Friday - June 09, 2006

The News You Missed

The mainstream media loves to publish figures each day of how many Iraqis died in suicide bombings and other acts of terror. Today, they seem to have overlooked their duty to report the daily body count so we will provide it for you ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/09/2006 at 03:42 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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Barking Moonbat Of The Week

This week we are proud to present the award to a “TWO-FER”. Shown here are Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg at the March for Peace and Justice, April 29, 2006, NYC. You all know Cindy (whose son’s grave still doesn’t have a headstone two years later). Michael is the father of Nicholas Berg who was beheaded by Zarqawi a few years ago. Michael forgives Zarqawi but hates George Bush and thinks the War Against Terror is bad. He is also running for Congress on the Moonbat Green Party ticket. Congratulations to both of our winners this week. Enjoy your insanity while it lasts ...

“I will not take joy in the death of a fellow human, even the human being who killed my son,” said Berg, who blamed President Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — and not al-Zarqawi — for the death of his son because of what Berg said is their role in authorizing the torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

“Revenge is what killed my son,” said Berg. “My son died in a perpetual cycle of revenge that goes on and on, forever. It’s got to stop somewhere. As far as I’m concerned, it will stop with me.”

Berg, who said he begged the United States government not to kill al-Zarqawi so that Berg could reconcile with him, worries that only more death will come out of his killing. “I wish the Iraqi people, and the U.S. soldiers who mistakenly believe they are protecting us, good fortune in weathering the upcoming violence.”

-- Michael Berg, June 8, 2006 (ABC NEWS)

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/09/2006 at 02:34 PM   
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Zarqawi Update

It appears that Asshat Zarqawi survived the bomb attack but later died of his wounds. Good. That means the bastard crawled out of the rubble, with burst eardrums, concussion, multiple wounds bleeding profusely and had plenty of time to suffer before Iraqi troops found him. It is good ...

Zarqawi Was Alive After Bombing: US General
_{June 9, 2006 8:31AM ET}

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was alive and made a move to escape when U.S. troops reached the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, mortally wounded in an American bombing raid, a U.S. general said on Friday.

The attack that killed Zarqawi and his spiritual adviser, Sheik Abdul-Rahman, yielded valuable information for several subsequent raids in Iraq, Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad, told Fox News.

“We were not aware yesterday that in fact, Zarqawi was alive when U.S. forces arrived on the site,” Caldwell said. Iraqi police first reached the bombed safe house in a village north of Baghdad and put Zarqawi on a stretcher, Caldwell said. U.S. ground forces then arrived and identified Zarqawi, who died shortly afterward.

“He was conscious initially, according to the U.S. forces that physically saw him. He obviously had some kind of visual recognition of who they were because he attempted to roll off the stretcher, as I am told, and get away, realizing it was U.S. military,” Caldwell said.

Captured Zarqawi Aide Spilled the Beans
_{June 09, 2006 11:08 AM}

(ABC NEWS) - An Iraqi customs agent secretly working with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi’s terror cell spilled the beans on the group after he was arrested, Jordanian officials tell ABC News. Ziad Khalaf Raja al-Karbouly was arrested by Jordanian intelligence forces last spring. Officials say Karbouly confessed to his role in the terror cell and provided crucial information on the names of Zarqawi commanders and locations of their safe houses.

Karbouly also admitted to his role in the kidnappings of two Moroccan embassy employees, four Iraqi National Guards and an Iraqi finance ministry official. In a videotaped confession, Karbouly said he acted on direct orders from Zarqawi. Officials say he will not be eligible for any of the $25 million reward money.

As Brian Ross reported this morning, the super-secret Task Force 145 does deserve the recognition for Wednesday’s capture. By the time two American jet fighters were called in to drop their 500 pound bombs, General George Casey was certain Zarqawi was in the house, and there was no thought of trying to capture him alive.

“Because the only means that could be applied in a timely fashion was the attack by air power and that was decided by General Casey as the right thing to do,” U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad told ABC News. The FBI on-line reward poster, offering a $25 million dollar bounty, today lists Zarqawi as deceased.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/09/2006 at 11:16 AM   
Filed Under: • Iraq •  
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The Coulter Controversy: Poll

Coulter Draws Fire for Bashing 9/11 Widows
_{June 9, 2006, 5:02 AM EDT}

WASHINGTON (AP) - Ann Coulter, the conservative pundit with a penchant for creating controversy, caused a ruckus when she called 9/11 widows “witches” and accused them of using their husbands’ deaths for their own political gain.

