I've never bought the lame "disenfranchisement" argument. Those who can't speak English are either in the country illegally, or haven't learned enough English to pass a citizenship test. They aren't citizens. They're not supposed to be able to vote.
Otherwise, if you can't obtain something as simple as a photo id, I have no sympathy for you - you obviously don't have it together well enough to be able to vote.
The elderly and disabled are the only possible class of people at risk for disenfranchisement. There's a case to be made whether those with diminished mental capacity - those with Alzheimer's for example - should be allowed to vote, but let's set that aside. If an elderly person under care decides to vote, their family, caregiver, or care facility should make sure ahead of time they have proper credentials and transportation to and from the polling place. It's not that hard.
The opposition to SQ 746 isn't about disenfranchising voters, it's about disenfranchising Democratic voters, specifically the dysfunctional and the ineligible. Read into that what you want.
Typical liberal screed. Your civil liberties are violated when government tells you you have to wear a seat belt or a helmet to drive a car or ride a motorcycle. Why? Because it can. (Better yet, because we let it). So why are you complaining when government tells you to purchase health insurance? It makes you buy car insurance. That employs the same logic as laughing at someone who finally gets around to screaming "rape" after having spent the last 20 years being sexually abused.
As California Representative Pete Stark said recently, "Government can do pretty much whatever it wants." In other words, "relax and enjoy it." Anyone remember a Texas gubernatorial candidate by the name of Clayton Williams from about 20 years back? I think a similar comment cost him a sure election.
Ask the people of Massachusetts how Masscare, a.k.a., ObamaCare Lite, is working for them. A full 75 percent say it does not work. If Obamacare's micro-model is a failure, why do we assume Obamacare will work? Failure in a little, failure in a lot?
Everyone agrees the private system doesn't work for some people. Government's effective answer: "Then let's make sure it won't work for anyone."
400 people? The Marriott Hotel Ballroom? Wow! That's almost as many people as attended the Glen Beck rally last month!
Oh wait, no it's not. The Glen Beck Rally drew 87,000. Funny that Hamilton didn't mention the Beck Rally as evidence Americans are disgusted with politics. Maybe if there had been a driving rain involved.
Every political season, the coffin lid on Nader's casket creaks open, and he stumbles forth. He is increasingly less relevant.
Four years from now, or even two, they can probably hold this event in one of the Marriott Hotel bathrooms.
Bad roads! Bandits! Guns! Scorpions! Evil predator drones that attack satellite phones! I could die! Oh my! Is he going to fuss incessantly if he breaks a nail? Suggestion. Reach between your legs, Teddy. Squeeze gently. Are there two small lumps and even a hint of an appendage? Because I doubt it.
" ..don't pretend your sad when I croak." (We won't).
"I don't believe in an afterlife." (No kidding).
"During the 1990s, I was the most frequently reprinted political cartoonist in The New York Times. They ran my op-eds. Then 9/11 happened." (DAMN the 9/11, and the way those 3,000 dead selfishly stole my glory!)
"I'm not whining" (That's all you do). "If they want to publish the worst political cartoons in the country, every Sunday in the Week in Review, they can." (But they don't, which is why they don't run yours).
"This also goes for USA Today, which wallows in cartoon crapitude day after day. You never ran one of my cartoons."(My cartoons are so bad, I can't even get them published in USA Today!)
"You thought I sucked". (you do) "Or you didn't have the guts to deal with angry readers." (It's called wanting to save print space for things people want to read, so they can sell papers).
"Either way: shut the @#$% up." (Vulgarity is the province of the imbecile).
"Newsweek publishes the worst cartoons by the worst cartoonists." (Which is why I sent them mine). "They ran me one time. Once! And it was a terrible cartoon .." (you never get a second chance to make a first impression).
"When I shed my mortal coil and shuffle off to the great open bar full of funny cartoonists and loose women in the sky, .." (Give me a break. A guy like Rall couldn't get laid walking through a whorehouse with five hundred dollar bills sticking out of both ears).
"I beg you to do me one last favor: say that I suck." (you got it) "Or, better yet, don't mention me at all." (Even better).
