Ashley Todd does not deserve our Forgiveness!

Although she may deserve our pity and certainly our empathy, the fact is that what she did was a Hate Crime and that's unforgiveable.

Look, people - certainly she may require medical attention, counseling and psychiatric care - but that's no excuse! The claim had clear shades of the kidnapping and murder of Emmet Till, a young boy who was lynched for daring to whistle at a white woman (although in actuality, he only whistled to help control his stutter).

This was an attempt at repeat the story of the Scottsboro Boys who were tried multiple times for a rape that never happened.

Lets we think we've come a long way since the 1930's and 1950's lets not forget the false claims of Susan Smith in 1994.

Yes, what we're dealing with here is indeed a disease, but Ashley Todd isn't the only one who has it.

Bare with me, I've got a lot to get off my chest on this one. This isn't just a "Racial" issue, or even a political one - it goes far deeper than that.

For those who may who so quickly forgotten:

In 1994, Smith led the country on a wild goose chase for nine days by blaming a fictitious black man for carjacking her Mazda with her sons still in the car. The practice of unjustly blaming blacks and imprisoning them with alarming racial disparity, is not fictitious. It is a real national tragedy being revealed in studies by human rights groups and government agencies.

The truth was the Smith had sank her own car in a lake, with her children still in it. And her first attempt at a plausible alibi was to make up a story about a "black man in a knit cap."

Flash forward to today and Ashley Todd.

It is commendable that the police were vigilant enough to discover the truth of her story within a day. (Clearly the fact the "B" carved into her face was backwards was a bit a of a give away...) But suppose they hadn't? Suppose they hadn't decided to put her through a lie detector? How long could this have gone on?

And how many times have we seen this story played out before?

How viciously savaged in the press was the black girl who accused several members of the Duke LaCrosse Team of assault in 2006?

How many times do we see deference given to the "sympathatic" character in these situations and how often are those persons - young, (relatively) pretty and white?

We all know the story of the Pretty Private Jessica Lynch who was dramatically rescued from her Iraqi captures. Except that the rescue never happened.

Lynch herself doesn't remember a single thing and all the nurses and doctors and eyewitnesses on the scene say the Iraqi fedayeen guards had fled the day before the "rescue," and there was no danger whatsoever, no resistance of any kind, the U.S. forces could just walk right in, and they knew it.

And the hospital doors were wide open, and the nurses and doctors had gone out of their way to provide decent care for our precious Jessica, considering the circumstances, and doctors even tried to return Lynch to U.S. forces themselves.

Here's another thing, Jessica wasn't alone - she was with her whole unit. Jessica got the cover of Time Magazine, what kind of press coverage did Shoshanna Jackson get?

This is about more than just Ashley Todd's lies. This is about a sickness that America has, not neccesarily against black people - but to give undue and unreasonable deference to people who simply don't deserve it, and to deny it to those that do.

Clearly Ashley was fired up by weeks of charges by the McCain Campaign that Barack Hussein Obama was some kind of "Terrorist Sympathiser". "We can't trust him." He's a "Socialist!" "Kill Him." "He's an Arab".

The Fear of a Barack Presidency has been ginned up and deliberately set ablaze by McCain to keep his fading election hopes alive.

There should be little surprise that it's begun to erupt among the least stable among us. But let's just take a second and really think about this entire "William Ayers the Terrorist" thing.

Ayers and the Weatherman were Vietnam Protestors. They didn't set of bombs to "Kill Americans", they were doing it to try and end a war which killed 53,000 Americans. The only person killed by a Weatherman bomb - was a member of the Weatherman in an accident.

Yes, they were using extreme methods and certainly criminal - but they didn't "Hate America." This was the same time period that the American Indian Movement repossesed Alcatraz by force. This was the time of the SLA and the Manson Family. This was after Kent State. This was during COINTELPRO, which not so coincidentally is why Ayers was never successfully prosecuted, the FBI and police broke the law and participated in criminal actions which destroyed the case. What Ayers did and didn't do should be looked at in context of the surrounding events, not in a vaccum. 40 years later Ayer's is a college profession, education activist and winner of Chicago's 1998 "Citizen of the Year" award. He has no good reason to still be fighting to end a war that ended long ago. He and Barack live in the same neighborhood and have apparently only met about 6 times.

This is your dreaded Ameri-Qaeda member? A 60 year-old ex-war protesting professor? Really?

Yet, the drum beat of fear has marched on even after the fact as the McCain Campain specifically steered the media toward the story.

