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

Category: Society

  • Living in the 60s; divided we fall

    OK, there was something familiar in the political climate that I couldn’t quite put my finger on – until I read this story from the Politico’s Mike Allen;

    Sen. John Edwards plans to warn later this week that the nation’s schools have become segregated by race and income, and he will propose measures to diversify both inner-city and middle-class schools.

    It feels like the 60s again, doesn’t it? Yesterday Edwards, the prettiest Democrat candidate, was talking about a “poverty tour” and today it’s busing and desegregating schools. The other candidates (and Edwards included) are all “against the war” (whatever that means today), they’re all for raising taxes “on the rich” (whoever that is these days). All of the broke-dick, big-government Liberal issues that brought on the malaise of the 70s are rearing their heads – as if history never happened.

    It doesn’t help that the media are all in on it and the old hippies who are now “journalists” play the game. Like this syncophantic piece from the Washington Post;

    “A lot of Americans think of people who are struggling as people who don’t want to work, and that’s nonsense. We need to make sure the country understands that,” the Democratic former senator from North Carolina said.

    On the second day of an eight-state tour of impoverished communities in the South and Midwest, Edwards tried to connect his presidential campaign with the legacy of King and Robert F. Kennedy and the issue they tried to publicize in the 1960s: poverty. The four-day tour will end in Prestonsburg, Ky., where Kennedy concluded a tour of Appalachia in 1968.

    So, the guy with $400 haircuts and $1/2 million dollar part-time jobs carries the mantle of King and RFK now. I can just see King and Kennedy standing at the gates of Heaven with baseball bats waiting for Edwards’ arrival – and this Perry Bacon, Junior from the Washington Post.

    “We still have two public school systems in this country,” Edwards said. “They’re not segregated just based on race. They’re segregated, to a large extent, based on economics, which has racial implications.”

    The result is, Edwards continued, “if you live in a wealthy suburban area, the odds are very high that your child will get a very good public school education. If you live in the inner city or if you live in a poor rural area, the odds of that go down dramatically. And I think there are very specific things we can do to not only improve the quality of the education in those areas but also to improve the quality of our schools at large.”

    Funny how Federal programs and robbing the American taxpayers of their earnings is always the solution – until the big-government program fails and then the answer is always more money. That’s how we ended up with a 70% tax bracket in the 70s.

    Edwards, and the Democrats as a whole, act as if there is no possiblity for economic mobility in this country. They act as if we’re born to a station in life and that’s where we remain – as if this is 18th century France. The opportunities exist – everywhere in this country. granted there are people who don’t take advantage of those opportunities, but how is it my responsibility to pay for others’ bad choices?

    If I were one of those inner-city or rural teachers, I’d be pissed at Edwards. How dare he say that those teachers aren’t interested in teaching kids until they get more Federal money? So where’s the outrage? Edwards called all of you inner-city and rural school teachers greedy, heartless capitalists. Yeah, I can just hear the howls of rage – hypocrites.

    And this “Two Americas” crap is played out. Edwards is just playing two sides against each other. Ronald Reagan brought America together, and now Edwards is trying to tear us apart like Johnson, Nixon and Carter did. We beat the Nazis and the Soviet Union when we all pulled together. How are we going to defeat Islamofacism with the Democrats pulling us apart?

  • Mas Pollo Rico: AP deliberately lies to create fear

    I’m sure most of you read the post I wrote on Saturday about the El Pollo Rico owners who were arrested for money laudering over $7 million. Well, check out this story from the Associated Press;

    July 15, 2007 – 6:39am

    WHEATON, Md. (AP) – Things are quieter around the El Pollo Rico restaurant.Immigrant employees and patrons of local shops are shying away from the area after an immigration raid on the Peruvian restaurant Thursday morning. Nine employees were seized and four members of the family that owns the restaurant were arrested.  

    Most lunchtimes, a line of customers would wind outside the door onto the sidewalk for El Pollo Rico’s spicy roasted chicken.

    Now, immigrant workers and customers are staying away from the shopping center for fear that the scene will repeat itself.