As tiring as Rall's rants are, there is a modicum of comic relief about them. And it really hard to feel sorry for people who bring problems on themselves and then whine because no one else is willing to help fix them.
Rall rarely misses an opportunity to remind us how much smarter he is than everyone else: Columbia grad, world traveler, genuine know-it-all. So tell me, how is a guy this smart with a stellar education - one who worked in banking no less - apparently unable to save or invest? If he had any useful skills, I guess he'd have more time to spend plying a trade of some sort, instead of hoping he can find a bureaucracy to fix his problems for him, with someone else's money.
As a die-hard Marxist, Rall thinks nationalization of markets is a good idea. Does he really think this is going to make bureaucracy any more responsive or efficient?
I can tell from reading this (and past) columns, he pays twice what he should have to for his mortgage, and three times what he should for insurance. Suggestion. Do what millions of others are having to do now: downsize to affordable lodging and insurance. Maybe find a nice affordable trade school. Even if he still can't find a job, he can at least take solace in knowing he finally learned to do something useful.
Because when the value of what you produce is zero, you shouldn't complain about your compensation.
Thank you, Dr. Kengor. This sets the record straight.
I might only add the Red Army - which lost 20 million men as opposed to the 400,000 combat deaths of American soldiers - was sent into battle without the benefit of outfitting or training, as a result primarily of a dysfunctional economy broken by more than 20 years of Bolshevism at the inception of WWII, as well as the murders of Red Army officers in Stalin's "purges" of the late 1930's.
As is stated, a monument to Stalin as a D-Day memorial is a tribute not to Stalin, but to the ignorance of the uneducated as well as those who act as cheerleader-apologists for socialist utopias and totalitarian butchers.
I don't agree with Hamilton on most issues. I cite his sneering contempt for anyone who mentions the importance of faith (those he refers to as "bible-thumpers"), his routine, obligatory railing against "corporate welfare", and the apparently blind determination to keep taxes high and increasing amounts of money funneled into the education black hole.
When it comes to "Oklahoma values" though, he might have a point. We do seem to have a proliferation of fat, dumb people in Oklahoma who seem to put as much effort into reading or thinking about anything of substance as they do into diet restriction and exercise.
One of our primary exports in recent decades has been college graduates and young professionals leaving for areas of the country where they have a chance to find better paying employment (or any job at all). Maybe since there aren't any jobs anywhere these days we'll retain more young adults.
If I had one suggestion for any candidate for office who wanted to capture the attention of the electorate, it would be this: memorize the OU Sooner football media guide. Do it for all the players. When a reporter asks a question - be it concerning the environment, abortion, the economy - ignore it and start talking about OU football. Because we're talking about what really gets people's attention here in Oklahoma. Do that, that politician will win at least 50 percent of the vote.
Exhibit A: it appears the Democratic challenger to Tom Coburn in November is a tin-foil hat type who puts his name on the ballot, but never actually campaigns. He won in the primary for no other reason than he has a famous last name.
Yeah, I'd say Oklahomans are pretty disengaged. Then again, if you think politicians and government exist to fix your problems, please stay disengaged until you realize they exist to create them.
Hamilton morphs from pursuit of a worthwhile subject - despicable political payola where vast sums of bribe money change hands from corporate lobbyists to politicians - to his usual statist paean in support of mindless spendola that accomplishes nothing except feeding the Big Debt Monkey. In addition to his typical nervous tittering about the Tea Party, a group he obviously despises.
Concerning the Tea Party, the statists all sound like a bunch of chickens coming unraveled as the fox digs his way under the hen house door. Go fox, go!
Rall gives away the intent of his column in the first paragraph - "believe it or not I don't scour the headlines looking for .. atrocities to blame on the United States".
Believe it. That's exactly what he does. If there's even a shred of blame to be assigned to the U.S., either in a tertiary sense, or in hopeless situations where well-meaning U.S. help was ineffective or counterproductive, Rall is always johnny-on-the-spot with the blame finger.
Rall's conspiracy theories concerning the CIA and the evil military-industrial complex are amusing. Our CIA isn't the brightest lot, but we should give them credit for having better things to do than destabilize out-of-the-way third-world regimes for no apparent reason.
