Aww

Kicking a guy when he's down - or is it up, given his new home?

Comments

[Islamollama]

Wow. Investigative reporting by a website called "The Voice In My Head". Mega-lulz.

[Miklo]

Look I don't begrudge Rev. Wright for wanting the good life... Who among us would turn down a luxury retirement complete with a $1.6 m house in the 'burbs?

But shucks! When you consider the platform he employed to acquire those things. Using the pulpit to preach division and bitterness instead of unity and forgiveness... THAT'S what's troubling, not the fact that he desires to live comfortably.

[templar knight]

Dan, this is off-topic, but Mookie has basically surrendered in his fight with the Iraqi government. Sadr has called on his Mahdi Army forces to lay down their arms, turn in their heavy weapons, and to conduct no more operations.

So much for the Mahdi Army. They have had their asses kicked, and have taken tremendous losses, somewhere in the neighborhood of 5%. They will wait for the US to leave before trying anything again, although the Iraqi Army stood up pretty damn good to Mookie's Hezbollah and Iranian trained fighters.

[seekeronos]

"--- They will wait for the US to leave before trying anything again, although the Iraqi Army stood up pretty damn good to Mookie's Hezbollah and Iranian trained fighters. ---"

This is worth mentioning and repeating many, many times... especially to our addled-brained liberals who keep preaching that the US has been utterly defeated.

[Fred Beloit]

I'm afraid the libs are too invested in defeat to ever admit a victory. Instead, they will toll the knell of It Cost Too Much. In the meantime they favor all government give-away programs no matter how much they cost. It seems we are wasting our time with them.

[Fred Beloit]

Here is, perhaps, another Dem pol caught playing the two-backed beast with the truth. None other than Obama.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0308/9269.html

[Fred Beloit]

What kind of person would write this?
"I loath these people. I will vote for McCain or no one if Obama gets the nomination. Not because every one of these assumptions is wrong about me. I have a BFA, come from a middle class background, am obsessed with politics, and am a bad boy but not a "bad bad" boy. (A cheese "stake" would be a bizarre and pointless item so I have no use for it, but I do like a cheese steak every now and again).
I will vote for McCain or not at all because of the dripping, oozing condescension that Obamites have for those without college degrees. Because of the high end, fraudulent contempt Obamites have for the working class. Because I do not want to sit through another 4 years of an administration populated by those who think "cheese steak" consumers are less than equal partners in a democracy. I don't give a flying crap where the prigs land on the Left/Right scale."

How did you guess, a liberal. http://www.liberalrapture.com/2008/03/poisonous-campaign-of-barack-obama.html

[Fred Beloit]

The above deserves an H/T to Pajamas Media.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- I'm afraid the libs are too invested in defeat to ever admit a victory. Instead, they will toll the knell of It Cost Too Much. --"

Says the fiscal conservative.
Where was this patriotism and commitment to winning at all costs in Bosnia and Kosovo, when we weren't air-dumping billions of dollars onto foreign contractors? You've got a war that's bleeding money and seeing absolutely no results. Perhaps if this was a competent administration, you'd have a point. We could probably truck it out for another decade, like we did in Vietnam, before finally packing it up and admitting these invasions never work.

But between the mercenary lawlessness, the massive degree of graft and corruption, and some of the grossest human rights violations you're likely to find in the modern world:
http://news.findlaw.com/andrews/em/emp/20070525/20070525_jones.html
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2005/08/08/897/41264
the GOP burned itself too hard and too fast on this one. The Iraq War will end in defeat after being run for 5 years under absolute incompetence. Don't come crying to the opposition party because your boys couldn't run a government.

[seekeronos]

Moe, Fred:

"--- But between the mercenary lawlessness, the massive degree of graft and corruption, and some of the grossest human rights violations you're likely to find in the modern world: ---"

It happens regardless of whether or not the POTUS has a (R) or a (D) after his name.

Or no matter which party controls Congress.

What we really need is smaller government, less involvement with the internal affairs of foreign powers unless they present an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that they are a threat to us (and even then, using prudence as to whether or not to use the Big Stick against them or "aggressive diplomacy") while deferring power of war to its constitutionally correct owner, the Congress.

Mercenaries and black-ops contractors have their place, if we follow the model of the Constitution and have those contractors ask Congress for "letters of marque and reprisal" in order to terminate or extract certain fiendish enemies of our great Republic.

In this way, the United States can limit their liability _and_ costs to the actions conducted under such letters.

[seekeronos]

The other side of this too, is that in this sick, wretched, sinful world filled with selfish sinners who can barely think beyond a 20-foot radius of themselves...

...any government made by man will have a certain amount of graft and corruption in it.

Even a little bit of yeast leavens the whole loaf; and once the bread is baked, it is only a matter of time before it becomes moldy (unless it is eaten).

[IslamoLlama]

"-- It happens regardless of whether or not the POTUS has a (R) or a (D) after his name.

