This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Media

  • Torture survivors’ stories

    As many of you know, I went to the TASSC’s demonstration against Guantanamo yesterday. I was also interviewed by Washington Post reporter Michael Birnbaum who wrote this article today in the Post entitled “Torture Survivors Still Live With Haunting Memories“;

    Orlando Tizon, 66, sat on a bench in Lafayette Square yesterday, the sounds of a crowd of people washing over him, but in his mind he was in the early 1980s, a political prisoner back in the Philippines.

    He thought soldiers were going to kill him one day on the beach, shooting bullets around him before they drugged and interrogated him.

    Tizon came to the United States after the president, Ferdinand Marcos, was ousted in 1986. Since 2000, he has worked for the District-based Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, a group staffed by survivors. The coalition provides psychological, legal and financial support for torture survivors and runs advocacy programs to protest torture.

    Oddly enough, Birnbaum focused his story on past torture and survivors when the whole demonstration was about Guantanamo (as you can see for yourself in the pictures and videos). Even more odd, he didn’t use the story I told him of my own imprisonment and torture in a foreign jail. That may be because I made the comment that I thought the mock Guantanamo cell on the Mall looked like a room at the Holiday Inn compared to my own cell in that tropical paradise where I spent my time. Or, it may be the fact that I was an American held in a foreign prison and not some poor third worlder who used their experience to disparage the US’ policy.

    Michael, maybe it wasn’t your fault…maybe your editor rewrote the story…but probably not. The reason citizen journalists have become a force in the the new information dissemination medium is because we provide a contrast to the media’s one-sided reportage.

  • How is this news?

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    Everywhere I look, I see these two hamming it up for the media in Unity, NH. And I see the media eating it up like it’s ice cream. I know there’s nothing going on in the news (the few weak things I wrote today are testament to that fact), but holy smokes, do we need to be bombarded with the seemingly staggering news that a Democrat supports another Democrat’s candidacy every damn minute? If ever there was a dog-bites-man story this election season, this is it.

     When it was Obama’s turn to pile on the plaudits, another voice in the crowd yelled, “She rocks.” Obama answered, “She rocks, she rocks. That’s the point I’m trying to make.”

    Oh, cheezum crow.

  • Human rights paradise polices up gays

    This from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel;

    Havana – Cuba’s first Gay Pride parade was abruptly canceled Wednesday, before it even began.

    The unofficial march, organized with Florida’s Unity Coalition, was not sanctioned by Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education, which is headed by Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raul Castro.

    Activist Mario Jose Delgado announced the cancellation of the march moments before it was to start Wednesday at a park in Havana. He said two organizers who were to deliver a set of demands to the Justice Ministry were detained one day earlier. Delgado said he has no details of the arrests.

    So they have cell phones (if relatives here send them one) and microwave ovens (if relatives here send them the money to buy one) but somehow that all seems fairly hollow to me since they can’t assemble peaceably.  Can you imagine how this would running on every major news source if it was George Bush interfering in a gay rights march?

  • Nader on Obama “talking white”

    Ralph Nader, the thorn in the Democrats’ side at election time, has decided that his best shot at the Presidency is to become blacker than Obama. In an interview in the Rocky Mountain News, Nader questions Obama’s blackness;

    “There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American,” Nader said. “Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.”

    Of course, Nader is just an unreconstructed 60s radical who thinks every Black person lives in the ghetto and they’re all ignorant enough to be tempted by payday loan scams. Anyone who thinks otherwise must be white.

    I’m constantly amazed that the Left accuses Republicans of being racists, yet the Left are the only people who call attention to Obama’s race. The Clinton campaign at first, now Nader is picking up the call.

    Washington Post in a companion article to the one I wrote about earlier,  is about that bunch of morons at “Stormfront” (Google it, I’m not linking to it) who claim that they’re getting an increase in traffic since Obama’s nomination;

    Sen. Barack Obama’s historic victory in the Democratic primaries, celebrated in America and across much of the world as a symbol of racial progress and cultural unity, has also sparked an increase in racist and white supremacist activity, mainly on the Internet, according to leaders of hate groups and the organizations that track them.

    The part that leaps out at me, was how the Post referred to the groups in comparison to  the Obama campaign;

    “The Obama campaign isn’t going to let dishonest smears spread across the Internet unanswered,” Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement. “We have to be proactive and fight back.”

    But on a Web site run out of a house in West Palm Beach, Fla., the other side is also fighting.

    The “other side” is Stormfront, although it sounds like it’s all of the opposition to the Obama campaign. And of course no story about Republican racists is complete without mentioning David Duke;

    “One person put it this way: Obama for president paves the way for David Duke as president,” said Duke, who ran for president in 1988, received less than 1 percent of the vote and has since spent much of his time in Europe. “This is finally going to make whites begin to realize it’s a necessity to stick up for their own heritage, and that’s going to make them turn to people like me. We’re the next logical step.”

