mjh's blog

Contempt of Cop

ABQJOURNAL NEWS/METRO: APD Has Had Many Bad Run-Ins By T.J. Wilham, Journal Staff Writer

APD arrested 517 people for “refusing to obey” charges in 2007, according to a recent Journal investigation. Seventy percent of the cases were thrown out.
        Local defense attorneys derisively call the refusing to obey charge “contempt of cop” and claim APD routinely violates residents’ first amendment rights.
        Police Chief Ray Schultz says some encounters could have been avoided if officers had explained their actions.
        Schultz has said he is looking into customer service training for his department.

ABQJOURNAL NEWS/METRO: APD Has Had Many Bad Run-Ins

PS: The Journal pats itself on the back today of its new UpFront series (camelcase — that must have given the editors fits), which gives extra prominence to some old standbys. Kudos for including a couple of women. Perhaps Version 2.0 will feature someone under 40, black, Native American, or more than one native New Mexican. It is interesting that a feature that runs 7 days a week doesn’t have 7 authors — or 14.

Dan Herrera, Assistant Managing Editor of the Journal writes, “One reader said that UpFront was like a blog in print. Actually, we print people have been doing it quite a bit longer. [mjh: Therefore, we have nothing to learn from the blogosphere.]

“And, unlike most bloggers, our columnists travel the state doing original research, and not in their pajamas.”

Ouch! Hey, Dan, I don’t wear pajamas.

PPS: I mostly enjoyed Leslie Linthicum’s column on the big cheese, regardless of how she dressed while writing it, although her coming back with pictures of boxes that might have been empty or full of guns disappointed me. Will we see Glanbia ads in the paper starting next week? (As occurred with another major advertiser a few years ago after a huge gushing “they’re coming to town!” article appeared on the front page, above the fold.)

Paleocons for Palin

 Richard Viguerie’s Conservative HQ | show

Richard Viguerie: Sarah Palin is the perfect choice

August 29, 2008

Viguerie: She’s perfect
VP pick “gives McCain the opportunity to unite the GOP,
gives conservatives a stake in the election, and puts a real reformer on the ticket”

Minneapolis – The selection of Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running-mate unites the Republican Party and energizes its conservative base, Richard A. Viguerie said today.  “McCain has chosen to balance his ticket with a principled conservative.

“Governor Palin’s life story is one of sticking to principle.  She is living proof that a person can take on the corrupt political establishment – including corrupt leaders in her own party – and achieve great things.” 

Viguerie added: “There’s an old expression in politics: Go along to get along.  Not this time.  The selection of Sarah Palin is one big kick-in-the-pants to the corrupt establishment in both parties.

“Congratulations to John McCain for hearing and responding to conservatives.  Conservatives, the base of the party, have been listless.  But, now, nearly all will work enthusiastically for the McCain-Palin ticket.  In fact, this is the most enthusiastic conservatives have been since the era for Ronald Reagan.”

He added: “This is a grand-slam home run.  Conservatives’ feet haven’t touched the ground since this announcement.”

Richard Viguerie’s Conservative HQ | show

Sarah Palin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

In May 2008, Palin objected to the decision of Dirk Kempthorne, the Republican United States Secretary of the Interior, to list polar bears as an endangered species. She threatened a lawsuit to stop the listing amid fears that it would hurt oil and gas development in the bears’ habitat off Alaska’s northern and northwestern coasts. She also called unreliable the climate-change models cited by Kempthorne and environmentalists that predict melting of Arctic ice and has asserted that her administration believes listing them as an endangered species is premature and not the appropriate management tool for their welfare at this time..[36]

Sarah Palin – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[hattip to walkingraven]

PS: Wikipedia reports Palin is “a prominent member of Feminists for Life.” Feminists?! That must go over great with Lush Limbaugh, who coined the term “feminazis.” Goes to show Republicans and drowning men will clutch at anything on their way down.

