Harry Reid.

Really, I kind of wish Harry Reid would’ve stepped into this scandal a year ago, and that this would’ve taken him from his “Senate Majority Leader” seat then.  Then we’d be spared him as that.

But that’s just kind of realpolitik.  Really?  He said it “off the record?”  Sure… but to Mark Halperin, which makes such a claim of “off the record” moot because… it’s MARK HALPERIN, one of the most noxious figure in political discourse out there.

In the 2008 Presidential campaign, I caught what was going on here, and I made that explanation of Obama that there’s a whole arena of racial discourse you just have to float through.  (I’d have to fish out the blog post.)  Harry Reid did what just about everyone and their dog did in the past couple of years, and explain why Barack Obama is not Jesse Jackson, and in doing so got slammed right up to …

… well, the word “negro”, apparently.

He is not Trent Lott, praising a “Segregationist Now!” Presidential bid.  He is Joseph Biden, describing Obama as “clean”.

Actually, what’s fascinating me about Harry Reid is that he is the third party Senate leader in four election cycles facing a tough re-election bid.  We have Tom Daschle, Mitch Mcconnell, and Harry Reid.   This makes some sense.  The job of Senate Party Leader is a cynical job indeed, nakedly transactional without the glories of being inspirational at all, you are exposed.  And partisan emnity is tossed right at you.  The very thing that have to sell the state voters — and the thing that these three Senators have all fallen back on in waging their re-election fights — “Power” and “Can bring home the Pork” — has the double edged sword of being what irks people off of voting for them — “More Washington claptrap”.  It’s a bit of a wonder why this is a pretty recent situation, where these seats were pretty safe before.  Something has changed — partisan polarizing, I suppose?

Harry Reid is now the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent.  Bryan Dorgan and Chris Dodd pulled their campaign rip chords.  It’s interesting.  Bryan Dorgan was one of the good guys — as defined by being on the losing end of various lop-sided single-digit votes to what seems to me “common sensical” positions, but apparently we’re so corrupted that they aren’t.  The most obvious one, bandied about of late, this vote in 1999.  It puts him over there in the “Political fringe”.  I suppose he’s too cozy to Ethanol, but if you have to be too cozy to something there are worse things to be than “Big Corn”.  (Main problem is probably the opportunity cost that going toward corn based fuels has in harnessing the power of the Sun.)  Chris Dodd was too cozy to the Banks.  I knew that even as I half jokingly, half not, “endorsed” his pointless presidential bid (well, he was sounding some good notes on Civil Liberties if nothing else).  That presidential bid helped do him in, lowered his approval ratings.  As well the ethics charge he had been cleared of, though the problem was… his legal acts were about as wearisome — this was how his retirement was received in some corners. Mind you, that is a function of the system — Dorgan was beholden to “Big Corn” because he was from North Dakota.  Dodd is from Connecticut.

It’s interesting to watch.  The Republican retirements came early; the Democratic retirements come later.  Connecticut is saved for the Democrats.  North Dakota is lost from the Democrats.  Harry Reid will chug along.

I heard about this story on the radio, the right-tilted top of the hour newscast on that third rate conservative station which broadcasts Phil Hendrie, if you must know.

Apparently some kids wore shirts — I don’t quite know the words the newscast used, but it was something to the effect of “making fun of” the WTC Attacks.  This was at a Dearborne school, and I thought I heard “middle school”, but later I see this story only makes sense as a high school.  Dearborn, Michigan usually means “Arab”, and from there the ethnic problem gets inflamed.

Very odd, I thought,  And very stupid on their parts.  But somehow the story doesn’t make sense.  The next sentence puzzled me further.  The students claimed that their shirts were meant to show “Class Pride”.  What does that mean?

The thread is useless without pictures.

Okay.  Now I get it.  I have to admit, that is funny.

Really, if I were the school administrators, I would figure a smidgeon of a de-esculatory move in in order.  Round the kids up.  Say to them, rather flatly, “Okay, wise-asses.  You’ve grabbed your fifteen minutes of fame.  Fine.  Very funny.  But I know you’re not idiots, and know how this shirt riles someone up.  Now just go ahead and change your shirts.”