The McCain campaign steered reporters’ attention to the story yesterday. John McCain even called the 20-year old woman. Sarah Palin called her family. Well, tonight that woman is charged with making a false report

It's probably fair to note that McCain and Co didn't know it was a hoax, but it also shows that they were quite willing to believe it could be true and take advantage of it!

Ashley was providing them with exactly the Mean Liberal Scum they been trying to frighten America with. But the sad part is that you can't completely blame McCain and Palin, as I said before this story has been told for a long, long time and the consequences have been devastating.

About half of all the people who are murdered each year in the United States are black. Yet since 1977, when a firing squad in Utah initiated the modern era of capital punishment, the overwhelming majority of people who have been executed -- 85 percent -- had killed a white person.

Only 11 percent had killed a black person.

Such a huge disparity seems to suggest that racial factors may be influencing how the death penalty is dispensed -- but in different ways than some people had suspected.

While death penalty opponents had long feared that the race of the killer would play a pronounced role in determining who would be executed and that blacks would be put to death far more frequently than whites, several studies suggest that the most significant distinction is the race of the victim.

If about half he people killed in the U.S. are black, and the other half white - while 85% of the attacker of the white person goes to DEATH ROW, just what's going on with all the black people that are killed year in and year out? Just whose really getting away with Murder around here?

Even worse, over the past decade or so 223 wrongfully convicted people have been exonerated by the Innocence Project using DNA evidence. False Witness Testimony, Miss Identification, Police and Prosecutorial misconduct, False Confessions, Forensic Fraud, Lying Informants and just plain bad Lawyers have put hundreds, thousands, and (even if these failures only represent a fraction of 1% of the total cases) there are more than likely tens of thousands of innocent people behind our bars.

Over and over again, the guilty go free while the innocent are punished.

The truth is that's the crime here isn't that Ashley cried "Black Man" in a crowded theater, it's the fact that she was so easily believed - particularly by the McCain Campaign - and immediately garnered national media attention when she never deserved it.

How many muggings usually get on the CBS News?

It's just like how the Jon Bonet Ramsey Story was blown completely out of all realistic proportion andh nearly ruined the life of her parents although they were innocent the entire time.

Just like Jessica Lynch (but not Shoshanna).

Just like the story of that poor girl who "disappeared" in Aruba.

Just like the Jennifer Wilbanks, the Runaway Bride, who original said she'd been kidnapped. Not so much.

Just like the Astonaut in the diaper.

Just like Anne Nicole Smith, who everyone knew was going to die from drugs - so of course we all just made some popcorn and watched her slow, sad decline, completely wrapt.

Just like the latest missing girl, Carrie Holmes, and her apparently murderous mother who spent a month driving around supposedly looking for her daughter while her body (it seems) rotted in the trunk.

It's like a fixation.

We can't seem to tear ourselves away from pouring all our sympathies into these liars and overhyped stories that quickly plug into our own most deep seated fear - that WE MIGHT BE NEXT - we can't stop ourselves from making excuses for them, identifying with them, for immediately trying to "Forgive" Ashley Todd... but she doesn't deserve our forgiveness.

She doesn't and they really don't. Not when it comes at the cost of our ignoring all the real victims of violence, hatred and intimidation.

How much coverage has the tires of Obama supporters being slash received?

How much of the stories of Obama supporters cars being vandalized been covered by the national media?

How much coverage has their been of the hacking of the Ohio Secretary of States Website?

How much coverage has their been of the Obama campaign supporter who really WAS assaulted and accused of being a member of the dreaded "Acorn".

Or the mysterious White Powder sent to the Philadelphai Obama offices?

Or the mutilation of Obama in Effigy?

No, I can't forgive Ashley - not when she's helping take attention away from what's really going on, from the real victims and the Real American Terrorists in our midst.

Vyan

Update: Different people seem to have different definitions of "Forgiveness" - for the purposes of this diary, I was taking it to mean that she shouldn't face any responsibility for her actions, that she should get a little treatment and pat on the head. My position is that that simply isn't good enough, it's sweeping under the rug the consequences of what she did. NO ONE should suffer from false accusations and our entire justice system is currently far from accurate and effective for exactly that reason, the rush to judgement and "closure" by "Getting the Bastard" has far too often trumped fact, truth and "justice".

I'm not advocating hate or vengence of any kind against her. I'm saying what she did is SERIOUS and needs to be understood in the context of history!

She should get treatment AND be prosecuted.