FUD You, Jim Scarantino

updated 8/29/08

Obama the War President: Will you fight his wars? By Jim Scarantino – The Real Side

Look up ad hominem on Wikipedia and you won’t find Jim Scarantino’s picture. For that, you’ll have to look up “fucking ridiculous.” I know Jim considers himself one of New Mexico’s great bloggers, way up there with Joe Yawnahan (and his Graphics Monkey), another of our gifts to the blahblahblahgosphere. The pressure to perform must be getting to Jim because his latest Alibi column is far from The Real Side. Kinda like the Republican Party these days.

To the extent that Jim’s latest is about anything, here it is: Obama supporters who aren’t in uniform are hypocrites. I don’t quite see the difference between this and the earlier assertion from the Radical Wrong that if you aren’t serving in Iraq, shut the fuck up about the Great War Without End. Don’t you love it when people take every opportunity to say “freedom isn’t free.” I thought we consider freedom a gift from god that even pacifist-atheists like me get to enjoy. No, if you’re not on active duty, a vet, or related to a vet (can I count my Dad and brother here?), you got nothing worth hearing. Hug a soldier and thank god he doesn’t throw you in Gitmo!

So, per Jim, not only are peaceniks deceived by Obama, but we can only prove our loyalty to the Great Deceiver by joining the military. What did Jim do, search and replace “Bush” in an old column? Cribbing from Huffington Post, Jim? Trying for a spot as a McCain speech-writer?

I’m still struggling with this. If you support Obama, join the military. For two-thirds of his column, that’s all Jim has to say. Isn’t that like saying, “If you support DUHbya, sell your oil stock”? Or “if you support McCain, take ecstasy and go to a rave”?

(Blog rhetoric notwithstanding, active duty soldiers are donating more to Obama than McCain. Obama has veteran support, as well. Soldiers have a choice — I think a clear one — but peaceniks don’t need a choice: we have Obama.)

The goal of Jim’s column is quite simple: Divide and Conquer. There is an old saying in AmeriCo: FUD you. Yes, Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt have long been the Republican weapons of choice. Fear consumes them.

Lest I be accused of being as unspecific or pointless as Jim, here are a few points to consider:

* “Obama, the War President!” Puh-lease every single one of us knows that Obama is not a war monger, which is precisely what Duhbya, Cheney, and the rest of BushCo are. War Mongers, Jim, fucking War Mongers.

* “The media and adoring masses were more fascinated with fist bumps than the details of Obama’s Iraq strategy.” Huh? The people who were fascinated with fist bumps were the Bewildered Right who are so out of touch that they didn’t recognize a common urban, young, athletic greeting. Scarethemtino’s cohort referred to the alarming gesture as “terrorist fist bumps.” Clueless. Utterly clueless.

* “Obama forsees no substantial change in mission.” Come on, Jim. I know you want us to believe that, but do you have someone other the Tom Hayden to back you up? While I believe that 4 years down the road there will be no difference between a hypothetical Bush plan, a McCain plan or Obama’s inevitably revised plan, that’s only because reality would force Bush and McBush to come around to Obama’s plan, as is already happening.

* “They righteously humiliated Republican ‘chicken hawks’ who wouldn’t put themselves at risk for Bush’s wars.” Humiliated? I wish. As far as I can tell, the reality of the CHICKEN hawks never came home to roost. We were demagogued into an needless war by a VP who hid out from the Vietnam war in a tiny state (and hid under his desk on 9/11) and a POTUS who hid out in a champagne unit, getting high in more ways than one, whose high point in office was strutting across an aircraft carrier. Plus assorted minor crooks and an SOS who’s Russian education might finally be worth something. The only person I saw humiliated — humbled — was Colin Powell, who I don’t see rallying around McCain.

The bottom line is this: Who is more likely to wage new war: John McCain or Barack Obama? McCain is a notorious hot-head. McCain moved closer to the Neocons to win the nomination. McCain embodies the failed past.