    I think the Washington Post’s time would be better spent on ferreting out the Left’s racists than trying to exhume the corpses of long ago forgotten white supremacists.

  • WaPo; 3-in-10 Americans are racist SOBs

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    The Washington Post has decided the best way to mute discussion about Obama’s proposed policies is to call 30% of Americans racist right out of the gate on the front page of today’s paper;

    As Sen. Barack Obama opens his campaign as the first African American on a major party presidential ticket, nearly half of all Americans say race relations in the country are in bad shape and three in 10 acknowledge feelings of racial prejudice, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

    The Post goes on to tell us that McCain is old – a point I’m sure no one else but the Post noticed;

    Lingering racial bias affects the public’s assessments of the Democrat from Illinois, but offsetting advantages and Sen. John McCain’s age could be bigger factors in determining the next occupant of the White House.

    […]

    …just over half of whites in the new poll called Obama a “risky” choice for the White House, while two-thirds said McCain is a “safe” pick. Forty-three percent of whites said Obama has sufficient experience to serve effectively as president, and about two in 10 worry he would overrepresent the interests of African Americans.

    So, as you read further into the article, you’ll find that it’s really no different for Obama than any other Democrat candidate before him;

    But to win in November, Obama most likely will have to close what is now a 12-point deficit among whites. (Whites made up 77 percent of all voters in 2004; blacks were 11 percent, according to network exit polls.)

    This is hardly the first time a Democratic candidate has faced such a challenge — Al Gore lost white voters by 12 points in 2000, and John F. Kerry lost them by 17 points in 2004 — but it is a significantly larger shortfall than Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton encountered in their winning campaigns.

    Even further down, the Washington Post says that even among those professing a bias, Obama’s numbers aren’t affected;

    About a fifth of whites said a candidate’s race is important in determining their vote, but Obama does no worse among those who said so than among those who called it a small factor or no factor.

    Nor are whites who said they have at least some feelings of racial prejudice more or less apt to support Obama than those who profess no such feelings.

    So basically, the Washington Post is admitting that the most significant part of this article is their front page headline – that 3 in 10 Americans admit to race bias -I wonder how many of those who admitted to a race bias were Black and were admitting that they are more likely to vote for Obama just because he’s Black?

    It’s a bald-faced attempt by the Washington Post to shame us into voting for Obama MERELY because he’s Black and they’re anxious to have a Black president so the rest of the world will judge Americans less harshly.

    Meanwhile, we’ve got Spike Lee threatening that Obama will make DC a Chocolate City, according to Baldilocks. Bein’ that mine is one of the few white faces I see everyday, I’d say Lee doesn’t get out in DC that much. Oh, and it appears the guilt-ridden white liberals are harrassing Baldilocks, too. I wonder in what category the Washington Post would put Baldilocks’ political choice.

    Oh, if you’re wondering why I did a screen capture, it’s because three or four times, the WaPo has changed their headline after I criticized them for similar behavior.

  • How things change overnight

    As late as yesterday, the media was predicting a big upset for the Afghan Army
    in Kandahar.

    Hundreds of Taliban fighters yesterday swarmed into a strategically important district just outside Kandahar, Afghanistan’s second-largest city, in an apparent push for control days after 400 Taliban members escaped in a spectacular breakout from the Kandahar prison.

    But, my buddy, Jammie Wearing Fool illustrates how far the media is behind on events;

    Just two days ago the media told us the Taliban were stronger than ever and were flexing their muscles around Kandahar. Funny, but they have a strange way of flexing when they’re getting their heads kicked in.

    After a day of airstrikes and ground operations against a surge by Taliban fighters, provincial authorities here said Thursday that hundreds of militants had been killed or wounded in the valleys and villages of the strategic Arghandab region on the approaches to Kandahar.

    […]

    Asadullah Khaled, the governor of Kandahar Province, told a news conference in the Arghandab district compound on Thursday: “Hundreds of militants have been killed and wounded, their dead bodies have been left on the ground, with numbers of light and heavy weapons.”

    I guess that’s what happens when they depend on second hand reports in the comfort of their Islamabad hotels.

    From Drew M. at Ace of Spades;

    Also seriously wounded in the fighting was the conventional wisdom that we are losing in Afghanistan and that operations in Iraq are making it easier for the Taliban to regain power.

  • The Pope of the Democrat Party speaks

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     Somehow the Democrats thought that it was earth shattering news that Al Gore would support Barack Obama’s candidacy for President. I never had a doubt that he would, did you? The nightly news was abuzz with the news, I even got an email from Al Gore personally addressed to “Dear Friend“. I felt honored.

     Dear Friend,

    A few hours from now I will step on stage in Detroit, Michigan to announce my support for Senator Barack Obama. From now through Election Day, I intend to do whatever I can to make sure he is elected President of the United States.

    Over the next four years, we are going to face many difficult challenges — including bringing our troops home from Iraq, fixing our economy, and solving the climate crisis. Barack Obama is clearly the candidate best able to solve these problems and bring change to America.

