary.
You and Coulter, two peas in a pod.
Liam:
My kingdom for a preview feature on this Flintstones era blog.
My sentiments exactly.
Scott C.,
When, you state, “No they aren’t. Certainly a person is capable of holding certain staunch views while moderating those views for a wider public audience,” you’ve proven my point that you are unable to cite factual evidence to back up your ludicrous claims. If the president has been forced to moderate his views, then on what basis do you deem him a “left wing radical?”
By your own admission, President Obama has been moderate in his policies, yet you claim to have some deeper understanding that President Obama holds “certain staunch views.” What are those “staunch views” and how is it that you can discern what they are, given your assessment of his moderation? You must possess amazing clairvoyant abilities, seeing as you can peer into his soul and divine that his true intentions betray his actions. This must be so, because it contradicts your own characterization of President Obama’s actions.
If you continue to fail to cite evidence to back up your claims, we should infer that you do not do so because you cannot do so.
Scott C said: “Your stark refusal to address the accusation against Ailes and Murdoch…”
Easy enough to have this conversation given that we stipulate or terms. Previous discussions with you suggest that the idiosyncratic nature of your moral philosophy may well not even allow for the term ‘amoral’ to have any meaning, according to you. Which is why your inability to name persons who might be properly described by the term I found predictable. You see, I’m quite willing to play this game and do it on your home field. But I’m not going to waste my time where there’s no field and no rules. Up to you.
@Liam – your youtube link brings up Tin Lizzy doing a wonderful old folk song I hadn’t heard in a long while. They do a fine job of it too. Have you yet discovered Springsteen’s live concert in Dublin? Not his normal band but rather some serious pros from the New York/Jersey area (so I understand)? They cover a lot of folk music, much of which has origins in Ireland, and the combination of this incredible musicianship, great material and an appreciative Dublin audience make this one of the coolest musical experiences I’ve witnessed (and I’ve seen a lot of good music performances).
This is rather cute. Scott C said:
:Look, I realize that to people like you, there is nothing particularly radical about Ayers, the Annenberg Challenge, Reverend Wright, ACORN, Saul Alinsky, the Socialist International, nationalized health care, or the notion that the Constitution grants foreign enemies of the US legal rights in US courts. But that is rather my point. To most of the people in the US, this stuff is pretty radical.”
And what supports your contention above would be the last election? After all, the Reverend Wright, Bill Ayres, Acorn stuff escaped media attention. Right? Obama’s significant electoral success and popularity ratings, not to mention dem victories across the board including state level put your thesis at some risk of looking…choose your word.
Then, in your response above to Liam, you forward your desired political policies. What do you think the chances are that the American population would elect (that is, want) a government zesty to eliminate SS and Medicare and other safety-net programs?
Another way to put all of this…which one of us has the extremist and ‘not what americans want’ political stance?
amk | September 15th, 2009 at 04:05 am
yippie – one thing we both can agree upon. The corruption is congress & senate is bipartisan. There, are you happy now ?
–
I was never unhappy! It does not matter squat to me if you want to be a blind fool or have your eyes wide open and not be a fool. That goes for the rest of the uppity native haters on this blog!!
yippie,
Please explain whom constitutes your “native haters?” Precisely who are the “natives?”
Bernie thinks that Obama’s electoral victory and popularity prove that “Ayers, the Annenberg Challenge, Reverend Wright, ACORN, Saul Alinsky, the Socialist International, nationalized health care, or the notion that the Constitution grants foreign enemies of the US legal rights in US courts” are not viewed as radical by most Americans.
There are more errors of elementary logic in that argument than could be explored here, but let’s just look at one small one. If Obama’s popularity continues to fall, that, according to Bernie’s logic, will mean necessarily that all these things will have become radical and unwelcome in the eyes of Americans.
The left does not just suffer from moral confusion and bad judgment, you can’t even follow basic logic.
quarterback,
“The left does not just suffer from moral confusion and bad judgment, you can’t even follow basic logic.”
And the right, as typified by your methodical constructions, provides us with a model of logical clarity?
I will make an exception to my rule against engaging gasbag and answer, yes, I do provide you with a model of logical clarity. And moral clarity. You should attend and learn.
Gasman:
What are those “staunch views” and how is it that you can discern what they are, given your assessment of his moderation?