I don’t quite know if the ethnic part of the story is all that important.  It adds an extra dimension, and I gather a certain gallows humor creeps in when you’re a societal-wise a little bit of a suspect.  But if this were to happen with a bunch of white kids, they certainly would be reprimended.

Quick Question:  How much credit does Calvin Trillin get for this “Underwear Bomber” prediction?

The answer, I’m afraid to say, is not a whole awful lot.  It’s predictable enough.  Tell someone a few years ago that this would be used as a store-house for explosive devices, and I don’t see how any sane and sensible person could miss a beat.  Drugs are smuggled in that route, right?  )If you don’t know that, you’re even more naive on issues of Illegal narcotics than I am.)

Likewise, if someone were to tell you now that a few years hence, a particularly creepy TSA employee will be caught making private use, or releasing publically, Full Body Scan images, you shouldn’t miss a beat.

So we’ve now reached that point where Air Travel is undesirible and unwelcome.

………………………………….
In other news.  Make sense of this what may.

An Ohio man who became loud and disruptive aboard a Wednesday night flight from Miami to Detroit — at one point telling those around him he “wanted to kill all the Jews” — was removed from the airplane before takeoff and arrested.

The man was identified as Mansor Mohammad Asad, 43, who authorities sayposed no potential security threat.

Miami-Dade police say he caused enough of a “disturbance” that the pilot had to return to the jet-bridge. When Asad was taken off the plane to be interviewed by police, he threatened officers, made racial comments and charged an officer, authorities said. He was Tasered twice.[…]

According to the arrest affidavit, Asad said: “ `I’m not afraid of you cops. I’ve gotten in fights with cops in Ohio and broke their arms in three places. I’ve broken skulls too!’ ”

He then prayed and chanted, before telling a cop to “Go back to Africa, you white racist cop!”

… A tad incoherent.

I have a theory about this story.

A letter from a US Marine captain criticizing Australian women’s clothing, or lack thereof, has prompted angry rebukes from Aussie men and women.

The Northern Territory News reported that it had been flooded with negative responses to the article. They interviewed one girl, a 19-year-old Darwin dancer named Lana Sandic, who said, ‘Most Territory girls would say ‘Put it where the sun doesn’t shine’.”

A key to understanding the story is the odd chance that the General is fictional.

The story received more than 15,000 hits on ntnews.com.au

After his letter was printed in Tuesday’s NT News Capt John Campbell copped it from outraged Aussies, who called him “paternalistic”, an “idiot” and a “hypocrite”.

The US consulate yesterday said it was unable to find a serving marine of that name who had recently been in Australia although it said Capt Campbell may have been a retired marine.

The NT News has the letter writer’s contact phone number and email address but attempts to contact him to defend his comments have so far been unsuccessful.

Meaning?

This story really only exists for the purpose of news outlets to dig out some file footage of mostly naked Australian women.  Take one.  Take two. Take three.  Take four.

As the title of this blog post puts it.  … Good to know that the “American Decency Association” is on the case.

This story is a media fabrication.  It gives them that excuse they need.  Have to show the images in the interest of context.  (Though, Fox News can always find the flimsiest of pretexts.)

A curious thing about the stacking and categorizing of books at… a local prominent bookstore.  There is this huge swarth of books pegged under the category “Culture Wars”.  These books are almost universally useless, affirmative to your tribe I suppose.  Across the aisle, the books get divided into — say — “Conservative”, “Liberal”, “Far Right”, and then there’s “Marxist” and “Left”.  Arguably, your “Culture Wars” can be slotted around these parts, but the management appears to have come to a judgement call not to put the latest Glenn Beck book next to Edmund Burke.  (But, I guess, Horowitz fits the bill?)