    One man who said he entered the country legally says he quit his job at a nearby business because he feared immigration officials.

    But members of groups opposed to illegal immigration say they welcomed the bust of the illegal immigrants, adding that they feel the effort should even be stepped up.

    Others in the community worry that the bust makes the whole Hispanic community look bad.

    —

    (Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

    That’s it, in it’s entirety. The business wasn’t raided for immigration violations, it was raided because of large money transactions that had been tracked for more than year. No mention that the owners were US citizens who were involved in human trafficking and money laundering schemes – just that the poor LEGAL immigrants were afraid to come to work because the jackbooted thugs of the ICE would scoop up everyone and send them to prison.

    I guess the LEGAL immigrants in Wheaton have seen Cheech Marin’s “Born in East LA” too many times.

  • John Edwards – one-note Charlie

    The prettiest girl in the Democrat Presidential lineup, John Edwards claims he wants to remind America about poor people, according to the Politico’s Richard Allan Greene;

    Edwards, a consistent third in the polls for the Democratic nomination, is swinging through 12 cities in eight states over three days “in order to bring attention to the 37 million Americans living in poverty.” 

    Now, the Edwards’ camp claims that this isn’t part of the campaign – and if we believe that there’s some real estate development opportunities in New Orleans they’d like to talk with us about.

    The Edwards camp says their man is “taking a break from [his] normal campaign schedule” and emphasizes that the tour does not include any of the early-voting states.

    But campaign manager Joe Trippi did send out an e-mail on Friday under the header “George Bush doesn’t care about poor people.”

    Is George Bush running for President again in ’08? Apparently Joe Trippi thinks that’s true. So why would John Edwards be focusing on poverty in the US (aside from emmulating Robert F. Kennedy in the ’68 election)? Because Edwards is a typical Liberal Democrat – he’s playing to Democrats’ guilt for their successes in what ever endeavor they’ve chosen. Like Edwards himself who channels the ghosts of dead babies into the courtroom to the tune of millions of dollars.

    Edwards made a half-million dollars as a consultant to a hedgefund while learning what hedgefunds do (it’s always been my understanding that consultants know more about the business they’re hired to advise than that business – but what do I know). Edwards funds a charity for the poor that doesn’t do anything for the poor except send John Edwards out to talk to groups of rich Liberals about the poor (with whom Edwards has never met, by the way – ask his middleclass neighbor in North Carolina) at meals that the poor couldn’t imagine in their wildest dreams.

    But we all know that the media will follow him around like a fricken puppydog and record every word that falls from his pretty mouth. 

    “While we’re pleased that a presidential candidate is showing an interest in Eastern Kentucky, we’re a little cautious about Edwards’ visit since the theme of his tour is poverty,” Tony Fyffe wrote in an editorial titled “Visit is welcome but could have negative impact” on Wednesday.

    He predicted “news footage of rundown homes, trash-ridden roads and streams, etc.” and complained that  “Kentucky is nothing more than a poverty-stricken state, according to the national media.”

    If Edwards does make his way to the White House, Fyffe wrote, “we hope Edwards returns to the region and puts his poverty action plan to work. Something tells us, however, that we’ll be just a memory as soon as the tour bus leaves the region next Wednesday.”

    I guess Fyffe is just writing these predictions based on Edwards’ past performance as the prettiest girl in the campaign.

  • Well, it works for Charles Johnson

    Traffic has been dreary since last week, so I took a page from Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs‘ book and decided to post pictures of my new bike;

    I have a new bike because someone decided that they needed my old Cannondale R400 more than I needed a bike (despite my swelling belly fat) and climbed up on my balcony and liberated it during the hours of darkness.

    So now I ride this sweet-ass Cannondale CAAD8 – bought from my son-in-law at his place of work at City Bikes in Chevy Chase. I took it for it’s maiden voyage this afternoon and I could actually hear the bike say “Hills? What hills?” Sweet.

    Please notice the “Handmade in USA” markings. No Eye-talian or Frog transportation for this red-blooded American.

