Archive for the ‘opinion/news’ Category

This might not generate a lot of attention

Posted: July 19, 2010 by datechguy in opinion/news
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But it is an important story nonetheless:

Slightly more than 7,000 federal prisoners have been cut from the work rolls in the past two years, and up to 800 more are expected to be dropped in the next several months, according to Federal Prison Industries records.

The latest cut, announced last week, will close nine factories scattered from Pennsylvania to California and includes reductions in staff at 11 others, Federal Prison Industries spokeswoman Julie Rozier says.

She says the cuts represent some of the largest reductions in the 75-year history of the federal prison workforce. “We’re feeling the same pressures that are present in the overall economy,” she says. This year, 16,115 of the system’s 211,146 inmates are working in the factory jobs, down from 23,152 in 2008.

Federal Prison Industries is a government corporation established by Congress in 1934 that provides training for federal inmates. The industries generate about 80 products and services for sale to the federal government. In return, inmates are paid up to $1.15 per hour. Much of that goes to child support, fines, restitution and other court-ordered obligations.

Prison guards and others fear the cuts could spark inmate unrest in overcrowded institutions where jobs — however menial — have kept prisoners occupied.

And here is a second thought. What do you do when they get out? When unemployment is at 4-5% (A high level according to the MSM during the Bush years) there were few enough people looking that an employer might take a shot at someone with a past. That’s less people on the dole.

With unemployment at 9.5% why should an employer will take a shot when there are so many people without a past dying for work?

This is the social cost of a bad economy and that’s why when you hurt business you hurt the poor.

First rule of tangling with Andrew Breitbart

Posted: July 19, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news, tea parties
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When he says he has video. Believe him.

This is why the Democratic Party is scared. This is why the NAACP is scared. This is why black conservatives, previously marginalized as “Uncle Toms” by these progressive bullies, and shamefully, the NAACP, are coming out of the woodwork to join and, in many cases, lead the Tea Party movement.

Here is the video:

And at Hotair a little more:

Actually, if Sherrod had a different ending for this story, it could have been a good tale of redemption. She almost grasps this by initially noting that poverty is the real issue, which should be the moral of the anecdote. Instead of having acted on this realization — and perhaps mindful of the audience — Sherrod then backtracks and says that it’s really an issue of race after all. It certainly was for Sherrod, who admits that “I didn’t give him the full force of what I could do.” Notice that the audience doesn’t exactly rise as one to scold Sherrod for her racism, but instead murmurs approvingly of using race to determine outcomes for government programs, which is of course the point that Andrew wanted to make.

Will the NAACP try a copyright claim to stop this. If they are smart they won’t.

I suspect Breitbart has plenty of stuff like this in the bank like obits written for very old people ready to play the cards when the time is right. He must be murder to play poker with. Who wants to be the first to call a bluff of his? Not me.

Memeorandum thread here.

Update: CBS News has picked this up. Would there be any chance at all of any CBS network reporting on racism AT the NAACP? Sometime after the second of never.

The NAACP has to be really regretting this now but not as much as Shirley Sherrod is.

The Agriculture Department announced Monday, shortly after FoxNews.com published its initial report on the video, that Sherrod had resigned.

“There is zero tolerance for discrimination at USDA, and I strongly condemn any act of discrimination against any person,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a written statement. “We have been working hard through the past 18 months to reverse the checkered civil rights history at the department and take the issue of fairness and equality very seriously.

Be afraid oh NAACP, be very afraid.

Update 2: Stacy comments:

Let’s make sure we all understand the principle involved here: Obama spends 20 years in Rev. Jeremiah “G–D— America” Wright’s church, and that’s no big deal. A low-level USDA appointee says bad stuff about white people and under the bus!

Score

Update 3: What a difference a full tape makes, egg on lots of faces, but if the NAACP had the tape all along isn’t it odd that they rushed to judgment on a woman who apparently deserves an apology?

Sarah Palin: The Truth Spoken aloud drives liberals nuts

Posted: July 19, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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The reason why this memeorandum thread has so much action is the absolute apoplexy.

Sarah Palin has the courage to bluntly say what everyone knows, but the left wants to pretend isn’t true.

A Mosque could be built anywhere on the subway line to have easy access, building it near ground zero is a deliberate attempt of Islam to assert power. Every radical Islamist worldwide will see it as a sign of submission, particularly when the towers have not been rebuilt. Pretending otherwise is a delusion of the type we’ve talked about before.

Yet Sarah Palin comes right out and says it. Not only is the uncomfortable truth expressed but it is expressed by the one the left hates most of all. That is why it has driven this “Patrick” and others totally nuts.