One example is his desire for a single payer health care system. I know this because he has said, er, “I happen to be a proponent of a single payer system…a single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see.”
http://www.breitbart.tv/obama-in-03-id-like-to-see-a-single-payer-health-care-plan/
Obviously he has moderated this position significantly, not even insisting on a public option any more. Why? I believe it is because he knows the public at large would not support such a radical change. Could it be for other reasons? Sure. Maybe he was lying in ‘03.
Bernie:
Previous discussions with you suggest that the idiosyncratic nature of your moral philosophy may well not even allow for the term ‘amoral’ to have any meaning, according to you.
But since the statement is yours, what the term means according to me is irrelevant. We need to know what you meant in order to analyze the claim. Your continued evasion of this obvious fact is unbecoming of one with, er, a library as extensive as yours is purported to be. Have the courage to either defend your claim or admit that you were just flamethrowing.
You see, I’m quite willing to play this game…
The evidence shows decisively that this is a falsehood. You made the claim. Define your terms.
But I’m not going to waste my time where there’s no field and no rules.
OK, fine. You want to play a game? Let’s play. I define “amoral” as being employed by CNN. Therefore, your claim is false, because neither Ailes nor Murdoch work for CNN. What’s that you say? That is not what you meant by “amoral”? Well then, that is different. Maybe your claim is not false. Do tell…what did you mean by “amoral”?
(Do you now see how utterly imbecilic it is for you to insist that I define the term you used?)
After all, the Reverend Wright, Bill Ayres, Acorn stuff escaped media attention.
Largely, yes.
Obama’s significant electoral success and popularity ratings, not to mention dem victories across the board including state level put your thesis at some risk of looking…choose your word.
If you think that electoral success and popularity ratings could in and of themselves disprove my thesis, you obviously still don’t grasp it.
What do you think the chances are that the American population would elect (that is, want) a government zesty to eliminate SS and Medicare and other safety-net programs?
This is not a question nearly so simple to answer as you imply it is. I will adress it in a seperate post.
Bernie:
Forgot to mention this, which is in addition to QB’s point about your lack of logical discipline.
And what supports your contention above would be the last election?
Why do you suppose that Obama (finally) threw Rev. Wright under the bus? Why do you suppose that Obama denied having any real relationship with Ayers at all? Why do you suppose Obama didn’t run on a single payer, universal national health care platform? Do you think it was despite the fact that the American people thought Wright was a perfectly reasonable fellow, that Ayers was a mainstream American, and that universal health care was a fantastic idea? Or was it, just maybe, because Obama knew that the American public would view these associations as a tad radical, which would hurt his chances?
Don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard about this, Bernie.
bernie: After all, the Reverend Wright, Bill Ayres, Acorn stuff escaped media attention.
ScottC: Largely, yes.
Not quite sure how you’d go about backing that one up.
“If you think that electoral success and popularity ratings could in and of themselves disprove my thesis, you obviously still don’t grasp it.”
That’s possible. But if your thesis is that the majority of Americans mis-apprehended the man whereas you did not, that’s a thesis (knowing your data sources and political notions) I wouldn’t find compelling.
Scott C: “Don’t hurt yourself thinking too hard about this, Bernie.”
I duly promise.
Bernie:
Another way to put all of this…which one of us has the extremist and ‘not what americans want’ political stance?
Two points here: First, I have never proclaimed that my preferences for any particular policy are in agreement with a majority of Americans. In many instances they plainly, and unfortunately, are not. Indeed I fully acknowledge (nay proclaim) that some of my policy preferences would be quite radical given current political realities.
Second, when considering what my policy preferences are or should be, I do not, indeed cannot, look to what a majority of people might want to help me make my decision. I know (in a way that you seem not to know) that there is nothing about what everyone else wants that makes their wants either preferable to me or proper in a moral sense. I only seek to know what a majority of others want once I have decided my policy preference, in order to understand 1) what the chances of my preferences becoming a reality are and 2) how I might go about realizing those preferences.
Which brings us to you. I don’t know (with any degree of certainty) which of us, you or I, holds more radical views relative to the “the American population”, primarily because you have pretty much refused to articulate any guiding principles underlying your thought. For example, I know you prefer the PO, but only in opposition to its absence. Would you prefer a single payer system? I’m guessing so, although I have not heard you say that. Would you prefer an entirely state-owned and operated health care industry, with insurance companies outlawed and doctors working for the government? That seems a disturbing and distinct possibility, although I couldn’t accuse you of such a thing with any confidence.
