Month: September 2007

Remember all those stories earlier this month that North Korea was supplying Syria with nuclear material and technology? If you don’t go here, here and here, to refresh your memory. Charges that I believe are false (based on various reports) and part of a neocon disinformation/propaganda campaign. Well, just for the record, President Bush must not be too concerned about these charges of North Korean nuclear technology transfers to Syria, because he just authorized $25 million in energy aid to that member of the Axis of Evil as a reward for their good behavior:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush on Friday authorized $25 million in energy aid for North Korea as a reward for Pyongyang’s movement toward dismantling its nuclear weapons program. […]

North Korea “has met its commitments to date with respect to shutting down the Yongbyon facilities” and allowing monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency, Gordon Johndroe, White House National Security Council spokesman, said.

Bush authorized the fuel aid after consultations with Congress were completed last week, a necessary step because North Korea is subject to U.S. sanctions. […]

“The recent commitment by the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) to complete a declaration of all its nuclear programs and disable all its existing nuclear facilities by December 31, 2007, can be seen as an indicator of North Korea’s intention to meet the obligations of the February 13, 2007, Initial Actions agreement,” Johndroe said.

So, all you wingnuts very serious people who still believe that North Korea is in cahoots to help Syria (and maybe Iran also?) obtain nuclear weapons, I have to ask you this question, and please give it as much careful thought as you are capable of before answering:

Is President Bush a traitor or just a complete idiot?

Because those are your only two choices if you continue to accept the claim of a North Korean/Syrian nuclear connection. I know you won’t ever admit that Israel’s raid on Syria had nothing to do with destroying a secret nuclear weapons program. Because that’s just a given that all Islamic countries are trying to get nukes to destroy Israel and/or give them to the terrorists to attack America. It’s all part of the Islamofascist World Caliphate conspiracy to take over the world, behead all the Christians and impose Sharia law on everyone else.

So which is it: Bush as a dupe, or as betrayer of his country? I can’t wait to get your answers.

****

PS. Sort of makes you wonder just a little bit if the Syrian government’s charges that the Israeli government is looking for an excuse to attack Syria militarily (otherwise known in the vernacular as “war”) just be might be credible:

DAMASCUS (Reuters) – Syria accused Israel on Saturday of making excuses for war by spreading what it described as false reports that an Israeli air raid targeted a site linked to weapons of mass destruction.

Syrian Deputy President Farouq al-Shara said his country did not want war “in the distant or near future”.

“They (Israel) are making up things to justify an aggression in the future. They are playing on public opinion to mislead it,” he said, describing the reports as fabrications.

The president will give a radio address today and announce that he will veto the State Children’s Health Insurance Program bill. Here’s his phony reasoning, and Sen. Grassley of Iowa’s response.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said Friday, “It is preposterous for people to suggest that the president of the United States doesn’t care about children, that he wants children to suffer.”

Ms. Perino said the president had a policy difference with Democrats in Congress because he did not want “additional government-run health care, socialized-type medicine.”

Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican who helped write the bill, said he would reach out to House Republicans and urge them to override the veto.

“This bill is not socialized medicine,” Mr. Grassley said. “Screaming ‘socialized medicine’ is like shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. It is intended to cause hysteria that diverts people from reading the bill, looking at the facts.”

The Dems are crafting a strategy to overcome the president’s veto. They have the votes in the Senate, but not in the House.

In an interview on Friday, the House Republican whip, Roy Blunt of Missouri, said there was “a 100 percent probability” that the House would sustain the president’s veto.

But, Mr. Blunt said, the coincidental timing of the vote on the child health bill and the request for money in Iraq “was not helpful.”

The Dems appear to be 20 votes short of an override.

Ms. Pelosi called Mr. Bush on Friday and said she was praying he would sign the bill.

But Mr. Blunt said: “I bet she’s praying for him not to sign it. The bill is all about politics. It’s pretty good politics for the Democrats.”

