Different Day, Same Shit.

I hope everyone's having a great New Year's Eve. Just avoid getting piss-drunk - no one likes to roll their guests out the door at 4am like a waterlogged rug.

At this point, I want to thank everyone who's supported DDSS so far, and I want to wish everyone a happy New Years. DDSS will continue to grow and expand, gain more supporters, more views, etc.

In the meantime, enjoy Donald Trump being caught in a big, blatant lie, courtesy of The Mo'Kelly Report:

Mo'Kelly's Two Minute Warning - Donald Trump Tweets Dog Whistle Racism by Mokelly

"When the president's characterization of our economy was, 'It could be worse,' it reminded me of Marie Antoinette: 'Let them eat cake,'" said Romney.

My dear Mittens, are you really trying to compare President Obama to Marie Antoinette? Given your general aloofness when it comes to interacting with the average American and your propensity for being out-of-touch at the wrong times, when it comes to people having their cake and eating it, you're the grand champion of keeping your mouth stuffed with all sorts of political pastries. Projection can be a hell of a thing, sometimes.

By the way, it's not a good idea to pimp your kids on stage just to score cheap, outdated political points:

At an event in New Hampshire today, Romney's adult son Matt Romney responded to a question regarding the potential release of his father's tax returns with a joke alluding to doubts about Mr. Obama's place of birth: "I heard someone suggest the other day that as soon as Obama releases his grades and birth certificate and sort of a long list of things, then maybe he'd do it," he said.

Romney's other son, Tagg Romney, jumped in to say, "That was not my dad saying that."

Matt Romney subsequently released his first-ever tweet in response to reports about his comments: "I repeated a dumb joke. My bad. RT @emilyrs Romney's son Matt made an Obama birth certificate joke on the trail in NH."

Mitt, you should have told your sons that the whole Birther thing is old news. But at least you'd got a lovely little mug out of the deal.

It's interesting to see Glen Greenwald equate the actions of Pres. Obama in regards to foreign policy and the War on Terror with that of former dunce-in-chief George W. Bush. Apparently, Pres. Obama forgot that he was supposed to repudiate the entire concept of the War on Terror - in other words, he was supposed to take what Bush started and kick the entire mess in the trash can, damned what the rest of Congress, the military, his advisers and most Americans thought. At the very least, he was supposed to play the Professional Left-mandated role of soft touch when it came to terrorism, as evinced by Greenwald's lament of how he should have merely arrested Osama bin Laden as opposed to simply disposing of him. I think Greenwald, like many others in that particular circle, are simply too damned uncomfortable with how Pres. Obama's taken a much harder line on terrorists. In fact, they're very uncomfortable with how Pres. Obama is running things so far.

A lot of people were disappointed that Barack Obama was not their Magic Negro™. And since he didn't revert decades of damage caused by conservative policies within a year of his being in office, these same people are now out for blood, doing whatever they can do dissuade others from supporting and voting for him the next go around, even at the cost of having another conservative as president, who will most likely continue the damaging policies that these people were against and wanted to fix in the first place. To them and to Greenwald, that's far preferable to another four years of what they see as a "phony."

Barack Obama was supposed to be their anti-Bush in every single way. But his governing style was far too pragmatic for the Professional Left and emoprogs to tolerate. As a result, he's considered no better than Bush. Greenwald and company are operating on a nine-year-old's logic.

Meanwhile, Greenwald and others are praising Ron Paul as a champion (of sorts) of civil liberties. As other bloggers have pointed out, his opposition to "warmongering" makes him a pretty good shoe-in for "good guy" within the PL and emoprog circles. It's too bad that these people can't, for the life of them, see how Ron Paul's stances are merely for his own ideological convenience:

But the nature of his anti-war stance is fundamentally different from that of liberal opposition to any given war. The tipoff is in his opposition to foreign aid, and his anti-United Nations position: he's anti-war because the rest of the world just isn't worth it. His is not the pacifism of the anti-war movement but the nativist isolationism of the America-Firsters; Paul is "to the left of Obama" the way Lindbergh was to the left of Roosevelt. (That may be true in a fairly literal sense, although I wouldn't trust anything from Big Government without further corroboration.)

Similarly, Paul's positions on civil liberties issues aren't actually about civil liberties as we understand them; they're about his opposition to Federal authority. (An opposition that is somewhat conditional, it should be noted.) For example, in talking about the death penalty, he makes clear that he opposes it only at the Federal level. His opposition to the PATRIOT Act, the War on Drugs, and domestic surveillance come from the same root as his opposition to the Civil Rights Act. He has no real objection to states violating the rights of their citizens; it's only a problem if the Feds do it.

The assumption underlying this is that people are freer when states (as opposed to the Federal government) have more power. Now, it may seem obvious to some of us that the distinction between one arbitrary administrative unit and another isn't exactly a human rights issue, but let's just consider for a moment: does state or local control actually translate to more liberty?

In short? Ron Paul only cares about civil liberties when it brings him to the goal of eliminating federal interference in most aspects of governance. He could care less about what the individual states do. After all, that's his thing. How does that effect liberals on the Ron Paul bus? Well, lets just say that the individual states are a hell of a lot more conservative than guys like Greenwald give them credit for. See Alabama's HB 56 and Arizona's SB 1070? Most states, left to their own devices, are prone to stripping out and reducing civil liberties. No more same-sex marriages, abortions, Planned Parenthood or civil protections for homosexuals and transsexuals. No more protections against racial discrimination, either. But Greenwald and others can't see this forest bereft of actual civil liberties for the anti-war trees.

How far does the selective omission of Ron Paul's policies go in regards to support from Greenwald, et al.?

Remember, Greenwald says Citizens United is good for civil liberties. But what he means by those two words is very different from what most of us have in mind when we say them. The president has been consistently supportive of voting rights, for example, but that is elided from the Greenwald definition of “civil liberties;” he also elides the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the Fair Sentencing Act, the overturn of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the president’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board and the US Commission on Civil Rights, etcetera.

Contrast that to Greenwald’s treatment of Ron Paul’s record. In his op-ed, Greenwald makes no mention of the congressman’s racist newsletters, his public stance on the Civil Rights Act, his attempt to strip Iranian students of federal financial aid, his evident homophobia, his numerous assaults on abortion rights, his desire to repeal the “Motor Voter” Act, his attacks on the 14th Amendment, etcetera. I regard his stance on the gold standard as a repeal of economic rights — one that William Jennings Bryan would abhor as a cross of gold.

In Greenwald’s story, not one of the issues in those previous two ‘graffs — not even the fight over voter ID bills that would disenfranchise millions of African Americans — count as civil liberties issues, but the supposed right of an American citizen to be free from harm while directing harm to other Americans does.

That doesn't matter. Ron Paul's anti-war stance and overall appearance as the "anti-Obama" and liberalism's "last pure hope" is all guys like Greenwald need to get on board and start waving "RP" pom-poms in front of a packed crowd.

With Ron Paul fairing well in the Iowa polls and America's falling out of love with thrice-married adulterer, child labor promoter and all around political scumbag Newt Gingrich, two things are going on throughout the Blogsphere and Twitterland: the unmasking of Ron Paul as a racist and a homophobe, and the passionate defense of Ron Paul to the contrary.


This man, like many others, believes that the accusations leveled at Paul are nothing but baseless mudslinging and organized slander by people on the left and right who are invested in Paul's failure as a GOP or possibly independent candidate. There's a nugget of truth in that. Remember the baseless alarmism and manufactured outrage over the provisions within the NDAA, provisions that were removed at the behest of the president, with others not affecting American citizens or giving the government any new powers to indefinitely detain terrorist combatants? Those accusations were largely to discredit President Obama and put a dent in his reelection chances, by turning people off from voting for Pres. Obama or by forcing a primary with a candidate deemed ideologically purer.