Rall's tortured logic fails to distinguish between freedom of speech and freedom from consequence. If you walk into your boss's office and spew racial invective, you won't go to jail unless you commit an assault. But 15 minutes later you'll likely find yourself at curbside, holding a cardboard box, unemployed. That illustrates the difference between the two.
Quick! What do Rush Limbaugh, Al Campanis, and Don Imus have in common? Probably lots of things, but for the purpose of this argument they were all rich white guys who put their foot in their mouth by saying something stupid and racist, and they lost their jobs because of it. I don't recall Rall rushing to their defense.
Lanny Davis' point is so obvious Rall has to acknowledge it but is helpless to actually refute it. So Thomas "didn't say anything racist"? Telling Jews to go back to countries they've never lived in equates exactly to telling blacks to go back to Africa, and it is most definitely a racist statement. Thomas made the same mistake the rich white guys made: she got lost in a time warp back to 1955, when white people could say blatantly racist things without consequence. Come to think of it, 1955 is probably the last time Thomas wrote anything decent enough to be called journalism.
Speaking of historical ignorance, history for Rall apparently begins in 1948. Rall ignores history by failing to acknowledge the Jewish state and hundreds of generations of Jews who existed in Palestine for centuries, as early as 1800 B.C. For Jews, The Holy Land has been a center of worship since that time, while for Arabs, only since about 600 A.D. Palestine has been in conflict and turmoil and under rule of various entities for 2700 years (since Assyria sacked the northern kingdom in 722 B.C.) The Jews have as much (or more) right to it than anyone. Since the modern recreation of the Jewish state in 1948, Israel has been under constant threat and attack from the Palestinian hate brigade. They have as much right to defend themselves as any other sovereign nation.
Helen Thomas deserved to be fired. Good riddance to this hateful, left-wing moonbat.
If you're wondering whose side Rall is on, he's on whoever's side is against the country he lives in (America).
You have a few million people in tiny Israel, surrounded by a hundred million Arabs, people who want to wipe Israel off the map, and Israel is, "oppressing hundreds of millions of innocents". Love it. Also, a lot of those "innocents" have rocket launchers.
Israel defends itself, using a blockade to staunch the flow of weapons used against its citizens, and it's "gone too far".
Unbelievable. No, scratch that. For Rall, nothing printed in his drivel of a column is unbelievable.
I'm browbeating Rall, not Obama. But I don't mind browbeating Obama. He isn't a leader, a point he continues to prove daily.
Also, it's first and foremost the purvey of people to help themselves, not devolve into dysfunction and hope enough hard-working fat people will provide them with largesse, or that the government will confiscate enough from everyone else to take up their slack.
Like a broken clock that's correct twice per day, Rall occasionally gets a few things right.
For example, what does Barack Obama have in common with Warren G. Harding? Both are awful Presidents, but at least give Harding some credit. He openly admitted he had no clue as to how to do the job of a President. Obama has no clue, but won't dare admit it. So even Warren Harding is one-up on Barack Obama.
"Resign, Mr. President", says Rall, "You won't be missed". Indeed. A great many people are resenting the fact they voted for this charlatan.
But that's the extent of any credit I can give Ted Rall.
If Rall had a real job, one, for example, that involved actually doing work, he might realize (as he suggests) banning light trucks is a bad idea. Many small business owners, particularly those involved in manual trades, depend on light trucks to carry tools and equipment and haul loads. And Rall wants to screw them by making light trucks illegal, a strange wish coming from someone who cares so deeply for the working man, don't you think? Then again, if this self-described Really Smart Guy actually took the time to think through his half-baked suggestions, maybe he wouldn't make them.
One other question Rall might raise - if he didn't so thoroughly hate Big Oil - would be to ask why energy companies are forced into the logistical nightmare of drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place. See: Domestic Bans on Drilling. Government and so-called environmentalists should admit their role in pushing drilling off the continent into the middle of the ocean.
It was just a matter of time before a venture such as BP's Deepwater Horizon went so horribly south. As a result, everyone (and not the least the environment and the Gulf Coast states) will be paying through the nose for the limitations concerning onshore production.