Or no matter which party controls Congress. --"

Yes, yes. "Democrats are worse". We've heard that a thousand times before, Seek. But simple math puts the lie to your statement. GOP Presidents get us into more wars that cost us more money. Their scandals are bigger. Their budgets are more unbalanced. Their bureaucracies are less competent and more corrupt.

I'm not saying that Dems are saints. But the GOP - as a political machine - has historically done a far worse job in office. Nixon's Watergate, Reagen's Iran-Contra, and Bush 43's host of sins are the bloody footsteps of a party out to murder Constitutional Law for generations.

And the way the GOP handles its corruption is equally horrendous. Spitzer had the dignity to resign. Vitter is still penning legislation! DeLay tried to rewrite the runs on indited Majority Leaders. Williams was a party-wide embarrassment, but at least the Dems shoved him down a rabbit hole. How does that compare to Mark Foley - head Pedophile and chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. I mean, good god. It's the shamelessness, the sheer disregard for "little people laws" that leaves such a bad taste in your mouth.

We will always be a government made by man, no matter how tightly we cling to our Bibles. The best we can hope to accomplish is electing the right people to higher office. At some point in time, the GOP became a virtual magnet for the wrong people. Until the clean themselves up, I don't see how anyone can give them a vote in clean conscience.

[seekeronos]

"--- We will always be a government made by man, no matter how tightly we cling to our Bibles. ---"

I'll dispute that right off and say that only *for the present age* shall we be limited to man-made government. And even then, that authority to govern derives from Divine Consent.

When Jesus returns, He will *be* the government, and He will rule all the nations with an iron rod from His capital in (New) Jerusalem.

Aside from that, my point is that the corruption exists. And I'm willing to believe that there is all kinds of constitution-eroding stuff the Clintonistas and FDR was responsible for that they simply did better jobs of covering up.

I don't recall Randy Weaver's 14-year old boy and his (Randy's) innocent wife that were savagely killed by "Laughing Lon" Horiuchi Ruby Ridge or the seventeen little children who got gassed by BATF and FBI agents at Waco happening on a Republican POTUS's watch.

And I for one, hope that the GOP can learn from its idiocy of trying to prop up perverts and sickos in its ranks; it will likely take a severe trouncing at the polls and several decades to reclaim its place, or if not, then the rise of a dedicate third party that will draw the from ranks of people finally agitated enough to vote from their conscience more than just simply accepting the status-quo shammery of the Elephant and the Donkey.

Perhaps the Donks will take quite a drubbing and we'll see a few independent or Green candidates as well.

I may be dreaming a naive dream, but I would not mind seeing the Libertarians and the Constitution Party gain some prominence.

[templar knight]

"..some of the grossest human rights violations you're likely to find in the modern world."

I looked at those two links, Moe, and you struck out. Missed the ball. Whiffed. Choked. These are two of the worst human rights violations in the modern world? A world that has had hundreds of suicide bombings in places like Thailand, Indonesia, Russia, China, and need I go on? Genocide in Darfur and Somalia, hundreds of thousands summarily raped, chopped up, murdered, shot and otherwise physically abused, and these are your two worst.

I can give you way worse examples right here in the US on the Mexican border, but you already know these things, and you're playing a little game.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- I'll dispute that right off and say that only *for the present age* shall we be limited to man-made government. And even then, that authority to govern derives from Divine Consent. --"

Dude, I know this may come as a shock to you, but none of our Presidents were elected via Divine Consent. The Popes aren't picked by angels on high. Neither the Queen of England nor the Chairman of China rule by Mandate of Heaven. All that free will we got issued on our way out the door from Edan gave us the power - be it a blessing or a curse - to select our own leaders as we so chose.

And while you can bottle yourself up like David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite, waiting for the mystical otherworldly forces to sweep you off to paradise, the rest of us simple souls will go on selecting our leaders from among the earthly masses.

"-- I can give you way worse examples right here in the US on the Mexican border, but you already know these things, and you're playing a little game. --"

Ah, TK. Lowering the bar for everyone involved. Because if the US Government is freely sponsoring the rape, enslavement, and murder of its own citizenry and foreign nationals alike, we haven't crossed the .5 Hitler threshold so its no big deal. You totally forgot to mention that Saddam was so incredibly way worse, and that if we hadn't sent our own contractors and mercenaries in to molest college grads or fornicate with pre-teen human chattle, his Bath Party would have done it first.

Better us them him, eh?

After thinking about it, I can see the ideal job for you. I'm thinking Emergency Medical Worker. I can just picture you, sitting around the ER with a clipboard in hand watching people rolled in on stretchers. "Car accident? I've seen worse." "Gunshot wound? He's not even going to lose a limb." "Drowning victim? Way to die like a pussy."

The only question is whether you consider rape, murder, and sex trafficking worse on the US-Mexico border because KBR employees are more gentle with their victims or because Mexicans are way more violent than white people. So, what flavor of wild-eyed, red neck racist are you, exactly?

