A Political Season

Fear of a Black Republican

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 18:11:00 +0000

The trailer is intriguing. May have to spring for the DVD. Interesting story about its making at Big Hollywood.

Palin, Perry and Random Thoughts After A Hiatus

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 08:01:00 +0000

I've been away from the keyboard for a bit, trying to restore some additional order to the chaos that is life. Being away for extended periods without any commentary is bad blogging though. Sometimes a brief word or two is all it takes to keep the blog fires burning, so lets have a few.

On the GOP nomination race

Palin Predictions: Speculation is rampant once again that the Thrilla from Wasilla is going to run. Rove suggests its possible based on a seemingly ramped up schedule in September. Though I'm sure Rove would love to see anyone come into the race who throw a monkey wrench into Perry's plans, we stand by our longstanding prediction that Palin will not run. Though the comparison is not entirely fair, to our mind, Palin has become something of the Kim Kardashian of politics. She's managed to turn her 15 minutes into a 24/7 and more power to her, but you can't be a money making political celebrity and a serious candidate at the same time (just look at Herman Cain). She makes the media's hearts go pitter patter and I'd take great interest in watching her try, but its not gonna happen.

Perry's Pursuit of the Presidency: Gov. Rick Perry has thrown his hat into the ring and become the instant favorite on Intrade and in various polls. I think he will be a bit of a litmus test for the political intelligence of the Tea Party contingent of the GOP. He talks a good game, but just the little I've read of his record thus far doesn't secure his conservative bona fides with me, and prominent voices in the conservative movement are going hard on Perry. Michelle Malkin is calling him out as a crony capitalist among other unsavory things. She essentially says he's no better than Obama. Our prediction: Perry is likely at the top of his popularity right now, but his vetting is only getting started. We think its all down here from here as the base and the establishment really give him the once over. Our money says its Romney's nomination to lose, barring the entrance of an unknown better candidate.

Other Contenders: There is talk of Chris Christie or Ryan getting into the race. We'll make some more predictions there too: neither Christie nor Ryan will run.

On Leaving Obama

A significant and growing portion of people out there who regard themselves as progressives are feeling truly disaffected from Obama by the day. Calls for a primary challenger to him for the nomination have begun to sound on the left and those calls may grow even louder. Its an interesting phenomenon, but whats really blowing me away is the vociferous grass roots reaction to criticism of Obama that has been opened up on black politicians and opinion leaders by regular black folk, occasionally amplified by celebrity. Maxine Waters is finding herself in the crossfire. Nasty criticisms have shown up on line of her for criticizing the president, leveled by black folk. The pushback is hard and nasty enough that Waters even bleats about getting beat up for talking critically about the president (hear it at 4:17 in this video clip). Usual suspects Cornel West and Tavis Smiley recently got called Uncle Toms by Steve Harvey, who criticized their so called Poverty Tour, which just rolled through Columbus, Mississippi.

I could go on a whole long rant about the so called Poverty Tour, but I'm just trying to hit it and quit it today. So I'll simply say that while I can applaud West and Smiley for getting out on the hustings to raise issues, the poverty tour aims too low. They essentially accuse the president of being too timid and too captured by the oligarchic forces of the financial elites to truly address poverty with any of the left's progressive prescriptions. They actually have a point. Where I think they run clean off the rails is wasting time barnstorming around the country to talk about how the government ought to do more, when they could instead be helping create the infrastructure and momentum for a starfish structured, Tea Party of the Left, that would have a disruptive effect on the Democratic party like the Tea Party has had on the GOP. Cornell and Tavis, I invite you to read my excellent post on building a disruptive Tea Party of the Left. I advocate it not because I buy into progressive policy approaches, but because if West and Smiley are going to go out advocating for something to be done about poverty, it should be more ambitious than simply trying to get a larger group of people to beg for government intervention in their lives. Tea Party folk are all about dictating to the government, not the other way around. The Poverty Tour suffers from a poverty of vision and thats just plain ridiculous when you have West and Smiley heading it up. They have little excuse in my book to underperform so severely, notwithstanding their status as irretrievably liberal progressives.

HP Punks out on its Webos Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:13:00 +0000

I'm a huge fan of the Webos operating system created by Palm and later bought by HP. This beautiful, elegant, intuitive true multitasking operating system was the only real challenger to IOS in its potential. When Palm faltered for lack of resources and HP swooped in and bought them, declaring they would "double down" on Webos, enthusiasts for the OS rejoiced.

It was therefore a disappointment of EPIC proportions when HP announced yesterday that they would be selling the personal systems group which produces all their hardware, including Webos devices. Webos faithful across our little mobile community reacted with shock and outrage. I was right there with them. People thought that Palm executed on the marketing and sales of the Pre very poorly and we all just knew that HP with its scale, size, bags of money and engineering nohow, would be able to market Webos in the way that Palm could not. We've all been shocked to see that not only did they not do better, they did WORSE! Sales of Touchpad have not been good enough, the Pre3 has yet to see the light of day in the US, I mean, start to finish, its been a clusterfark.

Today, HP stock price falls 23% to a 6 year low as investors rightly hammer their decision to dump hardware and webos devices and buy a big UK software company and take HP in the direction of being a cloud services, enterprise software company. They deserve it. As Mashable.com noted:

The company’s bold moves came after its webOS unit lost $336 million, mostly because of the doomed TouchPad launch. Sales for HP’s consumer PC unit fell 23% in the last quarter....
Still, not everyone believes that HP was right to cut its losses. Investors apparently don’t and neither does Sarah Rotman Epps, a consumer analyst with Forrester Research. “HP withdrew itself from the post-PC competition before it even got started,” she says. “The reality is they didn’t try very hard.”

I totally agree. They did a lousy job. Putting out a tablet before the next phone. Announcing product and not delivering for months. And then, after all the hype, exiting the competition before it even got started, lying to customers and basically murdering the future of the best mobile OS out there in its crib because they were too lazy to be the innovative parents of the mobile future they paid $1.2 billion to be. They had a great product and destroyed their opportunity by phoning in the execution.

So now the Webos faithful are waiting to see if Webos will get another chance with someone via licensing or to my mind much better, an outright buy of the patents and OS by HTC or Samsung, in that order. HP has talked about licensing, but I don't think any of us are holding our breath since most of what they have had to say has clearly meant nothing. Furthermore, the way they announced this decision only hurt Webos' chances since they told everyone they were abandoning it before they had any plan for what they would do to exit the business. Dewitt, the executive leader responsible for the business unit that produces webos devices didn't even know this was coming, as was apparent from their hastily called all hands meeting following the announcement. Thats indicative of a a strategic tailspin and a company whose parts are not working with any synergy and investors are rightly pounding HP's stock because of the message these recent actions send. I have no sympathy.

HP, you should make Webos open source and set up a foundation to administer and grow it. It won't make you any money, but you could do something useful and good and right here by doing that. It would at least make some amends for the way you have wasted the Webos' community's time, investment and the way you have totally frakked over the future of the best mobile operating system to hit the planet. It'll never happen, that would be too much like right and HP is a public company that has the same shortsighted eye on near term profits and share price to the detriment of innovation and building a quality product for the future that's all too typical of such behemoths.

HTC, please come to the rescue and buy Webos from HP lock, stock and barrel and take it to the next level. Its an awesome hedge of your bets vis a vis Android, Google and Motorola. You make great hardware and we all believe you can make Webos sing.

How the Community Can Save Webos

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:21:00 +0000

As Touchpad mania continues into its 5th straight day of frustrated bargain hunting and gnashing of teeth over possible cancelled orders (I'm experiencing both), there is no denying that despite all the buzz, hype and excitement generated by the Touchpad firesale, a cloud still hangs over Webos. The threat of oblivion and a slow steady extinction.

Where We Are: HP announced August 17th that it was going to sell off its PSG group, which contains Webos, and that it was discontinuing the production of Webos devices. Then it slashed the price of the HP Touchpad 16gb/32gb units to $99 and $149 respectively, setting off a buying frenzy and in the process, creating an excitement, buzz, mania and broad consumer interest in the product that all their off the mark, ill planned and conceived celebrity advertising never came close to achieving. HP has subsequently made clarifying statements that it would continue to support and develop the OS, while it figured out what to do with it, but it was giving up the hardware business entirely. Despite those statements, its clear they have no solid plan for Webos and its future is very uncertain. None of this is helped by the fact that the inept and non business savvy way HP made these announcements damaged Webos' value for licensing by casting so much uncertainty on it. It is entirely possible that Webos could meet the same fate as the awesome show Firefly, killed off without being given a real chance to shine by corporate suits who could not see past short term profits to the long term greatness in their product.