Add to that, we are utterly dependent on foreign sources of petroleum - much of it from countries that don't like us very much - to meet our energy needs. It would be at least ten years before we could develop the infrastructure capacity to meet the needs ourselves. Add another ten years before alternative energy sources become viable enough to fully replace the demand for fossil fuels.
It's an old saying, but it bears repeating - "screw the oil companies, and you'll end up freezing in the dark".
Let’s hope we don’t have to find out how true that really is.
For those who'd like to know a little more about Rall, what he's aligned with, what he's said and done in the past, you can go here: http://97.74.65.51/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=13144
Yes, it's from a conservative's viewpoint, and no, it is not flattering. The article has Rall's "Pat Tillman" cartoon, one in a litany of his many disgraces.
Way to go, Tedster. What a thoroughly brilliant analysis.
The alternate universe that Rall inhabits is one where everyday is Woodstock, (except that there are no bad acid trips and the National Guard isn't sent in to save the hippies from themselves), and Hitler's SS were just a peaceful, fun-loving bunch, albeit a little misunderstood. but certainly, they weren't "evil".
American troops on the battlefield? According to Rall - evil. EOD units? Evil. America - by extension - evil.
What's funnier, that noted bastion of conservative thought, Hollywood, heaped high honors on Bigelow and her film. The very definition of a cartoon liberal - which is what Rall is - is someone to the left of Hollywood.
A mostly sane person would see this film and not come away with a particularly favorable impression of much of anything: American soldiers, Iraq, Iraqi civilians, and certainly not "insurgents". Too see "Hurt Locker" as a pro-war, pro-military film takes a mind with a very warped perspective, and Rall certainly fills that bill.
I'd pay to see Rall stand in front of an Army or Marine platoon and tell them they were evil. I'd pay a thousand dollars to see that.
But not to see him get his ass kicked, which he deserves and from what I understand is not an uncommon occurrence for him.
Our Marines and soldiers, fine men and women they are, would probably only give a wry, sad shake of their head and say, "Sorry you feel that way, sir."
This is somewhat unbelievable in its stupidity, even for the Tedster.
Google isn't a publication, it's a search engine. It does not edit content, or post content on a site, it just redirects you to another entity.
By Rall's logic, why even stop at Google? Sue NetGear, who makes your home router, sue Cisco, who makes the commercial router that connects you to the Internet, sue AT&T, who provides the T1s, and don't forget to sue the company that makes the CAT-5 cables that connect all the computers and routers and switches! I mean, all of these are complicit!
To hang up Google with a bunch of legal b.s. would accomplish two things: a) buy a lawyer another $50,000 vehicle, b) debit your PayPal account 50 cents every time you clicked a Google-supplied link.
I understand Rall gets paid to write his drivel of a column, but who ever said life was fair?
Stinkbrain: When you get your talking points from the New York Times, Daily Kos, and Puffington Host, of course it's obvious the stimulus has worked, Palin is a Nazi, and Obama has never blamed Bush for anything. Peter Pan dresses up in leather and spanks the Easter Bunny nightly too.
Yes, it is our turn. Liberals endured 8 years of Dumb Dubya. Now conservatives have to endure 4 years of Dumb Obama.
By the way, ketchup is made from tomatoes. A tomato is technically a fruit. For Reagan to suggest ketchup is a vegetable is just dead wrong, so you did get at least one thing right. Well, that, and a very aptly chosen online moniker.
Rall continues to demonstrate his stupidity and complete lack of understanding of basic economics. Nationalize the U.S. banking industry? Great idea. Because the national government does such a responsible and wonderful job spending taxpayer dollars and running things.
Let's by all means screw the millions of homeowners who planned smartly and have always payed their mortgages successfully. Let's reward the dysfunctional who use credit unwisely and rack up bills they can't pay. Let's reward government, which forced these evil financial institutions into predatory lending to borrowers who were not credit-worthy. In tandem with the government-run boondoogle known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this became the tinder that touched off the financial meltdown.
So the U.S. financial system is perceived as a bunch of fat-cat, lying, corrupt shysters who rake in the cash and ride roughshod over the weak and helpless? Let's solve that problem by turning that system over to the government ... a bunch of fat-cat, lying, corrupt shysters who rake in the cash and ride roughshod over the weak and helpless.