It’s excellent politics for the Democrats, but the real issue is health care for children. Here is the strange reasoning of one Republican for why he cannot oppose the president.

Democrats said they would also focus their efforts on Republicans like Representatives Timothy V. Johnson of Illinois, John R. Kuhl Jr. of New York, Thaddeus McCotter of Michigan and H. James Saxton of New Jersey.

Mr. McCotter said he was a big supporter of the child health program, but would vote to uphold the president’s veto, even if critics ran television advertisements against him.

Under the bill, the federal excise tax on cigarettes would be increased to $1 a pack, from the current 39 cents.

“I vowed never to raise taxes on anybody, no matter how disliked they might be,” Mr. McCotter said in an interview. He said he would rather be voted out of office than go back on his promises to constituents.

Rep. McCotter is a ‘big supporter’ of the program but he doesn’t support paying for it because he made a promise not to raise taxes…like ever.

Your braindead Republicans at work. I predict that at least 4-5 congresspersons lose their jobs over this vote. Here’s why.

Graeme Frost, 12, will deliver the Democratic response to President Bush’s radio address today. After an accident, Graeme received care through the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

As Tom Friedman would say, ‘Suck on that’.

Welcome back.

This week we’ll be continuing with our 5×7 painting of Arizona’s Grand Canyon.  The photo of our subject is seen in the photo directly below.  (For those new to this series, I will be using my usual acrylics.)

When last seen, the painting appeared as it does in the photo directly below.

Since that time I have continued to work on the painting.  (But not to the extent that I would have liked.)  I have concentrated my efforts on the central dark shadowed area.  I have now painted in most of it but there will probably be a thin layer over it.  The elements are now starting to look tied together.  The “islands” are now starting to live up to that title.  It is interesting how a relatively small change has had a large impact.  Of course, there are many things still left to do.  Maybe I’ll have some clouds next week.

The current state of the painting is shown in the photo directly below.

That’s about it for now, see you next week.  

Michael B. Mukasey’s nomination for Attorney General has been met with nearly universal acclaim.  And I really mean universal – the standard bearers of conventional wisdom made approving noises, there were plenty of quotes from Democrats and Republicans and most surprisingly even the online community seemed largely approving.  From the left to the right there were notes of caution sounded but overall it seemed like one of the very few times there was widespread agreement.  It also deserves to be defeated, and here’s why.

First let’s go back to what seems like another time, back before George W. Bush assumed primary custody of the law.  Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says “The President…shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law”.  I don’t recall seeing a single mention of the Senate’s “Advice and Consent” role on the nomination, and it really is as though the President has been able to make everyone forget about what exactly the government is doing and how it should act.  Instead we had legislators, reporters and analysts speculating on different potential nominees like children gazing in wonder at so many gift wrapped Christmas presents.  There is no sense that the process wasn’t designed to work like that or that maybe more should be involved than just waiting breathlessly for Bush to unveil his choice.

There is no record (that I know of, anyway) of George Bush seeking the advice of the Senate, yet he is constitutionally obligated to do so.  His style in this as in much else is more authoritarian than democratic, because he makes his choice in the shadows and then tells the Senate its only role is to cast an up or down vote.  He doesn’t believe in meeting with Senators with a list of potential nominees or talking informally to them about what qualities they’d like to see or heaven forbid if they have any names they’d like to throw out there themselves.  At no point does he seek out the advice of the Senate and for that reason alone they should reject Mukasey.  In fact, for that reason alone they should reject anyone they have not advised on; if they don’t assert their authority it will continue to be denied them.