Dana Milbank is Looking for the Real America

Two hours before Barack Obama's appearance at a campaign rally here Wednesday, they played the national anthem -- and people stood and sang. Some even put hands on hearts! In the first row sat a woman -- we'll call her Margaret the Corporate Trainer, in Joe-the-Plumber style -- wearing an actual flag pin on her shirt. "I'm American!" she said proudly. Really.

Then Obama took the stage and gave a stirring speech about those soldiers who "fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America! They haven't served a Blue America! They have served the United States of America!"

The audience took up a chant of "USA! USA!"

And these are Democrats?

This scene did not fit neatly into the Sarah Palin view of the world. In that view, there is the "real America," the "hardworking, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation," the place where "we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans." We can identify this part of America because they vote Republican.

By inference, there is also a faux America, where people are slothful, unpatriotic, anti-American, misanthropic, bad and cowardly. We know these areas because they vote Democratic.

By that definition, you can't get much more real-America than Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy and the political center of a state that hasn't voted for a Democrat for president in 44 years. And yet, a CNN poll released Wednesday found Obama leading Republican John McCain by 10 points in the Commonwealth.

In recent elections, Democrats were cowed by challenges to their patriotism. But the crowd in Richmond, confident of an Obama victory, brushed off the Palin insult with laughter, a survey of the first row in the arena revealed.

"I'm a terrorist," said Kathleen the Food Vendor.

"We're probably communists," added John the Other Food Vendor, sitting with Kathleen. "I've been hating America ever since I was a young man."

"I was a baby terrorist," offered Terrence the Unemployed Guy.
If anything, it is those who have lobbed the anti-America charge who are in retreat. Palin herself apologized -- sort of -- for "the way it has come across." In Minnesota, GOP Rep. Michele Bachmann found her previously safe seat in jeopardy after going on MSNBC's "Hardball" to question Obama's patriotism and to urge media outlets to find other "anti-America" members of Congress. And Rep. Robin Hayes (R-N.C.) had to climb down from telling the crowd at a McCain rally that "liberals hate real Americans."

By contrast, the phony American folks at the Obama rally in Richmond -- those who got in before the arena reached capacity -- were in a celebratory mood. They danced, hands overhead, to Kanye West's "Touch the Sky," then to the party favorite "Celebrate," then, "Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now."

"There are patriots who supported this war in Iraq; there are patriots who opposed it," he said. "There are patriots who believe in Democratic policies and those who believe in Republican policies. The men and women from Virginia and all across this country who serve on our battlefields, some are Democrats, some are Republicans, some are independents, but they have fought together and bled together, and some died together under the same proud flag."

In the heart of real America, the crowd gave Obama a cheer that did not seem at all phony.

Footage from Barack Obama in Virginia.

With the challenges and crises we face right now, we cannot afford to divide this country by race or class or region; by who we are or what policies we support. There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this nation - we all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from.

Amen.

Conservatives for Change

Following in the footsteps of many Republicans who have rejected the vicious and erratic campaign of John McCain and Sarah Palin, including Gen Colin Powell, Christopher Hitchens, Christopher Buckley, Susan Eisenhower, Micheal Smerchonish, David Brooks, George Will, Peggy Noonan and so many many others a filmaker - who found members of his own family who had been lifelong devout Republicans were now choosing to vote for their ideals and values instead of their party - decided to document the phenomenon.

Al-Qaeda's Preferred Candidate - John Sydney McCain

(Note this has been diaried, but deserves repeating)

Al-Qeada has Endorsed John McCain for President of the United States

"Al-Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election," said a commentary posted Monday on the extremist Web site al-Hesbah, which is closely linked to the terrorist group. It said the Arizona Republican would continue the "failing march of his predecessor," President Bush.

...

"It will push the Americans deliberately to vote for McCain so that he takes revenge for them against al-Qaeda," said the posting, attributed to Muhammad Haafid, a longtime contributor to the password-protected site. "Al-Qaeda then will succeed in exhausting America."

That's right while the McCain campaign and RNC are sending out mailers accusing Barack Obama of supporting "Terrorists of who bombed the Capital, Pentagon and killed Americans" - the actual terrorists apparently (heart) John McCain, because he's committed to continuing to weaken America by spilling our blood and treasure on the sands of Iraq - a country that was no threat to us - rather than fight and catch, well, Real Terrorists.

McCain and Co have been having a completely nutty over ex-terrorist Williams Ayers. 40 Years ago he was a member of a group who used bombs to protest the Vietnam War. In 2001 - just a few weeks before 9/11 - he stated that he wished they'd bombed done more to stop the war.

