Writes: Paul Krugman

…… Drill now! Four legs good, two legs bad! — Know-Nothing Politics. Republicans, once hailed as the “party of ideas,” have become the party of stupid.

What I mean is that know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise — has become the core of Republican policy and political strategy.

The party’s de facto slogan has become: “Real men don’t think things through.”

In the case of oil, this takes the form of pretending that more drilling would produce fast relief at the gas pump. In fact, earlier this week Republicans in Congress actually claimed credit for the recent fall in oil prices: “The market is responding to the fact that we are here talking,” said Representative John Shadegg.

Remember how the Iraq war was sold. The stuff about aluminum tubes and mushroom clouds was just window dressing. The main political argument was, “They attacked us, and we’re going to strike back” — and anyone who tried to point out that Saddam and Osama weren’t the same person was an effete snob who hated America, and probably looked French…..[MORE >>]

SPECIAL — LISTEN TO: BIG GAY GOP FEAR FACTOR FEVER

Popularity: 8% [?]

Writes: BOB HERBERT

Running While Black - McCain’s Sexual Politics of White Women & Men of Color

John McCain’s recent ads are foul, poisonous and emanated from the upper reaches of the Republican Party. (What a surprise.) Both ads were designed to exploit the hostility, anxiety and resentment of the many white Americans who are still freakishly hung up on the idea of black men rising above their station and becoming sexually involved with white women.

The racial fantasy factor in this presidential campaign is out of control. It was at work in that New Yorker cover that caused such a stir. (Mr. Obama in Muslim garb with the American flag burning in the fireplace.) It’s driving the idea that Barack Obama is somehow presumptuous, too arrogant, too big for his britches — a man who obviously does not know his place….[MORE >>]

McCain in the pockets of Big-Oil — Like Bush

            To BARACK OBAMA

Popularity: 7% [?]

‘Water-Boarding’ Kenyan terror suspects and how they were flown out of Kenya

Writes: Ben Agina

Details on how 19 terror suspects arrested in Kenya, but removed from police custody by foreign security agents for interrogation can be revealed today.

Interrogation by the foreign agents — including US’ Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and Britain’s MI6 — have been described as “most inhumane” and involved blindfolding suspects, shackling their feet and handcuffing them from the back.

   Arrest Bush - A War Criminal!
According to a report by a presidential committee exclusively obtained by The Standard, the case of one detainee, Amir Mohamed, stands out as an example how foreign agents could easily access and remove suspects from police custody in various stations.

Mohamed was taken out of his cell at Nairobi’s Kileleshwa Police Station by American agents in a US registered vehicle and taken to a local hotel for interrogation.

When contacted, Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua asked: “What is the report saying?”

After consulting the Head of Public Service Francis Muthaura, Dr Mutua said the Government had not received the final report.

However, Mutua said they were aware of the committee’s “rough draft” whose content not all members were agreed on.

He said the committee was asked to make the report more accurate.

“The committee is still refining it (report) to try and come up with a more accurate document,” he said.

The Presidential Special Action Committee appointed last year to address specific concerns of the Muslim community received reports that the foreign agents had direct access to prisoners without restraint.

The report was to be handed over to the President on March 31, but to date it is yet to be received at State House.

The committee received reports from the Muslim Human Rights Forum, which witnessed Mohamed being brought back to Kileleshwa from an interrogation session on February 5, last year, in a US Embassy vehicle.

The detainee confirmed to the human rights’ group that he was interrogated by FBI agents about possible links with Al–Qaeda training military camps in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Another detainee, Mohammad Ezzouek, said he was interrogated by British intelligence agents at Kileleshwa Police Station between February 3 and 5 last year.

The human rights’ group also reported that during a fact-finding mission to Kiunga, Lamu District, the residents reported seeing foreign security personnel together with Kenyan security forces in the hunt for people fleeing Somalia and seeking refuge in Kenya.

One Abdulmalik Mohamed, said to be a Kenyan citizen and suspected of being involved in the bombing of Paradise Hotel in Mombasa, was arrested in Kenya and handed to foreign agents who flew him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after being held in custody in Mombasa and Nairobi.

The report quotes a statement by the US Department of Defence on March 26, 2006, indicating that Abdulmalik had admitted his involvement in terrorist attacks in Mombasa in 2002 and the US Embassy bombings in Nairobi in 1998.

One suspect who appeared before the committee, Fatma Ahmed Chande, a Tanzania national married to a Kenyan, narrated her ordeal as she and her husband, Salim Awadh Salim, were fleeing from Somalia.

“It was so chilly and drizzling. We were bundled into pick ups and driven to the runway. I saw very many people, including women, kneeling,” said Chande.

“The men were blindfolded and their hands handcuffed behind their backs and feet chained. I was led to the group of women and ordered to kneel, too,” said Chande.

She added: “An armed man came to me and pulled down my veil to uncover my face. Some of the detainees were crying loudly. The men had black hoods covering their heads. We knelt for some time, till our knees ached. We were taken to the plane, still blindfolded. I could, however, see through my veil as it was of light material. It was very scaring, cold and wet.”