Our Mission, if we choose to accept it - Save Webos: So what are the Webos faithful to do now? Seemingly, Webos is a failed platform. It matters little if HP develops the OS if there are no devices that run it. While it may be semi comforting to some that the DNA of Webos might find its way into printers and cars and various and sundry enterprise apps, thats cold comfort to die hard users of this outstanding moble OS.

But hey, we're just consumers right? HP is a giant behemoth of a company and one that didn't listen to the community. If they had, we would not be here today. We told them, get to market quickly, they didn't. We told them, put the phone out first, then the tablet, they didn't. We told them, its about apps and the eco system, get the big name developers on board, even if you have to build the apps and give them to them, they didn't do it. We told them, don't price this head to head with the Ipad, you're not ready for that, they did it anyway. We told them your advertising campaign must showcase the device and Webos, not obscure it with extraneous celebrity, they didn't listen. Their decision to dump Webos devices altogether reflects the triumph of short term share price focused thinking over long term lets win the market with quality thinking.

So in the face of all that stubborn refusal, you ask, how can the community have an impact now that will save Webos from a slow death? We make lemons from lemonade:

I believe HP's non strategy at this point is as follows:

Liquidate all remaining webos device stock as fast as possible and get it in the hands of users
Maintain webos with minimal activity in the form of OTA updates and some continued encouragement of the developer community to maintain webos viability for 12-18 month period while the PSG group is sold or more likely spun off as a standalone unit
License webos to the newly spun off PSG, who will then either make devices that run it or partner with someone to do so. See the ZDNET article below on HPs master plan.

The above approach could see Webos coming out on new devices in 12-18 months and a new lease on life for Webos as we know it. But HP is all about the bucks, not the vision. For Webos to survive and not be sold off for its parts (patents), HP must successfully monetize it. This is where we, the community of users and developers, come in. We have to work together and with HP (much as we might wish they were HTC) to retain, indeed enhance the value of Webos as a platform. We all have a part to play. Time to make lemonade. Here is how we do it.

HP must do an all out press to retain its developers and should subsidize big name developers to create apps for the platform - Raw app numbers don't matter, but app quality and popularity does. HP must bring the most popular developers to the platform by any means necessary. if that means building the app for them, its what they should do. Get creative, offer bounties for certain app types, prize competitions like Netflix has done. Whatever it takes HP, get it done.
Webos developers must support and update existing apps and create new ones - the platform has to stay alive for 12-18 months without a hardware refresh. The key to that is keeping the ecosystem alive and that means developers must not orphan, shelve or deepfreeze their apps in the meanwhile. Developers must keep their apps alive.
Webos users must Buy apps - This is key. Its about the money. The firesale has put thousands of webos devices in the hands of new users and their numbers are now added to those of us still using webos. With no devices being made for 12-18 months, the platform will quickly wither for lack of developer support if they can't see any future return for their labors. The Webos community must buy apps. Not just apps we want or like or that are really good. We must buy apps simply because they exist. We must buy apps as a recreational activity. Buy $5 worth of apps a month. Whether you use them or not. Whether you like them or not. Just buy apps. We must subsidize our developer community through this period, so they can come out the other side ready to create new apps when hardware for webos comes back to the market.
User community and HP must financially support Webos Internals - Webos Internals is arguably as responsible for innovation and advancement of the Webos platform as its owners have been. We'll need them to continue their life giving work to this platform, so we must financially support their work and HP should enable them with equipment and bucks. They are a cheap investment in the life of the platform. HP, give them what you spent on the nearly worthless tv advertising, you'll reap far more return for it than the tv spots ever got.
Convert new touchpad owners to rabid webos fans who buy apps - We have been gifted a new crop of webos users. We must convert them to die hard supporters of the platform and mondo app purchasers too.
Retain pre-, pre+, pre2 and touchpad hardware for as long as possible - There are a dwindling number of replacements. We have to keep using all of these devices and help each other as a community with creative ways to fix or replace our devices in the event of loss or failure for the 12-18 months needed to get to a new webos hardware cycle.

This approach over 12-18 months will keep Webos on vital life support while HP solidifies its plans. It preserves our developer community, ensures vitality in the platform and keeps webos attractive for potential purchasing or licensing interest from companies interested in winning the market with its mobile goodness. Thats how the Webos user and developer community and HP, working together, can save Webos to live another day.

UPDATE: Join the fight for Webos Survival

I've set up campaigns to begin bringing popular apps to the Webos platform. Join them, then start your own for the apps you want to see!

Bring Words with Friends to Webos!
Bring Netflix Watch Instantly to Webos!
Bring Mint.com to Webos!

Obama Speaks Tonight.....Yawn

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:25:00 +0000

I'm tired of the oratory. Obama seems to think he can orate his way to results. Tonight's speech will be a call to bipartisan action that will never occur. His walk consistently underperforms his talk and by a wide margin. The guy doesn't deliver for any of his constituencies. If the presidency were more of a figurehead than an actual working executive office, he would be fine, but its not. I never thought I would see a black president in my lifetime. Now that I have, I hope the 2nd black president will come yet in my lifetime as well and perform better than the first.

Tavis and Cornell Have One Thing Right...Black People Can & Should Criticize Obama

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 03:26:00 +0000

I voted for Obama, gave money, canvassed my neighborhood. I want him to be a successful president. But he is not the leader we expected him to be. His walk vastly underperforms his talk, routinely. I routinely encounter blacks online and off who contend that as blacks we should support him no matter what because he is black, irrespective of whether he is doing a good job or not. My brothers and sisters, is that really what you mean? I don't think Rosa and King and Malcolm and Medgar and all the other civil rights heroes sacrificed so that we could live in an America where we have to support a brother no matter how he performs. They fought for an America where we CAN be judged on our merits, on our results. We haven't won anything if we have not won the right as a people to have a black president that's not very good at the job and we can say so. To be black and fearful of criticizing Obama because he is one of our own is to operate from a poverty mentality about the opportunities we have. To be afraid to criticize him when warranted is to act as though Obama is the only black person who will ever achieve the presidency. He is not. There will be others after him. We don't help him by withholding legitimate criticism of his decisions and policies. If your company hired a black ceo and he made bad decisions that didn't help the company, you wouldn't support his bad performance that might put you out of a job. I don't advocate hating on Obama, but when he is wrong or going in the wrong direction, if we revere him, if we respect him, then give him the respect of telling him when he is going down the wrong track. How can he improve if his brothers and sisters in the black community who wish him success more than anybody will not give him our good counsel when he is getting it wrong? More importantly, as president, his job is one of servant leadership. If he does not lead well nor provide good service, it is right and correct to acknowledge it and address it and if needs be, to make a change. The idea that blacks cannot and should not criticize Obama's performance when warranted because he is black is a reflection of a certain level of political immaturity in the black body politic that we simply don't have the luxury of indulging when black folk are catching hell economically like we are. We need an effective president, whether he is black, white or polka dot, and whether we think we like the alternatives on offer to Obama or believe everyone else unfairly blames him does not diminish our obligations as citizens and as Obama's black brothers and sisters to speak truth to him about his performance, the good and the bad.

My 9/11 Story

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Its the anniversary of 911 again. Lot of emotions and feelings opened up again for so many people. I was in New Orleans at a training on 911. I'd been there for a day. I was staying at a hotel in the French Quarter, which happened to be directly across the street from a strip joint (didn't think my company was really winning one for family values that day). I woke up that morning around 8:30, and flipped on the news. I'm an info junkie, so I love listening to news. I flip to CNN, and there's a live feed of the Trade Center, a few minutes after the first plane struck. The shot was showing the tower burning. I thought to myself "oh man, some idiot flew his plane into the trade center". It looked bad, but I thought " a tragic accident", nothing more. I continue getting dressed, watching the tv, listening to the commentary.

Suddenly, coming in from the right of the screen, I see the 2nd plane strike. That's when I know. "We're under attack". That's when the sense of horror starts growing. And it never stopped. Later in the day, the FAA grounds every plane in the air. The towers continue to burn, people begin leaping out of windows in desperation. A lot of the people at the training I was attending were from our New York office. We were all scared and worried. We tried to soldier on through the training anyway. Later on, the towers collapsed. Word came that the Pentagon was hit, and the first reports came in about the plane crashing in Pennsylvania.

The whole country was in shock. With the planes grounded, none of us could fly out, and were now looking for alternative means of travel. Rental cars quickly ran out. At that point, as far as I knew, the country was under attack, no telling what was going to happen next. I just wanted to get home to my family. I hopped a bus the next day for home, at the time, in Detroit. It took 14 or 15 hours to get home. But once I was back with my family, I was more ready for whatever was coming next.