Ron Paul supporters see these accusations as a way for opponents to discredit Paul's policies and make him too toxic for ordinary Americans to readily support him. That's one side of the coin.

The other side lies in a growing mountain of evidence that shows Ron Paul to be not necessarily racist, but a person who is willing to use racists and their views to springboard his own political career. Some of his views are a result of his staunch constitutionalism, which implores him to stick to the strictest definition of the U.S. Constitution as possible, while others may stem from the sheer naivete that many libertarians seem to exhibit at certain points. Let's start with why Paul couldn't support a resolution to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, I rise to explain my objection to H.Res. 676. I certainly join my colleagues in urging Americans to celebrate the progress this country has made in race relations. However, contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government unprecedented power over the hiring, employee relations, and customer service practices of every business in the country. The result was a massive violation of the rights of private property and contract, which are the bedrocks of free society. The federal government has no legitimate authority to infringe on the rights of private property owners to use their property as they please and to form (or not form) contracts with terms mutually agreeable to all parties. The rights of all private property owners, even those whose actions decent people find abhorrent, must be respected if we are to maintain a free society.

This expansion of federal power was based on an erroneous interpretation of the congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. The framers of the Constitution intended the interstate commerce clause to create a free trade zone among the states, not to give the federal government regulatory power over every business that has any connection with interstate commerce.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 not only violated the Constitution and reduced individual liberty; it also failed to achieve its stated goals of promoting racial harmony and a color-blind society. Federal bureaucrats and judges cannot read minds to see if actions are motivated by racism. Therefore, the only way the federal government could ensure an employer was not violating the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was to ensure that the racial composition of a business’s workforce matched the racial composition of a bureaucrat or judge’s defined body of potential employees. Thus, bureaucrats began forcing employers to hire by racial quota. Racial quotas have not contributed to racial harmony or advanced the goal of a color-blind society. Instead, these quotas encouraged racial balkanization, and fostered racial strife.

Of course, America has made great strides in race relations over the past forty years. However, this progress is due to changes in public attitudes and private efforts. Relations between the races have improved despite, not because of, the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, while I join the sponsors of H.Res. 676 in promoting racial harmony and individual liberty, the fact is the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not accomplish these goals. Instead, this law unconstitutionally expanded federal power, thus reducing liberty. Furthermore, by prompting raced-based quotas, this law undermined efforts to achieve a color-blind society and increased racial strife. Therefore, I must oppose H.Res. 676.

One of the purposes of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was to prevent businesses from discriminating against those of different ethnicities, nationalities and religions, using the Commerce Clause as a means of enforcement. This apparently rankles those who believe in the purest form of property rights, which could be summed up as "It's my property and I can do whatever the hell I want with it," but I digress. My issue is with the belief that the natural course of the free markets, sans any intervention from the federal government, would have allowed the entire problem of segregated businesses to essentially solve itself, as customer support for such establishments would ideally fade as segregation continued to be demonized in the media. Somehow, I doubt that would happen.

Insight into the mind of one Ron Paul supporter.

Even with the pressure put upon businesses in light of publicity regarding segregation, I doubt that any business would have risked losing its biggest and most loyal customer base (white Americans) in order to cater to what was then considered a niche group (most people of color). There had to have been either a legislative or a financial penalty that was severe enough to change the behavior of these businesses. Even with black Americans withholding their dollars from segregated businesses, there was still little to no impetus to dispense with segregation. Without legislative intervention, we would most likely have segregated businesses, although most multinational conglomerates would have dispensed with those policies in order to prevent bad publicity from affecting their bottom line. A small cafe in rural Alabama with a fiercely loyal customer base would have no such problems. In short, you would still see pockets of segregation as prejudiced business owners exercised their property rights as defined in the above. As I mentioned in the comments of this Chirpstory convo, black Americans searching for a "safe" place to eat or sleep (if they could find one at all) had their own Twitter app in paperback book form - the Negro Motorist Green Book.

To the point, the entire concept of property rights, in this light, is used as a dog whistle for those who want to exercise what they see as their right to keep certain "undesirables" or the "urban element" out of their establishments. and individuals who see themselves as being "enlightened," like @allenbrauer, can't see or don't want to see the forest for the trees. Apparently, Ron Paul seems fit to pimp them all for the ballots.

Courtesy of Associated Press and the Atlanta Time Machine.

You know who was also a staunch supporter of property rights in this vein? Lester Maddox. The above features him and his son exercising their rights as property owners to refuse service to anyone they want, going so far as to run off and threaten to beat a black man who he wouldn't serve.

The greatest allure to the Ron Paul campaign is his support of a federal government that allows states to effectively govern themselves without heavy federal influence. The Civil Rights Act, along with countless other bills and amendments, is considered "heavy federal influence." For anyone who wants to see what Ron Paul's ideal world would be like, see Alabama and Arizona's proactive implementation of stringent immigration enforcement when the federal guidelines were deemed insufficient. Better still, see the United States under the Articles of Confederation.




See this picture? That's Ron Paul posing in a photo op with Don Black, founder of Stormfront.org. The guy on the far right is his son, Derrick Black. I've spoken time and again about people being defined by the company they keep. One supporter told me Paul wasn't in control of who he had photo ops with, which I find to be a fresh, piping hot plate of good ol' fashioned bullshit. When you're a famous political figure, 1)you must exercise control of who you associate yourself with, and 2)you have control of who you associate yourself with, if not by yourself, then via your press handlers.

And did I mention that Black made a $500 donation to Paul, who kept it as opposed to returning it once the donation became big news? Of course one could say that the donation did not equal Paul's endorsement of Black's views, but only Black's financial endorsement of Paul's, but any politician worth his or her campaign fund wouldn't dare be associated with the likes of Stormfront or Don Black, even if the donation was for something other than anything explicitly racial causes.

And then there's the newsletters.

Throughout the late-1970s until the mid-to-late-1990s, there were a series of newsletters that were apparently created on Ron Paul's behalf, known as the Ron Paul Political Report. "Et tu, Mr. Destructo?" has several scanned samples of these newsletters posted for your viewing pleasure. I read a few of these and came to the conclusion that if Ron Paul did not genuinely believe in what was written here, that these newsletters were being used as juicy bait for bigots to latch onto the Ron Paul campaign, at which they wind up becoming mere stepping stones to his greater political success.

The main defense utilized by Ron Paul supporters is that the words in the newsletters were taken out of context and misconstrued as racist, particularly by those who were assumed to be looking for something to call "racist." That defense doesn't quite rest with me. And if Paul genuinely had no idea about the content being produced, especially on a newsletter with his name on it, that speaks to either a horrific lack of editorial control and oversight, or Paul figured he could get away with this content by, for lack of better words, playing dumb:

The newsletters also had a number of other phrases that — taken out of context — would appear racist or outside of the political mainstream. For example, the newsletters contained a couple of critical statements about Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Paul denied writing or even reading the above lines before they were brought to his attention, claiming he had focused upon his medical practice and study of monetary issues during the time period. "They were never my words," he said in 2001, though he acknowledged, "I had some moral responsibility for them."

...but the newsletter controversy only demonstrates that Paul exercised poor management over employees' statements in a relatively minor part of his career (he focused upon his medical practice during this time period), a managerial mistake he hasn't repeated in the 15 years since he returned to Congress. It's a genuine negative for Paul, but it's a small negative. No one in Washington is willing to call Paul a racist, and few have questioned his honesty on the newsletter issue (though Time's Klein did).