    Now I can just sit back and watch the sitemeter peg. Maybe I should mention Ron Paul a few times, too, just for good measure.

    Edited to add: No kidding, I just got a hit from Technorati on a “Ron Paul” search.

  • El Pollo Rico esta cerrado; Illegal Immigrants deported

    I saw this story initially on Telemundo’s local news last night and to hear it told on the Spanish language channel, you’d have thought that Federal agents were persecuting hispanic-Americans. I didn’t hear anything about the money laundering until I searched the web. This from the Washington Post;

    Four members of a family that owns popular chicken restaurants in the Washington area were arrested by federal agents yesterday for knowingly employing illegal immigrants and laundering the money earned from that business, according to immigration officials.

    Francisco Carlos Solano, 55, and his his wife, Inos Solano, 59, of Germantown; Consuelo Solano, 69, of Arlington County; and Juan Faustino Solano, 57, of Kensington were charged with employing and harboring illegal immigrants, money laundering and structuring deposits to avoid financial reporting requirements, according to a criminal complaint unsealed yesterday. Nine employees of their El Pollo Rico restaurant in Wheaton were taken into custody and will be placed in deportation proceedings, authorities said.

    The Solanos were all legal immigrants from Peru and Columbia – but they were dealing with illegal immigrants. Now, to hear Telemundo’s news readers tell it, Federal agents were harrassing Hispanic businesses, but as it turns out, Federal agents were arresting criminals. Even if you disregard the fact that they were harboring illegals, there was still over $7 million dollars being laundered – and that could’ve been used in the drug trade or terrorist activities – or human trafficking. From the Post again;

    Federal agents say the Solanos deposited more than $6.6 million into a business account between June 2002 and September 2006 in increments of $7,000 to $9,000, which authorities say was done to avoid filing currency transaction reports that must be submitted with deposits that exceed $10,000.

    Now that’s supicious. From the local NBC4 news;

    On Friday, agents said they seized more than $3 million in cash and jewelry from residences of the defendants, and several vehicles.

    Investigators said the money was hidden but could easily be accessed at the residences in Germantown and Wheaton.

    “In one residence we found over $2 million concealed in various places, including kitchen cabinets. In the other residence we found about $1.5 million in various safes,” said James Dinkins, of Immigration Customs and Enforcement.

    Officials said their investigation began about a year ago because of suspicious banking activity such as a quick succession of high-volume deposits and withdrawals. Officials said the underlying immigration violations were revealed over the course of the investigation.

    Nine immigrant workers, employees of El Pollo Rico and residents of Guatemala, were arrested and charged with immigration violations in connection to the case. Officials said they face possible deportation.

    I’ll tell you why this story interests me; it’s about a quarter-mile from my home (I prefer to live among Latins and Asians than among the goofy yuppies and hippies in Chevy Chase and Bethesda). The smoke from the roasting chicken filled the air of the hill on which Wheaton sits and is a beacon to the passing hungry people. Apparently, I’ve been complicit since I’ve been a frequent customer of El Pollo Rico – y es la verdad que el pollo esta bien sabroso y rico. Pero…I mean…but that’s definitely criminal behavior.

    This morning I went to my local barbershop, where the haircutters are Latin and Chinese immigrants (legal, I’m sure) was empty. Usually the whole neighborhood is bustling with Latin customers, but not today. The Washington Post noticed, too;

    “There’s much hubbub right now because of what happened,” Juan Lopez, 27, of Wheaton said in Spanish. “There are many people who don’t want to return to work, because they think immigration will come back.”

    Lopez, who said he entered the country legally, said he quit his job at a nearby business because he feared immigration officers.

    Seems to me that a legal immigrant would have nothing to fear. And I wonder if Juan Lopez was his real name.