It is just the latest of the high-emotion, sharp-rhetoric attacks that she has leveled in four previous books and frequent appearances on cable television programs. Her firebrand style even inspired NBC’s “The West Wing” to create a “a blond, Republican sex kitten” in her mold.

In her latest book, Coulter criticizes the four New Jersey widows who pushed for an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed their husbands at the World Trade Center. The women also backed Democrat John Kerry’s presidential candidacy in 2004.

“These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis. I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much,” Coulter wrote.

Among Coulter’s previous statements, she advocated the invasion of non-Christian nations after Sept. 11 and the deportation from the U.S. of “all aliens from Arabic countries.” She said American Taliban John Walker should be executed to show liberals what happens to traitors. And she said the only real question about President Clinton was “whether to impeach or assassinate.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/09/2006 at 09:25 AM   
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Democrats Deliver Dog Doo-Doo

The rest of us Americans are kinda used to the Democratic Party dumping s**t on us all the time in the form of higher taxes, corrupt & immoral politicians and disgusting politically correct crap from way out in left field. Now it seems, they are willing to go the extra mile and carry the load of crap directly to the offices of their GOP opponents. Anyone care to guess what the “message” was behind this little stunt? Or are Donks capable of thinking intelligently enough to actually have a “message”? If so, that would be a first, wouldn’t it ... ?

Dog Feces Left At Congresswoman’s Office
_{Thu Jun 8, 10:44 PM ET}

GREELEY, Colo. (AP) - Republican U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (news, bio, voting record)’s re-election campaign was already heated, and it just got smelly as well: Her staff accused a Democratic activist Thursday of leaving an envelope full of dog feces at Musgrave’s Greeley office.

Musgrave spokesman Shaun Kenney said someone stuffed the envelope through the mail slot in the door on May 31 and then sped away in a car. Kenney said most of the preprinted return address was blacked out, but staffers used the nine-digit ZIP code to trace it to Kathleen Ensz, a Weld County Democratic volunteer.

Ensz told The Associated Press she left the envelope at Musgrave’s office but said it “wasn’t in the office doors, it was in the foyer.” Asked what she meant by the act, she declined comment.

Kenney demanded an apology from Musgrave’s likely Democratic opponent, state Rep. Angela Paccione of Fort Collins. Paccione spokesman James Thompson denied the campaign had anything to do with it.

“We find that kind of act to be completely deplorable,” he said. “We’re not in the business of dirty tricks like that. This type of thing is really out of our control, but of course we’ll do anything that we can to discourage this.”

Thompson said Ensz, vice chairwoman of a state Senate district committee for the county Democratic Party, has no formal ties to the Paccione campaign. Kenney said police were asked to investigate. A police spokesman did not immediately return a call.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/09/2006 at 09:07 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People •  
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Democratic Party Games

You gotta hand it to the Donks - they’re consistent. Consistently stupid and crooked, that is. This latest ploy of theirs is just another way for them to grab a House seat with underhanded means. Typical bulls**t from the Party Of Idiots, Whiners And Losers. They want to keep DeLay on the ticket so they can make an issue out of him. They don’t have the guts to let the GOP choose another candidate after DeLay resigned. Then they’d have to actually compete with someone. They’d rather do it in this backhanded manner. Stoopid Donk Asshats!

Democrats File Suit To Keep
Tom DeLay On The November Ballot
_{June 08, 2006, 12 44 pm}

In a surprise twist to the Tom DeLay saga, the Texas Democratic Party filed suit Thursday in an attempt to keep the resigning Republican Congressman’s name on the November ballot. The suit, filed in Travis County 126th District Court, seeks to undo an hours-old declaration by Republican Party Chair Tina Benkiser that DeLay is ineligible to run in the general election.

If DeLay doesn’t serve as the party’s candidate for Congressional District 22, then according to the Texas Election Code, no other candidate is allowed to replace him, the suit says. Lawyers for Houston’s Riddle & Brazil law firm, which filed the action, obtained a temporary restraining order at about 5:10 p.m. from Judge Darlene Byrne. Sources familiar with the case said the order prevents Benkiser from calling a meeting of the so-called District Executive Committee or taking other measures to replace DeLay as the Republican Party nominee for CD-22.