[seekeronos]

"--- Dude, I know this may come as a shock to you, but none of our Presidents were elected via Divine Consent. ---"

No, but what you fail to realize is that God is firmly in control, and it is ultimately He who allows to come to power the leaders of nations:

"But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another." (Psalm 75:7, KJV)

And yes, that even includes the occasional Democrat like Bill Clinton or Obama or despot like HItler or Mao.

Does this necessarily mean that God likes these evil men to come to power?

The mind of God is much more higher than our thinking is; He does allow tyrants and evil men to reign for short seasons (arguably Nebuchadnezzar wasn't a very nice chap when he brought Zedekiah King of Judah to Riblah, and slaughtered his household in front of his eyes and then blinded those selfsame eyes before taking him away in chains to Babylon).

Therefore, God has alloted a certain measure of sovereignty toward the individual, but where masses of individuals come together and compact together to form governments, God grants another measure of sovereignty toward that compacted (corporate) body, and to its government... be it by king, prince, oligarchy, senate, emperor, or the federalist representative republican manner of "democracy" we practice.

Wherein the citizens making up that sovereign state turn from God and select for themselves wretched philanderers or thieving weasels or petty tyrants, they do so from their own foolishness and from their love of corruption.

In short, God allows us to suffer from the foolishness of our choices.

The same goes for our personal sins and our sin as a nation.

Other less perfect systems of government (arguably far less free than ours) are still permitted by God, until such time as their sin becomes so odious that its stench and the outcry of its victims reaches to Heaven, and the blood spilled therefrom demand Divine Justice.

Therefore, declare I unto you, O Moe, that God s still in control of His creation, and as the Most High God and Sovereign Lord of His creation, He exalteth whomever He pleases, and deposes whomever He despises.

Even if it involves the agency of mere mortals and bad written election software.

[Darth Malice]

McCain is very imperfect.This however is not the hour for the weak.Templar,Fred,and Dan we must defeat Obama and the Beast for victory over Islamic Terror and the SCOTUS.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- Therefore, declare I unto you, O Moe, that God s still in control of His creation, and as the Most High God and Sovereign Lord of His creation, He exalteth whomever He pleases, and deposes whomever He despises.

Even if it involves the agency of mere mortals and bad written election software. --"

So, after pissing all over the doctrine of free will, you're suggesting that Diebold election fraud is the will of The Most High Supreme Being? You are balancing on the fine wire that divides crazy and stupid. I applaud your acrobatic skill.

[Fred Beloit]

A war crime? 8000 dead per year.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/s_559720.html

[Fred Beloit]

The above shows the abject failure of certain Liberal social policies and possibly the anti-preaching in some African-American churches.

[IslamoLlama]

Horray for zero correlation and zero causation, Fred. Today its black preachers, yesterday it was rap music and baggy pants, tomorrow it'll be too many violent video games.

But if you look at the numbers - from 1976 to 2005 - you'll notice that the black-on-black rate of violence has declined as a percentage of total violence.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/ovracetab.htm

The number of black-on-black murders per year has declined by 2400. In fact, the number of black on black crimes in '05 is LESS than the number of white on white crimes. Meanwhile, the white-on-black crime count has risen from 290 in '76 to 337 in '05. If the trend lines are pointing anywhere, they seem to indicate that black people could be seeing an encroachment by whites as interracial tensions are rising. Are they rising because of people like Reverend Wright, exposing the serious inequities in the system of government, or are they rising because those inequities in government that Wright noticed are driving white people to a sense of entitlement that allows them to exercise violence on their black neighbors and acquaintances?

Now, all those stats above could point to a number of things. We're not even looking at the other crime rates - theft, rape, vandalism, traffic violations, white collar crime - that would indicate whether "certain Liberal social policies" are working or not. We haven't even begun to correlate between crime rates in "liberal areas" and "non-liberal areas" or adjusted for population growth or looked at other casual factors like unemployment, police presence, or development. After all, crime could have spiked in Boston while it fell sharply in New York. It could have Risen drastically along the Gulf Coast or plummeted in the Mid-west. If all the murders are happening in Alaska and Texas, I think your claims that "certain liberal social policies" are to blame make you look like the ignorant buffoon you merely play at with amature number crunching.

Irregardless of all that, you've done an excellent job of vilifying religion in general and black people in particular. I'm not sure if this once again proves what a giant racist you are, but it certain demonstrates how little respect you have for people of faith in general.

The one thing that comforts me about Obama running for President is that black people will remain firmly within the Democratic Party for generations to come with this kind of ignorant and inherently offensive critique of their religious practices.

[IslamoLlama]

Oh, and it's a little over 5500 dead as of last year. Your article can't even master the fine art of basic math. If the first sentence of an article can be proven factually untrue inside a ten second Google search, I think we can write off the entire remainder of the piece as uneducated bullshit.