One of George Bush’s remarkable successes has been conditioning almost everyone to expect extreme right wing ideologues or their enablers in just about every position of importance.  It’s now common even on the left to read a sentiment along these lines:  He’s the President and he gets to pick whomever he wants; it likely will be someone far outside the mainstream but as long as s/he’s not entirely objectionable we should be grateful.  That was the initial reaction with Mukasey.  Unfortunately it glossed over some extremely serious objections that are only now starting to dribble out.  The worst is his belief he could determine whether or not a defendant had been tortured by looking at him in court.  If nothing else it brings up echoes of the Doctor By Video routine from Bill Frist (and is presumably as reliable).  At worst it conjures up images of someone who can be casually dismissive of human rights.

There are other problems as well.  For one “Mukasey said that he saw ‘significant problems’ with shutting down Guantánamo Bay and that he understood the need for the CIA to use some ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques against Qaeda suspects”.  This is a polite way of saying he is ambivalent about habeas corpus but approves of torture.  He has also prevented evidence of intelligence agencies’ being compromised come to light at a trial he presided over.  This was not just a sucker punch to transparency – a little bit of scandal in 1995 may have prevented a whole lot of terrorism in 2001.  Mukasey represents a “consensus choice” in a post-advice world.  Finally there’s the issue of Senator Leahy’s largely forgotten pledge to sit on the nomination until the administration stops placing itself above the law.  Not following through on pledges like that are why the White House has paid no price for its uninterrupted contempt of Congress.

The Senate should reject Mukasey for three reasons, any one of which is sufficient.  They have not advised the President on this nominee, the nominee has an unacceptable record in defending the Constitution, and there is an existing legal tangle to unwind at the Justice Department that should take precedence.  They would perform a valuable service to their country by rejecting him.

For more on pruning back executive power see The Pruning Shears.

rumour has it that monday, mark udall (d-co) will introduce a resolution in the house condemning limbaugh for his “phony soldiers” diatribe.

this from TPM election central:

This is significant because it has the potential to dramatically up the stakes in this fight. If the Democratic leadership allows it to go for a vote, it will force all the Republicans in the House to either vote for it, against it, or skip the vote…

It will also potentially present the Dem leadership with a not-so-easy choice. Many people will naturally call on the leadership to allow the resolution to come to a vote, which is not necessarily something the leadership might want, since it could look like a tit-for-tat reso in retaliation for the measure condemning MoveOn. It also is potentially problematic for some in the leadership because there is an internal sentiment that it’s not Congress’ job to go around denouncing the remarks, however reprehensible, of private citizens.

there is also a letter being circulated by senators reid, durbin, schumer and patty murray expressing outrage over the incident, and calling on clear channel ceo, mark mays to “publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments.“

text of udall’s memo seeking cosponsors, and r,d,s,& m’s letter below…

September 28, 2007

JOIN AS AN ORIGINAL COSPONSOR OF A RESOLUTION  

HONORING OUR ARMED FORCES AND

CONDEMNING RUSH LIMBAUGH’S ATTACK

ON “PHONY SOLDIERS”

Dear Colleague:

On September 26, 2007 the broadcaster Rush Limbaugh told a nationwide radio audience that members of the Armed Forces who have expressed disagreement with current policies of the United States regarding military activities in Iraq are “phony soldiers.”

On Monday I will introduce a resolution honoring all Americans serving in the Armed Forces and condemning this unwarranted attack on the integrity and professionalism of those in the Armed Forces who choose to exercise their constitutional right to express their opinions regarding U.S. military action in Iraq.

For more information or to cosponsor the resolution, please contact XXXXXXX in my office at xxxxx.