Benkiser, the only defendant named in the suit, could not be reached for comment Thursday afternoon. Officials at state Republican Party headquarters didn’t return a call for comment. DeLay announced in early April that he would resign from Congress, move from Sugar Land to Virginia and thus be ineligible to run for re-election on the November general election ballot. Benkiser formally declared him ineligible Wednesday night.

DeLay spokeswoman Shannon Flaherty expressed disdain over the legal action. “Mr. DeLay is now a resident of Virginia and ineligible to run for office in Texas,” she said. “The party of baseless, frivolous lawsuits is at it again, and the only surprise is it took them more than 30 minutes to file it.” The lawsuit says DeLay never intended to complete his run for re-election, and instead schemed to collect campaign contributions and convert them to his own use.

“DeLay deceived voters into giving him ‘campaign contributions’ – money he intends to use to pay his attorneys to defend him from criminal charges...” the suit states. “DeLay has finally let voters in on his true intent: he wants to have his name removed from the ballot in November and replaced with another candidate while keeping the money contributed to his primary campaign, in clear violation of the Texas Election Code,” the lawsuit says.

- More Donk silliness here ...

_{(-- thanks to Greg at Rhymes With Right blog for this tip)}

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/09/2006 at 08:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Politics •  
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Hasta La Vista, Baby!

_{“Message From Above”
-by- Cox & Forkum}

- Reuters: “Iraq hails killing of Zarqawi as start of new era”

BAGHDAD, June 9 (Reuters) - The killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a “new beginning” for Iraq, the interior minister said on Friday, but authorities imposed a traffic ban in an apparent effort to prevent al Qaeda reprisal attacks.

The ban in Baghdad and in the town of Baquba, near where U.S. planes killed the most wanted man in Iraq on Wednesday, will last from 11 a.m. (0700 GMT) until 3 p.m., when Iraqis go to mosques for Friday prayers, the Interior Ministry said.

Suicide car bombers launched by Zarqawi have attacked Shi’ite mosques in the past as part of a campaign to plunge Iraq into sectarian civil war. The traffic ban suggested authorities feared more such attacks on Friday.

- Washington Post: “Palestinian Hamas denies statement mourning Zarqawi”

GAZA (Reuters) - The ruling Palestinian faction Hamas on Friday denied issuing a statement mourning the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, but hailed him as a symbol of resistance to occupation. Reuters received a statement on Thursday saying that Hamas mourned Zarqawi, killed in a strike north of Baghdad by U.S. warplanes on Wednesday.

Sami Abu-Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said on Friday that “Hamas did not issue any statement in this regard.” He also said that Hamas “reiterates its supportive position to all liberation movements and foremost the Iraqi liberation movement, for which Zarqawi was one of the symbols in the face of the American occupation.”

- ABC News: “Zarqawi death won’t weaken war, says Mullah Omar”

June 9, 2006 — KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar vowed that the killing in Iraq of al Qaeda militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would not weaken Muslim efforts against “crusader forces,” a Pakistan-based news agency said on Friday.

In one of the most significant developments in Iraq since the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003, Jordanian-born Zarqawi was killed on Wednesday in a U.S. airstrike on a “safe house” north of Baghdad.

“I give good news to Muslims around the world, the resistance against the crusader forces in Afghanistan and other parts of the Islamic world will not be weakened,” the Afghan Islamic Press cited Omar as saying in a statement.

The news agency did not say how it had obtained the purported statement from the fugitive Omar who, like al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, is believed to be hiding out somewhere along the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/09/2006 at 08:25 AM   
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   Thursday - June 08, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“Plenty More Where That Came From”
-by-
US Navy / US Marine Corps

Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua Willis (right) and other Marines muscle a 500-pound JDAM bomb to the bomb rack of an F/A-18C Hornet on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) on Feb. 9, 2005. The Truman Strike Group and Carrier Air Wing 3 are conducting close air support, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions over Iraq. Willis and the Hornet are attached to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 115 deployed from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C.
-- DoD photo by Airman Ryan O’Connor, U.S. Navy.

