Christian War on Chanukah

Eight men and two women are charged with assault, menacing and other mean 'n nasty things... In their unholy war on Chanukah, they may even have the charges upped to hate crimes:

The altercation erupted when Adler and his friends said "Happy Chanukah" to a group yelling "Merry Christmas" on the Brooklyn-bound train.

The 20-year-old Askari said he tried to fight off the 10 attackers, giving Adler a chance to summon police by pulling an emergency brake.

snip

"That a random Muslim kid helped some Jewish kids, that's what's positive about New York," said Adler, 23, who suffered a broken nose and a lip wound.

Some Christians can be the most hateful and despicable people on the face of the earth. Well? At least the fake ones that dishonestly claim America should be some kind of theocratic/fascist bastion of hypocrisy, going against the true meanings of the documents drawn up by The Founding Fathers.

Walter Adler called Hassan Askari a hero for stepping up. I say that he is a true Patriot AND a hero. The New York Post has more on this:

Walter Adler was touched that Hassan Askari jumped to his aid while a group of thugs allegedly pummeled and taunted him and his three friends. So Adler has invited his new friend over to celebrate the Festival of Lights.

The two new pals - Adler, 23, with a broken nose and a fat lip, and Askari, 20, with two black eyes - broke bread together and laughed off the bruises the night after the fisticuffs.

"A random Muslim guy jumped in and helped a Jewish guy on Hanukkah - that's a miracle," said Adler, an honors student at Hunter College.

"He's basically a hero. Hassan jumped in to help us."

The New York Post also has some video up on this story.

Hate Crimes in Connecticut?

As Connecticut's left, and particularly ctbblogger at HatCityBlog, celebrates the downfall of one idiotic bigot known as the Big Turd, there is a possibility of hate crime charges being not too far off on the horizon against members of a group known as “K Nation” in Plainfield, Connecticut:

Phyllisha Williams of Moosup crys Wednesday, November 14, 2007 while recounting the alleged racial slurs and beating of her son, Nashawn Williams, a sophomore at Plainfield High School during a press conference at the Plainfield Police station. Behind her is Scot X. Esdaile, Connecticut State Comference of NAACP Branches president.

In a prepared statement, Plainfield Police Chief Robert J. Hoffman said his department is conducting the alleged assault investigation properly, and rejected any assertion the department acted unprofessionally.

"At no time has the victim's family, or anyone representing the victim, contacted the police department to complain of inadequate service," Hoffman wrote. "Had the department been made aware of Williams' concerns, the matter would have been investigated despite the lack of a written complaint."

Hoffman said the department is close to finishing final interviews associated with the alleged assault. In addition to assault, he said suspects could be charged with hate-related crimes.

It has been almost a month since that November 15th Norwich Bulletin report on the group of white men that allegedly beat up Nashawn Williams, a 10th grader, while he was waiting for his school bus. This followed on the heels of events where Williams had been taunted with racial slurs at school, of which the Superintendent at Nashawn's school confirmed in the report, and threats of violence to their family at their home.

Undercurrents has more on the situation and some things to do about this:

Connecticut legislators, Attorney General, Governor, State Police and on and on are SAYING NOTHING about the blatant racist attack against Nashawn Williams in Plainfield. The Plainfield police are simply dismissing the racist attack on Nashawn as a prank. Instead over the last week it has become glaringly clear that the victim and the family are becoming the targets of a Racist system of InJustice in Plainfield and Connecticut! I wonder if they were rich white folks in Plainfield if the deafening police and government silence would be the same? Don’t let Jena come to Plainfield! The System refuses to take a stand against Racism and so it is the PEOPLE’s VOICE THAT MUST BE HEARD. It is imperative that you add your voice and join us this Saturday, December 15th at the Plainfield Town Hall at 12:30 PM to stand behind Nashawn and his Family saying that we will not tolerate Racism in Connecticut.

"There are a few idiots with
big mouths running around,"
Hoffman said.

Correction there, Chief Hoffman. If you have already said that there may be charges of hate crimes, then there are likely a few VIOLENT idiotic BIGOTS running around... And almost two months later they are still running around.