A lot has happened since then. What's your 9/11 story?

GOP Debate Winners & Losers and Predictions

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:07:00 +0000

The third GOP debate is in the books and hoo boy at this rate, this field is going to winnow out very quickly.

Winners & Losers:

Big winner of the night? If you even have to ask, then we weren't watching the same debate. I'm not a fan, but Romney takes this debate walking away. He frankly destroyed Perry again and again and again. Perry would attempt a political attack on Romney as a flip flopper, or Romney as not a real conservative, or Romney as architect of Romneycare and every single one flopped. Perry clearly came into this debate unprepared. He was not well prepped nor was he quick on his feet when they mixed it up. His rhetorical attacks consisted of poorly delivered anti Romney talking points with no additional substance behind them. When Romney turned aside his initial attack, he had nothing else. His attempt at a flip flop attack turned into a bumbling, stumbling, stammering, confused attempt that failed miserably. And even if he had delivered the line right, Romney would have had a comeback for it anyway. Romney was Muhammad Ali last night, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee. Perry never laid a glove on him and neither did anyone else. Romneycare is supposed to be the giant albatross around Romney's neck? You couldn't tell based on last night's debate. Sure, that plays well with the tea party portion of the base, but guess what folks? They ain't the only ones voting! They are vocal, but they are not the only ones that matter and Romney is making a solid case that he is the only one effective enough to go toe to toe with Obama. Can you imagine the disaster Perry would have been if he had been debating Obama last night? I've had the suspicion that Perry has been sorta of coasting on the tea party base enthuiasm and not really working very hard to craft his message beyond the red meat "we hate Obama" shortand that the candidates like to use. Last night confirmed that suspicion. He was not prepared for this debate or Romney and it showed. Badly. He'll be permitted the opportunity to redeem himself in the next debate and if he can't perform much better than last night, he will continue to fade. Right now, he looks like he drank his own koolaid.

I could talk about the rest but I'm not gonna in much depth because I'm busy and they don't really matter because this primary race is effectively between Romney and Perry. Cain was a crowd pleaser but at this point will only be comic relief; he has no chance of winning. Bachman has lost traction after the HPV hysterics of the last debate that deboned her credibility, which is too bad, because I love the way she lays in the cut to steal on people if they give her an opening to slam them, like smacking down Huntsman on his direct flights to Cuba remarks. Gingrich is the intellectual and big concept heavyweight in the bunch, but he isn't going to win. Huntsman is so clumsy and lacking in a genuine demeanor that I find myself wishing he would shut up as soon as he starts talking. The guy makes jokes nobody ever understands. If he were a comic he would stave to death. Ron Paul is like the grouchy old neighbor that lives on your block and has a bunch of standard complaints that you know all about and you even agree with him, but always goes off the deep end after a while and gives you that "here we go again" reaction. Santorum was angry guy, and thats about all that stands out from his performance. If I left somebody out (I did) its cause they don't matter.

A few other reactions:

Gays in the military: conservative crowd boos gay serviceman who served in Iraq for his views. Wow. I've seen conservative commentators wax self righteous about how views are welcome and so on in the GOP, most notably around the controversy that erupts annually around that big conservative conflab when gay republicans want to get on the agenda. A gay enlisted man (who looked every bit the warrior in his video to me) that has put his body on the line in Iraq gets booed for talking about his experience? That kind of spontaneous reaction is a messaging all its own.

Foreign policy: As a general point, the candidates had a point in saying that Obama's foreign policy has been a muddle at various points. There is some merit in that argument. But its also clear that not a one of them with perhaps the exception of Gingrinch, has anything approaching a real foreign policy agenda or a foreign policy overview that is actually informed by some understanding of geopolitics . Not one of them. In a debate with Obama, unless they are very well prepped, they are going to get their clocks cleaned.

Predictions: Here it is: barring the entry into the race of some highly effective candidate (there isn't one, and no, Palin doesn't count because 1. she is not going to get in and 2, if she did, she'll lose and 3, see #1) and provided he doesn't make some major mistake, Mitt Romney is going to be the GOP nominee.

Warren on the War Path

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 17:20:00 +0000

So far, I like Elizabeth Warren. I love the fact that she's an educated voice that calls out the financial sector for their robber baron behavior and points out the fact that the financial sector is the most heavily taxpayer subsidized industry on the planet. The GOP excoriates her, but their criticisms have been over the top and at times, outright fabrications, such as the widely circulated video of capitol hill testimony where she was portrayed as too arrogant to answer questions from Congress when in fact, it was GOP congressmen who were being complete asses in their handling of her testimony. I'd be really impressed if she'd aim some well deserved criticism at the administration for the way in which they are sold out to the banking sector, but that may yet come.

Her articulation of the social contract here I don't find very much to argue with. In three short months, she's made herself a player in the Massachusetts Senate race. Scott Brown, watch your back.

Katt Williams Loves America

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 04:53:00 +0000

Katt Williams is an extremely profane and often hilariously funny comic. He specializes in a raunchy, profanity laced brand of strictly for adults comedy, part of a crop of bad boy comics who specialize in raunchy shock humor that is laugh out loud funny if you've got the cahones to listen to it. I love that kind of standup, particularly if its intelligently constructed.

Katt happens to be among that group of comics in this genre who can craft a profane narrative and make you like it. Well Katt has caught a little bit of heat and criticism for what critics have labeled an anti-mexican rant and which I regard as a "pro America" rant. Katt was playing a club in Pheonix and confronted a heckler who said "f**ck America" (which is not not heard in the clip of the episode) in his own imitable ribald and profane fashion. (Warning: Very NSFW)

I think about the only problem I have with Katt here is that it went on a little long. He had clearly made his point and embarrassed the guy, who eventually leaves. Beyond that, I think the outrage is unwarranted. For crying out loud, this is Katt Williams, talking like Katt Williams. And I can't say I have any huge issue with him telling the guy off after saying "f**k America" to him. Rubbed him the wrong way, so he got in the guys grill. He took heat for it when it sorta broke in the news several weeks later and his publicist apparently issued an apology. But when CNN got him on to talk about the incident, Katt made it clear he authorized no such apology and wasn't offering one. I can't imbed it, but check it. Its awesome. I love Katt's CNN interview. Its refreshing to see somebody not walk back something they clearly said and downright spine tinglingly exciting to see somebody say "I said what I said and I meant what I meant". Even more awesome to see a brother straight out the hood say unabashedly, I love America. Straight up. Whats even funnier than Katt giving the heckler a geography lesson is the plethora of articles that claim he apologized in the CNN interview. He most assuredly did not.

A Human Experience

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 23:06:00 +0000

Courtesy of Mashable's viral video of the day.

I had two reactions to this. One was the simple humanity of her reaction to hearing her own voice for the first time in her life, the joy it brought her, and the joy it brought me to see her experience that moment. The second was to think that this kind of joyous moment is what people experienced during the life and times of Jesus. This kind of scene was repeated over and over around Jesus as he healed the sick, gave sight to the blind and even raised the dead. So if you sometimes wonder what it was like in his orbit, this video is a great little example of what kind of joy was jumping off around the Savior all the time.

Perry's Rock

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 03:33:00 +0000

As most of you know, I no longer believe the term racist to have much utility any longer. Most of us don't agree on what we mean when we say it. So the controversy of the rock and its name at Perry's ranch makes me wanna yawn more or less. I do have one thing I want to know though. Once the Perry family owned the place, how long did it take before they painted over the rock? If they didn't do it damn near immediately, well, I'll make some inferences about character.

Cain: The Force is Strong In this One

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 11:30:00 +0000

Herman Cain is the GOP player on the field who could be a game changer if he were to raise his game another few notches, which he will have to do if he wants to take out Romney or Perry and then take his game to still another level to take on the One.
Thus far, I'm no fan of Herman Cain. He's become a real frontrunner in the nomination race based on the polls. But I don't think there are any serious watchers of politics who think he actually stands a chance of getting the nomination. But if he can broaden his appeal beyond the Tea Party wing of the party while still maintaining his conservative cred, he might permit the GOP to field a serious conservative black candidate against the One and that folks would just be too much fun. I actually wouldn't mind that outcome at all.

An old debate clip has raised my estimation of the man a notch. Here's Cain taking on Clinton on his health care reform plans in a televised town hall. This is the first clip of Cain I've seen that actually made me think the guy had any serious degree of intelligence, notwithstanding his considerable business experience and impressive resume. It can't be imbedded, but click through to see it. Its impressive. I'd like to see a lot more of the Herman Cain in this clip. A whole lot more.