“BOOM! BOOM! OUT GO THE LIGHTS!”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/08/2006 at 04:12 PM   
Filed Under: • Art-Photography • Military •  
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That Didn’t Take Long

You’ve heard by now that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has assumed room tempurature.  Hot Air has great coverage, where I found this link to the DUmmie’s reaction. Typical.

- Blog: Iraq The Model has reactions from inside Iraq

Unfortunately, not everyone is happy. The Leftists and Liberals are having a hissy-fit. Dr. Sanity has a collection of links to the Angry Left who are all crying into their Cheerios this morning.

- Transcript: Bush’s Statement on Al-Zarqawi

Good morning. Last night in Iraq, United States military forces killed the terrorist al-Zarqawi. At 6:15 p.m. Baghdad time, special operation forces, acting on tips and intelligence from Iraqis, confirmed Zarqawi’s location, and delivered justice to the most wanted terrorist in Iraq.

Zarqawi was the operational commander of the terrorist movement in Iraq. He led a campaign of car bombings, assassinations and suicide attacks that has taken the lives of many American forces and thousands of innocent Iraqis. Osama bin Laden called this Jordanian terrorist “the prince of al-Qaida in Iraq.” He called on the terrorists around the world to listen to him and obey him. Zarqawi personally beheaded American hostages and other civilians in Iraq. He masterminded the destruction of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. He was responsible for the assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, and the bombing of a hotel in Amman.

Through his every action, he sought to defeat America and our coalition partners, and turn Iraq into a safe haven from which al- Qaida could wage its war on free nations. To achieve these ends, he worked to divide Iraqis and incite civil war. And only last week he released an audio tape attacking Iraq’s elected leaders, and denouncing those advocating the end of sectarianism.

Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again. Iraqis can be justly proud of their new government and its early steps to improve their security. And Americans can be enormously proud of the men and women of our armed forces, who worked tirelessly with their Iraqi counterparts to track down this brutal terrorist and put him out of business.

They have released a photo:

Posted by Drew458     on 06/08/2006 at 10:34 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Stoopid-People •  
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   Wednesday - June 07, 2006

Through The Looking Glass

“View From Atop Masada”
-by
BigFoto.com

_{(click image for larger 1200 x 800 image in popup)}

During the First Century A.D., the nation which we now call Israel was held as a Roman colony. The Jewish people who lived in this area, however, refused to succumb to the religious practices of Rome and decided rather to remain true to the religious practices which their ancestors had practiced.

This Jewish faith was incompatible with that of the Romans, and for this reason, the Jewish people began to revolt in 66 A.D. This revolt would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, as the Romans proceeded to destroy every stronghold of Judaism throughout the area.

The last area where the Jewish people had power was an old fortress known as Masada. From this mountain fortress, these people known as Zealots led raids on neighboring Roman towns and remained the only Jewish stronghold within Israel. As the war came to a close, the only place left for attack by the Romans was Masada. A Roman general laid siege to Masada in hopes of taking this last stronghold.

The Zealots prepared themselves for a long siege by rationing food and water. The Roman forces were strong, and they broke through the outer wall. The Zealots had made their last attempt at survival, and knew that death was their only end. Rather than give the glory of victory to the Roman soldiers, these Zealots committed mass suicide, seeing this as the best way to avoid slavery and death by the hands of Romans.

The Romans proceeded to destroy Jerusalem and utterly smashed the Jewish state, scattering the Jews to the four corners of the Earth where they would remain as refugees for nearly two thousand years. The world did not allow the Jews to come home again until 1948 A.D. By now you know the rest of the story ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/07/2006 at 06:10 PM   
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Haditha: PR Geniuses & Media Tools?

I’ve just finished reading TIME magazine’s extensive coverage of the alleged Haditha “massacre”. If you want to get the full text of the article quoted below you’ll have to buy the rag mag. Don’t worry, I read TIME so you won’t have to. Here is my take on the story:

Based on what I’m reading at TIME and other sources, it seems the Marines may have overreacted and innocent civilians may have been killed. There are a lot of caveats in that sentence because the Marines in question have not been brought to trial yet and the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) is still involved in an ongoing investigation. Let’s let justice take its course, OK?