UTW has a good sports editor. He has the stones to call things like he sees them, without deference to one particular team. So, if that unsettles the OU contingent, I suppose they should stick to Sooner cheerleader/apologist Barry Trammel columns in the Whirlld.
I love reading Ted Rall's column because it keeps my sinuses clear. The biggest laugher from Rall's last column (and it’s difficult to single out any one statement) was this one buried in the middle:
"Though not a perfect economic model, the Soviet experience seems to disprove the idea that you can't find good CEO help for under a million bucks a year."
No, the “Soviet experience” wasn’t perfect. Not quite. It did manage to export Communism to a good part of the world, murder at least 20 million people (more than that if you believed Solzhenitsyn), destroy the economy, and leave much of Russia with a third-world infrastructure. If it had been any more perfect than it was, Russia would have probably been annexed to Poland by now. Those Soviet CEOs were the best.
It’s nice to know we still have Marxists who can get syndicated.
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COMMENTS
Posted by: toddkreigh
60 comments total
Sort Comments: Most Recent | Oldest First
Re: You Are Who You Vote
Otherwise, if you can't obtain something as simple as a photo id, I have no sympathy for you - you obviously don't have it together well enough to be able to vote.
The elderly and disabled are the only possible class of people at risk for disenfranchisement. There's a case to be made whether those with diminished mental capacity - those with Alzheimer's for example - should be allowed to vote, but let's set that aside. If an elderly person under care decides to vote, their family, caregiver, or care facility should make sure ahead of time they have proper credentials and transportation to and from the polling place. It's not that hard.
The opposition to SQ 746 isn't about disenfranchising voters, it's about disenfranchising Democratic voters, specifically the dysfunctional and the ineligible. Read into that what you want.
Re: Hypocritical Oath
As California Representative Pete Stark said recently, "Government can do pretty much whatever it wants." In other words, "relax and enjoy it." Anyone remember a Texas gubernatorial candidate by the name of Clayton Williams from about 20 years back? I think a similar comment cost him a sure election.
Ask the people of Massachusetts how Masscare, a.k.a., ObamaCare Lite, is working for them. A full 75 percent say it does not work. If Obamacare's micro-model is a failure, why do we assume Obamacare will work? Failure in a little, failure in a lot?
Everyone agrees the private system doesn't work for some people. Government's effective answer: "Then let's make sure it won't work for anyone."
Re: If Politics Were Football
Oh wait, no it's not. The Glen Beck Rally drew 87,000. Funny that Hamilton didn't mention the Beck Rally as evidence Americans are disgusted with politics. Maybe if there had been a driving rain involved.
Every political season, the coffin lid on Nader's casket creaks open, and he stumbles forth. He is increasingly less relevant.
Four years from now, or even two, they can probably hold this event in one of the Marriott Hotel bathrooms.
Re: If I Die in Afghanistan
Bad roads! Bandits! Guns! Scorpions! Evil predator drones that attack satellite phones! I could die! Oh my! Is he going to fuss incessantly if he breaks a nail? Suggestion. Reach between your legs, Teddy. Squeeze gently. Are there two small lumps and even a hint of an appendage? Because I doubt it.
" ..don't pretend your sad when I croak." (We won't).
"I don't believe in an afterlife." (No kidding).
"During the 1990s, I was the most frequently reprinted political cartoonist in The New York Times. They ran my op-eds. Then 9/11 happened." (DAMN the 9/11, and the way those 3,000 dead selfishly stole my glory!)
"I'm not whining" (That's all you do). "If they want to publish the worst political cartoons in the country, every Sunday in the Week in Review, they can." (But they don't, which is why they don't run yours).
"This also goes for USA Today, which wallows in cartoon crapitude day after day. You never ran one of my cartoons."(My cartoons are so bad, I can't even get them published in USA Today!)
"You thought I sucked". (you do) "Or you didn't have the guts to deal with angry readers." (It's called wanting to save print space for things people want to read, so they can sell papers).
"Either way: shut the @#$% up." (Vulgarity is the province of the imbecile).