Cain still has problems. His anti Muslim stance, which he has muted because of the push back he was getting is still very problematic on two fronts. It looks and sounds an awful lot like bigotry and prejudging an entire group of people based on their religion. His rantings about the creeping threat of Sharia to our legal system is simply not supported by any real facts or evidence beyond anecdotes. Frankly, it makes him sound crazy and as President, he's going to lead foreign policy dealing with Middle East countries. We don't need a president operating on that front with his analysis clouded by an unfounded bias. He's run a successful business, but I've yet to see a serious vetting of his 9-9-9 economic plan by anyone in terms of its actual effect on the economy. It may sound good, but the devils in the details. A 9% national sales tax for example is gonna be seriously felt at the lower incomes. So that needs vetting if simply to make him defend it, since even if he was elected, I don't see him accomplishing such a major overhaul of the code. I don't often care for the guy's tone. If he wants to get a majority of the country with him, he's gonna have to use some language we can all mostly get on board with.

Lastly, I'm not interested in a black conservative who doesn't have the stones or the brains to discuss racial issues within in the GOP without caving like a punk at the first sign of pushback from people like Limbaugh. Cain recently criticized Perry over the allegations that Perry and/or his family tolerated the presence of the word "niggerhead" on a rock at a ranch/hunting ground they own. Clearly the story was a hit piece. However, here's my deal. If people called the place by that name, well, thats not on the Perry's, whether they owned it or not. However, if the Perry family bought that place and "niggerhead" was written on some big honking rock for everyone to see AND it wasn't among the first things they painted over, changed, fixed, whatever? Well, I'd make a perfectly legitimate character assessment based on that. If they let that slur stand for more than a day on their property, there isn't much good to say about it and if so, Cain's criticism is justified. Assuming it is, the man loses my respect for speaking to it and then walking it back because Rush has something to say about it. If you are your own man, be your own man. Don't kowtow to Rush on race or anybody else in the GOP. Wrong is wrong, call it like you see it.

What Did I Tell You!

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 19:20:00 +0000

I predicted Huckabee would not run (check). I predicted Christie would not run (check). I predicted Palin would not run (check). When I predict, pay attention.

Blacks and the GOP: Crossing the Chasm

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 20:04:00 +0000

If you visit my blog more than once, you know I often take conservatives black and white to task for using funky, contemptuous language in describing the political posture of African Americans relative to the GOP and the Democrats. Conservatives have become enamored of explaining away their failure to gain a real hearing from black America with rhetoric laced with allusions to dependency, slavery references and other insulting memes.

As conservatives, and the GOP as a party, we often blame black America for our failure to win them to our cause by writing them off as essentially stupid (Cain: blacks are brainwashed). This approach gives conservatives an easy out and excuse not to politically engage in our communities, nor even attempt to parse out the issues most important to us as a body politic. This near complete abdication of any responsibility for the nature of the relationship and of any requirement to actually make good on our rhetoric that blacks are desired as a political constituency in the republican tent is every bit a factor in the size of the political chasm between blacks and the GOP as is our too often reflexive opposition to any GOP position.

Part of addressing that divide (if we are indeed serious) requires conservatives and the GOP to acknowledge the forces that have shaped black political outlook. Irey, a poster at Booker Rising, summed it up thusly in the comments to a post by conservative Larry Elder:

Again, it's all about the role of government. Business owners don't want government regulations on workplace safety - but their employees do! An oil refinery doesn't want air pollution regulations - but its neighbors do. A chemical plant doesn't want the expense of waste treatment, but the people who drink from the river do. The corporatocracy doesn't care about social justice, but the people want social justice. The society didn't free the slaves. The government freed the slaves. Society didn't abolish Jim Crow. The government did away with Jim Crow..... Considering our unique history, is it any wonder that many black people view the role of government with a particular perspective[?]. Isn't it understandable that the descendants of slaves would have residual suspicion of amoral unfetterd capitalism which had no intrinsic incentive to end slavery[?]. Conservatism didn't end slavery, liberalism did. The black relationship with government and liberalism is more complex than Mr. Elder wants to credit. And thus far the black community would rather deal with the devil they know than the one standing across the street with Glen Beck

As long as the GOP and conservatives more broadly, keep taking the easy way out on engagement with blacks as a political constituency, the chasm between the GOP and blacks will struggle to be filled in or bridged by the many common grounds we actually share.

Rush Hearts Murderous Child Stealing Rape Cult

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:29:00 +0000

The Obama administration has soooo many issues and problems and screwups to its credit, that its an easy target for criticism. You don't have to lie about this administration if you want to be critical of it. So I really detest it when fellow conservatives tell an outrageous lie simply to score a political hit on Obama.

Thats exactly what Rush Limbaugh did following the announcement by the administration that they were sending 100 combat troops to Africa to target John Kony and the leadership of the Lord's Resistance Army. Check the headline he runs with on his site.

From the transcript, posted by Rush:

Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. It means God. I was only kidding. Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That's what the lingo means, "to help regional forces remove from the battlefield," meaning capture or kill. So that's a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda, and -- (interruption) no, I'm not kidding.

Later on in the show, someone must have have informed him of the charges that the LRA are a bunch of murdering, raping scum.

Is that right? The Lord's Resistance Army is being accused of really bad stuff? Child kidnapping, torture, murder, that kind of stuff? Well, we just found out about this today. We're gonna do, of course, our due diligence research on it. But nevertheless we got a hundred troops being sent over there to fight these guys -- and they claim to be Christians.

He's gonna do his due diligence. Oh, well, gee, maybe thats what you would do before you accuse the President of persecuting Christians to death somewhere. Now you are gonna check the facts, gee thanks for that.

A survivor of the LRA's brutality sends a message to Rush. No one in the GOP or conservative camp will say word boo to Rush about this. Its a lie. He won't retract it or modify it. Hell, its still up on his website for pete's sake and by now, he should have the full brief on the LRA. When liberals do this kind of nonsense, conservatives trash them and rightly so. When Rush does it though, he's not held to any standard. If Rush will get behind a lie as huge and repugnant as this one, then what WON'T he say for the purpose of doing political damage to those on the left.

As I said at the beginning, there is plenty to jam Obama about. But huge whopping repugnant lies like this one that smears Christians (like me) by equating us with child stealing, murderous rapist scum such as Kony and the LRA leaders (less so the abducted children they turned into killing monsters) just so you can criticize the president? Its repugnant that Rush does it and its contemptible that no one of influence in the conservative camp will check him on it. Want to stay up on the antics of those Rush endorsed good Christian soldiers of the LRA, you can follow their kidnapping, killing and raping career at the LRA incident tracker.

You can debate the wisdom of sending our 100 combat troops to hunt the LRA, or whether there is a national security interest to be served here. For the record, whether or not we are pursuing other of the worlds's various and sundry butchers or not, the LRA is a predator group that we know is killing, maiming and raping innocent men, women and children and perpetrating horrific atrocities. We have blown millions and sent our troops into harm's way for far less noble causes than saving the lives of innocent women and children. If 100 of our troops can help hunt down and exterminate Kony and end the LRA's massacres, I'm cool with it. If we're gonna be globo cop, lets terminate a bad guy now and then. To the troops being dispatched on this mission, I say good hunting.

UPDATE: Rush takes official notice that he is "misinformed" on the subject of the LRA, but that seems about all he has to say of his outrageous smearing of Christians and Obama with his reporting. He won't walk any of that back and its pretty pathetic. Pandering to the lowest common demoninator.

GOP Post Debate Impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 00:39:00 +0000

I've now had the opportunity to watch the entire debate video. You have no idea how maddening it was to find that CNN's Adobe Flash powered live streaming would not play on my Touchpad, especially since this was the first debate where the candidates really mixed it up. Here are my quick impressions on how folks did:

Perry: Clearly, he had to show some more energy and life in this debate and he did manage to do that. That's the positive. On the down side, he seems to be a bit of a one trick pony in terms of debate strategies. He hit Romney hard with the illegal alien issue and returned to it later in the debate, but I'm unsure what that gets him going forward. He got it off, but seems to me that's only good for one debate, at best two. You gotta have something more beyond that. Perhaps its useful if it serves to drive up Romney's negatives, but I'm actually not sure there is a lot of ground to be made there, since with Romney polling in the 25% range, his negatives seem to be already priced into his standing with the conservative electorate. He's going to have to do more than remind people that Romney is a squishy conservative, he's gotta show he's got some better ideas. Verdict: Potentially arrests his slide, but didn't gain any ground or seriously damage Romney.