    This moment and this election are too important to let pass without taking action.

    That’s why I am asking you to join me in showing your support by making a contribution to this campaign today:

    He repeated the same message from the stage in Detroit (Washington Times link) ;

    Mr. Gore, who resisted calls to make another bid for the presidency last year and who avoided taking sides during the primary battle, told supporters that he will do “whatever I can” to ensure Democrats win the White House in November.

    “The outcome of this election will affect the future of our planet,” Mr. Gore told a cheering crowd of about 13,000 gathered at Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena Monday night. “We’ve got to have new leadership, not only a new president but new policies, not only a new head of state but a new vision for America’s future.

    “This election matters more than ever because America needs change more than ever,” he said in introducing Mr. Obama. “After eight years of incompetence, neglect and failure, we need change.”

    They call Republicans fear-mongers yet they tell us that without Obama we’re doomed. Like Obama’s victory speech when he announced that the oceans will begin to recede now that he’s been nominated. I find it typical of Democrats to cling to their losers, though. They trot out Al Gore and John Kerry like their respective defeats are some sort of badge of honor. America loves winners not the likes of Al Gore and John Kerry.

    But, I think it’s time Americans started asking what “change” the Democrats are offering. After eight years of a Gore vice presidency, what is Obama going to change that Al Gore didn’t? After two years of a Democrat-controlled Congress, what has John Kerry or Barack Obama changed?  Apparently the only thing they like about America is that they can promise change while delivering squat.

  • Targeting Right Blogs

    A few weeks ago, on Sunday, June 1st, I started getting hits to this blog from Larry Johnson’s No Quarter – maybe ten hits in an hour which is real weird for a Sunday in June. I tracked them back to this page about the infamous Michelle Obama “Whitey” tape. At first I didn’t think anything of it, but the hits kept coming and I couldn’t find the link here on that page. It’s actually a blogger trick to get folks to pay attention to your posts, so I kind of brushed it off. But then I started seeing other bloggers picking up on it – kind of skeptically, though. Nearly everyone questioned the veracity of the story – me, I never heard of this Johnson guy before. But I did know he had a really bad haircut.

    Anyway, I mentioned the links in a comment by zero ponsdorf and COB6 immediately perceived  it as some sort of dirty trick. At Ace of Spades, I made the comment that I had the feeling that the Right blogs were getting set up, and someone asked me how we could get set up when no one writing much about it. On it’s face, that’s a reasonable question. No one was writing much about – except to make fun of Larry’s hair (someone called him Flo-Bee Johnson…hilarious).

    Then on Tuesday, June 3rd, Bob Beckel came out and on Fox News and perpetuated the rumor that something was coming out soon.

    Than this last Saturday, I read in the New York Times that “the final straw for Mr. Obama, his aides said, was the story circulating on conservative blogs that a video existed showing Mrs. Obama making a racially tinged speech at their former church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago.”  Huh? What conservative blogs were those? The only place I saw it was on Larry Johnson’s blog.

    Well, this morning, I checkout Little Green Footballs to see what those guys on the Left Coast talked about while I was sleeping and I find this.

    UPDATE at 6/15/08 5:37:50 pm:

    My jaw has just dropped.

    Beckel had the nerve to blame the “whitey tape” smear on right wing bloggers. Wow. A new apex of hypocrisy has now been achieved.

    UPDATE at 6/15/08 5:42:17 pm:

    Beckel actually claimed that he tried to debunk the rumor. Here’s the video clip, courtesy of Hot Air. Sleazy, sleazy, sleazy.

    Yeah, you need to go to LGF and see both clips – And of course, we’re a bunch of “crackers and rightwingers” according to Beckel. Even though he and Johnson were the only ones spreading this rumor, it’s our fault.

    And I just went over to Larry Johnson’s and find that he’s still trying to perpetuate the rumor that Obama isn’t an American citizen…something neither COB6 nor I questioned when the crap was flying around in the middle of last week.

    I defer to Baldilocks on questions of Obama’s citizenship and childhood. And my source for his political career are the infallible Chicagoan duo of Backyard Conservative and Marathon Pundit.

    But anyway, we, the blogs on the Right, did nothing, yet apparently we’re to blame for lefty clintonista Flo-Bee Johnson spreading the rumor of the “Whitey” video.

    From James Taranto’s “Best of the Web” Friday, there’s a link to an Obama ’08 page called “Fight the Smears” which lists four rumors about Obama that are “lies” and they provide documentation. It’s not real important stuff – it includes the Whitey tape, the rumor of which,  the Obama campaign claims, was started by Rush Limbaugh. Yuh, huh.

    Actually, the Fight the Smears page isn’t new – it’s been on the campaign website for more than a month and it was directed at the Hillary campaign, but now it includes Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as it’s targets.

    So the message is “Don’t believe the blogs and radio folks on the Right and here’s why…” Nice try.