But... let us point out that Ayers was never prosecuted or convicted of anything. His former group, the Weathermen did not "attack Americans", the bombs did not target people but things and the only American actually killed by them was one of their own members in an accident.

The 60's and early 70's were a very different time, there weren't just bombings, there were police riots at the Democratic Convention - there was the tragic shooting of students at Kent State by National Guard troops. The FBI and CIA conducted illegal surveillence and infiltration operations which resulted in the wrongful imprisoning of dozens of individuals including Geronimo Pratt and Leonard Peltier, not to mention others who were essentially executed in the streets by police.

But we aren't in the 60's anymore.

We aren't arguing over the Vietnam war. We haven't had riots in the streets, even though we have had the same type of illegal surveillance of innocent U.S. citizens. (The NSA passing out the tapes of our troops having phone-sex, as well as spying on journalists and peace workers)

The National Security Agency routinely listened in on the intimate and innocent phone calls of Americans in Iraq, including government personnel, journalists and aid workers, as they called back into the United States, according to two former NSA operators who spoke to ABC News.

The accusations that the NSA routinely listened in on Americans' phone calls contradicts the Administration's repeated claims that its secret spying did not listen to any Americans other than suspected terrorists.

We have had the sanctioning of kidnapping and torture as part of official U.S. policy, simply by making up a new word "enhanced interrogation".

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects -- whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

None of this "We didn't know" - "it was just a few random incidents" crap. All of it, abu Ghraib, Water-boarding in Gitmo, Secret Prison were authorized and approved from the very top, despite the fact that it violated both international and U.S. Law!

We've completely destroyed our own moral authority and standing in the world.

We should be ashamed. American should be, and can be better.

Al-Qaeda knows this, and they know that this makes their job far easier. They want John McCain because he will continue on the exact same path of George W. Bush.

"The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful 'son of Bush' -- someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk," Raisman said. "They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain."

Forget William Ayers. Forget trying to re-fight the Vietnam War. It's time we started to start seriously fighting this war. We need to end the tragic distraction of Iraq and finally start getting the job done. We need recapture our moral authority. We need to retire al-Qaeda to the trash heap of history.

John McCain is not going to do it. Al-Qeada knows it. We know it.

Time to turn the page on all of Bush's failures, including McCain.

Vyan

The Tragic Rise of the (Un)Real Americans

Everyday we see another sign of the worsening and coarsening of American political discourse during this election.

Palin's - "Real" America is only in the small towns, not anywhere else.

Bachmann - and her media "investigation of Anti-Americanism" in the U.S. Congress.

Pfotenhauer - "Real Virginia supports McCain".

Giuliani - "God forbid that someone report on Obama's drug use"

Limbaugh - "Powell's endorsement was entirely about race"

In ever increasingly desperate moves the GOP has gone far past the pale, but is this really a new viciousness or has this bile been just below the surface for a very long time, and more importantly when they lose horribly in November - where will all that hate go?

Oh yes, there will be blood.

Even going beyond what we've heard directly from the McCain campaign and the GOP mainstream there have been other telling comments revealing the true feelings of the GOP by those such as Republican Rep. Robin Hayes of North Carolina.

He [McHenry] yielded the microphone to Representative Robin Hayes, who prefaced his comments by saying it was important to “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.” Republicans, he reminded the crowd, were kind people. Plus, he added, the liberal media had shown itself eager to distort such remarks. With the crowd duly chastened and put on best behavior, he accused Obama of “inciting class warfare” and said that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

Yet again, "those Godless, Anti-American Liberal SCUM simply Hate you Real Americans" -- therefore you're perfectly justified in hating them back. You're perfectly justified in doing what ever it takes to protect the "Real America" from them.

Don't you know they want to steal away the vote with ACORN, destroy democracy, turn American into some Socialist/Communist/Muslim Stronghold. Take away your hard earned money and give it to the lazy?

It's proven. (It's not like we should bother with a trial or anything...)

Can't you read the signs? Just look at this article from National Review Online about how Obama gave those ACORN scum $800,000 to steal the election.

When not scorching the earth to destroy ordinary citizens who have the temerity to ask the messiah blunt questions, or threatening political opponents with prosecution for campaigning against him, or promising war crimes investigations against the opposition party if Americans are daft enough to put his toadies in charge of the Justice Department, Obama comrades can be found editing the amendments to the last modification of their most recently restated campaign-finance reporting errors.