Why Some Democrats Refuse to Investigate for Impeachment - Part Deux

Just a rehash on the torture enabling situation. The other day I posted one of the main reasons why Dems continue to refuse to investigate and act on Impeachment:

Because some of the investigations would inevitably lead right back to some of their own members having been complicit in criminal actions:

It seems as if the "four" congressional leaders Harman refers to as knowing about the tapes were the chairs and ranking members of the intelligence committees: Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL), and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) took Goss' spot as chairman of the House intelligence committee that year when Goss became CIA director. Hoekstra told the AP that he didn't know a thing about either the tapes or their destruction. I'm calling Harman to ask her for her letter to the CIA about the tapes, and will bring it to you if and when I have it.

But the bottom line here is that at least some Congressional leaders knew something about the tapes and something about their destruction, and didn't say anything about either. Harman's silence is especially stunning: she co-chaired a joint Congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks in 2002 that didn't receive that very pertinent information. Why did she remain quiet about potentially criminal behavior? Marty Lederman has some thoughts here:

Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) CIA intelligence activities, and then saying nothing about them publicly until they are leaked to the press, at which point he expresses outrage and incredulity -- but reveals nothing. Really, isn't it about time the Democrats select an effective Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one who will treat this scandal with the seriousness it deserves, and who will shed much-needed light on the CIA program of torture, cruel treatment and obstruction of evidence? ...

Jane Harman also knew of the intention to destroy the tapes, and she at least "urged" the CIA in writing not to do it. (Where were her colleagues?) But when she found out the CIA had destroyed the tapes, where was Harman's press conference? Where were the congressional hearings?

You are either with bush OR you are against him. If you enable the bush administration to cover up their crimes, you become part of the criminal conspiracy.

Glen Greenwald offers some further observations into this reality:

I continue to be amazed and disturbed by the number of people willing to defend the actions of Rockefeller and his comrades by claiming that these poor, victimized Congressional members just have no ability to do anything when they learn about outright lawbreaking by the administration. As I asked yesterday, why would they even bother to attend briefings if they believed that they were "powerless" to act even upon learning of serious illegalities? Here is the central purpose of the Select Committee on Intelligence -- the primary reason it exists, as stated by the resolution which created the Committee:

It is further the purpose of this resolution to provide vigilant legislative oversight over the intelligence activities of the United States to assure that such activities are in conformity with the Constitution and laws of the United States.

The Intelligence Committees were created as a response to the discovery in the 1970s of illegal conduct by the CIA and other intelligence agencies. The core function is to monitor what the intelligence community does and to "assure that such activities" are legal. It is a complete travesty for the senior Democrats on those Committees (and their apologists) to claim that they are powerless to act when learning of lawbreaking. Anyone who thinks that way should not be on the Committee. The idea that they can't do anything once learning of lawbreaking is the very opposite of the Committee's core purpose. But, of course, they were not and are not powerless to act. They simply chose not to act.

In addition to the other mechanisms for action identified here and elsewhere thus far that are available to Senators who learn of patently illegal behavior in a classified setting, key members of the Intelligence Committee could also refuse to cooperate in the enactment of legislation, block nominees, and otherwise thwart the administration's needs until there is some resolution. Such Senators could hold closed door hearings or announce publicly that they have learned of serious lawbreaking by the CIA (without specifying what the lawbreaking is) and demand that the administration agree to a classified setting to resolve those concerns (such as appointing a special counsel with security clearances or empowering a court able to investigate and adjudicate highly classified matters).

But they did none of that. They did the opposite: they continued to cooperate meekly with the administration, pass all of their demanded legislation, and keep quiet. Even for those who say that it's terribly unfair to expect our political leaders to subject themselves to any risk whatsoever in order to put a stop to such gross abuses, they could have acted in ways far short of some sort of melodramatic civil disobedience which would have risked imprisonment (i.e, they would not have had to go as far as actual leaders and patriots who did take risks in order to expose serious governmental wrongdoing).