[Fred Beloit]

"Horray for zero correlation and zero causation, Fred. Today its black preachers, yesterday it was rap music and baggy pants, tomorrow it'll be too many violent video games."

You're cute when you're mad, Moe. You are saying that when the murder rate in question was higher, it was higher because of rap music and baggy pants? What a jokester you are.

But this is interesting, the numbers during the Bush administration are significantly lower than during the Clinon administration. Just a coincidence I suppose. But I bet if it were the other way round you and Harpo would be in full BDS mode, blaming Bush for the increase. Of such are many of your arguments made.

White Black Other White Black
on White on Whiteon White on Black on Black
1992 6,241 1,272 40 410 6,903
1993 6,466 1,393 46 432 7,268 1994 6,208 1,306 56 469 6,960
1995 6,069 1,109 50 455 6,039
1996 5,604 1,077 49 418 5,550
1997 5,056 974 34 343 5,118
1998 5,210 841 36 363 4,666
1999 4,671 820 45 284 4,217
2000 4,643 834 34 302 4,298
2002 4,795 847 45 337 4,363
2003 4,645 896 35 360 4,367
2004 4,761 880 36 358 4,201
2005 4,755 934 31 337 4,497

But I of course deeply resent this; "Irregardless of all that, you've done an excellent job of vilifying religion in general and black people in particular. I'm not sure if this once again proves what a giant racist you are, but it certain demonstrates how little respect you have for people of faith in general."

First, I neither did nor said anything racist. I simply linked to an article mostly composed of facts and theories much better grounded than any of those in Rev Racist Wright's sermons that have been presented to us so far. That you would accuse me of racism, an ad hominem attack, shows that you are simply a thugish feminist lout. Ad hominem is no refutation of facts. Also, you seem to be missing the point entirely. You and your leaders, like Harpo, expend millions of calories and hundreds of thousands of word complaining of 4000 fallen on our side of the wars. No words from you on these much starker numbers of civilian American deaths by violence per year after trillions of dollars spent in the 40+ years of the War on Poverty. Lastly, "Irregardless", as I have told you before, is not the appropriate word. "Regardless" is. Will you never learn anything, my sweet darling?

[Fred Beloit]

Oh dear, this often happens when trying to fit copied data. The headings of the columns shouls be: Year--White on White--Black on White--Other on White--White on Black--Black on Black

[seekeronos]

"--- So, after pissing all over the doctrine of free will, you're suggesting that Diebold election fraud is the will of The Most High Supreme Being? You are balancing on the fine wire that divides crazy and stupid. I applaud your acrobatic skill. ---"

Ye still don't get it, Moe. I shall try again, in hopes that you may yet comprehend it:

Free Will exists, but even the range of free will which we have to operate with... is constrained by the Will of God.

That is, God grants us our rights. Not other men. This is the cornerstone upon which Liberty stands upon, and is so enshrined in the Constitution.

Yet, this free will is constrained by laws, by circumstances, by events, and more:

I have the free will to punch you on the nose; but by law, I am constrained from doing so, as I would most likely suffer civil and criminal penalty (not to mention the likelihood of getting punched in return).

I have the free will to go boating in the Caribbean in September, but may be constrained by prudence on account of the hurricane season from doing so.

I have the free will to buy a second home, but may be constrained by a bad economy and a credit crunch.

I have free will to vote for whom I choose, but may have my vote drowned out by a multitude of differently-opinioned voters. Or by the Diebold-zilla.

I have free will to raise my children in a Christian environment, but will face assaults from schools and their breathless worship of "science so called" (1 Timothy 6:20) or from their peers through social pressure.

My children (and I, and everyone else on the planet) have free will to choose to follow the True God and Saviour of Mankind, the Lord Jesus Christ... or to remain in our sins and follow our own wicked hearts. The constraints in this case our own fleshly bodies which are mired in sin and corruption, as well as the world and its master, the Devil.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By these many constraints -- we are limited as individual sovereigns to affect our will too much further than ourselves and our families; upon corporate sovereigns (states and actual corporations) our free will tends to be drowned out somewhat (or perhaps completely) by corporate and national will (where both just and unjust laws constrain us - and sometimes, painfully so).

And above all of this, sits God as the King Everlasting and Most Holy Sovereign, the Author (and Authority) of all Creation, from Whom all lesser sovereignty and free will issues forth.

And does God allow evil as a result of Free Will?

He most certainly does:

"-----
45:5 I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:

45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.

45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
-----"
(Isaiah 45:5-7, KJV)

And:

"----- The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil. -----" (Proverbs 16:4, KJV)

This may seem contradictory, but it really isn't. Because of Adam's sin (of which we are all partakers) we are by nature and from birth, evil creatures.

It was Adam's free will to either obey God's one simple commandment not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (even after being allowed to eat from any other tree in the garden of Eden, including the Tree of Life); by gaining the knowledge of evil, he lost his innocence, and became a sinner in disobeying God.