    What really pissed me off about the whole thing (besides the fact that I’ve been duped by El Pollo Rico into funding whatever illegal activity they’ve been involved in) is the Montogomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger on Telemundo last night explaining that Montgomery County cops were not involved in the raid and that the Hispanic community has nothing to fear from the Mont. Co. Police because they have no intention of enforcing the law in Montgomery County. There’s nothing on the Mont. Co. Police website of the television conference. I guess the statement was in reaction to things like this quoted from the Post story;

    [Luis] Lora also worried that the arrest would negatively impact the image of the Hispanic community. “They make the community look bad,” Lora said. “If he’s a minority, people will say every minority does the same thing.”

    And the arrests and the ensuing rumors caused a near riot at the small strip mall;

    Shortly after the raid, rumors of immigration arrests spread throughout the community, which is heavily populated by Latinos, causing several witnesses to become angry, News4’s Jackie Bensen said.

    According to Bensen, that anger appeared to boil over when a crowd in the shopping center where Pollo Rico is located witnessed a tow truck towing an SUV that belonged to a restaurant employee.

    The tow truck was taking the vehicle away because it violated the parking time limit, Bensen said. The move caused an angry exchange between witnesses and the tow truck driver.

    Friends of the SUV owner teamed up to pull the vehicle off of the tow truck, Bensen said. The owner then left the scene in the vehicle.

    That’s stupid. If the Latin community quit facilitating illegal immigration by equating it with legal immigration, and calling 4th and 5th generation Americans illegal immigrants, maybe they’d be taken a little more seriously. Legal immigrants helping illegal immigrants enter this country and setting up shop doesn’t help, either.

    I’ve always admitted that I admire the work ethic many Latin immigrants bring to this country – and in Metro DC, the truth is that illegals do the jobs that the lazy-ass Americans who populate this welfare kingdom won’t do for any price. That may sound cliche` to many of you, but you have to live here to see it for yourself.

    However, I support the federal government enforcing the law and shipping every illegal they catch back to their own countries – I also hope that those who are deported and who want to come here and work hard come back legally.

  • No matter what happens, we’re screwed

    I’m sure ya’all feel like I do – that no matter what Republicans do, the media and the Left are going to complain about it. Just like the other day when Mr. Chertoff said he had a gut feeling the we are going to be attacked by al Qaeda this summer. I’ve had that feeling just about everyday since about 1992.

    When the Bush Adminstration announces a foiled terrorist plot, the Left and the media pooh-pooh the attempt and accuse the Administration of creating an atmosphere of fear. But when Chertoff says he “feels” like there’s another imminent attempt, everyone wants details.

    The Congressional Democrats claim they want the war to end, but anyone with at least half-a-brain knows the only this war will end is if we remove Iran from the equation. But because the Iraq Study Group said we need to engage those goat-ropers in diplomacy, the Democrats wave the ISG report like a bloody shirt everytime someone discusses the only rational way to deal with Iran – a military solution.

    In today’s Washington Post, Peter Baker describes the impasse between the president and the Congressional Democrats;

    A weakened president is desperately playing for time while a Democratic opposition mounts its case against him and Republican lawmakers agonize over how long to stick with him. Bush will keep pressing his strategy in Iraq in hopes that it produces more than the meager results his White House reported yesterday while his foes keep scoring political points and not much else.

    “The town is gridlocked,” said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who served as chief of staff in the Reagan White House. “There is no give at the White House or on the Hill. The Senate doesn’t have 60 votes to do anything. So, at least for the foreseeable future, which may be September, the only result is stalemate. That may benefit the president, and if you listen to the Democrats, they think it benefits them.”

    Both sides have stuck to their familiar positions. Bush has long seen a virtue in refusing to relent to pressure and operating as he sees fit regardless of Congress, while the Democrats, until January, had spent the Bush presidency essentially in the minority, lobbing criticism but with no responsibility for governing. Neither side shows even passing interest in forging a bipartisan consensus, preferring instead to bend the other to its will.

    No one wants to confront Iran – the major opposition player in the world. All for political and not strategic reasons. A rational person would admit that removing the current leadership in Iran is the only way to calm the situation in the Middle East – but no one wants to pay the political price for doing the right thing – the correct thing.

