Author: Greg Saunders

James Byrd had it bad, but at least he wasn’t a rich white man who died of natural causes :

“I am glad to have known Ken Lay and glad that he was willing to reach down and touch people like me,” said the Rev. William Lawson, pastor emeritus of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church. “Ken was a rich and powerful man, and he could have limited his association to people who were likewise rich and powerful.”
. . .
Lawson likened Lay to James Byrd, a black man who was dragged to death in a racially motivated murder near Jasper eight years ago.

“Ken Lay was neither black nor poor, as James Byrd was, but I’m angry because Ken was the victim of a lynching,” said Lawson, who predicted that history will vindicate Lay.

For those of you who might be making the same mistaken comparison as Rev. Lawson, here’s a couple of pictures that might clear things up for you :

On the left is a photo of Kenneth Lay in handcuffs being led to the courtroom where he was being given his constitutional right to a fair trial for crimes he was alleged to have committed. On the right is a pair of black corpses hanging from a tree surrounded by a crowd of racist white people who seem to have viewed their senseless murders as little more than an excuse for a social gathering. Kenneth Lay died at his Aspen vacation home after having a heart attack. James Byrd died on a Jasper, Texas road after being dragged from a pickup truck until his head and right arm were ripped off.

Like Tom said earlier, go read Glenn Greenwald’s piece about the terror-inciting tactics of the right wing. For me, this is the most chilling part of the post :

This weekend, prominent neoconservative David Horowitz proclaimed that the United States is fighting a war and “the aggressors in this war are Democrats, liberals and leftists.” In particular, he cited the now infamous NYT Travel section article on Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld’s vacation homes as evidence that the employees of the NYT are among the enemies in this war, and he then linked to and recommended as a “proposal for action” this post from his associate, Front Page contributor Rocco DiPippo. The post which Horowitz recommended was entitled “Where Does Punch Sulzberger Live?” and this is what it said:

I issue a call to the blogosphere to begin finding and publicly listing the addresses of all New York Times reporters and editors. Posting pictures of their residences, along with details of any security measures in place to protect the properties and their owners (such as location of security cameras and on-site security details) should also be published.

DiPippo published the home address of NYT Publisher Arthur Sulzberger, along with directions to his home, and linked to a post by right-wing blogger Dan Riehl which contained directions to Sulzberger’s home along with photographers of it. In a now-deleted post, DiPippo also published the home address of Linda Spillers, the NYT photographer who took the photograph of Don Rumsfeld’s vacation home (with Rumsfeld’s express permission), and he urged everyone to go (presumably to the home address he provided) and confront Spillers about her actions.

In an update, Greenwald links to the Supreme Court’s 1982 NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware and notes “I do not believe that the despicable statements referenced in this post can or should be grounds for criminal or civil liability…The point is that these statements are despicable and dangerous, not illegal.” While I respect his adherence to the First Amendment, I believe the conduct of Horowitz, DiPippo, and their fellow thugs have more in common with their tactical brethren American Coalition of Life Activists. The ACLA as you may recall made headlines with their website “The Nuremberg Files” in which they posted the names and addresses of abortion providers. Just last month the Supreme Court refused to hear the final appeal by the ACLA, essentially upholding the 199 Oregon District Court decision that concluded :

I conclude from my independent review of the evidence produced at trial that plaintiffs have proven by clear and convincing evidence that each defendant, acting independently and as a co-conspirator, prepared, published and disseminated the “Deadly Dozen” Poster, the Poster of Dr. Robert Crist and the “Nuremberg Files” with specific intent and malice in a blatant and illegal communication of true threats to kill, assault or do bodily harm to each of the plaintiffs and with the specific intent to interfere with or intimidate the plaintiffs from engaging in legal medical practices and procedures.[1]

I totally reject the defendants’ attempts to justify their actions as an expression of opinion or as a legitimate and lawful exercise of free speech in order to dissuade the plaintiffs from engaging in providing abortion services.

The law requires a higher level of scrutiny and proof for an injunction involving speech than for an award of damages for violation of a statute. [See Madsen v. Women’s Health Center, 512 U.S., 753 (1994). I find the actions of the defendants in preparing, publishing and disseminating these true threats objectively and subjectively[2] were not protected speech under the First Amendment.
. . .
For purposes of this Order and Preliminary Injunction, I consider a person to make a “true threat” when the person makes a statement that, in context, a reasonable listener would interpret as communicating a serious expression of an intent to inflict or cause serious harm on or to the listener (objective); and the speaker intended that the statement be taken as a threat that would serve to place the listener in fear for his or her personal safety, regardless of whether the speaker actually intended to carry out the threat (subjective).