You claim, at times, to desire only to see majority rule (which would make the answer to your question a tautology), but that tells us nothing about what your policy preferences are or how you decide them, and is not true in any event, as we found out when I asked you about a majority that regulated *** for religious reasons.
So, you see, your deliberate avoidance of articulating any guiding principles to your thinking makes it quite impossible for me to determine which of us is more extreme relative to “the American population.” But my guess as to why you avoid articulating your principles is because you know just how truly extreme doing so would make you appear.
@ScottC. Bernie’s extremism…
1) it should seem obvious that I wouldn’t hold majority opinion as a basis for establishing moral principles. All a majority can establish is codification of proscriptions. Workers’ rights movements, civil rights movements, womens rights movements etc were directed towards changing a set of prior codifications of an immoral or unjust nature.
2) the function of majoritarian decision-making via representative government is merely to take decision-making out of the hands what can be the only other option – decision by fiat from a powerful authoritarian or totalitarian control point/elite.
3) I do favor, in a weak non-insistent sense, a single-payer system such as Canada has given my lifetime of experience with it and my familiarity with Canadian citizens’ consistent majoritarian desire that the system continue. But a survey of other industrialized nations shows there are a bunch of other options available, with satisfaction levels quite comparable to Canada. As I’ve pointed out earlier, Canada and these other nations demonstrate no serious desire to cancel their systems and move back to something such as the US has. They don’t vote this way and so parties don’t try to carve out platform policies in this direction. It is an example of consumer satisfaction.
4) I am, in a strong sense, opposed to a free-enterprise monopoly on healthcare such as you have now for much of your population because of the point above (there’s no reason to assume Americans overall won’t be happier and better served with some form of public option as is the case in all other nations) and because I don’t consider that unfettered profit-motivation produces optimum social arrangements.
5) That last point is obviously a key notion. My understanding of human behavior leads me to an inevitable set of typical social-democrat policy preferences. From a Canadian or European perspective, I’m very mildly leftist. I think unions a necessary bulwark against the power (and inherent selfishness) of corporate interests (quite in the same sense as workplace safety regs) well understanding that unions can themselves become impediments to productivity and efficiency.
Does that help?
Bernie:
Does that help?
A little. This, however, is notable:
Workers’ rights movements, civil rights movements, womens rights movements etc were directed towards changing a set of prior codifications of an immoral or unjust nature.
The clear implication of this is that a given view of morality, even one held by a majority of people, can be wrong. How can someone be wrong about something unless there is some absolute truth regarding that something?
“I am, in a strong sense, opposed to a free-enterprise monopoly on healthcare”
There is an interesting concept.
@SCott “The clear implication of this is that a given view of morality, even one held by a majority of people, can be wrong. How can someone be wrong about something unless there is some absolute truth regarding that something?”
No. It’s only notable to you. And perhaps some odd moral philosophy to which you subscribe. Is there some moral philosopher in this mix that influences you to imagine morality as you insist it must be?
Bernie:
You didn’t answer the question. How can someone be wrong in his estimation of the morality of an act unless there is some absolute truth regarding the morality of the act?
QB:
There is an interesting concept.
Yes, I meant to note that myself. Very bizarre.
Reguardless of how you feel about universal health care, we have laws. Our supreme law is the constitution. The constitution does not give the federal gov’t the right to establish universal health care, therefore it is a state right.
If you want your state to do it, petition your state to establish a one payer system. If you want the federal gov’t to then you need to change the constitution. All you need is a 3/4 majority in either the state legislatures, or congress and you can pass whatever amendment you like.
Either way until then it is illegal, and you should be ashamed and scared if your government is willing to break it’s own laws to accomplish it’s agenda.
SCott C: “You didn’t answer the question.”
And you didn’t answer mine.
“How can someone be wrong in his estimation of the morality of an act unless there is some absolute truth regarding the morality of the act?”
We’ve had this discussion. You said, in that discussion, that almost no one holds that morals are relative and that moral claims must be seen as absolute. From where you gained this notion, I’m at a loss to imagine because no such consensus exists among moral philosophers. Ayer notes that whatever claim might be made regarding the ‘good’, one can still ask, “yes but is it good?”. That’s similiar to the move you are making but it’s entirely uninteresting.
So let’s see how brave you are on answering direct moral questions. Is torture an absolute moral wrong?