At least until today. In this political climate, with the GOP Establishment still bent on having Mitt Romney as their preferred candidate for the presidency, this "small negative" is now being welded as a gigantic cudgel which the GOP hopes the mainstream media will use to bash the living daylights out of the Ron Paul campaign. Just as Newton Leroy's infidelity and bombastic wordsmithing eventually sunk his campaign among voters, and just as Herm's womanizing skeletons conveniently popped out of the closet when he was 35 minutes into his 15 minutes of fame.

The is the nugget and the nugatory fact of the Ron Paul experience: everything inspirational and aspirational about the Ron Paul candidacy is as nakedly fungible as every word above. When he was not in office, for $49.95, you could buy his book about how to be scared shitless about government and invest in the same gold mines he already had shares in. Now that he's in government and angling for a higher position, you are even more compelled to stave off categorical economic collapse by investing even more than $49.95 in his campaign. And if his campaign goes nowhere, try googling something other than "RON PAUL" and whether candidates can pocket donations.

Still, on any map of moral behavior, this is a man who merits no one's esteem. To return to a comment above, he either believes these paranoiac, divisive, racial and sexually malicious things and wrote them himself, or he recognized the cynical political value in trading in them, or he was so stupid that not a word above was written by him, yet it carried his name anyway.

It's amazing how someone can be a pimp and a prostitute at the same time. In the end, it all comes down to finding votes wherever you can, since your unorthodox platform and political views disqualify you from being seen as a "serious" mainstream candidate...

I have a feeling I understand why Ron Paul gets so much support from the young and dumb progressive crowd. Ron Paul represents the alternative from the mainstream, a guy who seems to have all the answers, but can't act upon them because the mainstream keeps shutting him out, every single time. A perpetual underdog, of sorts. As long as he loses in a "almost there but not quite" way, he wins financially and in popularity. His fan base continues to swell with the ranks of those who are drawn to lovable losers who have the right stuff, but little to no chance in hell of winning.

On the small chance that Ron Paul somehow manages to win the presidency, these folks are going to be as disappointed as they were when they ushered Barack Obama, a guy who many people thought had no chance, until made the unthinkable thinkable - the perpetual underdog crowd loved him until it became apparent that he could not radically change the face of government in under 90 days. Ron Paul will have to play the same games of 11-dimension chess in front of an obstinate and actively hostile crowd (possibly less so thanks to the lack of color-arousal, but that's beside the point..) that is personally vested in maintaining status quo and increased political hegemony. In short, Ron Paul won't be able to put that pony under your pillow.

The names of the game in the federal government?

• Compromise
• Constant horsetrading
• Patience
• Horrifically slow progress

Poor Newton Leroy's not doing so well. Not only is he no longer the GOP Flavor of the Moment™, but he's losing out to Ron Paul in Iowa. Funny how the bombastic bluster he offered early on didn't offer as much mileage as he thought it would. Must have been all of those skeletons stuffed in the trunk.

Speaking of skeletons, Ron Paul's alignment with various unsavory hate groups and "rednecks" is no secret - the proof was out there for anyone to pick up and run with. So it irks me how the mass media is treating this as though this is some sort of secret scandal that's been dug up from deep underground. But loads of libertarian-minded liberals and some on the professional left in the Blogsphere love the guy (although the media could care less for him) - after all, he's their un-Obama as Newt was once the GOP's un-Romney.

The Christmas season seems quite subdued. With the (not-so) stunning revelation revealed by the U.S. Census Bureau that now just about half of Americans are either in poverty or in a low-income bracket, I'm not surprised. When you have places like Wal-Mart and Dollar General worrying about their prime customers going broke, you know something's gone wrong with our economy. Perhaps Wal-Mart and those other companies can take a page out of Henry Ford's old playbook and start giving their people a fair wage, instead of contracting and subcontracting their labor out to temp agencies.

Meanwhile, one of the biggest cheerleaders of Alabama's infamous HB56, Scott Beason, is thinking about taking a run at Spencer Bachus' House seat. As I said before, this is probably the only time I'd root for Bachus. BTW, a number of cities and municipalities have momentarily stopped enforcing the constitutionally-suspect law.

Occupy Wall Street is still going strong, although I have to ask a good question that many have probably asked time and again: what is the end goal of all of this? In every movement, there has to be a concrete, easily visible goal that one can strive for. This amorphous mass of protesting seems to have an equally amorphous message to offer.

On the other hand, seeing scores of journalists, college students, elderly citizens, war veterans and innocent bystanders get blasted with pepper spray, manhandled, kettled, dragged, beaten and tased gets all but the most hardcore of conservative pissed off. Perhaps that's the point, to get average ordinary Americans pissed off. I just fear the ADHD nature of mass media will have people forget all of this shit when the next Super Bowl or American Idol comes on.

Lots of folks have it out for the president. First there's the Pew Research Center's analysis on the tone of Pres. Obama discussions on blogs. Then there's the "skinny, ghetto crackhead" quip from Brent Bozo Bozell, although he took great pains to put it in some sort of weird, hypothetical "I'm not saying this, but I'm just saying" sort of manner. Then Jim Sensenbrenner got caught ogling the First Lady's behind. Knowing that he'll never, ever enjoy anything close to that has to keep him in a slow-simmering, near-infantile rage. It's no wonder the White House press office is a bit grouchy these days.

It's anyone's guess if I'll toss in another post or two during the holiday weekend. Maybe, maybe not. At any rate, have a safe Christmas.

And instead of going about my late-night work, I found myself engaged in a Twitter rant over what is probably the largest case of brainwashing/indoctrinating in modern history:



If this Chirpstory imbed disappears, go here.

Damn. Looks like someone just couldn't hold it in any longer. For those wondering, Jules Manson is a California libertarian who recently tried for, and lost, a bid for a seat on Carson, CA's city council. Judging from this, you wouldn't have to wonder why. Extreme Color-Aroused Emotion, Ideation and Behavior Disorder (ECEIBD) strikes once again!

I'm not surprised by this type of outburst. Ever since someone broached the idea of Obama running for president, there have been scores of people just dying to verbally unload (nevermind with actual firearms) on Obama with this kind of color aroused racial rhetoric. Many people simply cannot cope with the idea of a black man being in any sort of position of power or strength, unless it is contained and wielded for the exclusive interests of white America. Explains why you see so many black football players, few black coaches, and no black owners. Many people cannot cope with a black president of the United States of America. It just goes against everything they were indoctrinated and programmed to believe about black Americans and others of color.

My one biggest fear is that someone, somewhere will finally lose their fucking mind and attempt to assassinate the president, his wife and/or his children. If that happens, race relations won't just be set back - they'll get punched in its collective face and kneed in the jewels. That's the last thing this nation needs.

I've also noticed how libertarians seem to have this rather racist bent for being people on the liberal side of the political equation. If it wasn't the reflexive civil libertarian-led shitfest on Balloon Juice that had undertones of putting a black blogger "in her place" over the NDAA*, it was the brief, recent conversation I had regarding Ron Paul's photo op with Don Black, founder of Stormfront.org. And now it's this. I'm convinced there's something in the water those libertarians are swigging down.

Hopefully, the Secret Service is keeping an eye on this loon. Yeah, people think words are just words, but words can be put into action, and that's something no one wants to see in this case.