Romney: It wasn't his smoothest performance. When challenged, he got a bit manic and stammery, but by and large managed to keep his composure and fire back. He backed Newt down and made him admit that he supported an individual mandate and managed to rhetorically answer Perry's charges with a nice soft on immigration hit of his own relative to the magnet effect of Perry's in state tuition subsidies for illegal aliens. There were some displays of chinks in the facade, but he recovered decently and you can bet the next debate in November he's going to be ready for those attacks both defensively and with offensive hits at the ready in response. UPDATE: Erikson at RedState points out a couple of slips I noted too but neglected to mention, namely, Romney saying he didn't get the job done in MA on bringing health care costs down and his not so flattering slip that when he confronted that mowing company about employing illegals, he was seemingly most concerned about how it would look, him being a public official and all. Erikson has another post up today noting the Obamaesque qualities of Mitt. If I was Perry, I'd start playing that card now, though he's got some Bushesque qualities of his own that may turn folks off. If Romney and Perry start effectively dealing each other body blows, Cain could be the beneficiary with a little game raising on his part. Verdict: Bled a little, showed some chinks that could be exploited, but no real damage to momentum and he can recover.

Cain: I expected to see some major action come his way on 999, and came it did. Cain did okay, but I think he lost a bit of the momentum that 999 has given him. You can tell people they don't understand the plan a time or two, but at some point when pressed with specific objections, you should come prepared to back up your assertion that they don't get it. Cain did some of this, but not nearly enough, for example when Romney challenged him on specifics about what people would pay. This was Cain's golden opportunity to illuminate the plan for voters and push back on his opponents, but he kept talking apples and oranges. Cain is a mathematician and has the intellectual chops to engage in an explanatory debate (see this video of him taking on Bill Clinton, wonk extraordinaire in the 80's on health care). He's got to display that again to make the case on 999. Its not as simple as he says, and he has not convincingly rebutted the assertions of his opponents that its not hideously regressive. Cain has also got some Obama type qualities of his own, namely lack of experience in the world of government. Its not the same as business. He's a decision maker from the business world. Maybe thats enough, maybe its not. Either way, he's got to raise his campaign game about 5 notches right now if he wants to maintain top tier candidate status. Fundraising, organization and get that brain/mouth filter problem fixed to control those negotiate with terrorists gaffes. Verdict: We still predict that Cain will NOT be the nominee and his performance under fire underscores one reason why: he's not doing enough to make the case for the date he brought to the party, 999.

Bachman: She's largely disappeared from relevance in the debate and she is rapidly losing mind share. The woman is not particularly imaginative and 5 debates in, she should be laying out more clearly what her vision for the country is beyond "Kill Obamacare". There is a lot more to the gig. While she's consistently hitting her themes, she doesn't sound like she knows more beyond the basic talking points she hits all the time. You can't keep going to that well every debate. She also blew another hole in her credibility by referencing anchor babies. Its a nice red meat topic and lends itself well to that audience, but its been looked into and its bunk.

Santorum: Raised his mindshare a bit this time around with a good challenge to Romney about health care and noting that his opponents supported TARP, including the "businessmen" Cain and Romney. Is there more to the guy than just being combative is what I want to know and so far, I have not seen it yet.

Gingrich: Not going to win, appreciate the intellectual gravitas he brings to the stage. People say veep potential, but I'm not sure Newt would take that job.

Ron Paul: Doesn't stand a chance, but is usually coming with interesting comments and its great to see somebody on the stage who seems genuinely passionate in their beliefs, not merely political, even if some of the stuff they go for seems nutty.

Reflections on the Iranian Assassination Plot

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:30:00 +0000

By Scott Stewart

On Oct. 11, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that two men had been charged in New York with taking part in a plot directed by the Iranian Quds Force to kill Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, on U.S. soil.
Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri face numerous charges, including conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives), conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism transcending national borders and conspiracy to murder a foreign official. Arbabsiar, who was arrested Sept. 29 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York, is a U.S. citizen with both Iranian and U.S. passports. Shakuri, who remains at large, allegedly is a senior officer in Iran’s Quds Force, a special unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) believed to promote military and terrorist activities abroad.

Between May and July, Arbabsiar, who lives in the United States, allegedly traveled several times to Mexico, where he met with a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) confidential informant who was posing as an associate of the Mexican Los Zetas cartel. The criminal complaint charges that Arbabsiar attempted to hire the DEA source and his purported accomplices to kill the ambassador. Arbabsiar’s Iranian contacts allegedly wired two separate payments totaling $100,000 in August into an FBI-controlled bank account in the United States, with Shakuri’s approval, as a down payment to the DEA source for the killing (the agreed-upon total price was $1.5 million).

Much has been written about the Arbabsiar case, both by those who believe the U.S. government’s case is valid and by those who doubt the facts laid out in the criminal complaint. However, as we have watched this case unfold, along with the media coverage surrounding it, it has occurred to us that there are two aspects of the case that we think merit more discussion. The first is that, as history has shown, it is not unusual for Iran to employ unconventional assassins in plots inside the United States. Second, while the DEA informant was reportedly posing as a member of Los Zetas, we do not believe the case proves any sort of increase in the terrorist threat emanating from the United States’ southern border.

Unconventional Assassins

One argument that has appeared in media coverage and has cast doubt on the validity of the U.S. government’s case is the alleged use by the Quds Force of Arbabsiar, an unemployed used car salesman, as its interlocutor. The criminal complaint states that Arbabsiar was recruited by his cousin, Abdul Reza Shahlai, a senior Quds Force commander, in spring 2011 and then handled by Shakuri, who is Shahlai’s deputy. The complaint also alleges that, initially, Arbabsiar was tasked with finding someone to kidnap al-Jubeir, but at some unspecified point the objective of the plot turned from kidnapping to murder. After his arrest, Arbabsiar told the agents who interviewed him that he was chosen for the mission because of his business interests and contacts in the United States and Mexico and that he told his cousin that he knew individuals involved in the narcotics trade. Shahlai then allegedly tasked Arbabsiar to attempt to hire some of his narco contacts for the kidnapping mission since Shahlai believed that people involved in the narcotics trade would be willing to undertake illegal activities, such as kidnapping, for money.

It is important to recognize that Arbabsiar was not just a random used car salesman selected for this mission. He is purportedly the cousin of a senior Quds Force officer and was in Iran talking to his cousin when he was recruited. According to some interviews appearing in the media, Arbabsiar had decided to leave the United States and return permanently to Iran, but, as a naturalized U.S. citizen, he could have been seen as useful by the Quds Force for his ability to freely travel to the United States. Arbabsiar also was likely enticed by the money he could make working for the Quds Force — money that could have been useful in helping him re-establish himself in Iran. If he was motivated by money rather than ideology, it could explain why he flipped so easily after being arrested by U.S. authorities.

Now, while the Iranian government has shown the ability to conduct sophisticated operations in countries within its sphere of influence, such as Lebanon and Iraq, the use of suboptimal agents to orchestrate an assassination plot in the United States is not entirely without precedent.

For example, there appear to be some very interesting parallels between the Arbabsiar case and two other alleged Iranian plots to assassinate dissidents in Los Angeles and London. The details of these cases were exposed in the prosecution and conviction of Mohammad Reza Sadeghnia in California and in U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks pertaining to the Sadeghnia case.

Sadeghnia, who was arrested in Los Angeles in July 2009, is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Iranian descent who at one point ran a painting business in Michigan. Sadeghnia was apparently recruited by the Iranian government and allegedly carried out preoperational surveillance on Jamshid Sharmahd, who made radio broadcasts for the Iranian opposition group Tondar from his residence in Glendora, Calif., and Ali Reza Nourizadeh, who worked for Voice of America in London.

Sadeghnia’s clumsy surveillance activities were a testament to his lack of tradecraft and were noticed by his targets. But even though he was fairly inept, a number of other factors seem to support claims that he was working as an agent for the Iranian government. These include his guilty plea, his international travel, and the facts that he conducted surveillance on two high-profile Iranian dissidents on two continents, was convicted of soliciting someone to murder one of them and then returned to Tehran while on supervised release.

Sadeghnia’s profile as an unemployed housepainter from Iran who lived in the United States for many years is similar to that of Arbabsiar, a failed used car salesman. Sadeghnia pleaded guilty of planning to use a third man (also an Iranian-American) to run over and murder Sharmahd with a used van Sadeghnia had purchased. Like the alleged Arbabsiar plot, the Sadeghnia case displayed a lack of sophisticated assassination methodology in an Iranian-linked plot inside the United States.