Sincerely,

Mark Udall

link

l’m certain, as tpm noted,  that there are myriad reasons udall might pursue this, not the least of which is his candidacy for the senate seat being vacated by allard in 08. additionally, this reads very much like an attempt to placate many of his constituents who are very displeased…understatement…with his continuing staunch support of funding for the war in iraq. altruism not being one of marks strong suits, this has all the earmarks of petty posturing…playing to the lowest common denominator.

l would posit that all udall will accomplish with this, other than wasting time, will be the continued relinquishment of the high ground to the immature republican framing, and the embrace of their gutter politics. frankly, these kind of self indulgent exercises contribute absolutely nothing towards moving the dialog regarding iraq forward in a positive direction, and may in fact, further alienate his district.

from think progress:, the senator’s letter to clear channel:

September 28, 2007

Mr. Mark P. Mays
CEO, Clear Channel Communications Inc.
200 East Basse Road
San Antonio, TX 78209

Dear Mr. Mays,

At the time we sign this letter, 3,801 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq, and another 27,936 have been wounded. 160,000 others awoke this morning on foreign sand, far from home, to face the danger and uncertainty of another day at war.

Although Americans of goodwill debate the merits of this war, we can all agree that those who serve with such great courage deserve our deepest respect and gratitude. That is why Rush Limbaugh’s recent characterization of troops who oppose the war as “phony soldiers” is such an outrage.

Our troops are fighting and dying to bring to others the freedoms that many take for granted. It is unconscionable that Mr. Limbaugh would criticize them for exercising the fundamentally American right to free speech. Mr. Limbaugh has made outrageous remarks before, but this affront to our soldiers is beyond the pale.

The military, like any community within the United States, includes members both for and against the war. Senior generals, such as General John Batiste and Paul Eaton, have come out against the war while others have publicly supported it. A December 2006 poll conducted by the Military Times found just 35 percent of service members approved of President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq, compared to 42 percent who disapproved. From this figure alone, it is clear that Mr. Limbaugh’s insult is directed at thousands of American service members.

Active and retired members of our armed forces have a unique perspective on the war and offer a valuable contribution to our national debate. In August, seven soldiers wrote an op-ed expressing their concern with the current strategy in Iraq. Tragically, since then, two of those seven soldiers have made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq.

Thousands of active troops and veterans were subjected to Mr. Limbaugh’s unpatriotic and indefensible comments on your broadcast. We trust you will agree that not a single one of our sons, daughters, neighbors and friends serving overseas is a “phony soldier.” We call on you to publicly repudiate these comments that call into question their service and sacrifice and to ask Mr. Limbaugh to apologize for his comments.

Sincerely,

_______
Senator Harry Reid
Majority Leader

_______
Senator Richard Durbin
Assistant Majority Leader

_______
Senator Charles Schumer
Vice Chairman
Democratic Conference

_______
Senator Patty Murray
Secretary
Democratic Conference

things could, indeed, get very interesting next week if support for this action materializes.

we shall see.

lTMF’sA

The Iranians invented chess. Texans invented the practice of smothering otherwise edible food with mountains of Monterrey Jack cheese. You do the math:

(AP) — TEHRAN, Iran – After being welcomed in New York with protests and a scolding from the president of Columbia University, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is extending an invitation to President Bush. Ahmadinejad tells Iranian state television that if Bush plans to travel to Iran, he’s welcome to make a speech at an Iranian university.

Who is winning the propaganda war?

Should we start getting used to those words? Is there a way to fight the wave that seems to have overcome our foreign policy, starting a number of decades ago, but looking more and more like the offerings of nearly all republicans, too many Democrats and an unbelievable amount of our own Presidential candidates.

With such an overwhelming percentage of the American population being against any more of Iraq than is necessary to get our troops out, with no feasible or credible reason do be chest thumping at Iran and a resolution that overwhelmingly passed the Senate yesterday that all but dared Bush and Cheney to take military action against Iran, what else can one think?

I know that I don’t want to see this happen. And I know that many, MANY others in this country don’t want to see this either. However, our “leading candidates in a very strong field” (1) won’t commit to fully leaving Iraq, (2) have mentioned another 4 or 5 years of this waste of money and lives and (3) have no problem playing into a right wing and republican frame about national security, the situation in Iraq and the absolute insanity that would be an attack on Iran. So what does that give us?

Well, it gives us options like Dodd, who is the best candidate nobody has ever heard of. And that is the problem.