*Seriously, people are losing their fucking minds over Obama's impending signature of the National Defense Authorization Act into law, to the point of sheer fucking insanity. Nevermind the bill has 1)none of the provisions that'd make the current fears du jour possible (American citizens being locked up indefinitely) and 2)several provisions that fund the entirety of the U.S. military that can't be vetoed without serious repercussions for Obama. When 1) was finally realized, the goalposts were moved, this time with outrage focused on indefinite detentions, period. *smdh*

The disinformation campaign to cast the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as the dawn of a new "Nazi America" age continues unabated on Twitter. More and more people are attempting to use the bill as pretext for scaring the living shit out of the Occupy Wall Street people into discouraging support of President Barack Obama, and as an excuse for not casting a vote in his favor. I hate playing "conspiracy theorist" here, but I have to wonder if this isn't just some campaign whipped up by a conservative think tank to harness waves of liberal outrage and indignation to batter Obama's reelection chances - in other words, let the indignation and moral outrage of liberals and the smooth second-guessing of the professional left do the GOP's heavy lifting for them.

Milt Shook has a great article on his blog, the aptly named "Please Cut The Crap," that spells it all out for anyone who still has a hard time grasping the fact that, no, there isn't an "Indefinite Detention Bill" that locks up Americans indefinitely a la gulags and Nazi concentration camps:

Here’s the language in section 1021 that has the pro lefties up in arms. It’s in the Conference Report. Follow along, please. Oddly (?), most pro left cite (1), but leave out (2)-(4). I know, that just seems so odd, doesn’t it?

(c) DISPOSITION UNDER LAW OF WAR.—The disposition of a person under the law of war as described in subsection (a) may include the following:

(1) Detention under the law of war without trial until the end of the hostilities authorized by the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

(2) Trial under chapter 47A of title 10, United States Code (as amended by the Military Commissions Act of 2009 (title XVIII of Public Law 111– 84)).

(3) Transfer for trial by an alternative court or competent tribunal having lawful jurisdiction.

(4) Transfer to the custody or control of the person’s country of origin, any other foreign country, or any other foreign entity.

Yes, I do admit section c) looks troubling, especially if you look at it all by itself. But as long as we have Obama (or Biden) in office, we have time to get rid of it, especially if we give them a Democratic Congress. But I would also note that the pro lefties also leave out sections b) d) and e). When you read them you’ll know why.

(b) COVERED PERSONS.—A covered person under this section is any person as follows:

(1) A person who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored those responsible for those attacks.

(2) A person who was a part of or substantially supported al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners, including any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported such hostilities in aid of such enemy forces.

(d) CONSTRUCTION.—Nothing in this section is intended to limit or expand the authority of the President or the scope of the Authorization for Use of Military Force.

(e) AUTHORITIES.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect existing law or authorities relating to the detention of United States citizens, lawful resident aliens of the United States, or any other persons who are captured or arrested in the United States.

Oops.

Yes, you read that right. The so-called – the “Indefinite Detention Bill” that pro and emo lefties are trying to convince you will give the president the power to round us all up and detain us forever without a trial, not only doesn’t exist on its own, but the language is somewhat limiting, and specifically excludes US citizens or people who are in the United States legally. Section b) 2) does bother me, but I don’t think it’ll survive a court challenge because it’s too broad. What the hell is a “belligerent act,” for example? I once called a US Senator an asshole to his face; that was kind of belligerent.

I will note, for the record, that the provision does fly in the face of the 14th Amendment, and I don't like it. But I don't see anything in it that isn't reversible, and certainly nothing that's worth putting hundreds of thousands of people out of work for, just as we're recovering from the worst recession in 80 years.

Milt goes on to explain how the desire to trash can the entire bill has its own set of unwanted consequences:

Obama doesn't have a line-item veto, so he can’t veto the “Indefinite Detention Bill” without vetoing the entire NDAA. Now, you may think that would be a good thing, but would it? It’s not just about the troops. What about all of those civilians who might lose their jobs for at least a month or two, while Obama and the teabagging GOP worked out a new NDAA without that little amendment, assuming they could do so? What do you think canceling all those defense contracts for a month or two would do to the unemployment rate? How about six months? What would happen to all of those small towns that depend on the military bases and contractors to support their small businesses? Do you imagine the GOP might be a bit energized after the unemployment rate suddenly rises to 10%?

Those of you who claim “principle” when you discuss this need to stop. Many pros and emos claim Obama’s showing a “lack of principle” by signing this “Indefinite Detention Bill.” Forget the fact that you're claiming a lack of principle when you're lying to the public about a bill that doesn't exist. You’re actually advocating for an action that could put millions of people out of work for a few months, and forcing our troops to lose their meager pay for a few months for… what, exactly? What are your “principles” when you advocate for that, in order to kill an amendment that will probably ultimately have zero effect on anyone, and might even die in the courts?

AND I BLAME THE REPUBLICANS FOR THIS, NOT OBAMA. They put it there, not him. Blaming this on Obama is kind of like blaming the company who put the olives in the jar because you didn't chew your olive responsibly. Just saying.

In order to kill the above provisions, Obama has to kill the entire bill. That would be a politically stupid thing to do, and anyone with any common sense would understand that. The best way to handle this is to keep this provision in mind, give Obama a second term, and give him a Congress that will pass a repeal that he can sign. There you go; problem solved.

Sorry, Milt. Some people who are emotionally charged over the NDAA right now are dead set on not giving President Obama a second term. The funny thing about these folks is if you ask them if or why they think the nation would be better off with an Republican administration, given that such a thing is the alternative at the moment, you'll only get silence. Or a regurgitation of "throw the bum(s) out. That's right - throw the bums out, but let's not give any thought to the new set of bums filling their spots.

Personally speaking, I'm getting sick of these people. They'll risk handing the nation over on a silver platter to Republicans for the next generation over these lies. The Republicans aren't gonna stop them from believing a series of blatant lies and committing a terrible mistake that eventually works in the GOP's favor.

Milt leaves a wonderful parting shot for common-variety chucklefuck and current pied-piper of professional leftist disinformation Glenn Greenwald:

Look, folks, I don’t like this section of the bill much more than Greenwald does. On its face, without lying, it’s odious, especially if Obama is replaced by anyone in the current Republican field. The problem is, the bullshit braying being screeched by professional lefties like Glenn Greenwald actually helps make the possibility of a Republican president and a Republican Senate greater, not less likely. If you really want crap like this amendment repealed, you’ll need a Democratic House and Senate and a Democratic president. You’ll also need a Supreme Court appointed and approved by Democrats, because an entire court full of Scalia/Thomas/Alito clones will happily give a Republican president this power.

I'm beginning to believe the professional lefties relish the advent of a solidly Republican executive, judicial and legislative power structure. When that happens, the professional left will no longer be obligated to do any heavy lifting. Instead, they can spend all of their time mouthing lofty platitudes about what they believe ought to happen without any responsibility for making any of that happen. And when they're called on such tripe, they can always take a cool, soothing dip into their own personal pool of perpetual underdogism and beautiful martyrdom, and point to the GOP as an insurmountable brick wall for any action they commit. And then it's back to the DC/LA/NYC cocktail parties and other venues of preening self-importance.

I believe they'll piss themselves for the chance to usher in President Gingrich. There's a certain domestic abuse meme that comes into play, but I'm not gonna repeat it. You can see it, and somehow, it's terribly fitting.

Seriously, read Mitt Shook's article on the whole thing. It's a damn-near work of art.

See my previous posts on the National Defense Authorization Act by following the "NDAA" article tag.

Remember when I talked about one of the big benefits of White Privilege in a prior post concerning this guy? Well, here's a sterling example of feigned cluelessness, seasoned with a light sprinkling of tonedeafness and a just a touch of smug "I know better than you, trust me":

Hi Baratunde,

Thanks for your piece – I thought it raised great points and continued the discussion. I wish you success with your new book too. And I read The Onion every day.