That last part decribing a “true threat” from the footnotes of the opinion is especially important in that it decribes the threshold that must be crossed in order for unpopular speech to no longer be covered by the First Amendment. The “true threat” test was also discussed in the recent Supreme Court ruling that cross-burning by the Ku Klux Klan isn’t a constitutionally protected form of speech. (PDF)

“True threats” encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals. See Watts v. United States, supra, at 708 (“political hyberbole” is not a true threat); R. A. V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U. S., at 388. The speaker need not actually intend to carry out the threat. Rather, a prohibition on true threats “protect[s] individuals from the fear of violence” and “from the disruption that fear engenders,” in addition to protecting people “from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur.” Ibid. Intimidation in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of true threat, where a speaker directs a threat to a person or group of persons with the intent of placing the victim in fear of bodily harm or death. Respondents do not contest that some cross burnings fit within this meaning of intimidating speech, and rightly so. As noted in Part II, supra, the history of cross burning in this country shows that cross burning is often intimidating, intended to create a pervasive fear in victims that they are a target of violence.

By posting the personal information NYT employees, the right-wing blogosphere is engaging in the exact same conduct as “The Nuremberg Files” (which resulted in a $5 million judgement against the ACLA). This isn’t political speech we’re talking about here. The right-wing bloggers are targeting their percieved enemies through implied threats of violence. The First Amendment gives us tremendous leeway when it comes to expressing unpopular and reprehensible ideas, but it doesn’t give you the right to incite terror.

A couple of points I’d like to throw into the mix in regards to the continung war between TNR (and now Daivd Brooks) and the lefty blogosphere. For one, most liberal bloggers aren’t defending Markos. They’re defending themselves. After all, it’s Zengerle who wrote things like this :

So far, Kos’s friends in the fiercely independent liberal blogosphere seem to have displayed a sheep-like obedience to his dictat.
. . .
Following up on this, why did so many of the people on the “Townhouse” e-mail list follow Kos’s orders to stay silent about the Armstrong story and the Kosola allegations? Part of it, I’m sure, has to do with their political allegiances to Kos. But let’s not underestimate their financial allegiances.

It’s not just Markos and Jerome Armstrong beign dragged through the mud, it’s every liberal blogger (especially those in the Advertising Liberally network). As one of the many, many unnamed bloggers whose integrity is being questioned by this yellow journalism, let me just say that Jason Zengerle is an asshole.Every liberal blogger has been besmirched by these unsupported insinuations and we’ve got every right to be pissed. And if that makes me just another lowbrow, potty-mouthed blogger, so be it. I’d rather be an immature fool than an immoral elitist.

Secondly, Zengerle’s ever-growing mountain of unsupported attacks and obvious attempts to discredit Kos have made him the Ken Starr of the blogosphere. Take a look at this capper on the end of Zengerle’s attempt to downplay the fact that he published a fake email :

…because the mistake that resulted from this failure has allowed Greenwald and others to try to use this minor error to distract people from much larger issues. Those issues are: Armstrong’s troubles with the SEC; Armstrong’s relationship with Moulitsas and Moulitsas’s pattern of supporting politicians who hire Armstrong as a consultant; Moulitsas’s attempts to silence liberal bloggers from commenting on these matters; the seeming acquiescence of so many of these liberal bloggers (including Greenwald) to Moulitsas’s demands; and now, strangely, stuff like this.

The “this” in question is a link to a weird astrology blog that Jerome Armstrong ran. Why is it relevant to the issues at hand? It isn’t. Just like a semen-stained dress is irrelevant when you’re investigating a failed land deal. The whole point of this little crusade wasn’t to actually build a case against Jerome and Kos, but to keep throwing allegations at them until something sticks. It’s the standard “there’s so much out there, something‘s gotta be true” trick that’s been used against John Kerry, Al Gore, John McCain, and Bill Clinton.

It’ll probably work this time too. The reason the trick works especially well in this case is that loud protests must mean that they’ve hit a nerve, right? There’s no way somebody would get this mad unless TNR is on to something. At least that’s how they’ll spin it. If the blogosphere rallies around Kos, it proves that we’re the well-trained poodles that TNR insists we are. And if we don’t comment on it, it’s becase Kos has issued “marching orders” (their words) to ignore the story and hope it goes away.

We’re all getting Swift-Boated now.

You know the Bush Administration has lost its mojo when they can’t even fake a terror alert well.

The seven men arrested in an alleged terrorist plot believed they were conspiring with al Qaeda ”to levy war against the United States” in attacks that would ”be just as good or greater than 9/11,” according to a federal indictment unsealed this morning.

The campaign, which never advanced beyond the discussion stage, would begin with the bombing of the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, according to the indictment.
. . .
They apparently never had any contact with authentic representatives of al Qaeda. They were not able to obtain explosives, federal officials said.