Thus was evil -- along with the corruption of perfection by sin -- introduced to mankind.

Evil comes very naturally and very easily to us. We learn to tell lies and to deceive and to get away with things from a very young age.

Some folks are quite attached to their evil way of life, and may become particularly embittered against God. It is of these people whom the above verses speak: God's will is sovereign over all other will, and if these folks choose to oppose God's will, He will still use them for His purposes -- to punish other people, and to even discipline/chasten believers who fall into disobedience.

And then those "useful but evil people" will in turn be destroyed by God in eternal firey Hell, if they are unrepentant: continuing to do evil, and continuing to reject His redeeming grace.

And this applies to men and women as nations too:

"-----
6 O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel.

7 At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;

8 If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.

9 And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;

10 If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.

11 Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.
-----"
(Jeremiah 18:6-11, KJV)

Therefore, know that God's purpose and use for evil is to bring men and women to repentance.

Know furthermore, that free will does not insulate us from circumstances beyond our control, nor does it insulate us from the active will of God as He judges both men and women, and also entire nations.

Know at last, the mystery of Free Will:

That, God knows who is Elect (predestined unto salvation) and who is Reprobate (predestined unto damnation) *we* do not know, being limited creations and made feeble-minded and weak through corruption by sin. Therefore, we all have free will, to the degree that our hearts are not hardened against God and His word.

Wherefore we preach and admonish sinners to come to repentance through the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that if we choose to come to Him and receive of His everlasting mercies, we shall know that we are forgiven our sins, (1 John 1:9) and be transformed into the likeness of Christ by His unfailing, unchanging, and Most Holy Word. (Romans 12:1-2)

[IslamoLlama]

"-- The above shows the abject failure of certain Liberal social policies and possibly the anti-preaching in some African-American churches. --"

"-- But this is interesting, the numbers during the Bush administration are significantly lower than during the Clinon administration. Just a coincidence I suppose. --"

So now its Clinton's fault? Make up your mind, Fred. Is it the black preachers or the Democrat Presidential Candidates. I guess pointing out that Congress was Republican from '94 to '06 is rather pointless. Its also worth noting that Tupac Shakur died in '96 and after that violence plummeted. Coincidence? But Billy Clinton won his second term that year too?! And American Idol premiered in 2002, when White-on-Other violence peaked! What does it all mean?

It means you're doing a great deal of wild postulation with zero evidence to back it up. The conservative art of scapegoating lives on. Random statistics are recklessly tied to whatever demon-of-the-month the GOoPers want to hate on. Gays are causing divorce. Affirmative Action causes gang violence. Black preachers and liberal economic policies kill thousands of black people every year. Why? Because... uh... numbers!

And you still can't even handle the basic math. Sorry, but 4497 + 337 + 4 does not equal "approximately 8000". You're wrong when you tried to quote straight from the source and you expect people to believe outlandish postulations when you've got no evidence to back it up.

Bad Math, Fred. That's what makes you giant racist. You've got all the time in the world to blame black people, but you can't spend a minute to whip out a calculator and get basic addition right. Blame the church, but fail at number. You are ignorant. I've got proof. Its no surprise you'll attack the color of a man's skin as the root of his problems.

[Fred Beloit]

Moe, in your vixonish fury, you don't even bother to read half way through the material I linked to, of which this is the first sentence?

"The Department of Justice reports that approximately 8,000 blacks were murdered in the United States in 2005. In one year, that's exactly double the total number of American military deaths during the entire five years of the war in Iraq; in one year, that's 10 times the average number of American military deaths per year since the start of the war."

Don't blame me in your emotional snit. Blame the authors, if you wish to blame game it. Their number could be just as good as or better than any of yours for all I know.

And if you believe bad math makes people racists you are very simply a nut, my poor delusional darling.

[templar knight]

Fred, I think we need to have a statistics guy come in here and extrapolate those raw figures, since the government is not likely to do so. The percentages of black/white in the overall population must be taken into account, and you can't just go by raw figures. But I think it's pretty obvious from the raw figures that your point is well taken.

And Jeremiah White is a black racist, no matter what lapdogs like Moe say. Moe and his buds have been kissing ass for years, don't expect them to change now. Of course, what is really funny about the whole thing is that now old Jeremiah wants to make like the white racists and live in a white enclave away from the black brothers. How touching. And hypocritical. And typical.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- Don't blame me in your emotional snit. Blame the authors, if you wish to blame game it. Their number could be just as good as or better than any of yours for all I know. --"

Check my link. Department of Justice. That's the report he's pulling from. And he can't add. He's about 3000 homicides off the mark. He's wrong. You are wrong. And the reason you decided to jump to these patently wrong conclusions is your extreme internal distaste for black people. You hate blacks. It's obvious. You try to hide behind numbers to make it less obvious. But then you fail to take even the cursory glance necessary to get your math right. Because you're too busy hating black people.