What do I know about being a "poor black kid?" Absolutely nothing. I'm a middle class white guy. But I went to school. So I know about that. And I'm in the business of technology. So I know about that.

How can any inner city kid even have the chance to overcome the inequality that our President spoke about and have a chance at some opportunity?


1. Study hard and get good grades.

2. Use technology to help you get good grades.

3. Apply to the best schools you can.

4. Get help from a school's guidance counselor.

5. Learn a good skill. This is what I said in my blog. I said this wasn't easy. It's brutally hard. And, unfortunately, it's not funny.

Will any of these kids read what I wrote in Forbes? Probably not. I'm hoping that educators, bloggers and most importantly parents do. Because it will be very tough for any kid to do it alone.

Regards,

Gene Marks

He's learned nothing. Nothing about the underlying causes that undermine scholastic achievement - poor schools, shitty teachers, lack of available mentoring or guidance, lack of resources and most important of all, parents who sometimes can't give their kids the jump-start they need to get on the road of scholastic achievement...and some parents just don't care.

But no, let's just rephrase the same shit you've already said, without any introspection or perspective whatsoever.

It would be harsh of me to call Gene Marks a "dumbfuck" over this, but considering how I recently put my foot in someone's ass on Twitter recently, I no longer hold such reservations about doing such.

So Gene Marks, you are a goddamned dumbfuck.

That is all.

If you haven't heard already, the House passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), 283 to 136, with 14 not voting. The White House was adamant about vetoing the bill unless several provisions were changed, which they were.

Applying pressure on House and Senate negotiators working on the bill last week, Obama and senior members of his national security team, including Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, had sought modifications in the detainee provisions.

Negotiators announced the changes late Monday, clearing the way for White House acceptance.
In a statement, press secretary Jay Carney said the new bill "does not challenge the president's ability to collect intelligence, incapacitate dangerous terrorists and protect the American people."

Specifically, the bill would require that the military take custody of a suspect deemed to be a member of al-Qaida or its affiliates and who is involved in plotting or committing attacks on the United States. There is an exemption for U.S. citizens.

House and Senate negotiators added language that says nothing in the bill will affect "existing criminal enforcement and national security authorities of the FBI or any other domestic law enforcement agency" with regard to a captured suspect "regardless of whether such ... person is held in military custody."

The bill also says the president can waive the provision based on national security.
"While we remain concerned about the uncertainty that this law will create for our counterterrorism professionals, the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country's strength," Carney said.

All throughout Twitter, there's fear that the provisions within this bill as they pertain to terrorist detainees will be used to "infinitely detain" #OWS protesters and destroy the movement. And there are plenty of people who are using this bill as pretext for torpedoing President Obama's support among liberals.

Therefore, I'm providing a link to a previous post I made about NDAA right at the beginning of the misinformation spread, "The Homeland Is Part Of The Battlefield." Please give it a read before jumping on the "OBAMA SIGNED NDAA! OBAMA TEH EVULZ!" bandwagon.

EDIT: Obama did not promise to veto the bill outright, contrary to what some would believe. He promised to veto the original bill, until it was revised to his liking. Afterwards, there was no need for him to veto the bill.

One thing that fucking irks me about discussing racial/ethnic issues is how people of color are constantly expected to give a thorough dissertation of why its wrong/silly/outrageous/stupid for white Americans to commit certain faux pas when it comes to ethnic relations vis-a-vis black Americans. Frankly, I'm sick of seeing every social interaction on the subject turn into a remedial learning experience for whites.

We've been over the same shit for so long that most, if not all white Americans should have this info down-pat. They know why people of color feel the way they do. They know what they should and shouldn't do and what not to say. Yet every so often I see a blog post or an article like this one, with the author exasperated over what he/she sees as white Americans not getting it.

Nope. It's not that they're incapable of getting it. It's that most of them don't want to.

And it fucking irks me about how I'm expected to be some sort of ambassador for "my people" in some capacity or form. I don't want that. I could care less.

In the linked blog post on "People of Color Organize!" states the obvious that all whites should know by now, because we've spent generations talking about the shit. It's also why I won't bother to entertain a conversation with a white person on race. It ain't my job to educate people on things they should already know, but refuse to learn about. This isn't a critique on the author's work, just a very short, very blunt take crafted by a guy who has no time for other people's shit:

1. Racism Is Bad. No shit.
2. You Should Stay And Fight For Change. No. You do it.
   
3. I Don't See Race. Well, I do.
4. Being Expected To Take It. I don't have to.
   
5. Conflating Racism For Classism. They're not the same.
6. Erasing Racism From Racial Issues. You can't.
   
7. Prove It To Me. See for yourself.
8. I’m Really Not The Angry Militant POC You Think I Am. I don't care.
   
9. Self-Esteem Negates All Racism. It doesn't.
   
10. Racism Is Not Happening In A Vacuum. Everyone knows this. If you don't, it's because you don't want to know.
    

"Gee, Mack, could you elaborate on...." No. I'm done with that. Use all the resources at your disposal to find out for yourself.

One beautiful facet of White Privilege is the ability to ignore black America and feign cluelessness at their offense. I find that annoying. I see people use that privilege when they say things they really wanted to say, but have the luxury of walking it back to avoid tagging themselves as privileged fucks. It pains me and pisses me off to see the author fighting a battle that should have been won ages ago, over and over and over, like some sort of White Privilege groundhog day.

If I was a poor black kid I would first and most importantly work to make sure I got the best grades possible. I would make it my #1 priority to be able to read sufficiently. I wouldn’t care if I was a student at the worst public middle school in the worst inner city. Even the worst have their best. And the very best students, even at the worst schools, have more opportunities. Getting good grades is the key to having more options. With good grades you can choose different, better paths. If you do poorly in school, particularly in a lousy school, you’re severely limiting the limited opportunities you have.

And I would use the technology available to me as a student. I know a few school teachers and they tell me that many inner city parents usually have or can afford cheap computers and internet service nowadays. That because (and sadly) it’s oftentimes a necessary thing to keep their kids safe at home then on the streets. And libraries and schools have computers available too. Computers can be purchased cheaply at outlets like TigerDirect and Dell’s Outlet. Professional organizations like accountants and architects often offer used computers from their members, sometimes at no cost at all.

If I was a poor black kid I’d use the free technology available to help me study. I’d become expert at Google Scholar. I’d visit study sites like SparkNotes and CliffsNotes to help me understand books. I’d watch relevant teachings on Academic Earth, TED and the Khan Academy. (I say relevant because some of these lectures may not be related to my work or too advanced for my age. But there are plenty of videos on these sites that are suitable to my studies and would help me stand out.) I would also, when possible, get my books for free at Project Gutenberg and learn how to do research at the CIA World Factbook and Wikipedia to help me with my studies.

I would use homework tools like Backpack, and Diigo to help me store and share my work with other classmates. I would use Skype to study with other students who also want to do well in my school. I would take advantage of study websites like Evernote, Study Rails, Flashcard Machine, Quizlet, and free online calculators.

I wasn't raised a poor black kid. Perhaps a black kid who could have had a bit more than he was given from the start (don't we all?), but at no point did I feel or see myself as being poor. But when guys like these start assuming they can do what they believe ordinary black kids to somehow be incapable of doing, it fucking irks me. The smug, self-assured "oh I could have done that a lot better" attitude fucking irks me.

Like I said, I wasn't raised poor, so I'll use quotes around that word to make an important distinction. Hopefully that won't detract from the following message too much.

When I was a "poor" black kid, my parents made it my #1 priority to read, which in turn instilled a love of reading (and eventually, writing). Other kids didn't have that sort of parental motivation needed to push their kids to read better. It's a tall order to expect a struggling kid to get himself to read better when no one seems to want to help him.