Obama will shock the world. Obama has gifts — that I sorely lack — for bridging gaps. (Don’t hold my support against him. He deserves better.) If Duhbya hadn’t already shit all over the concept of a uniter, one might suggest Obama is the real deal. McCain isn’t ready. peace, mjh

This Week’s WTF?!

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Letters to the Editor

It’s Fact: Obama as Left as They Come
        HAVING READ Eugene Robinson’s column, “Swift Boat Author Out To Torpedo Obama As ‘Leftist,’ ” I am left with the question is he that dumb or is he just willfully blind? Frankly I doubt that Robinson is dumb, so it must be a case of him having something to hide on behalf of Obama!
        It is a fact that Obama has the most liberal voting record in the Senate. [Fact: That's based on a single analysis of a few bills. I think Ted Kennedy would object.] He tells us that he wants to soak the rich and redistribute income on a “fairer” basis. [Fact: I haven't heard any of those words in any such combination from Obama. Stop lying.] The socialists and communists believe “from each according to his ability to each according to his needs.”  [Question: Relevance? Who are the socialists and communists in America? Come on, have the balls to spell it out.] He wants to allow the George Bush income-tax reductions to expire. [Yes! Please!]Then he wants to raise the rate of capital gains tax from 15 percent to 28 percent, which means that the federal government is going to take an additional 13 percent of the yearly earnings on your retirement accounts in tax.
        If you should sell your house and make a profit on the deal in inflated dollars, Obama wants to take 28 percent of that profit rather than the 15 percent presently taken. He wants to give us governmental-run medical and hospital care. Check with anyone who lives under a government-controlled medical system. The immediate effect is to ration medical care. Every one of these programs Obama wants to install is socialism — right out of Karl Marx’s “Das Capital.” [Yeah, I get it, you can't call Obama a communist but you can keep implying it. Gutsy guy.]
        Jerome Corsi [a self-serving criminal right wing nut case] calls Obama a “leftist” [Is that a big insult among your ilk?] because that is exactly what he is. Obama is a socialist [Took you long enough], and you cannot get any further left than that, unless you are willing to take up arms to bring about the dictatorship of the proletariat — doing the same thing through ballot box rather than by the muzzle of a gun. The end result is the same. The only real difference between socialism and communism it how you get from here to there.
        Be very careful what you wish for, the price may be very high in deprivation of your individual freedom.
HAROLD A. TEETER

You poor, sad, pathetic man. How do you live with so much fear? No one has done more lately to curtail freedom in AmeriCo than Duhbya and Company. Wake up. peace, mjh

The Party of Fear and Hate

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Letters to the Editor

Albuquerque Shootings Show GOP Is Based in Hate
        A FEW WEEKS ago a gunman walked into a Universalist Church and shot and killed a number of people. Last week another gunman walked in Democratic headquarters in Arkansas and fatally wounded the chairman of the Democratic Party.
        In both instances the perpetrators were white males who hated “liberals.” Nobody has ever heard of a “liberal” shooting, stabbing or otherwise harming any other human being, because they espoused a different political ideology.
        The above incidents occur because the Republican Party — and its talk radio — constantly espouses hate. They do this through portraying all those who hold what they label as “liberal” views as unpatriotic, un-American, trying to destroy America and other characterizations structured to make people angry and to hate.
ALAN PEZARO

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Letters to the Editor

Well Said

Thin Line 

The ’50s phoned (it was wearing a smart red apron with matching heels and a lacy blouse) and it wants its sexism back. — Marisa Demarco, Alibi

Thin Line

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Three Boos for Reducing Hillary to ‘Cheerleader 

I WAS APPALLED to open the paper Monday morning and see Senator Hillary Clinton described as “The Cheerleader” when she was here as a prestigious leader in a major political party.
       She was here to raise money for the Democratic Party, which is a serious business for any party. She also established herself as the first serious female presidential candidate in U.S. history. Major political fundraising is high-stakes business, usually done by famous white men in the past, none of whom were described as cheerleaders except for maybe George Bush, who actually was one in college.
       Later in the article her clothing was described as if she were in a fashion show. It reminded me of how my father’s hometown, podunk newspaper regularly described women who were at tea parties in the fifties.
       The Journal ought to do better than that. The female author (doubly distressing) did not comment on any of the men’s appearances. I was not a Hillary supporter in the primary, but I think the Journal owes her and its readers a huge apology.
       ANN DUNLAP
       Albuquerque