With that said there are several things about the media coverage that bother me tremendously. Take the excerpt below from TIME’s article “How Haditha Came To Light” ....

If the Marines are indeed guilty of an atrocity, they had the ill fortune to have committed their crime in the worst possible place: outside the front door of a budding Iraqi journalist and human-rights activist. Taher Thabet, 43, was at home in Haditha on the morning of Nov. 19 when around 7:15 he heard the detonation of the roadside bomb that struck a Marine humvee, killing the driver, Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas, 20.

The blast shattered Thabet’s windows. He ran outside in time to see Marines from three other humvees springing from their vehicles and heading for four homes on either side of the road. “They went into one house. I heard gunfire, explosions and screams,” he told TIME in an interview in Baghdad last month. “Then they came out and went into another. I could only stand and watch.”

The next morning, Thabet--who last year co-founded a small outfit called the Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring--went into the houses where the killings had taken place and videotaped what he saw, as well as the wrenching scenes later at the local morgue, where friends and family collected the bodies of the victims. “I didn’t know what I was recording,” he says. “I just felt I had to record everything I could see.”

Thabet shared the VCD with the other members of the Hammurabi group, but for a time, news of the killings did not go further than that. Then, in mid-December, President George W. Bush announced the military’s estimate that 30,000 Iraqi civilians had died since the start of the war. TIME’s Tim McGirk, posted in Baghdad, began to investigate cases in which Iraqi civilians had been killed by U.S. troops. In the course of his reporting, he obtained a copy of Thabet’s VCD.

Now what are the odds that a a “budding Iraqi journalist and human-rights activist” would be living next door to the house where the incident occurred? Even more strange is how this man managed to make his way into the house the next day with a digital video camera, make videos of the “victims” and then managed to get back to his computer and burn the videos onto a Video CD (VCD) that wound up in the hands of TIME, Reuters, AP and every media outlet in the known civilized (and uncivilized) world within a matter of weeks. Is it just me or does anyone else smell a rat here?

Regardless, TIME immediately dispatched its team of “crack” journalists onto the trail of the alleged “bloody massacre” that John Murtha has been screaming about for weeks. Chief among these professional “investigative journalists” was Tim McGirk ...

In the ensuing weeks, McGirk and TIME’s Baghdad staff members interviewed more than a dozen Haditha locals by e-mail (travel between Baghdad and Haditha is exceedingly dangerous for Iraqis, let alone foreign journalists), including the mayor, the morgue doctor and a local lawyer who negotiated a settlement between the Marines and the families under which the military agreed to pay $2,500 compensation apiece for some of the victims--mostly the women and children. Several survivors visited TIME’s Baghdad bureau, including a man in his 20s whose four brothers were killed and an orphaned girl who is now the sole caretaker of her 8-year-old brother. The bureau was also pursuing leads that a 12-year-old girl had survived the attack by playing dead. In interviews, Thabet filled in details about what he witnessed before he began shooting his VCD.

This really raised a red flag for me when I read that McGirk could not travel to Haditha to interview any of the natives in person because “travel between Baghdad and Haditha is exceedingly dangerous for Iraqis, let alone foreign journalists”. Is this cowardly Tim McGirk the same idiot who bravely went to Afghanistan and shared Thanksgiving dinner with the Taliban just weeks after 9/11?

Thanksgiving With the Taliban
_{Saturday, Nov. 24, 2001}

TIME correspondent Tim McGirk shares bread, raisins, and thoughts about the afterlife with some Taliban fighters, and finds some common ground

By TIM MCGIRK

With a few colleagues, I spent my Thanksgiving meal squatting on the floor of an Afghan passport office, talking to Taliban fighters about miracles and Judgement Day.

On the Afghan side of the border near the Pakistani town of Chaman, we had pulled into a Taliban base, a dusty courtyard with two broken-down cars. Earlier in the day, a convoy of journalists were stoned and robbed while leaving Spin Boldak, just up the road.

Some 200 other journalists had already left for Pakistan. We were waiting for four reporters who had been led off into the Rigestan desert by the Taliban to look at some fuel tankers blown up by U.S. commandos. It didn’t seem like a very good idea to leave our friends behind in Afghanistan.