When I was a "poor" black kid, I was lucky to have parents who worked to give me access to libraries and computers, back when other poor families didn't even have cable, let alone Internet service. Many poor families still don't have Internet service. Many poor families are computer illiterate. Many don't have access to a library or a community center with computers.

As a "poor" black kid, I had nary a clue about sources of information such as Cliff's Notes and Google Scholar. I had to be shown how to get to these resources by parents, relatives, teachers, etc. I wouldn't have been able to find them on my own except by sheer luck, never mind the nature of the Internet today.* To expect them to take advantage of these resources and deem them lazy and unmotivated when they can't take advantage of them reeks of intellectual dishonesty, to say the least.

Besides, I wouldn't have been able to study or share homework with other students online. Most of us didn't have computers. Or Internet access. Or both. Or had any motivation to study after dealing with our home lives.

Gene Marks, perhaps you shouldn't assume what you would do if you were this or that. Not even when you think you know the entire situation. Knowing the ins and outs about something doesn't give you permission to opine about what you'd do if you were in someone else's shoes. But plenty of people have already told you about that. So do us all a favor and knock it off.

*I grew up during what could be considered the final transformation of the Internet (or World Wide Web, as it was called then) into the Internet we all know, love and occasionally bitch about today. That was around the mid to late 1990s, back when my household used AOL floppies (not CDs, floppies) as coasters, Netscape was The Shit™, 56k was as fast as most households could have hoped to go, and AOL and Compuserve were the two main ways people logged onto those series of tubes. Memes did not exist, neither did 4Chan or YouTube. Google? No, Yahoo, Altavista and Lycos were the top search engines of the day. Damn, I feel old.

After the previous post investigated the veiled cowardice of the "Stuff Black People Don't Like" crowd, I made the mistake of following a link to a post on "E Tu Detroit?," one which edges that much closer to the abyss of outright bigotry in the pursuit of color-aroused Collapse Fetishism.

For instance, I thought it was impossible (or just very, very difficult) to seemlessly mix a jab at libertarians with the cool advocacy of an institution rendered obsolete by legislative fiat and migration of free market labor to the better paying factories of the north:

Amazingly, there are still libertarians who believe that free labor is superior to slave labor in a multiracial society. How is free labor working out in Detroit? If Detroit were run like a Southern plantation, it would actually work.

I have a hard time conceptualizing what Detroit would look like if such an socioeconomic system was revived and put into place. Well, you have the rapidly multiplying open spaces that could be converted into farmland, and scores of "lazy, welfare sucking" blacks who could be forcibly pressed into labor for the benefit of a largely white populace. Oh yes, I do believe blacks would either riot at the idea of being smoothly slotted back into their original roles as bonded labor or they would up and leave, thus returning the city back to a white majority, as it should have been according to the ETD crowd.

Unfortunately, that would mean Detroit would have to be a largely agrarian city whose chief export would be crops that could grow that far north, in that kind of climate, and to other states and possibly Canada, unless the Canadians enact sanctions over what they would (rightfully) see as revived slave labor.

It's interesting to see these folks return to a failed economic system that was the lifeblood of a failed separatist nation like a dog returning to its vomit. A failed separatist nation whose people and their descendants nursed a fierce grudge that managed to contaminate the entire United States with its bile and disease. But I digress...

Reliably, its the commentators who end up pushing the entire shebang right off the precipice:

Detroit was a true Shining City On A Hill that came to be through the labors of the White people who created its industrial base.

Fifty years of cannibals and the lefties who imported them turned the Motor City into the decaying ruins that you can see in the Tour of Detroit videos on youtube. Compare the shithole in those videos to the pictures of Detroit that can be viewed at http://www.shorpy.com/ to understand my hatred of niggers and lefties.

And there we go.

Finally, someone who's somewhat honest about the situation. He hates "niggers" and lefties, but not because he just does thanks to constant indoctrination at the hands of Alabama crackers and reinforced confirmation bias through his experiences in Detroit. Instead, he cops out once more by using Detroit's misfortunes and his front-row seat to its decline as a rationale for hating "niggers" and lefties.

If you ask this man why he hates "niggers," he'll give you all the reasons and rationale in the world, but he will never say outright "I hate niggers because I just hate em'. I hate they way they look, smell, talk, etc. I hate how they think they can be just like us, but they're not. They're niggers, and they need to behave that way." A serious, devastating case of Extreme Color-Aroused Disorder (ECAD) coupled with extreme "othering," both reinforced by parentage, media and environment.

The comment below the above blockquoted on the blog goes with the flow, but it stops there. No one else is willing to participate in slinging the N-word around in a cathartic euphoria.

Meanwhile, something that vaguely resembles sanity:

While I enjoy your critiques of BRA I certainly don’t think there was anything good about slavery. You may have gone all the way back to embracing the “peculular institution” in your neoConfederate musings, but if so you’ve crossed a bridge too far.

It was Christians who championed it’s end out of their view of the inherent rights of man. I don’ t think the entire arc of history since the enlightenment can or should be thrown out just because of the idiots on World Star Hip Hop.

That would clearly be a case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We can certainly re-establish a well ordered society without returning to the social organizational models of the early 19th century.

And so the commentators switch tactics:

The abolition of the presumption of the existence of slavery has done massive harm to Western culture. It has overtaken nearly every other presumption, including the presumption of innocence. In the broad sense, it goes like this:

1. Slavery is the worst thing on the planet for which every white person is guilty.
2. Every slavish impulse to anything must be fought as a possible gateway to more white guilt.
3. We therefore must be slave to nothing.
4. We will therefore fall for anything.
5. Which has made us slaves.

So abolishing slavery was a bad move because it went on to taint the entirety of white America with an original sin of sorts, one that was earned since most either actively supported the peculiar institution in some way or simply ignored it. Slavery was finally abolished as it represented an affront to the ideals of this very nation and those of the major tenets upon which Western culture claimed to be built upon.

Look around you. Slavery happens. The sin is not in being a slave or in being a slave owner. The sin is in being a bad slave owner.

Not only is this a call to excuse slavery, since "it happens anyway" in some way, shape or form (white sexual slavery presumably included), but also a call to approve and support slavery, just so long as you are a "good slave owner." I suppose this means feeding your slaves the semi-good parts of the hog every once in a while, just so they remember how good you are to them.

As hard as it is to believe today, blacks used to be capable of creating great wealth in the South, the Caribbean, and elsewhere in Brazil and other parts of South America. Haiti used to be richest colony in the New World. The West Indies were far more valuable to Britian than New England.

As slaves. Without any chance of capitalizing on said wealth, as it all went into the hands of their European masters. Without wealth, there wasn't much places like Haiti could do, unless they wanted to willingly return to being the "human batteries" from which the "electric" wealth was generated and sucked out to support a greater infrastructure that didn't include them, like an early-1800s Matrix. The Europeans couldn't allow a place like Haiti to make its own way and generate its own wealth, so it was strangled in its crib by constant foreign intervention and a long line of Western-picked strongmen who were either corrupt, incompetent or both.

At this point, a certain Hunter Wallace punctuates what he firmly believes to be an unassailable truth:

Slavery worked. Freedom failed.

If the GOP could use that line without irony or backlash to further indoctrinate their supporters and satiate their lust for color-arousal, they would. "1984" meets "Animal Farm" in a head-on collision, and the bodies are flying everywhere.