"Newsweek publishes the worst cartoons by the worst cartoonists." (Which is why I sent them mine). "They ran me one time. Once! And it was a terrible cartoon .." (you never get a second chance to make a first impression).
"When I shed my mortal coil and shuffle off to the great open bar full of funny cartoonists and loose women in the sky, .." (Give me a break. A guy like Rall couldn't get laid walking through a whorehouse with five hundred dollar bills sticking out of both ears).
"I beg you to do me one last favor: say that I suck." (you got it) "Or, better yet, don't mention me at all." (Even better).
Re: The Banksters Strike Again
Rall rarely misses an opportunity to remind us how much smarter he is than everyone else: Columbia grad, world traveler, genuine know-it-all. So tell me, how is a guy this smart with a stellar education - one who worked in banking no less - apparently unable to save or invest? If he had any useful skills, I guess he'd have more time to spend plying a trade of some sort, instead of hoping he can find a bureaucracy to fix his problems for him, with someone else's money.
As a die-hard Marxist, Rall thinks nationalization of markets is a good idea. Does he really think this is going to make bureaucracy any more responsive or efficient?
I can tell from reading this (and past) columns, he pays twice what he should have to for his mortgage, and three times what he should for insurance. Suggestion. Do what millions of others are having to do now: downsize to affordable lodging and insurance. Maybe find a nice affordable trade school. Even if he still can't find a job, he can at least take solace in knowing he finally learned to do something useful.
Because when the value of what you produce is zero, you shouldn't complain about your compensation.
Re: Newsflash: Stalin Liberates Normandy
I might only add the Red Army - which lost 20 million men as opposed to the 400,000 combat deaths of American soldiers - was sent into battle without the benefit of outfitting or training, as a result primarily of a dysfunctional economy broken by more than 20 years of Bolshevism at the inception of WWII, as well as the murders of Red Army officers in Stalin's "purges" of the late 1930's.
As is stated, a monument to Stalin as a D-Day memorial is a tribute not to Stalin, but to the ignorance of the uneducated as well as those who act as cheerleader-apologists for socialist utopias and totalitarian butchers.
Re: It's Time for Action
When it comes to "Oklahoma values" though, he might have a point. We do seem to have a proliferation of fat, dumb people in Oklahoma who seem to put as much effort into reading or thinking about anything of substance as they do into diet restriction and exercise.
One of our primary exports in recent decades has been college graduates and young professionals leaving for areas of the country where they have a chance to find better paying employment (or any job at all). Maybe since there aren't any jobs anywhere these days we'll retain more young adults.
If I had one suggestion for any candidate for office who wanted to capture the attention of the electorate, it would be this: memorize the OU Sooner football media guide. Do it for all the players. When a reporter asks a question - be it concerning the environment, abortion, the economy - ignore it and start talking about OU football. Because we're talking about what really gets people's attention here in Oklahoma. Do that, that politician will win at least 50 percent of the vote.
Exhibit A: it appears the Democratic challenger to Tom Coburn in November is a tin-foil hat type who puts his name on the ballot, but never actually campaigns. He won in the primary for no other reason than he has a famous last name.
Yeah, I'd say Oklahomans are pretty disengaged. Then again, if you think politicians and government exist to fix your problems, please stay disengaged until you realize they exist to create them.
Go Sooners!
Re: In Other News
Concerning the Tea Party, the statists all sound like a bunch of chickens coming unraveled as the fox digs his way under the hen house door. Go fox, go!
Yawn. Get some new material Arnold.
Re: Ethnic Cleansing in Kyrgyzstan
Believe it. That's exactly what he does. If there's even a shred of blame to be assigned to the U.S., either in a tertiary sense, or in hopeless situations where well-meaning U.S. help was ineffective or counterproductive, Rall is always johnny-on-the-spot with the blame finger.
Rall's conspiracy theories concerning the CIA and the evil military-industrial complex are amusing. Our CIA isn't the brightest lot, but we should give them credit for having better things to do than destabilize out-of-the-way third-world regimes for no apparent reason.
