Wonkette
- Oh no. Oh no no no. What is this? What … how? Democratic “gangbangers,” gangbanging doors, with flyers? And a video — a terrifying video! — of an anonymous woman, who fears for her dear sweet life … HELP! NEW JERSEY DEMOCRATIC FLYER-GANGBANGERS! [Hot Air]
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Michelle Malkin double-doggy dares you to defend muslins and their so-called sharia law. [Michelle Malkin]
- Vote Jonah Goldberg’s brother for NYC City Council! And then read about Jonah Goldberg’s kitten lightsaber fettish — but only if you vote for his brother! [The Corner]
- We now know for sure that waterboarding saved America from shoe bombers and global warming. Q. E. muther-fuckin’ D. [Weekly Standard]
- A very important Arizona Republican correctly points out that Democrats are entirely unfamiliar with the daily suffering of “those brown people.” [Think Progress]
Pre-emptive warning: do not click any of the links.
Since today is my favorite holiday, and for some reason my home state is in the spotlight for having fat people dare run for office, I want to point out a Classic in New Jersey Political Literature, from, of course, Politicker: “After ‘Porn and Guns’ Mailer, Wagner Pledges to Run Positive Forever More”.
I love my state.
Running over people is bad, m’kay…
Crime wave = Bruce Ash thinks the coloreds want his stuff.
That Hot Air report confuses me. First they are afraid that gangbangers are helping the GOTV effort, then criminals - wait, I don’t think gangbanging is a crime in New Jersey. Plus, what would known gangbangers be doing in New Jersey in the first place? It’s not really common in real life like it is in porn, and if the sources recognized them you’d assumed they must have done it on camera (or else the source was him/herself a participant); however, almost all of that is filmed in Southern California, nowhere near NJ.
Also, two anonymous sources have gotta be the most trustworthy basis for a news story ever.
JMP: 2 anonymous sources are enough to bring down a govt, just ask O RLY Taintz.
No stampede to get in front of the cameras and condemn the bloody ravages of sharia law.
Actually most people, including some Muslims, condemn sharia law.
It’ll be ignored. At best they’ll say it was an “isolated incident” and then go back to ignoring it.
It certainly is an isolated incident but I’ve seen coverage of the incident all over the place.
Re the AZ guy talking about brown people: “right-wing host Jon Justice — who has been called the “Rush Limbaugh of Tucson”. This is the textbook definition of “a modest distinction.”
Behold the mighty wingnut Wurlitzer:
If any repug gets a single vote anywhere in the country, it’s a HUGE victory for the wingnuttery and a sign that the entire voting public hates Barry and the Dems.
Second verse, same as the first.
The intellectual fortitude displayed by the Hot Air commenters is breathtaking, lemme tell ya. In a “Yes please kick me repeatedly in the nads” kind of breathtaking.
How sad is it to be known as the “Rush Limbaugh of Tuscon”, or as Rush Limbaugh?
The commenters on that Hot Air piece are convinced that hard-core gang members are lining up around the block to make 8 bucks an hour canvassing for the Dems. Nope, I can’t find any holes in that logic.
Why would anyone name their blog site “Hot Air”? It kind of inspires incredulity right from the start.
Anonymous “Gangbanger” survivor: “We…saw some people that, just don’t belong in the neighborhood; you can tell, uh, by the way they were dressed.”
Was it the brown-colored skin they were wearing?
I don’t know any muslims who want to live under sharia law, any more than most christians (wingnut bloggers excluded) who want to live under a christian theocracy. Of course, in Malkin’s world, simply by being liberal, you are defending and supporting sharia law, especially the honor killings. So yeah, go ahead and defend sharia law! If you don’t it just proves that ummm… uhh… America! Fuck Yeah!
JMP: I think you have been watching too much porn, because “gangbanger” here does not mean what you think it means.
chascates: I would venture to say most Muslims, at least in the West. On top of this, the term Sharia implies that it is based on interpretation of Islamic scriptures, and while it has become a sort of shorthand for “not without my daughter”, there are large differences between systems calling themselves “Islamic law” worldwide. But it’s Malkin, so hey, what do you expect? MUSLINS ARE ALL THE SAME AM I RITE.
The gangbangers that so frightened the Morris Township cop were probably Sophmores from the all-girls College of St. Elizabeth in Convent Station who were once ticketed for going 27 in a 25 zone.
Mad Brahms: Yeah, I know they how they meant to use it (really, in place of the n-word, with added “blacks=criminals” racism); but like with their teabag parties, it’s fun to play with Republicans using words when they don’t know their common, dirty meanings.
Oh, and it’s fun that, now, teabaggers and supporters attack those of us who use their own terms on them for being vulgar and childish, now that they’ve learned what it means.
Shari’a fucking sucks. And while most Muslims hypocritically don’t want to live under it, they also don’t do anyone any favors by not openly condeming it. Of course, this is the way all religions work - you have to quietly admire and support or (at the very least) ignore the roots of extremism, because they are the same roots that the “liberal religious” cherry pick at will to suit their own needs.
“Oh, well, I don’t want to STONE anyone to death, but I do wear a headscarf because the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) said it was right. But I wear a modern headscarf, with a pattern! And I wear jeans, because I am liberal, progressive Muslim.”