ABQJOURNAL OPINION/LETTERS: Three Boos for Reducing Hillary to ‘Cheerleader

Distressing Quote

Garcia, 71, lives in Doña Ana, just north of Las Cruces. She thinks Obama has come off as condescending and arrogant.

“I don’t know one single Hispanic over 50 who will cast a vote for Obama,” she said, conceding that “there have always been conflicts between blacks and browns.

New Mexico : Betting on the West : The Rocky Mountain News By Katie Kerwin McCrimmon, Rocky Mountain News

- – - – -

A tip of the hat to Heath Haussamen for the link. While my hat is doffed, let me smack him upside the head with it for his feckless Liberal Blogosphere nonsense.

Presumably Haussamen didn’t mean to say the entire blogosphere is majority liberal — though, that is what his word choice implies. Perhaps, he’s just a lousy writer.

A more moderate individual would note that every issue has extremists on every side — these are angry, divisive times and fighting is in our blood and zeitgeist.

However, be clear that there is a straight-line tradition from Watergate, the GOP “Southern Strategy” (Message to White People: Be afraid, be very afraid.) through Willie Horton, to Bush/Rove’s anti-McCain tactics in SC 2000, and on to Swiftboating. Are there ugly, excessive liberals? Of course. However, Lush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Duhbya, Cheney, the Bathtub Jerk, Ralph Reid, ad maxima nauseum, have proven there is but one fundamental Conservative belief: Win at any cost. To the Radical Wrong, everything is warfare and war allows for anything (including torture and shredding the Constitution).

Liberalism just doesn’t attract the same caliber of stormtroopers and *dangerous* zealots. We dream we can win without lying, cheating, stealing or bludgeoning. (The only tactics left to Republicans in 2008, thanks to DUHbya.)

I had mistaken Haussamen for a journalist. He’s just another blogger — my cohort. peace, mjh

Swiftboats Arrive

Discredited author Jerome Corsi was back on Hannity & Colmes for a second time last night, 8/12/08, to spread more anti-Obama sentiment. Despite the fact that many falsehoods and distortions have been exposed in Corsis book, the show has yet to put on a guest to detail or rebut them. To date, Corsi has always appeared alone. During a prior appearance with Hannity, Corsi hyped the Obama-as-dangerous-black-radical meme. Last night, Corsi added the Obamas-not-really-a-Christian-but-a-Muslim smear.

News Hounds: Discredited Jerome Corsi Given Another Favorable Platform On FOX News

Yoni Goldstein on Jerome Corsi’s lie-packed biography of Barack Obama – Full Comment

Corsi. He is notoriously anti-Liberal, at the core, a Republican activist hell-bent on doing what he can to make sure the Democrats don’t run America. The Obama Nation, is nothing but hardcore-right propaganda. What’s worse, its author has admitted as much yet the book is already a New York Times bestseller, which means that lots of people out there are buying a pack of lies, and perhaps even worse, Jerome Corsi will be getting tons of airtime to further spread his untruths.

Yoni Goldstein on Jerome Corsi’s lie-packed biography of Barack Obama – Full Comment

Fight the Smears | Unfit for Publication

Unfit for Publication One of the most vile smear peddlers of the 2004 election has found a new target. Jerome Corsi just published a new book full of rehashed distortions and the same old lies about Barack Obama, and the right-wing noise machine is in full gear promoting it. In 2004, Corsi helped launch the Swift Boat smear campaign with a book of distortions and lies he wrote about John Kerry. Its up to you to spread the truth, so here it is. Weve posted some of the facts about Corsi and his desperate fabrications on this page, but there is even more in our PDF: Unfit for Publication.