And then things get a little fuzzier.  A couple of months ago, I picked up, read a few pages, then put down “The Whole of Their Lives”, a 1965 republishing of a 1948 ex-Communist work.  This time, I picked up one of their two copies and bought it — sold due to the inside first page stamp which identified the book as having been part of the library of the local chapter of the John Birch Society.  I think the publisher imprint — “Americanist Library” — follows the book as published by them, but I’d have to do that quick google search to find out.  (Answer in the affirmative.)

Why is this under “Conservative Studies”?  It is a jeremiad against a “left-wing” creature — the American Communist Party.  I suppose at the mark of the mid point of the last century, American Conservatism was defined as largely a negative force opposed to foreign and domestic Communism, and yet go over to the section marked “Far Right” and very few of these books on fascism, Militia Movement, or the Klan are pro-fascism, militia, or Klan.  Though, to puzzle the category further, sitting there — somewhere alongside a book extrapolating out a Pat Buchanan presidential victory in 1996 forty years to a Dark Fascist Future — why, it’s the 1960 and 1961 editions of the John Birch Society White Book!

Oh.  And in case, you are curious.  Children of Satan.  The book atop card tables four or six years ago, all of your “Children of Satan”s bound into one handy volume for your “Children of Satan” needs.  The cover holds “Suggested donation: #15”.  Leaf through it, and I see that the previous owner went to a few “progressive” sounding things in San Francisco.  Must have been a Right wing nut.

I read a couple paragraphs, where these bookmarks leave me, and I learn that the DLC was formed as a way for the Democratic Party financiers to deal away with the surging “Larouche Wing” of the Democratic Party.  I feel stupider for having read it.  As I do round about here.:
2010 is the year all those who agree with LaRouche must come out publicly and say so, and support the LaRouche Plan. […i] Join us on the front lines, and enjoy striking a blow for freedom.
Wait.  The Larouche Party World Superstructure (German cadres Unite!) is now going to get out of the submerged Underground!  Fantastic!  Now that everyone’s been instructed to come out full force, we’ll now have a full reckoning of numbers in support.

A quick check, and the recentish publication of Chaitkin/Tarpley Bush book is no longer available.  Or maybe there is a copy or two over in the Conspiracy section alongside the various David Icke books.  A couple of curious things about this categorizing — for various presidents — the two Bushes are dropped into “Bush Family”.  Though, the two Bushes fare better in that regard than Gerald Ford, who disappears with the Nixon books ending and the Carter books beginning with a slider reading “Nixon — Carter”.

As for the Benjamin Gitlow book.   A few things.  He almost thinks that the Communist Party (USA) was practically solely responsible for the demonization and scape-goating of Herbert Hoover to the Great Depression.  Granted, Hoover’s main fault was residing as president in that particular time-slot, but really he gave his old cohorts too much credit.  Then there is the great crux of the Communist Conspiracy, the final sentence of the final (and hastily written due to rapid changing of events — he set out to write a chapter covering Earl Browder, and then saw him dumped, such that our emerging Communist Dictator changes:

The Eugene Dennis of today may become the saber-rattling Moscow gauleitier acting as the President – dictator of a Communist America tomorrow.

Or, maybe he won’t.  Actually my mind is a bit stuck there.  I reel from Foster to Browder to Gus Hall.  I somehow manage to skip past Eugene Dennis.  Eugene Dennis is the Gerald Ford of the American Communist Party.

Okay, the Gitlow book.  Of interest to me, perhaps the most extreme case of cognitive dissonance in political history — American Communist rank and file reaction to Stalin’s Pact with Hitler.
It must be kept in mind that the Communist Party is organized on a totalitarian basis.  Members are not permitted to voice criticism against the leadership and its policies.  To utter an exclamation against Stalin brought about one’s expulsion from the Party.  The members came together to take orders and carry them out, not to voice an opinion.  Yet, at the meetings in which the Pact was discussed, members were violent in their criticism and heaped abuse upon the Party leaders; member after member pointedly asked the party leaders whether, if the workers did not want to follow Stalin into the camp of Hitler, Stalin wanted them to sacrifice the workers for the Nazis.