Re: First They Came for the Cranky White House Columnist
Rall's tortured logic fails to distinguish between freedom of speech and freedom from consequence. If you walk into your boss's office and spew racial invective, you won't go to jail unless you commit an assault. But 15 minutes later you'll likely find yourself at curbside, holding a cardboard box, unemployed. That illustrates the difference between the two.
Quick! What do Rush Limbaugh, Al Campanis, and Don Imus have in common? Probably lots of things, but for the purpose of this argument they were all rich white guys who put their foot in their mouth by saying something stupid and racist, and they lost their jobs because of it. I don't recall Rall rushing to their defense.
Lanny Davis' point is so obvious Rall has to acknowledge it but is helpless to actually refute it. So Thomas "didn't say anything racist"? Telling Jews to go back to countries they've never lived in equates exactly to telling blacks to go back to Africa, and it is most definitely a racist statement. Thomas made the same mistake the rich white guys made: she got lost in a time warp back to 1955, when white people could say blatantly racist things without consequence. Come to think of it, 1955 is probably the last time Thomas wrote anything decent enough to be called journalism.
Speaking of historical ignorance, history for Rall apparently begins in 1948. Rall ignores history by failing to acknowledge the Jewish state and hundreds of generations of Jews who existed in Palestine for centuries, as early as 1800 B.C. For Jews, The Holy Land has been a center of worship since that time, while for Arabs, only since about 600 A.D. Palestine has been in conflict and turmoil and under rule of various entities for 2700 years (since Assyria sacked the northern kingdom in 722 B.C.) The Jews have as much (or more) right to it than anyone. Since the modern recreation of the Jewish state in 1948, Israel has been under constant threat and attack from the Palestinian hate brigade. They have as much right to defend themselves as any other sovereign nation.
Helen Thomas deserved to be fired. Good riddance to this hateful, left-wing moonbat.
Re: Sticks and Stones on the High Seas
You have a few million people in tiny Israel, surrounded by a hundred million Arabs, people who want to wipe Israel off the map, and Israel is, "oppressing hundreds of millions of innocents". Love it. Also, a lot of those "innocents" have rocket launchers.
Israel defends itself, using a blockade to staunch the flow of weapons used against its citizens, and it's "gone too far".
Unbelievable. No, scratch that. For Rall, nothing printed in his drivel of a column is unbelievable.
Re: Obama's Katrina
Also, it's first and foremost the purvey of people to help themselves, not devolve into dysfunction and hope enough hard-working fat people will provide them with largesse, or that the government will confiscate enough from everyone else to take up their slack.
Re: Obama's Katrina
For example, what does Barack Obama have in common with Warren G. Harding? Both are awful Presidents, but at least give Harding some credit. He openly admitted he had no clue as to how to do the job of a President. Obama has no clue, but won't dare admit it. So even Warren Harding is one-up on Barack Obama.
"Resign, Mr. President", says Rall, "You won't be missed". Indeed. A great many people are resenting the fact they voted for this charlatan.
But that's the extent of any credit I can give Ted Rall.
If Rall had a real job, one, for example, that involved actually doing work, he might realize (as he suggests) banning light trucks is a bad idea. Many small business owners, particularly those involved in manual trades, depend on light trucks to carry tools and equipment and haul loads. And Rall wants to screw them by making light trucks illegal, a strange wish coming from someone who cares so deeply for the working man, don't you think? Then again, if this self-described Really Smart Guy actually took the time to think through his half-baked suggestions, maybe he wouldn't make them.
One other question Rall might raise - if he didn't so thoroughly hate Big Oil - would be to ask why energy companies are forced into the logistical nightmare of drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place. See: Domestic Bans on Drilling. Government and so-called environmentalists should admit their role in pushing drilling off the continent into the middle of the ocean.
It was just a matter of time before a venture such as BP's Deepwater Horizon went so horribly south. As a result, everyone (and not the least the environment and the Gulf Coast states) will be paying through the nose for the limitations concerning onshore production.
Add to that, we are utterly dependent on foreign sources of petroleum - much of it from countries that don't like us very much - to meet our energy needs. It would be at least ten years before we could develop the infrastructure capacity to meet the needs ourselves. Add another ten years before alternative energy sources become viable enough to fully replace the demand for fossil fuels.