According to the committee, Chande’s statement confirms the report by the human rights’ group that her husband, Salim, said to be Kenyan, was moved to Ethiopia, where he is still held.

The committee received reports that on March 31, last year, heavily armed police officers cordoned off a residential area in Kongowea, Mombasa, and harassed everyone in sight as they sought terror suspects.

After the ordeal, the officers arrested two people and later released them without charges.

On the night of April 24-25, last year, heavily armed hooded ATPU personnel raided Guraya in Mombasa.

Again, they cordoned off the area and blocked the adjacent Jomo Kenyatta highway, and proceeded to break doors at homes and paraded residents, including children and the elderly, in the rain at 3am.

It was alleged that the police ransacked their homes and took away valuables and cash, arrested 11 residents, 10 of who were later released without charges, while one was deported to the Comoros.

The committee also heard from Noor Sheikh Hassan, also said to be a Kenyan citizen who, together with five others, was arrested in Liboi, a town on the Kenya-Somali border on January 6, last year, and transferred to Langata Police Station in Nairobi, where he was held in solitary confinement for 25 days.

He was denied access to a lawyer and family members and could not make any phone call.

As of today, none of the arrests have yielded any prosecution for crimes connected with terrorism.

The report adds that some of those arrested were later released without charges whereas others were prosecuted for minor immigration offences and deported.

“The rendition of the terror suspects is illegal under the Constitution and international law because it disregards judicial and administrative processes,” says the report.

Most Kenyan victims of “rendition” were arrested and detained, while others were abducted and denied legal representation.

The committee notes that rendition violates other human rights: For instance, victims of rendition have no opportunity to challenge their detention, or the arbitrary decision to transfer them to another country.

The Kenyan security agents have continued to defend themselves over the rendition, saying those taken to foreign countries were not Kenyans

The committee, however, claims to have received evidence of the rendition of at least 19 Kenyans to Ethiopia, Somalia and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Flight manifests made available to the committee show that in January and February last year, chartered planes left Nairobi with about 80 people on board to the Somali capital Mogadishu and the town of Baidoa. They were suspected to have links with Al-Qaeda.

The flights left at night, and the manifests appear to have omitted important details.

The 19 were Aden Sheikh Abdullahi, Saidi Shifa, Salam Ngama, Bashir Hussein Chirag Mohammed Sader, Said Hamisi Mohamed, Swaleh Ali Tunza, Hassan Shaban Mwazume, Hussein Ali Said, Tsuma Solomon Adam Ayila, Abdi Muhammed Abdillahi, Salim Awadh Salim, Abdulrashid Mohamed, Kasim Musa Mwarusi, Ali Musa Mwarusi, Abdallah Halifan Tondwe, Nasru Tuko, Mohammed Said Mohamed, Saqaawi Diin (all in Ethiopia) and Wahab Mohamed Abdulmalik (Guatanamo bay, Cuba).

Muslim Human Rights Forum reported to the committee that it had filed 34 applications at the High Court in Nairobi, while six others were filed in Mombasa.

Despite High Court orders in all the cases, the State defied, and only released two suspects, while the rest were moved to foreign jurisdictions.

Popularity: 11% [?]

From The NBRA:

…..therefore Black People, please vote Republican — because Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. Meanwhile WE of the NBRA have launched Racial Anti-Obama Ads — like the ones below:

[MORE >>]

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What can I say, other than repeat what I have posted in this blog a thousand times: Black ReTHUGliTOMS demean blackness, hopelessly.

Today, it is pretty clear that African American interests are “better” served by the Democrats than the Republicans.

It is also true that Democrats have supported vicious confederate slavery in the yester years, but they, to a large extent rectified this in the sixties, beginning with the presidencies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.

Some Democratic legislators from the southern epicenters of White Racism opposed President Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964, due to “KKK Hangover,” but most did support it. This Act drove a significant number of white voters away from the Democratic Party, and the Republicans instead of joining with the Democrats to reform America, pounced on the opportunity — grabbing the “Southern Vote” a.k.a the “Bigot-Vote.”

Up to date, the Democratic Party has a far much better Civil Rights record than the Republican Party, for without the “Bigot-Vote,” the Republican party has no footing.

Consequently, race-baiting smothered in fear-mongering became a staple of the modern Republican Party.

Republicans, and in this instance ReTHUGliTOMS like “re-living the past,” oblivious of the fact that modern Republicanism is just a new name for pre-sixties “Dixie-Cratism,” ….spun around, modernized and “Stealthified.”

The “Bigot-Vote” is the main-stay of the Republican Party, and they pander to it incessantly, with the help of the “putrid dung” excreted by Talk-Radio (Rush Limbaugh and Co.) and Fox News (O’reilly, Hannity and Co.)….to name a few of these vicious hyenas.