Radwanski, one of the editors of the Novy Mir, the Party’s Russian language paper, head of the Polish section of the Party, formerly secretary to Dzerjinsky, the founder of the OGPU, a fanatical Bolshevik, threw up his hands in the Party office and exclaimed: “This, that they have done to us, cannot be worse.”

Markoff, the director of the Party’s school, the Worker’s School, kept quiet, but to a few of his most intimate friends he conveyed his great disillusionment over the signing of the Pact.  Under the constant pressure of Party pleadings, he gave his support to the Pact, and then succumbed to a heart attack.

Henry Gannes, the foreign affairs expert of the Daily Worker, inwardly opposed the Pact, but in the coumns of the Daily Worker became its most outspoken advocate.

A number of members of the staff of the Freiheit, including some of the trade union activists, not only resigned from the Party, but attempted to carry on a campaign among the Party members and sympathizers for a repudiation of the Party and Stalin’s leadership. […]

All the Jewish leaders of the Party were called together for a secret meeting.  Foster, the Chairman of the Communist party, presented the new line.  Instead of defending himself, he launched into a sharp attack upon the Jews, declaring that they were narrow and chauvinistic in their viewpoints on the Pact.  The Jews in the Party, he charged, because of Hitler’s anti-semitism had allowed that to determine their attitude and had lost sight of the bigger and by far more important considerations involved.  He demanded that the Jews take a stand as communists on the question and not as Jews.  The tension in the meeting held the Jewish leaders glued to their seats.  Many showed the strain of great mental and spiritual agitation — hands clutched the chairs in front of them tightly.  The top leaders of the Party had come to club the Jewish leaders into submission, not to argue the question with them.

The Communists Jewish leaders were torn between two loyalties, loyalty to their people, who were the innocent victims of Nazi anti-semitic bestiality, and loyalty to the cause of communism, upon which they had placed their hopes for the liberation of all mankind, including the Jews.

Foster gave them no time to think.  He pounded away at them with blows that stung.  They knew that to oppose Foster meant to be made a target for vicious attacks and to be driven out in disgrace from the movement that they had given their lives to serve.

When Foster finished, a resolution endorsing the Soviet – Nazi Pact in unequivocal terms was presented for adoption.  Foster insisted upon an immediate vote.  The Communist party does not allow its members the privilege of taking time in making up their minds.  The Communist party leaders who were Jews had listened to Foster.  Now they must vote for the resolution; abstaining from voting for the resolution or voting against it was tantamount to expulsion from the Party.

The few who asked questions or expressed their doubts, during the discussion, became the targets for attacks by the Party leaders, who were unrestrained in their abusive viciousness against them.  They were given to understand that the Jews, more than any other element in the Party, were expected to give the new line their wholehearted and enthusiastic support.  Foster summoned up with the full weight of Stalin, the Soviet Union, the Comintern and the Party in back of his words, and bludgeoned the Jews into complete submission to the resolution.

A few middling points made here.

It’s no wonder after he and so many of the Excitable Left hoist on their petards after their blame storm over the census worker death earlier in the year.

What a bizarre suicide that was.

Anyway, I am not sure what the implications of that one to the Plains, Georgia Obama effigy would be.  The obvious culprit points to the “right”, such as that is.  I’m thinking the “Left” is currently tied in knots on the subject of hanging an effigy of a black figure, whatever anger at the president.  Really, you have to stick a sign around the straw-figure to identify it as Obama.

Or, to travel to even more unlikely culprits — foreigners?

Sure.  Why not?  Somalis were planning on creeping past the Canadian border on Inaguration Day.  And Somalis are indeed foreigners!

Excitable Alan Colmes is being coy.

Who the hell mentions Alan Colmes?  But, if we’re on that topic, and speaking of him,  Something about Chuck Norris… who otherwise is aligned next to Ted Nugent in his calls regarding Obama — but at least is unaffiliated with a stupid facebook page that slaps his name about oh so ironically.