I’m afraid I just don’t get it. There are way too many questionable things about this whole incident. Lest you question TIME’s integrity, take a look at the “Letters To The Editor” in any issue. It reads like something from DailyKOS or Democratic Underground with readers screaming about impeachment, Haliburton, domestic spying, etc. - the whole Leftist Moonbat Brigade in full dress rehearsal.

Even more suspicious is the fact that I can find no reference whatsoever on the web for the “Hammurabi Organization for Human Rights and Democracy Monitoring”. You’d think that an organization that has digital video cameras and computers to burn VCD’s in the middle of the Iraqi desert would at least have a web site, wouldn’t you? Even if it is only a dialup connection?

Far be it from me to question TIME’s impeccable staff of non-partisan journalists (?) but I also object to TIME’s incessant crowing about what a great job they did uncovering this alleged incident. I realize they’re fishing for a Pulitzer Prize but there’s really no need to be so blatant about it. They just need to be patient and let the whole story unfold. Besides, TIME needs to be careful that they don’t suddenly get more evidence faxed to them from a Kinko’s somewhere in Texas - if you know what I mean ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/07/2006 at 04:23 PM   
Filed Under: • Iraq • Media-Bias • Military •  
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Exploitation Of Illegal Aliens?

Mayor Nagin’s “chocolate city” is starting to smell more like burritos than chocolate with 100,000 illegal aliens flooding into the city to work for dirt-cheap wages ($10 per hour). Of course you know the big bad Haliburton and others are exploiting these poor hard-working criminals by paying them twice the minimum wage and only four out of five workers are given protective gear. Dick Cheney should be ashamed of how his company is trampling the civil rights of these poor, downtrodden workers - at least that’s what AP thinks.

Than again, they could always go to California or Florida and pick fruit for $7,500 per year (about $3.25 per hour). I haven’t heard anyone complain about those wages or the mega-rich companies like Dole or Archer Daniels Midland that have been paying those wages for decades. Why all the sympathy now - unless it’s just one more way to attack the Bush administration.

Face it though, if you criminally invade someone else’s country and are in hiding all the time, you are going to get screwed on wages and job conditions. Perhaps the Mexicans need to re-think their whole strategy. If they’d only come here legally, then they could bitch and complain all they want - just like the rest of us. Until then, they’re hosed ...

Illegal Workers Face Hardship in Big Easy
_{June 7, 2006, 6:49 AM EDT}

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - They are the backbone of post-Hurricane Katrina reconstruction: Workers who converge at dawn and wait to be picked up for 14-hour shifts of hauling debris, ripping out drywall and nailing walls.

But because many are in the country illegally, immigrant workers rebuilding New Orleans are especially vulnerable to exploitation, according to a study released Tuesday by professors at Tulane University and the University of California at Berkeley.

The illegal immigrants often work in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earn far less than their legal counterparts, the study said. Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by researchers reported working with harmful substances and in dangerous conditions, while 19 percent said they were not given any protective equipment.

Illegal immigrants also were paid significantly less—if at all—earning on average $10 per hour, compared with $16.50 for documented workers, the study said. “What is fundamentally unfair is these are workers who have responded to a national priority to rebuild this city and yet whose rights are being violated,” said Laurel Fletcher, director of Berkeley’s International Human Rights Law Clinic and one of the study’s co-authors.

Under federal labor law, illegal immigrants are afforded the same health and safety protections as documented workers. Regardless of their legal status, laborers can sue most employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act for violation of the minimum wage law and overtime regulations, the researchers said.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration said it has conducted more than 7,000 on-site inspections in the New Orleans area. The U.S. Department of Labor said it was concerned about wage and safety violations and had hurried to establish a Gulf Coast office.

“I’m not surprised that there are wage violations in the whole Gulf Coast rebuilding area—all of the conditions are there for that to occur,” said Victoria Lipnic, assistant secretary of labor for employment standards.

“But we’ve tried to be very proactive in our enforcement effort.” Before last year’s hurricane, Louisiana had one of the smallest Hispanic populations in the country—2.5 percent of residents compared with 12.5 percent nationally.

Census data indicates nearly 100,000 Hispanics moved to the Gulf Coast region after Katrina, lured by promises of high wages and plentiful work. It is unclear how many have come to New Orleans, though the study estimates one-quarter of the construction workers in the city are illegal immigrants.