Los Angeles Times: McCain’s broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship

Family values? peace, mjh

McCain, who is about to become the GOP nominee, has made several statements about how he divorced Carol and married Hensley that conflict with the public record. In his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For,” McCain wrote that he had separated from Carol before he began dating Hensley. “I spent as much time with Cindy in Washington and Arizona as our jobs would allow,” McCain wrote. “I was separated from Carol, but our divorce would not become final until February of 1980.” An examination of court documents tells a different story. McCain did not sue his wife for divorce until Feb. 19, 1980, and he wrote in his court petition that he and his wife had “cohabited” until Jan. 7 of that year — or for the first nine months of his relationship with Hensley. Although McCain suggested in his autobiography that months passed between his divorce and remarriage, the divorce was granted April 2, 1980, and he wed Hensley in a private ceremony five weeks later. McCain obtained an Arizona marriage license on March 6, 1980, while still legally married to his first wife. …

Navy officers in the squadron McCain commanded in 1977 said they did not know anything was wrong. “When I went to parties at their home, everything seemed fine,” said Mike Akin, a naval flying instructor. “They seemed to be a happily married couple.”
But two years later, while on a trip as a Navy liaison with the Senate, McCain spied Hensley at the Honolulu reception. In a recent television interview with Jay Leno on the “Tonight Show,” Cindy McCain joked about how the Navy captain had pursued her. “He kind of chased me around . . . the hors d’oeuvre table,” she said. “I was trying to get something to eat and I thought, ‘This guy’s kind of weird.’ I was kind of trying to get away from him.”
John McCain was 42; she was 24. During the next nine months, he would fly to Arizona or she would come to the Washington area, where McCain and Carol had a home.
Carol McCain later told friends, including Reynolds and Fitzwater, that she did not know he was seeing anyone else.

Los Angeles Times: McCain’s broken marriage and fractured Reagan friendship

Print Barack in the Saddle

MC: If you become president, how will you handle having to negotiate with countries that are committing human-rights violations against women?

BO: I believe there’s a spectrum. In a place like Darfur, rape is used as a military weapon there are no excuses, and you simply don’t abide them. You mobilize the international community to change behavior in those countries. When it comes to countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or others in the Middle East where women are still in second-class positions, it is important for us to recognize that the culture is not going to transform overnight. But we won’t be bashful about speaking out on these issues and affirming a core belief in the equality of women. My mother specialized in international development. And her focus was on helping women get a foothold in the economy, microfinancing helping them buy a loom or a sewing machine, or some cows so that they could then sell the milk. She was very clear that the best indicator of how a country is going to develop is how it treats its women and whether it educates its girls. And so, part of the argument we want to make is not just based on our values and our ideals, but also on practicality letting countries know you’re not going to develop as quickly if you’ve got one hand tied behind your back. You’re not going to do as well economically if all this enormous talent represented in your female population is undereducated and not given the same opportunities as men.

MC: Discussing the importance of reading to kids, you said in the town meeting that you’ve read the Harry Potter books to your daughters. Who’s your favorite character?

BO: All the characters were wonderful . . . Dumbledore’s a very cool guy.

MC: Well, he’s gay, apparently.

BO: [laughs] No comment on that.

MC: So, Rolling Stones or Beatles?

BO: Rolling Stones.

MC: Iron Man or Batman?

BO: Batman.

MC: If your mom were still alive, what would she think of all this?

BO: She would be bursting with pride. I don’t think so much about me as about her grandchildren our daughters and my niece. For her to see these three beautiful, graceful, highly opinionated girls, that would bring her great joy.

Find this article at: http://www.marieclaire.com/world/news/barack-obama-interview-women

Print Barack in the Saddle

An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad?