You're a racist.

[templar knight]

Yeah, Fred, you racist bastard, you ought to be hung. But black racists should be rewarded with $1.6 million homes. Now that's Obama's America.

[Fred Beloit]

Temp, responding to someone with severe emotioal problems usually isn't very fruitful. That said I can't let this idiotic charge go unanswered. Moe, my African-American friends would be very surprised to hear that I'm a racist. In fact they would not believe it.

seek, is this Moe the person whom you recently defended, or has the moniker been taken over by a real screwball?

[Capitalist Infidel]

Can one of the far left wing fanatical nut jobs here tell me why Reverend Wright chooses to live in the epitome of the United States of kkk?

[Fred Beloit]

I can tell you, Cap. Chicago is the capitol city of the Liberals. The new Liberal paradise. Ever since New Orleans went down due to inclement weather, Chicago has been IT. (1)Strict gun laws, resulting in high rates of shootings. (2)Liberals run the city government and the entire corruption machinery in the upper part of Illinois (silent s). (3)Obama worked there on...well he...on the tough streets he was...gee I don't know what the hell he thought he was doing there, but one certainly doesn't see any CHANGE for the better:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/01/AR2008040102300_pf.html

[Fred Beloit]

"Bond said. "There are just too many guns out there."

See, there are too many guns out there. These guns, how can there be so many out there? They have strict gun laws and no home-is-your-castle protection for the lawful folks. But the real mystery is how these guns learn to shoot themselves. Guns are inanimate objects for God's sake.

Two possible solutions: One, give those guns access to free birth control, so they won't continue to reproduce. Two, pass more gun laws that take the right of self-defense away from the lawful citizenry and that the criminals will continue to completely ignore. Hey, you have to go with whatever Liberal method works.

[Fred Beloit]

Chicago is the City of Punks, a melting pot of punks: Irish punks, African-American punks, Polish punks, Mexican punks, Puerto Rican punks, North-, West-, and South-Side punks. There is even a literature of punks:

http://www.amazon.com/Studs-Lonigan-Prairie-State-Books/dp/0252062825.

I was a South-side punk myself, and I know what I'm talking about. Some get through punk culture, others are destroyed by it. Those being destroyed by it don't give a crap about strict gun laws.

[BobInStamford]

The victories just keep on coming. God has truly BLESSED America by commanding the lightly armed brown people to stop shooting at the liberators (for now)!!!

I wonder if God is planning to help with the $4 gas thing though? Them there F 150's don't run on patriotism!!

No matter. Victory is yours, heroes!!!!

[Fred Beloit]

Boob, what will your one-liners be about if the Dems win in November and stage an immediate surrender in Iraq? What subject will merit your penetrating, albeit rather monotonous, analyses then? The Boob, increasingly irrelevant, surpassingly lame?

[seekeronos]

"--- seek, is this Moe the person whom you recently defended, or has the moniker been taken over by a real screwball? ---"

I retract my earlier statement on Moe's behalf because he is being a knucklehead.

A math error does not a racist make.

Moe:

Let us compare two notions...

"Some junior high n*gger kicked Steve's *ss while he was trying to help his brothers out; junior high or sophomore in high school. Whatever it was, Steve had the n*gger down. However it was, it was Steve's fault. He had the n*gger down, he let him up. The n*gger blindsided him." (Roger "the human [cocaine] vacuum" Clinton, the President's brother on audiotape)

... and:

"I am a former kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County and the adjoining counties of the state .... The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia .... It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state of the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan in the Realm of W. Va .... I hope that you will find it convenient to answer my letter in regards to future possibilities." (Former Klansman and current US Senator Robert Byrd, ca. 1946)

... and:

"I'll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." (Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One according Ronald Kessler's Book, "Inside The White House")

... and:

"I think one man is just as good as another so long as he's not a n*gger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will says that the Lord made a White man from dust, a nigger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice, I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, Yellow men in Asia and White men in Europe and America." (Harry Truman, ca. 1911, in a letter to his future wife Bess)

... and:

"The Department of Justice reports that approximately 8,000 blacks were murdered in the United States in 2005. In one year, that's exactly double the total number of American military deaths during the entire five years of the war in Iraq; in one year, that's 10 times the average number of American military deaths per year since the start of the war." (Ralph Reiland, columnist, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)

One of these statements is _not_ a racist statement. Can you guess which one?

And BTW: the above statements were all spoken by registered, liberal Democrats.

Scratch a liberal, and chances are pretty good you'll find a racist, elitist prig each time.