While 83 percent of documented workers interviewed by the researchers said had access to medicine when needed, only 38 percent of illegal immigrants did. Around one-third of illegal immigrants said they understood the hazards of removing asbestos or mold, compared with more than 65 percent of documented laborers. Thirty-three percent of legal workers received medical attention when needed for a reported problem, compared to 10 percent of undocumented workers.

Some of those waiting for work said they are afraid of complaining. “It’s too dangerous for my body,” said 29-year-old Saul Linan, an illegal immigrant from Mexico. “But I don’t say anything. If I do, the boss says, `Hey, if you don’t work hard, I’ll take you to immigration.’”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/07/2006 at 01:19 PM   
Filed Under: • Illegal-Aliens and Immigration • Oppression •  
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It’s In The Koran

Posted by Drew458     on 06/07/2006 at 12:46 PM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA •  
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Meathead Massacred At Polls

Liberal philosophy on education: “Our schools suck so let’s throw more money at them. Where will we get more money? Raise taxes! No! OK, we’ll just raise taxes on the rich. OK.” Unfortunately, voters in Kalifornia told Rob Reiner (a.k.a. “Meathead") to take his proposal and shove it - by a resounding majority. Archie Bunker is off somewhere chuckling to himself ...

Voters Reject Prop. 82
_{June 7, 2006}

(SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS) - California voters soundly rejected Proposition 82 Tuesday, crushing the hopes of early childhood education advocates who hoped to make universal preschool public policy in the nation’s most populous state.

Throughout much of the evening, returns showed that 60 percent of voters statewide opposed Prop. 82 while just 40 percent supported it, making it nearly impossible for the measure to ever get the simple majority it needed to pass.

“It doesn’t look good,’’ admitted Hollywood director Rob Reiner, who spoke to about 200 supporters at a Los Angeles hotel ballroom shortly after 10 p.m. But he vowed to fight on, saying that the push for universal preschool would not go away. “This is important, and if it is not today the train has left the station.’’

Though voter turnout was low across California, by 1 a.m. it appeared that Prop. 82 failed in every county except Alameda and San Francisco. It was evenly split in Imperial County. Many San Jose area voters took their skepticism about the measure to the polls.

“Prop. 82 sounded really good, but the more I looked at it, the more I realized it was subject to shenanigans,’’ said David Yomtov, a San Jose resident who said he voted against it. “Kids should go to preschool, but it didn’t sound like Prop. 82 would help the families who most needed the help.’’ The “No on 82’’ campaign claimed victory shortly before midnight. “We’re grateful for this vote of confidence by California voters,’’ said Pamela Zell Rigg, president of the California Montessori Council, which campaigned against the measure. “In the meantime, the state education system can focus on serving K-12 students.’’

Prop. 82 would have taxed the state’s wealthiest residents to provide a free year of preschool to every 4-year-old. The tax-the-rich initiative, which had the support of Hollywood activists and labor unions, seemed a sure winner when it was first unveiled earlier this spring. Proponents argued that making high-quality preschool available to the state’s nearly 500,000 4-year-olds would be a huge boost to working families that struggle to pay for preschool, which often costs thousands of dollars a year.

Supporters also said investing in preschool would improve K-12 education by bridging the achievement gap separating wealthier children from their low-income counterparts. But Reiner and his campaign aides overestimated the breadth of their support—and misjudged the depth of the opposition’s. Prop. 82 was attacked by anti-tax activists and Silicon Valley’s vast venture capital community, which donated heavily to the “No on 82’’ campaign. Critics also warned that the measure would not do enough to help the state’s poorest families.

Another salvo came from private preschools, notably many Montessori schools, over concerns that increased competition from a state-run program would threaten their business and their education philosophies. The television commercials against Prop. 82 deftly capitalized on those fears, consistently warning it would do little to raise preschool enrollment while creating a “preschool bureaucracy.’’ The ads also urged California to fix K-12 schools before taking on the role of educating even younger children.

Reiner, who along with his wife and father, director Carl Reiner, spent more than $4 million on the campaign, came under relentless attack in the spring. As a result, the proposition’s No. 1 pitchman was sidelined before the campaign even got off the ground.

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/07/2006 at 05:40 AM   
Filed Under: • Democrats-Liberals-Moonbat Leftists • Politics •  
• Comments (5) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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