Please, god, spare us these small-minded dimwits. peace, mjh

As the ad begins, the words “It should be known that in 2008 the world shall be blessed. They will call him The One” flash across the screen. The Antichrist of the Left Behind books is a charismatic young political leader named Nicolae Carpathia who founds the One World religion (slogan: “We Are God”) and promises to heal the world after a time of deep division. One of several Obama clips in the ad features the Senator saying, “A nation healed, a world repaired. We are the ones that we’ve been waiting for.” The visual images in the ad, which Davis says has been viewed even more than McCain’s “Celeb” ad linking Obama to the likes of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, also seem to evoke the cover art of several Left Behind books. But they’re not the cartoonish images of clouds parting and shining light upon Obama that might be expected in an ad spoofing him as a messiah. Instead, the screen displays a sinister orange light surrounded by darkness and later the faint image of a staircase leading up to heaven. Perhaps the most puzzling scene in the ad is an altered segment from The 10 Commandments that appears near the end. A Moses-playing Charlton Heston parts the animated waters of the Red Sea, out of which rises the quasi-presidential seal the Obama campaign used for a brief time earlier this summer before being mocked into retiring it. The seal, which features an eagle with wings spread, is not recognizable like the campaign’s red-white-and-blue “O” logo. That confused Democratic consultant Eric Sapp until he went to his Bible and remembered that in the apocalyptic Book of Daniel, the Antichrist is described as rising from the sea as a creature with wings like an eagle.

An Antichrist Obama in McCain Ad? — Printout — TIME

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes | U.S. | Reuters

 Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes | U.S. | Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Most U.S. and foreign corporations doing business in the United States avoid paying any federal income taxes, despite trillions of dollars worth of sales, a government study released on Tuesday said.

The Government Accountability Office said 72 percent of all foreign corporations and about 57 percent of U.S. companies doing business in the United States paid no federal income taxes for at least one year between 1998 and 2005.

More than half of foreign companies and about 42 percent of U.S. companies paid no U.S. income taxes for two or more years in that period, the report said.

During that time corporate sales in the United States totaled $2.5 trillion, according to Democratic Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, who requested the GAO study.

Study says most corporations pay no U.S. income taxes | U.S. | Reuters

A Modern Fable

Once upon a time, a tortoise and a hare were running for president. The hare ran rings around the tortoise, who griped, “yeah, sure he’s fast, but can he lead?” “Sure he’s a celebrity, but can he lead?” “Sure, he’s beating me, but can he lead?”

The hare didn’t listen the tortoise. (Truthfully, he was so far ahead he could scarcely hear the old crank.) He ran on, steady and true, to the cheers of the massive crowds near the finish line.

Miles, back, the tortoise’s few supporters grumbled. “This tortoise isn’t slow enough.” “He’s shuffling in the wrong direction.” “I miss the prince who turned into a turd.” The tortoise didn’t listen. (He couldn’t really hear all that well.) He plodded on, grumbling about how unfair it was to race a hare with all the advantages hares naturally have in a society dominated by old tortoises.

Closer to the finish line, angry turtles appeared among the crowd. “He’s a celebrity, he can’t lead.” “He’s biased against tortises!” “He hates what we love and loves what we hate.” “The biased media shows him closer to the finish line.” “Tax! Tax! Tax!”

The race was over: the better runner won. It seems celebrity and inspiration aren’t bad ingredients for leadership, whereas whining is for losers. Meanwhile, the tortoises gathered over a cup of old turtle soup to argue how best to undermine the winner. peace, mjh

I Feel the Incentive to Give this Guy the Finger

Michael Boskin, former head of the President’s Council on Economic Advisers under Present George H.W. Bush, concludes that Senator Obama’s proposed increased top tax rates would decrease the incentive to work and cause serious problems in the economy.

Huh. I thought being stinking rich decreased one’s incentive to work. If you’re poor, you have the greatest incentive to work: starvation. Unless, of course, you’re completely demoralized by the belief that only the Rich have rights and opportunities.

Are Republicans and Independents really going to swallow the whole Tax and Spend bullshit yet again? Can they really ignore the fact that, indeed, we *need* to spend some money on something besides endless war, and, gasp, maybe the Rich are in a position to help? peace, mjh