This does raise the question of why Iran chose to use another unsophisticated assassination operation after the Sadeghnia failure. On the other hand, the Iranians experienced no meaningful repercussions from that plot or much negative press.

For Iranian operatives to be so obvious while operating inside the United States is not a new thing, as illustrated by the case of David Belfield, also known as Dawud Salahuddin, who was hired by the Iranian government to assassinate high-profile Iranian dissident Ali Akbar Tabatabaei in July 1980. Salahuddin is an African-American convert to Islam who worked as a security guard at an Iranian diplomatic office in Washington. He was paid $5,000 to shoot Tabatabaei and then fled the United States for Iran, where he still resides. In a plot reminiscent of the movie Three Days of the Condor, Salahuddin, who had stolen a U.S. Postal Service jeep, walked up to Tabatabaei’s front door dressed in a mail carrier’s uniform and shot the Iranian diplomat as he answered the door. It was a simple plot in which the Iranian hand was readily visible.

There also have been numerous assassinations and failed assassination attempts directed against Iranian dissidents in Europe and elsewhere that were conducted in a rudimentary fashion by operatives easily linked to Iran. Such cases include the 1991 assassination of Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris, the 1989 murder of Abdul Rahman Ghassemlou in Vienna and the 1992 killing of three Iranian-Kurdish opposition leaders at the Mykonos restaurant in Berlin.

All that said, there was a lengthy break between the Iranian assassinations in the West in the 1980s and 1990s and the Sadeghnia and Arbabsiar cases. We do not know for certain what could have motivated Iran to resume such operations, but the Iranians have been locked in a sustained covert intelligence war with the United States and its allies for several years now. It is possible these attacks are seen as an Iranian escalation in that war, or as retaliation for the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran, which the Iranians claim were conducted by the United States and Israel.

South of the Border

One other result of the Arbabsiar case is that it has re-energized the long-held U.S. fears of foreign entities using the porous U.S.-Mexico border to conduct terrorist attacks inside the United States and of Mexican cartels partnering with foreign entities to carry out such attacks.
But there are reasons this case does not substantiate such fears. First, it is important to remember that the purported Iranian operative in this case who traveled to the United States, Arbabsiar, is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He is not an Iranian who illegally crossed the border from Mexico. Arbabsiar used his U.S. passport to travel between the United States and Mexico.

Second, while Arbabsiar, and purportedly Shahlai, believed that the Los Zetas cartel would undertake kidnapping or assassination in the United States in exchange for money, that assumption may be flawed. Certainly, while Mexican cartels do indeed kidnap and murder people inside the United States (often for financial gain), they also have a long history of being very careful about the types of operations they conduct inside the United States. This is because the cartels do not want to incur the full wrath of the U.S. government. Shooting a drug dealer in Laredo who loses a load of dope is one thing; going after the Saudi ambassador in Washington is quite another. While the payoff for this operation seems substantial ($1.5 million), there is no way that a Mexican cartel would jeopardize its billion-dollar enterprise for such a small one-time payment and for an act that offered no other apparent business benefit to the cartel. While Mexican cartels can be quite violent, their violence is calculated for the most part, and they tend to refrain from activities that could jeopardize their long-term business plans.

One potential danger in terms of U.S. mainland security is that the Arbabsiar case might focus too much additional attention on the U.S.-Mexico border and that this attention could cause resources to be diverted from the northern border and other points of entry, such as airports and seaports. While it is relatively easy to illegally enter the United States over the southern border, and the United States has no idea who many of the illegal immigrants really are, that does not mean that resources should be taken from elsewhere.

As STRATFOR has noted before, many terrorist plots have originated in Canada — far more than have had any sort of nexus to Mexico. These include plots involving Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer, a Palestinian who was convicted of planning a suicide bombing of the New York subway system in 1997; Ahmed Ressam, who was arrested when he tried to enter the United States with explosives in 1999; and the so-called Toronto 18 cell, which was arrested in 2006 and later convicted of planning a string of attacks in Canada and the United States.

Moreover, most terrorist operatives who have traveled to the United States intending to participate in terrorist attacks have flown directly into the country from overseas. Such operatives include the 19 men involved in the 9/11 attacks, the foreigners involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the follow-on New York landmarks bomb plot, as well as failed New York subway bomber Najibulah Zazi and would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad. Even failed shoe bomber Richard Reid and would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to fly directly into the United States.

While there is concern over security on the southern U.S. border, past plots involving foreign terrorist operatives traveling to the United States have either involved direct travel to the United States or travel from Canada. There is simply no empirical evidence to support the idea that the Mexican border is more likely to be used by terrorist operatives than other points of entry.

<a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20111019-reflections-iranian-assassination-plot">Reflections on the Iranian Assassination Plot</a> is republished with permission of STRATFOR.

Obama's Shrinking Terrorist Hit List

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 15:37:00 +0000

With the death of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya today, Obama's terrorist hit list keeps growing (or shrinking rather). Hard to argue with results. If only the guy was half this effective on the economy....or anything else for that matter.

August 2009

-- Tehrik e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Baitullah Mahsud killed in Pakistan

September 2009

-- JI operational planner Noordin Muhammad Top killed in Indonesia
-- Al-Qaeda in East Africa (AQEA) planner Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan killed in Somalia

December 2009

-- AQ operational commanders Saleh al-Somali and 'Abdallah Sa'id killed in Pakistan

February 2010
-- Taliban deputy and military commander Abdul Ghani Berader captured in Pakistan
-- Haqqani network commander Muhammad Haqqani killed in Pakistan
-- Lashkar-e Jhangvi leader Qari Zafar killed in Pakistan

March 2010
-- AQ operative Hussein al-Yemeni killed in Pakistan
-- Senior JI operative Dulmatin, believed to have been involved in the 2002 bombings in Bali, was killed during a raid in Indonesia.

April 2010
-- AQI leaders Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi killed in Iraq

May 2010
-- AQ senior leader Mustafa Abu al-Yazid aka Shakyh Sa'id al-Masri killed in Pakistan

June 2010
-- AQ commander Hamza al-Jawfi killed in Pakistan

May 2011
-- Death of AQ leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan

June 2011
-- AQ senior commander Ilyas Kashmiri killed in Pakistan.
-- AQAP senior operatives Ammar al-Wa'ili, Abu Ali al-Harithi, and Ali Saleh Farhan killed in Yemen.
-- Al-Qa'ida in East Africa senior leader Harun Fazul killed in Somalia.

August 2011
-- AQ senior leader 'Atiyah 'Abd al-Rahman killed in Pakistan.

September 2011
-- AQ external operations commander Yunis al-Mauritani arrested in Pakistan.
-- AQ chief operations officer Abu Hafs al Shahri killed in Pakistan

October 2011
--Deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi killed in Sirte
(For the nitpickers among you, yes, Obama gets the credit for the Gadhafi takedown. NATO's Libyan operations and the rebel forces efforts were not sustainable without massive and comprehensive US support in all phases of the combat operations.)

Boy Scouts Need Your Help to Support our Troops

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 05:54:00 +0000

Buy Popcorn at Noah's link Buy Popcorn at Andrew's link

Scout ID: 7057642 Scout ID:8919418

Noah and Andrew still need your support. Thank you to all who have supported them to date. They stand at about 40% of goal and still have some distance to cover. They have until Friday to reach their goal. They ask everyone to buy popcorn for our men and women serving overseas in Iraq, Afghanistan and Africa especially.

Noah's total: $131 Goal: $325 40%
Andrew's total: $139 Goal: $325 43%

Help them get over the top. Just follow the links above and make your purchase by Friday, Nov. 5th. 70% of your purchase supports Noah and Andrew and military donations go to the troops (No shipping charges to you!) Please give them your support!

~ Message from Andrew and Noah ~

Hi. My name is Noah and my brother is Andrew. My brother and I are proud Cub Scouts. We are members of Pack 108 here in Fishers, Indiana. We love scouting. We hike, go camping and learn how to be men of good character. The cost of our scouting is covered by popcorn sales. Girl Scouts do cookies, Boy Scouts do popcorn! Andrew and I have a sale's goal of $325 each. This year, we are focusing on supporting our men and women in uniform who are serving in Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa.

You can help us support the troops and earn our way in Scouting. Just click Noah's link or Andrew's link below and place your order with Trail's End on our behalf. 70% of your purchase goes to support scouting and our soldiers serving far away from their families. Thanks a lot for your support. We love you and God bless you for helping us!

Occupy Wall Street: Whatcha Gonna Do?