”It was more aspirational than operational,” John Pistole, the FBI’s deputy director, said during the Washington news conference.

But the group asked the supposed al Qaeda representative to provide machine guns, boots, uniforms and vehicles, the indictment said.

So these guys had no money, no weapons, no contact with actual terrorists…hell, they didn’t even have uniforms. They’re nutcases who belong in jail, but they’re hardly the “homegrown terrorists” we’re hearing about.

”These homegrown terrorists might prove to be as dangerous as groups like al Qaeda,” Gonzales said.

At this point, those of us who lived in Oklahoma in the mid-90’s let out a collective “No shit, dumbass”. It’s nice for the head of the Justice Department to state this reality, but they’re the same ones who have been spent the last half-decade refusing the use the word “terrorist” to describe any American criminals who aren’t SUV-hating hippies. But even compared to the “eco-terrorists” (who have actually firebombed SUV dealerships), these guys were smaller than small-time. These arrests weren’t even the result of a law enforcement operation, they just got turned in by the neighborhood watch :

Pistole, the FBI official, said the case was broken through a tip from the public.

”They came to our attention through pepple who were alert in the community,” he said.

Other authorities emphasized that the public was not in danger and all activities — including today’s parade in honor of the Miami Heat’s NBA championship — should proceed without undue alarm.

I wish these “other authorities” were on CNN. Instead we’re stuck with anchors and “experts” talking about how these dorks considered themselves “soldiers”. Which might be scary if these guys weren’t so pathetic that they couldn’t even buy their own damn shoes :

Batiste gave the supposed al Qaeda representative a shopping list of materials he needed — boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios and vehicles.

Six days later, Batiste outlined his mission to wage war against the U.S. government from within using an army of his ”soldiers” to help destroy the Sears Tower. He also gave the informant a list of shoe sizes for his soldiers.

I knew a guy a few years ago who would dress up like a ninja and sneak around his college campus. He also would show up at poetry readings wearing a Cobra Commander mask and shout threats at the audience along the lines of “You will all face destruction! COBRAAAA!!!”. He wasn’t a terrorist, he was just crazy. Same goes with these seven morons in Miami.

Immigration reform is dead for the time being because the Republicans in the House refuse to consider a bill that provides a path to citzenship for illegal immigrants (or even the President’s back of the bus “guest worker program”). Then again, my description of the House Republicans’ stance on the issue is a little misleading, since it implies that they actually give a shit about the issue. If they cared at all, they would have done something about it over the past five years. They haven’t, so now the issue is really just another pointless wedge issue that won’t get addressed at all after the election :

Some officials added that Republicans have begun discussing a pre-election strategy for seizing the political high ground on an issue that so far has served to highlight divisions within the party. Among the possibilities, these officials said, are holding votes in the House or Senate this fall on additional measures to secure the borders, or on legislation that would prevent illegal immigrants from receiving
Social Security payments or other government benefits.

“The discussion is how to put the Democrats in a box without attacking the president,” said one aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.

What’s especially funny about this whole thing is that the Bush Administration has worsened the problem they claim to be so concerned about solving :

The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show.

Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics.

In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three.
. . .
Statistics show that the numbers of fines and convictions dropped sharply after 1999, with fines all but phased out except for occasional small cases. After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a 2003 memorandum issued by ICE required field offices to request approval before opening work-site cases not related to protecting “critical infrastructure,” such as nuclear plants. Agents focused on removing unauthorized workers, not punishing employers.

ICE also faced a $500 million budget shortfall, and resources were shifted from traditional enforcement to investigations related to national security. Farms, restaurants and the nation’s food supply chain “did not make the cut,” Reed said. “We were pushed away from doing enforcement.”

You should read the whole article because it describles some of the raids that were conducted in the 90’s and the hypocritical response from members of the House and Senate, concluding :

Members of Congress at first hostile to immigrants embraced “all the same people who were so repugnant to them before,” Reed said, “and they prevailed.” Operation Vanguard — which was designed to expand to four states in four months and nationwide the next year, eventually including the lodging, food and construction industries — was killed.

Congress “came to recognize that these people . . . had become a very important part of their community, churches, schools, sports, barbecues, families — and most importantly the economy,” Reed said. “You’ve got to be careful what you ask for.”

That’s why any real solution to this issue needs to have three prongs :

– Tightened border security. Not just the physical borders, but any path through which someone might enter this country (ahem, airports)

– Tougher penalties against employers and better tools for law enforcement to track down identity thieves, trace fake Social Security numbers, etc.

– Path to citizenship (not “automatic citzenship” or “amnesty”) for immigrants who are already here. The President’s guest worker program (which ships immigrants out of the country after three years) doesn’t cut it.

Anyone who claims to care about immigration, but can’t provide for all three of these needs, is either unserious about the issue or doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about.