Hillary Clinton tried to dip her filthy finger into the “Bigot-Pot,” failed and got beaten by a “Black Man,” called Barack Obama.

And why is Obama “Black” and NOT “White” — for he is an offspring of the union of a white mother and a black father.

Simple answer: RACISM — perpetrated by “some” Democrats and a “large majority” of Republicans.

Evolutionary Scientist Richard Dawkins states: “It is the height of injustice to think of a person as “black” just because his blood is “tainted” with “black,” whereas, if “taint” is what it is, then his blood is equally tainted with “white,” in which case, he equally qualifies also as white. Philip Ochieng, a prominent Kenyan intellectual examines Dawkins’ assertion very thoroughly in this piece titled: Why Obama is Black, not White. — Excellent Read!

True, some white Democrats are Racist too — as evidenced in the 15 month Clinton/Obama duel (see text and video postings elsewhere)

Depending on your view, it could be a matter of who is the “lesser of two evils.” ….Republicans or Democrats?

To me the Republican party is “super-evil.”

I won’t pen the language I am tempted to use, because someone else offers a more eloquent and “tighter summary” of what the ReTHUGlican Party represents:

From EvilGOPBastards.com

Click here for more: 41 things you have to believe to be a Republican today

Back to my Black Brothers & Sisters — The National Black Republican Association.

The late Khalid Abdul Muhammad was blunt and dramatic about you: “When white folks can’t defeat you, they’ll always find some Negro, some boot-licking, butt-licking, bamboozled, half-baked, half-fried, sissified, punkified, pasteurized, homogenized Nigger that they can trot out in front of you.”

Not to be outdone, movie director Spike Lee called people like you: “Handkerchief-heads, chicken-and-biscuit-eating Uncle Toms.” — a statement I have “Pluralized,” from the original that was directed by Mr. Lee at the “Big Kahuna” Uncle Tom — The one and only “Long John Silver” Justice Clarence Thomas — A ReTHUGliTOM Smothered In “Uppity Niggerdom” a.k.a “NegroPhobia Syndrome.”

That said, the National Black Republican Association is just but a congregation of frustrated slaves crawling back to the plantation, so to speak! “Virulent Oreo Phenomenons,” “Punk-Asses,” and “Uncle Tom Calamities.” — Thanks to Historian John Henrik Clarke and Author June Jordan.

Your ADs above are a big joke — and an insult to the black community!

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SPECIAL TREAT: How the Right Uses People of Color to Foster Racism

For your consumption:

   This cartoon was drawn by a White Republican Student - At The University Florida

It caused an uproar.

LOL! …only in America.

Popularity: 24% [?]

“Republican Mike Huckabee responded to a sharp offstage sound during his speech to the National Rifle Assn. by suggesting that it was Barack Obama diving to the floor because someone had aimed a gun at him.

Hearing a loud noise, Huckabee interrupted his speech to say: “That was Barack Obama. He just tripped off a chair. He’s getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor.”

There were a few murmurs in the crowd.

The Obama campaign had no comment.” — Quotation from the Los Angeles Times

Mike Huckabee is one of the few politicians who can ad lib quips that haven’t been written, vetted and analyzed by campaign staffers. His jokes were a breathe of fresh air in the Republican presidential debates, but he really stunk up the joint with this clunker.

Perhaps Huckabee thought he could get away with a crack about gunfire at a meeting of the NRA, but even that crowd of troglodytes was appalled at his insensitivity.

Huckabee’s quip must have gone over like a lead balloon in the Obama camp, the presumptive Democratic nominee has received numerous death threats.

Obama is a charismatic, eloquent and intelligent statesman who transcends race and politics, he has united people of all races, colors and creeds.

But there are always the loonies who can’t stand the idea of a black president, and they don’t need Huckabee planting any ideas in their heads.

Maybe if Huckabee were black, he wouldn’t have made that offhand wisecrack. But Huckabee is a hillbilly and we’ve already had a hillbilly president. There isn’t any nut who would have killed Huckabee to prevent a country bumpkin from inhabiting the White House.

Could Huckabee Be Wishing Obama — Assassination?

“Later Friday, Huckabee issued an apology: ‘During my speech at the NRA, a loud noise backstage that sounded like a chair falling distracted the crowd and interrupted my speech. I made an offhand remark that was in no way intended to offend or disparage Sen. Obama. I apologize that my comments were offensive. That was never my intention.’” — Quotation from the Los Angeles Times

Huckabee conducted himself like a gentleman during his presidential run, he never resorted to name-calling or dirty politics. I believe he is truly sorry that his witticism backfired, and I don’t think he meant to offend Obama.

When Huckabee heard that chair falling he should have made this one-liner:

Fellow NRA members, relax, don’t reach for your assault rifles. That was just the sound of a drunk NRA member out in the parking lot shooting himself in the foot.

REFERENCES:

1. Mike Huckabee Is Seriously Deranged
2. For Assassination Joke, Huckabee Should Be Off TV

Popularity: 36% [?]