There is absolutely no end in sight for this occupation of Iraq. There isn’t even pretending anymore. Hell, even Friedman said that there shouldn’t be anymore Friedman Units. When did 50,000 troops for “the foreseeable future” become the bar? Oh, and what about Afghanistan and Pakistan – the two countries (other than Saudi Arabia) that we should be concerned with? Or a man named Osama bin-somethingorother?

We elected a whole bunch of Democrats who promised to get us to a point where there is less war, not more. And “doing all you can” is not nearly good enough, or honest. We need leaders that will be strong and bold and do the right thing – taking actions and not the status quo. We need fighters. What happened to the “new Congress in town”?

There is very little room for excuses when it comes to risking Americans’ lives. There is no excuse when that responsibility is abrogated for no reason that can be explained logically and factually without being purely political. This country is already bogged down in two occupations, has an unimaginable amount of debt, the housing market is crashing and the military-industrial complex keeps chugging along.

All that doesn’t even consider the amount of major problems that are facing the majority of the people in this country. Spending nearly all of our money, lives and effort on meaningless wars that are failing miserably is insane. Yet, all we are given is a date of 2013 and tens of thousands of troops in Iraq for who knows how long. And what now looks like 4 days wasted for the condemnation of a few words and ads.

Iraq is bad enough. Actually, words can no longer describe what Iraq actually “is”. And now, suddenly, the Senate has put Iran “on the table”? By a large margin, I might add. How is this anything BUT tacit approval for more aggressive action in further provoking an all out holy war in the Middle East.

This Lieberman/Kyl Amendment was a very dangerous one. And now, whatever unfolds in the Middle East will be hung around the necks of anyone who voted for this amendment. Or fell into the right wing frame on foreign policy and national security. Or failed to take bold action and a leadership role in doing everything possible to diffuse and prevent something with implications far exceeding any measurable level of arrogance and stupidity.

We are heading for never-ending war. An economy based on war. Outsourced war, so few profit greatly from it. Do we want to continue this policy? And how can we even stop this from continuing to unfold before us? Lives ending too soon and needlessly.

Is there anyone bold enough to stop it, and enough of a leader to step up at this crucial time in history?

We can’t afford for there not to have one.

I love celebrities:

SEAN “Diddy” Combs doesn’t like to be questioned, even when it’s as harmless as, “How many people in your party?” A witness outside downtown hot spot GoldBar the other night said, “He walked right up to the door girl with four other people in his crew. When she asked him how many people he was with, Diddy just called her a ‘[bleep]ing bitch’ and opened the velvet rope and let himself through.”

How cool is that?

JENA, La. — A black teenager whose prosecution in the beating of a white classmate prompted a massive civil rights protest here walked out of a courthouse Thursday after a judge ordered him freed.

Mychal Bell’s release on $45,000 bail came hours after a prosecutor confirmed he would no longer seek an adult trial for the 17-year-old. Bell, one of the teenagers known as the Jena Six, still faces trial as a juvenile in the December beating in this small central Louisiana town. Washington Post

    Today is a testament to a lot of things about America, some good and some not so good. Because I am a positive person I will start with the good, the first thing is that today in America there are enough voices of reason and right that a young black man who not long ago would have been lynched was able to walk out of a jail cell, a jail cell that if he had been lucky enough to have reached a few years ago would have been his home for the rest of his life. Let’s be honest there are many Mychal Bell’s buried in the history of America, who because they were black were murdered for less serious accusations than these.
It is a testament to those in the Black blogosphere and media who took up the mantle of these young men and kept it held high until others were able to rally. There were many who would have liked for this story to not have risen to the level that it did and that is due in large part to the pressure put on by the black bloggers. Congratulations, you all deserve a shout-out. While, I still believe that the power of organization through the internet is limited; I do think this is one of the circumstances when it can be utilized to its potential.