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:31:00 +0000

So, I've been watching this OWS thing and I think they've got a point about inequality, corporate overreach and corruption in the financial sector that is wrecking democracy. I'm down with protests and what not, but thats NOT ENOUGH. Changing these issues for the better means opposing powerful, entrenched interests that fight back. So whats needed are strategies and action items to create the outcomes desired by the movement. I've got some ideas about what that is, but I don't have all the ideas. So, I invite you dear reader to join me in crowdsourcing experiment to generate those strategies and action pieces. I've got it started. Use this link to add your input to the Prezi below. Lets see where we end up.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has come to a cross roads. If they are going to mature as a real movement that actually creates change effects in the real world, they have to articulate principles, derive strategies based on them and engage in tactics to implement those strategies. This requires becoming more concrete, more specific, and prioritizing your issues. The OWS movement folks in New York are resisting this. They don't want to accept the constraints that come with making choices about whats important. I consider this basically a natural maturation point for the movement and the turning point thats going to decide whether this movement becomes a true political/cultural/social force for change or devolves into not much more than a temporary spasm, a civic tantrum.

What the OWS folks are confronting is the need to put their beliefs into action in the real world beyond the parks and the state house lawns. You can't stay in those places mentally or physically and change the world. Its analogous to Christian faith in the church. The great commission is to go out and reach the lost with the love of God. You can't do that sitting in church alone. You gotta get out on your mission field, whatever that is, and take action. So too with OWS.

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 04:48:00 +0000

Yes, its January 3rd and I'm wishing you, dear reader, a happy new year. I'm late, my apologies. You may have noticed I didn't do blog Christmas greetings at all either. Truth is, I'm just not that motivated around the niceties of the holidays. Simply not one of my strong suits. But having just gotten off the road and being still a little wired from the trip, I figured I would fire something off.

I've been absent from the blogosphere for a real spell. My last post was in November and I hadn't even really noticed its been that long. I'm shocked at the length of my hiatus. I've not been totally out of pocket, I was tweeting right on through that period pretty tough, but that's an indication of my malaise that I was really only up for 140 word bursts at a time for a very long stretch.

The truth is that I'm not a particularly great blog writer in the sense that I work to push out some new content on a very regular schedule. Truth is that I typically blog about stuff that is drawing a response from me. While there has been a whole lot to respond to of late, I just have not been able to muster the energy for it, and well, I was busy with life stuff, cuz, I got one of those, fa real.

So its 2012 and I'm going to try to get back up on my horse. Hope you had an awesome holidays and that 2012 is filled with promise and possibility for you. Now lets get back to it.

Rick Santorum Surges in Iowa with Stereotypes of Lazy Blacks Taking Welfare Out of White People's Pockets

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 07:18:00 +0000


How you think the brother "working" the camera behind him liked that?

Rick Santorum has been riding a real surge in Iowa over the last few days, moving into striking distance of being in the top three finishers out there in the caucuses. He's been putting in work the old fashioned way, visiting every single county in the state, doing small group meetings one after the other and talking to the voters.

Campaigning isn't the only thing Santorum is apparently doing the old fashioned way. Using stereotypes of blacks as a convenient shorthand to illustrate the ills of America as white voters see it is another way that Rick is demonstrating his old school campaign chops. At a campaign stop in Sioux City Iowa, a voter asks Santorum: "how do we get off this crazy train? We've got so much foreign influence in this country now," adding "where do we go from here?"

Santorum's answer perhaps started with foreign influence but rambled over to the subject of government creating dependency and he apparently reached into his campaign communication bag of tricks for the most easily relatable and easy to understand illustration of that issue he could think of on the fly: black people:

Notice how he basically defaulted to this stereotyped racially based meme in trying to communicate with a room full of white folks? Check the pause as he was trying to find an illustration of his point about dependency. He needed that illustration right then, something that would resonate with a room full of white people and where did his brain go in that moment? Black people.

With his numbers surging in Iowa, Santorum is perhaps poised to be the next of the Not Romney's to rise in the polls and get a more serious look. I was certainly willing to pay him some more attention, as I've got real respect for a guy who hits the ground and pounds the pavement like he's been doing in Iowa. But unless Santorum gives a far more insightful, honest answer to the question of why he defaulted to "blacks" as the best illustration for his point regarding dependency on government, he's effectively blown any serious future look from me irregardless of what he says. When asked directly about why he talked about blacks, he ducked and dodged.

I'm sorry, but his response is not gonna cut it with me. We'll see if any other media ask him to speak to the issue. I think it would be an interesting exercise to ask the other candidates to assess those remarks as well. No one is gonna do it, but I'm already certain that one or more of them would likely double down on it if they were asked.

Here's what he said:

"It just keeps expanding - I was in Indianola a few months ago and I was talking to someone who works in the department of public welfare here, and she told me that the state of Iowa is going to get fined if they don't sign up more people under the Medicaid program. They're just pushing harder and harder to get more and more of you dependent upon them so they can get your vote. That's what the bottom line is. I don't want to make black people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money; I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families. The best way to do that is to get the manufacturing sector of the economy rolling again."

There is a lot to object to in Santorum's statement;

Context: he's in Iowa, in a room full of white people, in a state in which about 3% of the population is black, using "blacks" to illustrate the problem of government dependency.

Implicit assumptions: To illustrate his point about government dependency, he plays to a stereotype that the majority of blacks are dependent on government welfare. He just says "blacks". He doesn't qualify it or limit it in anyway, presumably because he doesn't have to. Everyone in the room will immediately understand and agree with his implicit assumption that most blacks are on welfare.

This is a guy who's response to Howard Dean saying diversity was a strength of America was that talking about our diversity is divisive. Yet, here, he plays to racial resentment by implicitly suggesting that "blacks" are being given white people's money, money which the government took from hard working white people to give to lazy blacks. He wants to give us "blacks" the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for ourselves, I guess because all us shiftless lazy Negroes don't work to take care of ourselves. Those are the implicit assumptions behind his statement. Its offensive. Its untrue. We've been called lazy for hundreds of years. When we were forced to work for free as slaves in the fields on pain of death, they called us lazy. It was not true then. Its not true now.

His statements and the assumptions behind them are pretty offensive. "Blacks" are on welfare. All of us. Now of course, the out he and others will use to justify labeling blacks as welfare parasites, if he's even asked, is to say "what I was really referring to is that a larger percentage of blacks are on welfare relative to their share of the population compared to whites". Right? Wrong. What is welfare? I say welfare is any government financial assistance that is received but not earned, that taxes one group to support another group, meaning it's pay-as-you-go and not a contributory scheme where people's own savings pay their benefits and lastly Congress can alter benefits to reflect changing needs, economic conditions and politics. That being the case, welfare comes in many forms besides public assistance that goes to poor black people, like for example the subsidies we pay farmers NOT to farm or even better, Social Security, which is definitely welfare. Those programs are breaking the bank and even more interesting, the majority of those benefits go to people who are not the same color as me. But Santorum doesn't have a problem with welfare payments where the benefits go primarily to white people. If welfare and government dependence are really the big issues, lets talk about all of it; why do you get in a room with other white people, start talking about welfare and single out black recipients? How do you justify such divisive talk on the campaign trail, even as you claim to be all about our equality and our common citizenship? Its racebaiting, and what makes it really insidious and repugnant in this instance is the routine nature of it. That particular meme of black dependency on government is a standard staple of political discourse on the right, certainly within its more conservative wings, even though its not supported by the facts. Its a racial lie that has been perpetuated in just the way Santorum spreads it here.

Nobody in that room of good Iowa voters in there challenged that. Indeed, Santorum got applause for those remarks, so clearly there were a significant number of the voters in that room who completely agreed with those comments. Rick Santorum is a darling of the Tea Party, regarded as a consistent conservative after their own hearts. He's the darling of aTea Party that vehemently denies any allegation that it is racially biased in any way whatsoever. Well, here is an opportunity for the Tea Party to actually demonstrate its regard for African Americans as equal citizens worthy of the basic consideration of not being blanketly described as lazy, welfare parasites leeching the money of hard working white folks. Repudiate these statements of Santorum's. Publicly state that they are wrong and divisive. Demand that he apologize for them. I'm not gonna hold my breath. And if you're a Tea Party member and think these statements are okay, then I'm gonna tell you that you and the Tea Party do have racial bias when it comes to race if you buy into the stereotypes and assumptions implicit in Santorum's statements.

I'm betting that no one in the Tea Party movement will decry these statements or even criticize them in any but the most namby pamby of ways. I'm betting none of his fellow candidates will say squat about these comments or take the opportunity to hammer him with them in political attack ads (though well they should). On the contrary, to the extent anyone else in the party speaks to the comments, I'm betting they will either soft pedal their critique or more likely and worse, they will try to explain, using statistics, how blacks are heavily dependent on government welfare and that Santorum's comments are really accurate. But the facts are quite the opposite. Whites receive far more welfare benefits than blacks. Saying anything else is simply a divisive racially biased lie. Unless of course you're Rick Santorum on the campaign trail in Iowa looking to get nice white conservative voters on your team.