    The press continues to label the strategy in Iraq a failure, without mentioning that Iraq has met nearly half of the arbitrary benchmarks Congress set to determine success there. Ignoring that Congress agreed to wait until September, Nancy Pelosi pretends that agreement never happened;

    “The president stubbornly refuses to develop a redeployment plan or devise a redeployment schedule, preferring to hope, despite the abundance of evidence to the contrary, that his failed policies will somehow make tomorrow better than today,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

    Ya hafta start asking yourself why the Democrats don’t want a victory in the Middle East, someone must begin asking the Democrats why they’re in such a rush to concede defeat. If I were a real journalist, and I really wanted to inform the public about what’s really going on in Washington over Iraq, those are the questions I’d ask Democrats in Congress – but those are exactly the questions everyone in the mainstream media avoid asking.

    Instead they count how many times the President and the Administration use “precipice” and it’s variations in talking about Iraq. Is this grade school? Is this some kind of playground game of “gotcha”? Or are there real lives and the future of our nation hanging in the balance?

  • Irony overload

    Just doing my daily blog reading and from two of my favorites too much irony for one person to stand – so I pass off some of it to ya’all. First from Atlas Shrugs, the all-by-itself-laughable story of the UN’s new Global Compact initiative to teach private business to be more responsible;

    Its goal is promoting more virtuous behavior on the part of private business, and just last week it hosted what its own brochure described as an “historic” two-day corporate jamboree at the UN’s palatial offices in Geneva.

    And then, as if by magic, I turned to Bloodthirsty Liberal to read;

    A new audit has found that renovating the iconic U.N. headquarters building is already $148 million over budget, long before the dirt has been shoveled.

    Delays and design changes to the nearly $2 billion project have created the initial cost overrun, according to a report from the U.N. Board of Auditors, which further finds that the United Nations has yet to undertake important pre-construction surveys.

    So, the most innefficient, nonproductive, irresponsible and corrupt entity in the world wants to teach us all how to be successful and responsible.

  • More Haditha good news

    Sorry that I’m so far behind that I missed the greatest news today. According to Chickenhawk Express, the prosecutor has recommended that charges against LCpl Sharrat be dropped in the Horrible Haditha investigation;

    The Chickenhawk is doing the happy dance today – this is just great news and should be trumpeted from the rooftops…

    An investigating officer has recommended dismissing murder charges against a Marine accused in the slayings of three Iraqi men in a squad action that killed 24 civilians in Haditha, according to a report released Tuesday. The government’s theory that Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt had executed the three men was “incredible” and relied on contradictory statements by Iraqis, Lt. Col. Paul Ware said in the report, released by Sharratt’s defense attorneys.

    She has much more read it all – in fact, Chickenhawk Express is my daily destination for Haditha news. Of course when I started reading the Chickenhawk Express post, the first thing I thought was to call John Murtha’s office for about 900th time this month to find out when he’ll be issuing his apology. But California Conservative had already done it;

    I asked the woman that answered the phone “if Congressman Murtha had a statement following a news story regarding Lt. Col. Paul Ware’s report stating that “The government’s theory that Lance Cpl. Justin L. Sharratt had executed the three men was “incredible” and relied on contradictory statements by Iraqis.”

    Instead of answering that question, she asked “So the trial is over?” I told her that it wasn’t, that the recommendation was nonbinding. Then she asked “So it isn’t over?” I confirmed that it wasn’t. I asked if Congressman Murtha would “like to make a statement considering his accusations made over a year ago on ‘This Week With George Stephanopoulos’”? Here’s her response: “Congressman Murtha doesn’t have a statement because the investigation is still ongoing.”

    Pretty much the same answer I’ve been getting. But, of course, Murtha is just using this for cover. His original statement, and most of the statements before and since, have been to  endear himself to the anti-war crowd in Congress and to get himself some cover because of his morally questionable extra-governmental dealings for which he’s famous – things I’ve catalogued here. He knows that Democrats don’t throw their more criminal members to the wolves when they toe the party line. Remember how quickly James Trafficant went down because of his repeated criticism of his Democrat Party members? So does Murtha know that the reverse is just as true.