It is a testament of hope for all Americans who seek equal justice for all and who were willing to leave their homes and jobs and go to Jena, La and show that we will not stand for this treatment in 2007. There are a lot of things that we have to put up with as Black Americans, but this ain’t going to be one of them. This was not about just those boys; this was about justice for all of us. Whether we live in Boston, Dallas, LA, or any other place in America, we know that this is not an isolated incident and it could have been any of us.

Now, for the not so good. First of all, how those young men responded to the situation was wrong. I am not saying that they shouldn’t have stood up for what they believed in, but six against one that wasn’t justice that was just senseless violence and we have to know the difference. We, just as the D.A. have to acknowledge when we are wrong, if not our indictments of other people’s wrongs ring hollow.

The other is the response of the D.A. Reed Walters to the demonstration held in Jena; this guy has got to be the instructor for sensitivity training for the city of Jena. His comments demonstrate why the divide between black and white is so wide in America. He makes these insensitive remarks and then doesn’t understand how they could be taken offensively. Here is what he said.

An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 protesters marched in Jena last week in a scene that evoked the early years of the civil rights movement.

Walters said the demonstration had no influence on his decision not to press the adult charges, and ended his news conference by saying that only God kept the protest peaceful.

“The only way _ let me stress that _ the only way that I believe that me or this community has been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community,” Walters said.

“I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened. You can quote me on that.”

The Rev. Donald Sibley, a black Jena pastor, called it a “shame” that Walters credited divine intervention for the protesters acting responsibly.

“What I’m saying is, the Lord Jesus Christ put his influence on those people, and they responded accordingly,” Walters responded. Washington Post

So here we have another white man expecting to see “negroes behaving badly”, in this case the only thing that prevented them from acting like Negroes was the power of God brought down by the prayers of all those good white folks. How can he not see how condescending this is? These good Christian folks are so righteous they live in a town that has black and white trees. Thank you God for the prayers of these good Christian white folks, no telling what those “black savages” might have done to our town and of course our womenfolk.

This is like the survey done during the OJ trial; it appears that being a racist is not considered by the majority of whites to be a hindrance to being a good cop; however blacks on the other hand definitely believed that it would impact someone’s job performance in a negative way to be a racist. Being a racist I guess will not interfere with one’s journey to meet their maker, who just so happens to be the maker of those same people you lynch and segregate from. Their God must be really proud of them. How can you be expected to worship God together in heaven, if you can’t worship him together on earth? Do they think there will be some cosmic transformation that will make everyone white in heaven, that we are made black on earth as some karmic backlash from God? I know the hymns say we will made white as snow, but I don’t think this is what they had in mind.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.- Martin Luther King

The Disputed Truth

I bet you didn’t know that Jesus Christ was looking out for the poor traumatized citizens of Jena, La. last week when all those violence prone, outside instigating colored people invaded that peaceful little town with their raucous protests against all that is good and true and just in the world. I surely didn’t. Thank goodness that District Attorney Reed Walters, the man who originally charged the Jena 6 with attempted murder and prosecuted Mychal Bell, a sixteen year old black male, as an adult for assault with a deadly weapon (his shoes) was available to educate us poor, godless liberals as to the extent of Christ’s compassion for the white folks of Jena:

Walters also addressed the stress and notoriety the town has been subjected to, saying the only way he and other residents “have been able to endure the trauma that has been thrust upon us is through the prayers of the Christian people who have sent them up in this community.”

He also suggested that some kind of “disaster” was averted when thousands of marchers came to Jena last week.

“I firmly believe and am confident of the fact that had it not been for the direct intervention of the Lord Jesus Christ last Thursday, a disaster would have happened,” Walters said.

“The Lord Jesus Christ put his influence on those people, and they responded accordingly,” he said, without explaining exactly what he meant.