Now, where’s the fucking bottle of Jack Daniels I left lying around here?
Okay, the Weekly Standard waterboarding thing — it never says that torture was effective in interrogations — it only says that they got useful information from detainees. And the actual 6/1/2005 report (in PDF format) says about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that the useful information he gave up was divulged in March, 2003, the month he was captured (pp. 7 and 8).
A report I can’t find right now, from one of KSM’s FBI interrogators, said that he was interrogated in the normal way acceptable to the Geneva Conventions for a while and then waterboarded when the CIA wanted more information out of him.
And while the Red Cross report said that KSM was waterboarded in March 2003, it could’ve been after he gave up the actual useful information. Nowhere in the report (well, excepting the 50% of it that’s blacked out) does it say that KSM gave up any information after March of 2003.
So yeah — interrogation detainees is effective — but that anything in this report says that torturing them was effective is completely wrong. In fact, the circumstantial evidence points to it being ineffective.
Oh, and by the sheerest coincidence, Michael Goldfarb got this info from Liz Cheney’s organization, KeepMyDadOutOfJail.com.
Mad Brahms: And I think you are both wrong, because the term “gangbanger” here means “black person.”
SayItWithWookies: And it still doesn’t really matter if the information was produced post-torture or not, because it can’t prove he wouldn’t have said something eventually regardless. More to the point, though, it’s worth stepping back and thinking about how absolutely ridiculous it is that the defense of an entire range of brutal, internationally outlawed actions comes down to the testimony that may or may not have been produced by one guy, this one time.
Dear Michael Goldfarb:
I recently stopped in a gas station to ask directions. Because my trip was important and time was critical, I decided to use enhanced interrogation techniques on the attendant, who was soon coughing up valuable information, and some blood. Although I got lost (because the attendant said the first things that came into his head), I think this experience proves your point nicely.
And if anybody tries to tell you we don’t torture–whether it’s effective or not–because it’s immoral and/or illegal, call them out for the America-haters they are.
Dickweed.
ithasatilde: In the 2006 contest, officials selected the “improved” New Jersey state slogan
“Come See For Yourself”
WTF does that mean?
Of course, most of these are terrible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_slogans
AnnieGetYourFun: Exactly how does wearing a headscarf hurt anyone?
AnnieGetYourFun: re: Shari’a - If I recall correctly, it’s actually not condoned by Islam; like the ritual honor killing shit it’s a hold-over from ancient tribal customs. But your point is well taken nonetheless.
Mad Brahms: …and furthermore, the techniques used were those used in the SERE schools the military set up in the ’60’s. Modeled on Soviet Russian/Warsaw Bloc interrogation techniques they were more about breaking and disorienting than gathering actual actionable intelligence.
ShiningMathPath: Colorado’s got some good ones, though; “Rocky Mountain High”, “Enter a Higher State”, and then “Where the Columbine Grows”.
I’m surprised Jersey didn’t come up with something worse, since this is the state that seriously considered switching their state song to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” - a song about feeling a desperate need to get the hell out of his shitty New Jersey hometown.
doloras: Wearing a headscarf obviously does not directly hurt anyone. But religion, overall, does hurt people. That’s my steadfast belief; it causes more harm than good.
Liberal practioners, especially in Muslims communities, stress a need for acceptance of other’s beliefs, even if they are more extreme than your own. Sure, there are activists within the Muslim world who fight very hard for women’s rights, but they still fight within an Islamic framework, and that’s framework is fundamentally and ultimately biased against women (all religions are, yes, but I speak to Islam specifically because I have studied it for a number of years, as a Muslim).
It doesn’t matter how you dress it up, Islam will always give women the disadvantage. Its very roots are poisoned by an intrisic imbalance in this regard.
And I won’t even get into the violent aspect of it.
binarian: While it’s true that there is nothing in shari’a that discusses killing a daughter for shaming her family, this certainly seems to be something that only occurs in Islamic societies (and yes, I’m aware of widow immolations in India). And while I agree that it seems to be tied directly to the structure of tribal societies, shari’a helps to continue promoting the societal hysteria surrounding female virginity.
QE mf D? Waterboarding works because of quantum electrodynamics? Who knew Richard Feymann was ghostwriting at the Weakly Substandard?
“This morning, on the Upper West Side, I yanked that sucker hard, and work it did. Voting Goldberg felt real good.”
That’s not voting, Nordlinger.
JMP: agree on the Colorado slogans. How’s this for NJ:
“What’s buried in Jersey stays in Jersey”
ShiningMathPath: Nothing is buried in Jersey. That’s what the Hudson River is for.
Right about the time I’m convinced that “Shira Law” is a Crime And An Abomination Against Women . . .
. . . I suddenly have a vision of Michelle Malkin clad from head-to-toe in a burlap bag . . .
. . . Swinging on the end of a rope, from an overpass in Afghanistan.
And I think, “The West Should Not Unilaterally Impose Its Cultural Norms On Other, Indigenous Societies” . . . .
ithasatilde: Stop, you’re making me homesick …*sniff
SayItWithWookies: Nice digging. The truth about our torturous past is best documented in Jane Mayer’s book, The Dark Side. The paperback edition has the latest revelations. It’s some seriously depressing reading, though.