If someone wants to defend these Democrats' complicit behavior (on the craven ground that what they did was understandable because it was politically wise), then they should make that argument. But nobody should pretend that these Senators and Representatives were "helpless" and had no options for putting a stop to Bush's torture programs and other lawbreaking if they were actually interested in doing so.

Needless to say, if anyone tries to argue that it is politically wise to ignore these crimes... They are no better than the neoconservatives and their GOPeeons that committed the actual crimes.

If there are Democratic party members that feel they are unable to do their jobs according to the responsibilities defined by their positions of power and the oaths they took to uphold The Constitution, up to and including putting impeachment back on the table, then I suggest they find a new line of work. Or, perhaps, prepare for a long visit to a prison with the other criminals they have enabled.

Gang Rape Cover-Up by U.S., Halliburton/KBR?

Is this brutal violence the kind of example the US is setting in Iraq?

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she'd be out of a job.

snip

Jones told ABCNews.com that an examination by Army doctors showed she had been raped "both vaginally and anally," but that the rape kit disappeared after it was handed over to KBR security officers.

snip

Legal experts say Jones' alleged assailants will likely never face a judge and jury, due to an enormous loophole that has effectively left contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of United States law.

Hey... If she had been an Iraqi victim of something like this, likely, they would have just killed her and tossed in an alley somewhere afterwards instead of locking her up in a shipping container. Such are the ethics of contractors mercenaries in Iraq. And two years later we can clearly see how they remain unaccountable by the State Department and other government authorities under the criminal bush administration.

It isn't exactly like contractors mercenaries have a great track record in spreading bush's "Freedumb!"

And it is not like the military has been setting a great example for the contractors mercenaries, either:

As the anniversary of the Iraq invasion approaches, another milestone has quietly passed, leaving a window into the protracted and unimaginable human costs of this war in Iraq and here at home. A year ago, 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Al-Janabi was stalked, gang-raped, shot in the head and her corpse burned in her own home in Mahmoudiya, Iraq. Four U.S. soldiers and one former soldier are charged with the crimes.

The soldiers were so confident of their abilities to achieve their intended crimes that they rounded up the Al-Janabi family from their daily chores in broad daylight. Pfc. Stephen Green allegedly shot Abeer's parents and 5-year-old sister to death in the room next to where she was being raped by Sgt. Paul Cortez. His buddy, Pfc. James Barker held the struggling, crying teenager down while two other soldiers, Pfc. Jesse Spielman and Pfc. Bryan Howard, reportedly stood watch.

All this in the middle of the day under the hot afternoon sun, March 12, 2006.

Such are the unpleasantries of invasion, war and occupation. The medical journal Lancet estimated in 2004 that at least 100,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed, more than half of them women and children. Today, in the absence of accurate figures, that number likely has been far surpassed. To Americans, far from Iraq, these are presented as the sanitized statistics of collateral damage. But the Al-Janabi rape and murders were too well documented to ignore, just as the souvenir photos taken by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison forced Americans to see the torture being committed by their own troops.

[update] Just a minor clarification after re-reading this. I hope that no one took this in any way shape or form as belittling Jones’ situation: These guys that did this should have the book thrown at them if they are guilty. We will never know about that as long as they cover this up. But if Jones had been an Iraqi citizen? No doubt in my mind, she would be dead right now.

Right Wing Moonbat Heads Explode

In the comment threads after watching this:

"In addition to France, Canada, and the UK, Michael Moore also went to Norway. What he found, was unbelievable."

Who would've thought a little trip to Norway could have the therapeutic effect of exposing the hysterical hypocrisy of the GOP talking pointy exploding-heads?

A Mega Dose of Reality From a Surprising Source

From the media:

On issue after issue, says Richard Wolffe of Newsweek, Dennis Kucinich's views have gone from fringe to mainstream. That pattern became apparent again at NPR's Democratic presidential debate yesterday, Wolffe says.