Tell you what guys. Let’s take a national poll of Americans and see if they think a Mosque at or near Ground Zero is a good idea. If you want your guys to run on that be my guest. You might manage to win Berkley, SF and Cambridge and I stress the “might”.

I wonder if Bloomberg’s aide would be willing to call the Saudi’s racist since they will not allow a Christian Church in their country. I wonder if that aide would call the Palestinians racist because they insist on an Judenrein Gaza? I think not. This is an example of the “courage” of cowards.

The days when the denial of reality pays off are rapidly dying.

Update: An update via Atlas on Islam in general. A must read.

The most important story of the day is not what you would expect:

Posted: July 19, 2010 by datechguy in internet/free speech, opinion/news
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It is this bit from Commentary that links to this interview in the Jerusalem Post all emphasis mine:

The best of the best. We had 35 people in the room: 20 of them were non-Jewish, 15 were Jewish. And I didn’t tell anyone who was which. And I’d recruited them by telling them “we’re going to talk about Iraq, Iran and the Middle East,” not telling them that the real focus was Israel.

Got them all into the room. It was so crowded that we had kids sitting on the floor. But that added to the intensity. They felt like they were in a dorm room. And within 10 minutes, the non-Jews started with “the war crimes of Israel,” with “the Jewish lobby,” with “the Jews have a lot more power and influence” – stuff that’s borderline anti-Jewish.

And guess what? Did the Jewish kids at the best schools in America, did they stand up for themselves? Did they challenge the assertions? They didn’t say sh*t. And in that group was the leader of the Israeli caucus at Harvard. It took him 49 minutes of this before he responded to anything.

The group is over. It’s a three-hour group. I then say, “Who’s Jewish, who isn’t?” At that point some of the Jewish kids got a little outraged. I dismiss all the non-Jewish kids.

And the Jewish kids are there. And they’re now ticked at me for doing this, you know, “Why have you segregated us?” I said, “I’m Frank Luntz and I’m Jewish, and I’ve been working on this now for 10 years, and you all didn’t say sh*t.”

And it all dawned on them: If they won’t say it to their classmates, who they know, who will they stand up for Israel to? Two of the women in the group started to cry. I got the whole thing on tape. The guys are like, “Oh my God, I didn’t speak up, I can’t believe I let this happen.” And they’re all looking at each other with horrible embarrassment and guilt like you wouldn’t believe.

And I take this tape down, this little DVD, to the Jewish community and I say, “This is what we’ve done – or not done.” It’s not just giving them the facts. It is also teaching them how to say it, when to say it, when to crack a joke, when to acknowledge someone else’s points, when not to be argumentative or judgmental.

That is the point. During the 30’s people just couldn’t let themselves believe what was coming for Jews. This denial allowed it to happen. Right now that same denial is going on. Evelyn Gordon bottom lines it:

But it’s also a travesty because it shouldn’t be hard for any Jewish leftist to explain why Israel, for all its flaws, is still a far better example of the left’s one-time values, such as freedom, democracy, tolerance, and human rights, than any of its enemies. As Israel’s first Bedouin diplomat, Ishmael Khaldi, said in explaining why he chose to represent a country that allegedly oppresses his fellow Muslim Arabs, “We’re a multicultural, multilingual, multireligious country and I’m happy and proud to be part of it.”

I’m sorry if liberals in general and liberal Jews in particular are unable, unwilling or too afraid to stand up for Israel then they had better beware, because radical Islam and its followers don’t just say “death to Israel” they say “death to Jews” and if Israel disappears tomorrow you and your children (and not me since I’m not even slightly Jewish) are the ones who are going to pay the price. And when that price is paid and the yellow star is once again on your chest (if you’re lucky that is) you will be echoing the guys in the group from above said:

I can’t believe I let this happen!

And if you think that is an exaggeration, try to walk through a Muslim neighborhood in England or Canada carrying an Israeli flag or wearing a big blue star of David if you dare.

Memorandum thread here.

Update: Stacy handles this in depth emphasis mine.

As with global warming, so too with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The three-decade ascendancy of the Edward Said cult in Mideast studies has poisoned the academic well to such a degree that one can scarcely find an “expert” on the subject who is not tainted by it. Meanwhile, the veterans of the ’60s New Left have penetrated organized liberalism to such a degree that, vis-à-vis the Middle East, the Democratic Party is now more aligned with Sirhan Sirhan than with RFK.

Reality is going to catch up with you it you don’t deal with it first.

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