It's an old saying, but it bears repeating - "screw the oil companies, and you'll end up freezing in the dark".
Let’s hope we don’t have to find out how true that really is.
Re: Tea Party: Why the Right Doesn't Get It
Yes, it's from a conservative's viewpoint, and no, it is not flattering. The article has Rall's "Pat Tillman" cartoon, one in a litany of his many disgraces.
Re: Triumph of the Swill
The alternate universe that Rall inhabits is one where everyday is Woodstock, (except that there are no bad acid trips and the National Guard isn't sent in to save the hippies from themselves), and Hitler's SS were just a peaceful, fun-loving bunch, albeit a little misunderstood. but certainly, they weren't "evil".
American troops on the battlefield? According to Rall - evil. EOD units? Evil. America - by extension - evil.
What's funnier, that noted bastion of conservative thought, Hollywood, heaped high honors on Bigelow and her film. The very definition of a cartoon liberal - which is what Rall is - is someone to the left of Hollywood.
A mostly sane person would see this film and not come away with a particularly favorable impression of much of anything: American soldiers, Iraq, Iraqi civilians, and certainly not "insurgents". Too see "Hurt Locker" as a pro-war, pro-military film takes a mind with a very warped perspective, and Rall certainly fills that bill.
I'd pay to see Rall stand in front of an Army or Marine platoon and tell them they were evil. I'd pay a thousand dollars to see that.
But not to see him get his ass kicked, which he deserves and from what I understand is not an uncommon occurrence for him.
Our Marines and soldiers, fine men and women they are, would probably only give a wry, sad shake of their head and say, "Sorry you feel that way, sir."
Re: Don't Be Evil -- Edit It
Google isn't a publication, it's a search engine. It does not edit content, or post content on a site, it just redirects you to another entity.
By Rall's logic, why even stop at Google? Sue NetGear, who makes your home router, sue Cisco, who makes the commercial router that connects you to the Internet, sue AT&T, who provides the T1s, and don't forget to sue the company that makes the CAT-5 cables that connect all the computers and routers and switches! I mean, all of these are complicit!
To hang up Google with a bunch of legal b.s. would accomplish two things: a) buy a lawyer another $50,000 vehicle, b) debit your PayPal account 50 cents every time you clicked a Google-supplied link.
I understand Rall gets paid to write his drivel of a column, but who ever said life was fair?
Re: Obama: Dumber Than Sarah Palin
Yes, it is our turn. Liberals endured 8 years of Dumb Dubya. Now conservatives have to endure 4 years of Dumb Obama.
By the way, ketchup is made from tomatoes. A tomato is technically a fruit. For Reagan to suggest ketchup is a vegetable is just dead wrong, so you did get at least one thing right. Well, that, and a very aptly chosen online moniker.
Re: Foreclose on the Banks
Let's by all means screw the millions of homeowners who planned smartly and have always payed their mortgages successfully. Let's reward the dysfunctional who use credit unwisely and rack up bills they can't pay. Let's reward government, which forced these evil financial institutions into predatory lending to borrowers who were not credit-worthy. In tandem with the government-run boondoogle known as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, this became the tinder that touched off the financial meltdown.
So the U.S. financial system is perceived as a bunch of fat-cat, lying, corrupt shysters who rake in the cash and ride roughshod over the weak and helpless? Let's solve that problem by turning that system over to the government ... a bunch of fat-cat, lying, corrupt shysters who rake in the cash and ride roughshod over the weak and helpless.
Yeah, that's change you can believe in.
Re: Are You Pissed Off? Tell us about it.
Re: Only One Solution
"Though not a perfect economic model, the Soviet experience seems to disprove the idea that you can't find good CEO help for under a million bucks a year."
No, the “Soviet experience” wasn’t perfect. Not quite. It did manage to export Communism to a good part of the world, murder at least 20 million people (more than that if you believed Solzhenitsyn), destroy the economy, and leave much of Russia with a third-world infrastructure. If it had been any more perfect than it was, Russia would have probably been annexed to Poland by now. Those Soviet CEOs were the best.
It’s nice to know we still have Marxists who can get syndicated.