[seekeronos]

"--- Boob, what will your one-liners be about if the Dems win in November and stage an immediate surrender in Iraq? What subject will merit your penetrating, albeit rather monotonous, analyses then? The Boob, increasingly irrelevant, surpassingly lame? ---"

I'm afraid that even if the Dems take both houses by massive, bulletproof majorities and sign on Obama as the POTUS, and all six right or center SCOTUS judges resign or go home to Jesus and we see six socialists appointed in their stead... _still_ the Boob would not be happy as he sips his lattes in traffic, contemplating why his BMW loan payments were re-adjusted for the new hyperinflationary rate of 122% passed by the Fed. Reserve... compounded by the hour.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- That said I can't let this idiotic charge go unanswered. Moe, my African-American friends would be very surprised to hear that I'm a racist. --"

Really? "I've got black friends" is your defense? Is one of them this guy?
http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/9846/stevenandalangc3.jpg

"-- Chicago is the City of Punks, a melting pot of punks: Irish punks, African-American punks, Polish punks, Mexican punks, Puerto Rican punks, North-, West-, and South-Side punks. --"

Yup. No racism here kids.

Seriously, though, Fred. Have you lived in any other city in the country? I've lived in Houston. I've lived in New York. I've lived in Austin. I spent three months in Tampa Bay. The notion that crime, corruption, or rampant liberalism is unique to your little corner of the world marks you as no less ignorant than when you started this thread. The notion that crime, corruption, and liberalism are inherently linked - while staunchly conservative areas of the country are mystically crime and corruption free - marks you as an even bigger dunce.

After 16 years in Texas, I can safely say that the Republican political machine down here has squandered the public trust in ways that would make a Chicago Pol blush. I could go on for hours about the toll roads alone, and how kickbacks and taxpayer gouging are the rule of the road down here. The list of State House Speaker Craddick's sins go on for miles - from openly gerrymandering districts to running up billion dollar deficits to violating basic parliamentary procedures while fighting to maintain his seat. The state is thick with real cronyism and corruption, not the Gringrich-esque smears occasionally lobbed at Obama.

Show me where Obama pushed to lower business taxes while raising property taxes - bilking the middle class to give hand-outs to the rich. Show me where Obama was indited for accepting illegal campaign contributions, like Tom DeLay or Kay Baily Hutchenson or a number of State Representatives. Show me how many District Attorneys Obama has bought off or tried to get fired. Name even one criminal charge leveled against the man at the local, state, or federal level. Cause we've got criminal investigations and humiliating resignations in spades down in the Lone Star State.

Then come back and tell me how horrible and corrupt it is up in Chicago. And how its all the fault of those evil liberals.

[seekeronos]

Islamotard pulls this:

"--- Check my link. Department of Justice. That's the report he's pulling from. And he can't add. He's about 3000 homicides off the mark. He's wrong. ---"

He transposed the wrong column. But his point remains: statistics show that black-on-black murder rate far outpaces the white-on-black murder rate, by a factor greater than 13x (in 2005).

The black-on-white murder rate is also far out of proportion to the population of blacks, with 937 B»W murders in 2005 compared to 337 W»B, nearly a difference by a factor of 2.8.

If 12-14% of the population is killing itself 13x as much as whites are trying to kill them, and if they are killing 2.8x as many whites as whites are killing them, that tends to indicate that there is endemic crime and social dysfunction in the African American population as a whole.

These are assertions of fact and observed behaviours, not defamatory or prejudicial assumptions of a race's inherent predisposition to crime.

[IslamoLlama]

"-- the new hyperinflationary rate of 122% passed by the Fed. Reserve --"

Seek, this may come as a shock to you, but the Republicans currently in charge of the Federal Reserve have been passing out loans and cratering interest rates like there's no tomorrow. The hyperinflation you'll be seeing in the next few years won't be the Democrats' fault because they weren't running the Fed.

And if Boob were to go into debt today, he'd actually be in a great deal of luck were hyperinflation to kick in years down the line. His debt would be worth less then than when he acquired it. If anything, he'd be cursing the price of his $50 lattes and cheering the stagnant monthly payments on his BMW that are just four times the cost of his coffee habit.

[Fred Beloit]

"I spent three months in Tampa Bay."

Well, I certainly hope you have dried out by now. Perhaps you won't be quite as slippery as heretofore. For example: you write: "Show me where Obama pushed to lower business taxes while raising property taxes - bilking the middle class to give hand-outs to the rich." (This is a red herring, I never said a word about what Obama proposed for taxing Chicago.)

First, taxing businesses = taxing customers. Nothing more, nothing less. Second, "the rich" tend own properties. Taxing properties is taxing the rich, isn't it? If he didn't push for these reforms, shame on him. Third, you lived here, a terrible place, you lived there, a terrible place? But you don't say anything at all about having lived in Chicago, C-H-I-C-A-G-O.

So I say I've had some very sour apples. You say I've had some peaches, they are more sour than any apples. I ask, have you ever had any apples? You say, well no, but peaches are more sour and their peelings are hairier than any apples.

It is impossible to discuss anything with you, my dear lady, you are so emotional, and, like many of your fellow lefties you throw in everything but the kitchen sink.