These people are cowards of a slightly different variation. Instead of being unable to admit they simply want blacks gone from all quarters of the government and put back "in their place" as the pack mules and whipping boys of a nice, orderly, majority-white society, some of these people, Hunter Wallace especially, can't gin up the stones to admit they'd like to see the Confederacy come back in full force, with all of the idealized and glamorized Hollywood-grade genteelness and social graces, the large, pearl-white plantations that once stood as an monument to Southern wealth and power, and a healthy, pliant black labor pool whose sole function is to allow their white plantation masters to profit from their sweat and blood without complaint, lest such complaints be quelled by the lash. I wonder if such discipline is part and parcel with being a good slave owner.

But the Confederacy is dead. And like Ta-Nehisi Coates, I dare not shed a solitary tear for its deserved passing. Attempts to bring any portion of it back are akin to bringing a man back from the dead, only to have his zombiefied corpse lurching from hither and yon, filling the landscape with a foul stench and disused, desiccated body parts as it staggers directionless, with no where to go but to the ground where it deserved to lay, undisturbed until the end of time.

One thing I've noticed about websites and blogs where white Americans of a certain ideological persuasion gather to bemoan and bemuse the current state of majority-black cities (often made that way through white suburban flight and loss of economic capital to other, often cheaper locals), is that for all of the symptoms they "pinpoint" and the blame they assign to the black American citizens and majority-black government, they never seem to offer a clear solution as to what they'd do about what they see as a "problem." That, and they never seem to realize the true root causes of the situation they see before them.

Case in point is a post from "Stuff Black People Don't Like," which focuses on Detroit, an "actual black-run city" that epitomizes what the SBPDL and attendant Freeper/bigot/RWNJ crowd see as abject failure, caused solely by blacks who had the nerve to be in charge of a city that was and still remains in economic and social turmoil:

None of this will matter once the storm hits, for, like Hurricane Katrina, all that will be left in its wake is the unvarnished truth that those on both the politically-acceptable left and right work feverishly to hide: Detroit's collapse through financial mismanagement, depleted tax-base, shuttered businesses and completely broken local economy is due 100 percent to being the crown jewel of Actual Black-Run America (ABRA).

In other words, black leadership is the problem. There's no in-depth discussion about any inherent qualities in blacks that make them such "poor leaders," other than the typical canards about blacks being lazy, wasteful and all too willing to grift and give each other handouts - essentially a darker and more open version of GOP politicians. And there's the typical sob story about poor, defenseless white Americans being run out on a rail towards the suburbs and exurbs by an angry mob of black city-dwelling savages led by a charismatic Coleman Young holding an axe or a shotgun or some equally dangerous looking weapon blacks use to scalp their white enemies.

And it is Detroit - on the heels of Jefferson County (home to 72 percent Black Birmingham) declaring the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history - that WILL soon run out of money and declare the same.

Sorry, SBPDL/RWNJ folks. We all know the reason why Jefferson County went bankrupt in the first place, and it didn't have anything to do with a high melanin count. This sort of grasping for straws is why people tend not to take race-bating, dog-whistling RWNJs seriously.

But the real problem with this entire post is that it is simply too cowardly to suggest any real solution that would please the SBPDL/RWNJ crowd and "fix" Detroit and other cities supposedly run into the ground by the so-called "ABRA." Instead, all you get is constant comparisons to cities and countries in Africa left behind in the wake of European colonial "scorched earth" flight. I bet it pains the SBPDL/RWNJ crowd to hear of Pretoria, South Africa being renamed "Tshwane." Africans reclaiming their cities and heritage from white European colonists is something that's treated with utter revulsion from those who see these people as only worth as much as the labor they can get out of them.

Which brings me to what could be the closest admittance of what the SBPDL/RWNJ really want:

One Detroit council member had the audacity to say the state takeover of ABRA Detroit would turn it into a "plantation," but Walter Russell Mead’s blog on The American Interest states:

“Plantation”? “Plantation” is a colloquialism for a prosperous place where white people live good and make money from the back-breaking labor of black people.

Detroit is a place where the predominantly black population doesn’t work but receives handouts from white middle and upper-middle class taxpayers in the form of food stamps, welfare, health benefits, etc. Rather than being prosperous, the whole thing is collapsing. “Plantation”? OK, you can start calling me a racist now. Just remember, I wasn’t the one who made this a racial issue.”

Rachel Maddow would still find a way to spin this truth into blaming white people for the fall of Detroit because not enough money was spent on Black people.

Being rank cowards of the highest order, they won't openly admit that what blacks need is some more time performing back-breaking labor for their own good while white Americans profit from their labors once more, for the good of society of course. They beat around the bush, blow the dog whistles and drop hints here and there, but they won't openly state exactly what they want to see of black Americans. Doing so would place them on the same social footing as the constantly discredited (and woefully open) white supremacists and unabashed bigots. There's nothing more terrifying to RWNJs as being irreparably ostracized and marginalized as open bigots of the highest order.

You're probably wondering does it matter if they want to be open, unabashed bigots? The answer is "Yes, Virginia, you bet your sweet iced tea it does." Being a crass prototypical bigot who uses "Nigger" every fourth or fifth word is a great way to get people to STOP listening to you. These people want an audience - that's way SBPDL and the Free Republic exist in the first place. Even Stormfront seems a bit tame nowadays. This is why you'll hear Republicans call President Barack Obama every coded epithet under the sun, but you may never, ever hear them call him a Nigger in public. It would be a "I Shot Marvin in the Face" moment for whoever said it, and the resulting backlash and rallying with Obama will be nothing short of amazing.

Now on to more contrived color-aroused stupidity:

I live in Mississippi and it is really gut wrenching what clueless blacks have done to many cities throughout after gaining office. Rampant carelessness on the tax payer dime and outright theft.

Add Jackson Mississippi to the list of craphole black run cities that whites are fleeing. The mayor's biggest concern for Jackson at one point not long ago was naming streets after black people, as the city sinks in a pit of blight, crime, and general decay.

This is fundamentally how blacks are: all show, no substance, inept and all at taxpayer expense.

Because Mississippi was a well-run utopia that was the shining example of how a state and its cities should be run, sort of how the southern debutante was the shining example of how a darling young white woman should look and behave, at least until she was despoiled by some awful Negro. Or a pack of awful Negros.

Methinks these are the same type of anonymous commentators who shit up sensible and enlightening blogs like the Field Negro on a constant basis. And the above blockquoted proves that in many cases, color arousal and indoctrinated hatred of blacks and other dark-skinned "others" both qualify as mental illnesses worthy of being researched and treated.

I won't delve any further into the comments, because they say the same thing while taking great pains to avoid what they really want to say. Because what they want to say is as good as putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger, as far as social and media graces go. Veiled and coded bigotry is OK, but full-on open hatred is a killer.

These people angle for a full-on collapse of Detroit and other cities, in a fit of Collapse Fetishism with copious amounts of color-arousal mixed in for seasoning. Yet when the smoke clears and the "ABRAs" are finally in ruins, no one bothers to ask the SBPDL/RWNJs "So, what happens then?" Just as the bigots who paraded New Orleans' collapse in the wake of Hurricane Katrina had absolutely nothing to say about what should happen to the Big Easy after most of the poor black population was devastated, the SBPDL/RWNJ crowd won't have anything to say about what should be done with the black ruins of Detroit - they'll be too busy getting their fix from yet another "mismanaged" majority-black city. I suppose when you come down off a color-aroused high, you never look back to the time that last hit made you feel a certain way; you're only focused on the next hit.

- When you think of guys in military garb, ski masks and bullet proof vests, you'd probably think "SWAT team," "commandos," "crazed militia guys," etc. But "burglars for Christ?"