Mr. Walters did not specify what disaster Jesus’s intervention avoided, probably out of concern for the white ladies and young children who might hear his remarks (so as not to unnecessarily alarm them), but I imagine we can all guess the despicable deeds to which he implicitly made reference. Who knows what horrors those interlopers led by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson might have perpetrated on the good people of Jena, had Jesus not been at hand to act as their personal security guard.

As for why Mr. Walters knows in his heart of hearts that Jesus protected the white people of Jena from those horrid black protesters, I leave it to the field negro to explain why Jesus doesn’t love people of color to the same degree he does the God-fearing Christian men and women of the white race:

I gotta tell you though, thank goodness for JC. If it wasn’t for him protecting good Southern white towns like Jena and it’s DA, Reed Walters, can you imagine how much trouble we would have had with those black folks down there ? Thank goodness we have JC, to protect all those God fearing white people. (God is JC’s dad in case you were wondering) I mean every body knows that JC is just there to protect them. Not the black folks, they (the black folks) are Godless. I mean if JC was looking out for black people, do you think that three times as much blacks would be sitting in prison than on a college campus this fall? Do you think that damn near seven out of ten black households would be run by single mothers? Do you think that over 300 people would have been slaughtered in the bloody streets of Killadelphia, Pistolvania this year alone? And that most of those killed would be black men killed by other black men? I don’t think so.

Nope, JC couldn’t love us. The protection we got in Jena was collateral protection. The real people being watched over were the good white folks of Jena. The black people marching were just at the right place at the right time.

But thanks again JC for keeping those marchers down in Jena in line. No wonder all those Southern white people love you so much, and they spend so much time in those fancy homes they built for you. But we built some fancy homes for you in the hood too, how come we don’t get that kind of love? I mean you protect the town folks of Jena from us, but you won’t protect us from each other.

Though, I think Jesus slipped up a little in his white people only protection services, because he also allowed that notorious Mychal Bell to walk out of jail after finally being permitted to post bail:

Mychal Bell, a black teenager accused of beating a white classmate and who was the last of the “Jena 6” behind bars, was released from custody Thursday after a juvenile court judge set his bail at $45,000. […]

“We do not condone violence of any kind, but we ask that people be given a fair and even chance at the bar of justice,” the Rev. Al Sharpton said outside the courthouse.

“Tonight, Mychal can go home, but Mychal is not out of the juvenile process. He goes home because a lot of people left their home and stood up for him,” he said.

Then again, considering that the addresses of Mr. Bell and his confederates have been published online by some upstanding patriotic white citizens, I’m sure that the good people of Jena will continue to remain safe despite the fact that a notorious criminal has been released in their midst.

NEW ORLEANS — The FBI is reviewing a white supremacist Web site that purports to list the addresses of five of the six black teenagers accused of beating a white student in Jena and “essentially called for their lynching,” an agency spokeswoman said Saturday. […]

CNN first reported Friday about the Web site, which features a swastika, frequent use of racial slurs, a mailing address in Roanoke, Va., and phone numbers purportedly for some of the teens’ families “in case anyone wants to deliver justice.” That page is dated Thursday.

The Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement Saturday that some of the families have received “almost around the clock calls of threats and harassment,” and called on Gov. Kathleen Blanco to intervene.

God does help those who help themselves, after all.

****

PS. Seriously, the release of Mychal Bell is a small step toward justice in this case. And DA Reed Walters has exposed himself for all to see as the white supremacist piece of excrement that we all suspected he was when he first indicted these kids for attempted murder by sneaker. As for those that posted the names, phone numbers and addresses of the Jena 6 defendants and their families, its quite apparent that was a deliberate attempt to intimidate them, as well as a not so subtle call for vigilantes to lynch these young men, as Dave Neiwert makes clear in his discussion of the actions taken by these white supremacist vultures now descending on Jena. It’s a reflection of the times we live in, sadly, and a direct reflection of the influence that Republicans and conservatives have had on our culture that such examples of hate and bigotry against minorities are on the rise in our society.