[Fred Beloit]

"The hyperinflation you'll be seeing in the next few years won't be the Democrats' fault because they weren't running the Fed."

Does the name Nancy Pelosi ring a bell. She became Speaker of the House in 2006, I believe it was, and in the first 100 days, or was it hours, she grabbed the reins of spending and pulled hard. Isn't that right? Bush proposed certain budgetary sums. Did Ms Pelosi and friends balk and cut? No they insisted Bush be given more than he asked for.

HHHEEELLLLLOOOO.

[Fred Beloit]

"But Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon of California, the top Republican on the House Education and Labor Committee, praised the president’s plan for its “commitment to a targeted, highly focused investment in education.”

He cited Mr. Bush’s proposal to increase Title I grants to school districts to $14.3 billion, a 2.9 percent hike over fiscal 2008, and an increase for students in special education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to $11.3 billion, a 3.6 percent boost.

Democrats disparaged the Title I increase as insufficient."

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/02/13/23budget.h27.html

[templar knight]

"hyperinflation"

Moe doesn't even know the definition of it, much less what causes it. Or he wouldn't be a Democrat for God's sake.

[Fred Beloit]

Democrats reject proposal to cut Bush's war budget

By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press | March 2, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Just hours after floating the idea of cutting $20 billion from President Bush's $142 billion request for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan next year, Kent Conrad, Senate Budget Committee chairman, was overruled by fellow Democrats yesterday.
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"It's nothing that any of us are considering," Senate majority leader Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, told reporters.

Conrad's trial balloon to cut war funding would have affected the budget year beginning Oct. 1 and was separate from the ongoing debate over Bush's $100 billion request for immediate supplemental funding for Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even the Pentagon acknowledges that its $142 billion 2008 war-funding request is simply a best guess of Iraq- and Afghanistan -related costs, and Conrad's proposal didn't receive rebukes from Budget Committee Republicans.

But the speed with which his colleagues rejected it seemed to reflect the Democrats' sensitivity to any accusations of giving short shrift to funding for troops in battle."

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2007/03/02/democrats_reject_proposal_to_cut_bushs_war_budget/

[IslamoLlama]

"-- These are assertions of fact and observed behaviors, not defamatory or prejudicial assumptions of a race's inherent predisposition to crime. --"

Finally, someone willing to argue numbers they didn't pull out their asses. You will, I assume, agree that the number of black homicides in 2005 was not "approximately 8000"?

And - returning to the white/black disparity - these number fail to look at any of a number of other casual factors. For instance, homicide in a large city is more common than in more rural areas.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/urbantab.htm
And young people are more inclined to commit homicide
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/tables/vagetab.htm

Then there are factors such as income levels and police presence. If you're a poor kid living in a tough neighborhood with no cops around, I would imagine you are more likely to get shot than a rich elderly man living in a gated rural community.

If black people are living in poor, urban areas and their a statistically higher percentage of the 18-25 age group, why wouldn't they have a higher rate of homicide? Of course, if you can show that black people in affluent rural neighborhoods are committing crimes after the age of 35, you can certainly make the case that it is some sort of cultural or racial phenomenon. I haven't seen either you or Fred make those claims, however. Simply pointing at higher than average homicide rates among blacks shows a correlation, but fails to demonstrate causation. Frequent fliers tend to have a higher income than people who take road trips, but flying on airplanes doesn't make you wealthy.

I certainly haven't seen you address the 33% drop in homicide between 1976 and 2005 except to note the party of the sitting President at the time. Again, I can site any number of other factors - the death of Tupac Shukar or the premier of American Idol - that sync with the rise and fail of US homicide rates. Still, it would be interesting to ask what caused this decline among both whites and blacks.

Of course, Fred seems throughly convinced that Reverend Wright is inspiring all this homicide. His evidence for this is an opinion column in a Pennsylvania newspaper that can't even get its numbers right within the first sentence of the piece. Drawing broad negative stereotypes of entire classes of people based on thin - and factually inaccurate - evidence demonstrates that the speaker held said negative belief long before he read the facts. This negative belief - or prejudice - is tied solely to the skin color of the Reverend and the Junior Senator from Illinois. When you've got a prejudice based on race, we call that racism.

[Fred Beloit]

The nice thing about the Boston Globe piece above, Temp, is it not only shows Dems gave Bush what he wanted (they have that power to accept or reject as you know, but our troll friends don't seem to know) but it also shows how the Dems supported spending on the wars. "No, no. Bush did it. This is Bush's "illegal" war", as poor old sod Harpo might say.

[missy]

So, how's that indictment against DeLay going and is it really going to be dropped when Earle retires? Kay Baily-Hutchinson? what happened with that? Inquiring minds and all that.

I've lived in Illinois for over 55 years and you can whine about Republicans in Texas, but they don't come close the Democrats in Illinois aka/Friends of Obama. It's just a matter of time for Obama:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0803/S00452.htm