Michael Shaun Schaffran, 32, and Cody Jacob Rogers, 18, were arrested after allegedly breaking into a home on Tuesday night in Gautier, Mississippi. They were each charged with three counts of kidnapping and burglary of an occupied house, the Sun-Herald reports.

According to police, Schaffran and Rogers dressed up in military gear, ski masks and bullet-proof vests, broke into the house, and attacked the three people who lived there. At the time of the arrest, Schaffran had a knife, though Rogers was unarmed.

Authorities say Schaffran is the “commander” of a paramilitary group of teenagers called “The Savior Unit” or “The Tactical Support Unit,” and Rogers is the “captain.” According to an operations manual allegedly confiscated from Schaffran and Rogers, the goal of the group is to “promote Christ, obtain offenders who are a danger to society, do community service work for churches and halfway houses, and do security for different functions.”

Uh, guys, I don't think "saving souls" means sending them up to Heaven prematurely, and no one's gonna want to willingly come to Christ at knifepoint. If they had met the business end of a shotgun, would we still call them "martyrs" or just dangerous dumbasses?

- Michigan Governor Rick Snyder came up with the idea of putting cities that were considered to be deep in the fiscal shit under the control of "emergency managers," who would then be given the power to rewrite, suspend or scrap collective bargaining agreements altogether, among other things. The main problem is how the cities that are currently under the stewardship of emergency managers are all, to put it lightly, a bit dark in their overall complexion. And now the state is considering placing Detroit under the stewardship of an emergency manager. Detroit Mayor Dave Bing is not pleased with this turn of events, to say the least.

A group known as "Stand up for Democracy" has close to the 162,000 signatures needed to have the law suspended until a vote is taken in November 2012. If the current law that governs the powers of emergency managers is suspended, they'll most likely default to a weaker version of the law enacted in 1990. Of course, state officials are working on a revamped emergency manager law to head off the possibility of the current law's suspension.

Eclectablog doesn't see the emergency manager situation as being racially motivated, to an extent, and he/she holds high hopes that someone will come up with a long term solution that actually addresses the core issues plaguing these cities:

As I have pointed out repeatedly, the quick fix, balance-the-books-and-leave approach of Emergency Managers will not make the conditions that created the crises go away. What's needed is a more comprehensive, long-term and creative approach. Simply throwing our hands in the air and saying, "Everything has been tried! This is all we have left!" is poor governing and poor leadership. If things have been tried and found not to work, we must keep trying. We must educate the residents of these communities on how to run their governments properly. We must do everything in our power to restore some element of economic sustenance for these communities so that they can become prosperous again.

Good luck with that. If anything, the GOP administration in Michigan are more inclined to use these cities' economical and social problems to highlight how these "N-words" are incapable of running their own cities, nevermind these cities already had problems that were well in the making when they were majority-white.

Whether its the emergency managers or the economic impact of industry leaving Michigan in favor of the southeast U.S., Mexico, China or other parts unknown, black Americans have always had the shit end of the disproportionate effect stick. The last thing they need is to have their current representation stripped away and replaced by an overseer of sorts who has no real connection to the communities they manage and no real intention of doing anything but making themselves look good by turning red into black (or black into white) by any means necessary.

- I rarely watch TV, so I didn't know there was such a show as All-American Muslim. Apparently, there needs to be a television show that tells the nation's whitebread that Muslims are just goshdarnedly American as they are, by golly.

Welp, the Florida Family Association thought otherwise and embarked on an email campaign to the show's sponsors, "encouraging" them to pull their advertising from the show, and as skittish sponsors are wont to do in the face of indignant anger from the right-winged pseudo-Christian set, at least one of them did just that. And now Lowe's is getting a lot of shit from all corners for it, from Russel Simmons to House Rep. John Conyers and California state senator Ted Lieu. Makes you think these guys should have made an executive decision over whether it would be less painful to have a bunch of anti-Islam jokers pissed at your company or to have Muslim Americans and every other sane citizen pissed at your company. Or perhaps they did and figured they could ride out or even profit from the controversy.

- Some yokels compare President Barack Obama to a skunk. Because he's half-black, half-white, and according to the wingnuts, everything he does stinks, get it?

Conservatives make horrible comedians. They're thin-skinned, can't help but take themselves seriously and they come up with the lamest jokes possible. And when they can't think of anything original, they resort to toilet humor - 6th/7th grade poop, fart and dick jokes anyone with half a brain could make.

- Former Alabama state official Bill Johnson would most likely voice his staunch opposition to gay marriage or gay rights, but apparently he isn't above donating his seed to New Zealander lesbian couples in need.

The New Zealand Herald reported in its Sunday edition that Johnson, who is married, has been using an alias to meet women who want help getting pregnant. The newspaper said it confirmed at least nine women had received sperm donations from Johnson, and at least three were pregnant.
The newspaper cited fertility medicine specialists in New Zealand who said that donors should not make sperm available to more than four families, to prevent accidental incest and lessen the stress donors and children face if they meet.

If Republicans are scratching their heads wondering why liberal-minded people don't take them seriously, perhaps the words "hypocrisy" could come into play.

President Barack Obama just finished watching the Iowa GOP debate on ABC. You wouldn't blame him for bawling out, not with the competition he has to face next November. If the current selection of brain trusts are any indication, this will be an easy walk for him. The only thing he really has to fear is if the dumbasses from the "Professional Left"/Emoprog/Villager contingent decide to primary him with a "purer" candidate. That has the potential of effectively splitting the vote between Village-minded Dems and fencesitters and everyone else, allowing the GOP candidate to waltz in with no trouble whatsoever.

The biggest gaffe of the night?

Perry had accused Romney of altering a paperback version of his book to delete a line that had Romney wanting to make his Massachusetts healthcare plan a model for the rest of the nation, suggesting that Romney is a champion of an individual mandate to force people to purchase health insurance.

Romney said that wasn’t true.

“I'll tell you what. 10,000 bucks? Ten-thousand-dollar bet?” Romney said.

“I’m not in the betting business,” Perry replied.

Perry might be lying when he says he's not in the betting business, but at least he's smart enough to realize than when you're pandering to the small-town 99%, you have to look and play the part at all times.

By the way, $10,000 represents at least four months of an average U.S. citizen's yearly salary. Not something you want to be tossing around when the rest of the country's in economic turmoil. Seeing Romney proffer that bet was as big of a "let em eat cake" moment as any.

Aside from that, the GOP debates had all the usual. Gingrich continued to push child labor as America's solution to its economic woes, called Palestinians "an invented people," broadsides Romney by saying he would have been a career politician if he was able to beat Ted Kennedy in 1994 and locked horns with Ron Paul over Gingrich's own connections to Freddie Mac. Santorum begs to be Gingrich's VP, only to see the honor go to Rick Perry. And what was Rick Perry doing? Being Rick Perry. Bachmann claims to have spent 50 years in the private sector, but if she's 55 years old.....hmmm....perhaps she was one of those poor inner-city child janitors Gingrich keeps trying to hire.

All the candidates tried playing up the "we grew up poor" angle, but it didn't work. At least Santorum admitted he was born into some rather middle-class trappings. And not a single one has any idea of what its really like to be poor.

In other words, the debates turned out exactly as anyone would have expected them to. Zero substance, plenty of empty calories. People would have been better off weaving baskets than watching the debates, but at least people got to see exactly how unfit these candidates are for the presidency. That has to count for something.

Oh, and Herm wasn't there. His campaign's in shambles after pimping one too many white women, but he would have added some well-needed...."colour"....to the debate, if you get my drift. As one Tweeter mentioned, there were only two or three black folks in the entire audience, and they were all sitting together. A great metaphor for America, if anything.