Kucinich notions that once seemed crazy to the Democratic Party ended up front and center Tuesday, Wolffe says, and NPR's debate format gave the Ohio congressman a chance to shine. Kucinich is generally considered among the darkest of dark horses in the race. Yesterday, he spoke out about his opposition to liberalized trade with China and to the war in Iraq.

"We're borrowing money from China to finance the war in Iraq," Kucinich argued.

Wolffe says the idea of a Kucinich administration makes no sense to him, but he can't help noticing a new vogue for Kucinich's opinions.

"Think what you like about Kucinich and UFOs, but this Democratic field has essentially moved to the Kucinich position on trade, on Iraq, on a whole range of things where people thought he was a real outlier," he says. "They're all pretty much in agreement now, when it comes to some of these big issues like trade, like diplomacy and war. And they are where Dennis Kucinich is."

Some candidates have slowly moved over his way on their own, others have been dragged there reluctantly by activists, and there are still a few others that are incompetent and refuse to wake up to reality. But Dennis Kucinich has always been where he is, leading the way.

CODEPINK Activists Arrested in Pakistan

Medea Benjamin and Tighe Barry get to witness firsthand the terrorist tactics of the bush approved and funded Pakistani government:

On December 4th, our own Medea Benjamin and Tighe Barry were arrested at gun point in Pakistan during their visit to support pro-democracy activists. Upon leaving a student rally at the Lahore Press Club with a group of journalists, their car was pulled off the road. Armed policemen lept out of cars and off motorcycles and surrounded their car, guns drawn. They forced the driver and journalists out, beat passers-by looking at the scene, hijacked the car with Medea and Tighe inside, and raced recklessly through the crowded streets of Lahore to the police station.

Medea and Tighe were never charged with anything but they were forced to leave the country on the next flight. Their brutal arrest and deportation was just a glimpse at what activists in Pakistan go through as they struggle to bring democracy to their country.

Medea wrote: "In our ten-day visit, we met lawyers who had been brutally beaten and thrown into prisons with rats and murderers. We met judges who had dedicated their lives to the rule of law, only to find themselves unceremoniously thrown off the bench and even physically evicted from their homes. We met students who had been beaten with batons and face expulsion for participating in pro-democracy rallies. We met journalists whose programs had been yanked off the air and tossed from their jobs for criticizing the government. But despite the repression, the lawyers, students and journalists are back out on the streets every day. We left Pakistan shaken by our treatment but in awe of the heroism and courage our Pakistani friends."

Bush and his neconservative cabal could put an end to this if they wanted to.

Why Some Democrats Refuse to Investigate for Impeachment

Because some of the investigations would inevitably lead right back to some of their own members having been complicit in criminal actions:

It seems as if the "four" congressional leaders Harman refers to as knowing about the tapes were the chairs and ranking members of the intelligence committees: Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL), and Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA). Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) took Goss' spot as chairman of the House intelligence committee that year when Goss became CIA director. Hoekstra told the AP that he didn't know a thing about either the tapes or their destruction. I'm calling Harman to ask her for her letter to the CIA about the tapes, and will bring it to you if and when I have it.

But the bottom line here is that at least some Congressional leaders knew something about the tapes and something about their destruction, and didn't say anything about either. Harman's silence is especially stunning: she co-chaired a joint Congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks in 2002 that didn't receive that very pertinent information. Why did she remain quiet about potentially criminal behavior? Marty Lederman has some thoughts here:

Jay Rockefeller is constantly learning of legally dubious (at best) CIA intelligence activities, and then saying nothing about them publicly until they are leaked to the press, at which point he expresses outrage and incredulity -- but reveals nothing. Really, isn't it about time the Democrats select an effective Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, one who will treat this scandal with the seriousness it deserves, and who will shed much-needed light on the CIA program of torture, cruel treatment and obstruction of evidence? ...

Jane Harman also knew of the intention to destroy the tapes, and she at least "urged" the CIA in writing not to do it. (Where were her colleagues?) But when she found out the CIA had destroyed the tapes, where was Harman's press conference? Where were the congressional hearings?

You are either with bush OR you are against him. If you enable the bush administration to cover up their crimes, you become part of the criminal conspiracy.