That’s easy,
No it’s not an absolute moral wrong. It depends on how warfare is waged. If we are all intent on maintaining as much civilian life as possible then you can say it’s wrong. But when we have this particular enemy who hides out among civilians, attacks civilians, then the line of morality moves.
That’s not to say anything goes. It just means that it’s not black and white. The ticking time bomb scenario does exist. It’s not a ticking time bomb however, it’s a plot against civilians that can still be stopped. If there is no benefit, however, then yes all torture, reguardless of how small, is wrong.
I know you guys were having a discussion, but your question got me thinking…
Bernie:
And you didn’t answer mine.
This is a very common tactic of yours. You make some declarative statement, such as “X is immoral”. I then pose a question to you, such as, “How can you declare X to be immoral given that you say there is no absolute moral truth?”. You then ignore my question, posing some of your own presumably in order to divert attention from your failure to address the original question that began the thread.
You’ve done it before and now you are doing it again.
A little help. A proper response to the question might begin with “He can’t be wrong because…”, or “He can easily be wrong because…”
We’ve had this discussion.
Well, we started it, and you stopped answering at precisely this point, when it got difficult for you to justify calling something “immoral” without recourse to a belief in some absolute moral standard.
So let’s see how brave you are on answering direct moral questions. Is torture an absolute moral wrong?
I shall entice you with an answer, but shall say no more about it unless and until you summon up enough courage yourself to answer my question instead of dissembling.
My answer: Of course not.
Scott C: “Well, we started it, and you stopped answering at precisely this point, when it got difficult for you to justify calling something “immoral” without recourse to a belief in some absolute moral standard.”
False. It is your idea that ‘good’ and ‘bad’ or other such terms can have no meaning outside of an absolute frame of reference. There’s no reason to hold that to be so other than in your formulation and definition of terms. But as you hold this (odd) notion, you will and do see any instance of such terms as dependent upon an absolutist conception (or as a reflection of some facts of the universe). When you see a piece of art and describe it as ‘beautiful’ or when you bite into a steak and say it is ‘delicious’, you aren’t, I imagine, assuming some absolutist framework for food or art…you are expressing your unique experience of the thing. Your wife may think you’re full of it. You might insist it IS good steak. Your insistence tells us nothing other than that you are insistently expressing your personal experience. My insistence (or yours) that something is moral or immoral is a statement of how you or I perceive a thing in terms of whether we consider it something we want around or not. The only apparent ‘truth’ of our opinion sits in our noggins and, clearly, such notions/values change over time, through circumstances, and through cultural/experiential variations. That we might perceive a thing as ’sacred’ or ‘profane’ doesn’t tell us anything about the universe, merely our apprehension of it as determined by cultural and biological facts. As I said, we had that discussion.
Re torture…obviously, I wouldn’t argue it so either given that I don’t consider any moral absolute to be a coherent notion. One wonders though, what Dick Cheney holds to be so here. Absolutely good if he does it? Some times a good even if al Qaida does it?
And you’ve left unanswered my question on whether there is some particular moral philosopher you find agreeable with your stance.
Bedrnie:
When you see a piece of art and describe it as ‘beautiful’ or when you bite into a steak and say it is ‘delicious’, you aren’t, I imagine, assuming some absolutist framework for food or art…you are expressing your unique experience of the thing.
Correct. Which is why I would not force someone to hang the piece of art in their home despite their distaste for it nor would I force another to eat the steak despite their dislike for it. I do not presume that my taste in either art or steaks is or, more importantly, should be shared by anyone else. I presume you would agree with this.
If so, and if you also think (as you suggest) that morality exists on the same plane as and in the same way that taste for art or steak does, then why do you presume that your view of morality should be shared by everyone, such that you are happy to force others to follow your inclinations, even if they are not inclined to do so?
If your distaste for, say, black slavery is just that, nothing more than an entirely personal inclination, on what grounds would you condemn (as I assume you would) and even try to stop (as I assume you would) someone else who thought enslaving blacks was perfectly palatable?
And you’ve left unanswered my question on whether there is some particular moral philosopher you find agreeable with your stance.
You are big on authorities, aren’t you? I’m not a professional or academic philosopher, so I don’t have a list of all philosophers who accept a universal morality, but there are plenty I am sure. Most religious philosophers do. Objectivists (Rand) do. Aristotle and Plato did. Surely you can name some yourself.
Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a preview page.