Republicans Have Become Incapable of Discussing Race (UPDATED)

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 04:51:00 +0000

The day before the Iowa Caucus, Rick Santorum uses blacks to illustrate a point about government creating dependency in order to win votes. The statement is on video and its pretty clear at least to me that its what he said. Here is the "cleaned up" version of the CBS video posted at HotAir.com which Ed Morrissey reviews and declares Santorum didn't say black peoples lives:

Santorum has now also said that he didn't actually say that. I think he's lying to the public and I think he's lying to himself.

When people like me reacted to Santorum's statement, conservatives rushed to his defense with the wildest of arguments: He didn't say it. Its right there on the tape, but no, you didn't hear what you thought. Its become the Rodney King video of presidential campaign politics. The denial is unreal. Here's how a commenter at NPR on the story explained it all away:

I worked on developing speech synthesis and speech recognition technology for a number of years and learned a lot about speech articulation and human perception. I am a Romney supporter but it is clear to me that Senator Santorum stumbled when attempting to say the phrase "peoples lives" so he paused after the first attempt and repeated the phrase "peoples lives". If you read his lips you can see that he mangled the first attempt to say the word 'people; and only the second half of the word people came out with part of the word 'lives' which is why he corrected himself. Since both the b sound and the p sound are made on the lips (the only difference is that the vocal cords "hum" with a b sound) the 'pl' sound when mangled sounded like a 'bl' sound. However if you listen to the recording and watch his lips he was not attempting to make an 'ack' sound but lots of listeners heard "black" because mentally they associate "black people" with public assistance. It was not Senator Santorum that was prejudicial, it was the listeners.

Got that? Its basically just in our minds. Our brains, all of our brains, are just playing mental auditory tricks on us, making us hear our own prejudiced thoughts. Look at the extraordinary mental gymnastics going on in the above statement to negate what you clearly see and hear in the video.

As an aside, and a tip for others who need to defend themselves against a charge of prejudicial speech, using as a defense all the great things you've done for black people is the wrong response. If you have to tell all the great things you've done, you've already lost. If Santorum were smart AND he truly had done some things in the black community that were beneficial, there would be a black person willing to say so. You let them say all the good stuff you've done. Just a little PR tip for free.

That Santorum would make a statement that suggests that blacks are largely on welfare and that welfare comes to us via money taken out of the pockets of white voters by government is not surprising, shocking or unusual. That is a persistent meme on the right. If I sat down with a Tea Party member or your average poster at Hot Air, they would would largely agree with that supposition.

What this episode really illustrates is how completely incapable of a principled discussion about race the GOP has become. Where does this denial come from? This refusal to face the issue and discuss it? Part of it is black folks fault. For years, we cried racism for so many things, sometimes deserved, sometimes not and we won the war. White people think being a racist is evil and they are horrified to even have it suggested about them. Herein lies the problem now. If you even suggest a critique of a policy or statement which alludes to a racial element, you are assumed to be making a charge of racism. But because the terminology has been used so indiscriminately, we no longer have any shared understanding of what that means. So now if you call someone a racist, or something milder such as suggesting that their behavior, words or opinion is motivated by race in some way, it is interpreted as an accusation that they are essentially akin to a Klansman and bear an irrational hatred to blacks. Its like calling someone an evil caricature or cartoon. And since most people are NOT Klansman, the accusation or critique is dismissed as though that's what you suggested.

Take Santorum. He's obviously NOT a racist. But what he said in Iowa is clearly influenced by racially stereotypical ideas that are not grounded in the facts. That is something that should be called out and discussed. The issue isn't whether Santorum is a racist. The issue is that his thinking has been shaped by faulty racial stereotypes and we should talk about that so that its surfaced and he can correct his thinking.

Conservatives however can never reach a discussion of the merits, because they are too busy defending themselves and saying that they are not evil Klansman. They simply deny the charge, whatever it is, rather than engage the issue. Now, it is simply become routine to adopt a posture that says any charge that suggests I'm influenced by racial stereotypes is defacto an accusation that I'm an evil racist and since that's obviously not true, I don't even have to make a principled response to your charge, I can just dismiss it. Its become an easy way to avoid having a real discussion about the memes regarding black people that are commonplace in the minds of conservatives. That avoidance has rendered the GOP incapable of discussing the issue in any self critical way, to its detriment.

Gingrich Insulting Blacks for Votes Too: If its Good Enough for Santorum, I'll Double Down

noreply@blogger.com (Aaron + Alaine) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 01:52:00 +0000

Gingrich doubles down on insulting black people to curry favor with white voters.

I want to say they just don't get it, but its not true. The difference between Newt and Santorum on this is that as the The Root cogently points out, Santorum is basically a coward when it comes to talking about race. He just claims he didn't say what he said and wants to run from the issue. Newt on the other hand, is not one to throw a stone and then hide his hand. Oh no, Newt is going to insult you, and then tell you why its okay, you know, the old pee in your face and tell you its rain approach.

“I went back and pulled up the exact language of the text,” Mr. Gingrich told reporters on Friday. “I think you’d have to be nuts’’ to interpret the words as critical of blacks.

You have to be nuts to take Newt's stupid denials seriously. You're speaking to an audience of white people at a senior center in NH. You describe Obama as the biggest food stamp president of all time and then declare based on that analysis, that you will go to the NAACP and tell them to start demanding paychecks. Because when you are talking to a white audience, nothing makes the point better about welfare and dependency and not working than references to black folks and food stamps.

There is no natural relationship or nexus between his food stamp hit on the President and exhorting the NAACP to demand paychecks intstead of food stamps. The common factor of shared ethnicity is what makes it work. Newt knows that the comment is incendiary, offensive and plays to a stereotype. Nonetheless he declares to his white audience that he has the courage to go to the NAACP and say this offensive thing to their faces (an NAACP he's presumably talking to try to persuade them to his point of view).

The comment is clearly designed to curry favor with white voters by playing to a stereotype of blacks as lazy, welfare scamming people. It's certainly not intended to be persuasive to black people. You don't insult people you're trying to persuade. Santorum was working on reflex. Newt however is delivering his line very deliberately to stoke his white audience, feeding the stereotype to his audience to garner their approval and get their vote. Thats evil. Assholish. A real conservative would see the problem immediately, and further, would call it out.

If you're a republican/conservative who thought his comments were cool, who can't fathom what the problem with them is, then you're a lame ass conservative.

A Political Season: Parenting, "Chinese" Style [Digg]

Digg — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 10:23:17 PST

Writer Amy Chua, on the pages of the Wall Street Journal, attempts to quantify what makes the Chinese mother superior to Western moms.

A Political Season: How Heroes Think.... [Digg]

Digg — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 23:19:38 PST

A Political Season

Fear of a Black Republican

Palin, Perry and Random Thoughts After A Hiatus

Related articles

HP Punks out on its Webos Strategy

Related articles

How the Community Can Save Webos

Related articles

Obama Speaks Tonight.....Yawn

Related articles

Tavis and Cornell Have One Thing Right...Black People Can & Should Criticize Obama

My 9/11 Story

GOP Debate Winners & Losers and Predictions

Warren on the War Path

Related articles

Katt Williams Loves America

Related articles

A Human Experience

Perry's Rock

Cain: The Force is Strong In this One

What Did I Tell You!

Blacks and the GOP: Crossing the Chasm

Rush Hearts Murderous Child Stealing Rape Cult

Related articles

GOP Post Debate Impressions

Related articles

Reflections on the Iranian Assassination Plot

Unconventional Assassins

South of the Border

Related articles

Obama's Shrinking Terrorist Hit List

Related articles

Boy Scouts Need Your Help to Support our Troops

Help them get over the top. Just follow the links above and make your purchase by Friday, Nov. 5th. 70% of your purchase supports Noah and Andrew and military donations go to the troops (No shipping charges to you!) Please give them your support!

Occupy Wall Street: Whatcha Gonna Do?

Happy New Year!

Rick Santorum Surges in Iowa with Stereotypes of Lazy Blacks Taking Welfare Out of White People's Pockets

Republicans Have Become Incapable of Discussing Race (UPDATED)

Gingrich Insulting Blacks for Votes Too: If its Good Enough for Santorum, I'll Double Down

A Political Season: Parenting, "Chinese" Style [Digg]

A Political Season: How Heroes Think.... [Digg]