One day the candidate is taking money hand over fist from fictitious supporters like “Good Will” and “Doodad Pro.” The next day, he is illegally raising funds from foreigners (perhaps more than a staggering $63 million), including from Palestinians — who figure a candidate who pours tens of thousands of dollars into the coffers of a terror-supporting former PLO spokesman like Rashid Khalidi is a safe bet to make a prophet out of Jesse Jackson. On still other days, Obama finds himself having to explain his campaign’s misrepresentation of the $800,000 payday it gave his old pals at ACORN.

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, is essentially a Marxist shakedown outfit. One of its main rackets is election fraud — but it can also be very helpful if you happen to be a Leftist activist who finds himself needing, say, to foment a riot, vandalize public property, shut down legislative hearings or opposition conferences, harass the families of elected officials, extort leave-us-alone pay-offs from banks, promote illegal immigration, or the like.

This article even goes on to argue that Special Prosecutor Nora Dennehy, whom the Obama campaign has ask to look into bogus allegations of voter fraud- isn't really a Special Prosecutor.

Except that - she is.

Think the language used by NRO is isolated? Think again.

"The Only difference between Obama and Osama is the "B.S".

"Kill the Babies!"

"We need a Muslim President"

"Communism!!!".

But this is just the "lunatic fringe" right?

Not so much.

Here on the lefty and egghead coasts we may argue that William Ayers is someone Obama hardly even knows, that he isn't a Muslim or a Terrorist, that Fraud was actually committed against ACORN - that the organization has been repeatedly investigated and found to be innocent of any direct attempts to influence an election (which is what election fraud is), and that several U.S. Attorneys were actually fired by the Bush Administration for refusing to persue unfounded allegations against ACORN in 2004 and 2006. Particularly form U.S. Attorney David Iglesias who finds the new ACORN allegations "astounding".

"I'm astounded that this issue is being trotted out again," Iglesias told TPMmuckraker. "Based on what I saw in 2004 and 2006, it's a scare tactic." In 2006, Iglesias was fired as U.S. attorney thanks partly to his reluctance to pursue voter-fraud cases as aggressively as DOJ wanted -- one of several U.S. attorneys fired for inappropriate political reasons, according to a recently released report by DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.

Iglesias, who has been the most outspoken of the fired U.S. attorneys, went on to say that the FBI's investigation seemed designed to inappropriately create a "boogeyman" out of voter fraud.

But it's been an effective "Boogeyman" none the less.

These so-called "Real" American are scared that their losing their America to the Commmie-Pinko-Liberals. They're scared, and they're pissed and they're not gonna take it anymore.

It's already gone beyond mere "fighting words".

We've had the Vandalism:


Attacks on Government Officials such as the Ohio Secretary of State's Website for fighting GOP voter suppression tactics.

Animal Mutilatons of Obama in Effigy.

Death Threats over Obama Yard Signs.

Physical Assaults against Obama Campaign Workers.

White Powder mailed to Obama's Philadelphia Offices.

Tennessee Gunman attacks Liberal Church

This is not a question of "when" things will turn violent - they already have turned violent. We have to fully accept and realize what this - all of it - really is.

These aren't just isolated incidents between individuals, like all Hate Crimes these are attempts to intimidate those who disagree into submission.

This IS Terrorism: which is the use of violence to accomplish a political goal.

We shouldn't be surprised by these attacks, not after the Clinton Chronicles argued that then Governor Clinton was a rapist and drug dealer, not after Swiftboating of John Kerry and Max Cleland arguing that two decorated veterans were traitors and cowards.

But we also shouldn't be surprised that things will not calm down after these people lose the election, assuming they don't steal it with voter suppression tactics.

It was during Clinton's Presidency that we had incident after incident with radical right-wing anti-government types - from the fiery inferno of Waco, to the bombings of the Murrah Federal Building by Tim McVeigh and the bombings of the Atlanta Olympics by Eric Rudolph.

Mark my words, the violence we've already seen WILL Escalate.

We had worried that the Democratic Party would have a difficult time pulling itself back together after the toughness of the campaign between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But we truly need to worry, and seriously commit ourselves to picking up the pieces after the lunatic fringe of the GOP has a complete NUTTY after "Barack Hussein Obama Jr." is sworn in as the 44th President of the United States.

John Lewis was absolutely correct. The incendiary rhetoric of George Wallace has returned in John McCain's skin. Sherrif Bull Connor with his water-hoses and dogs is back, in the form of a skinhead Florida Sherrif who thinks "We'll leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened on November 4th"

We need to be ready.

We need to be prepared for all hell to break lose when we finally defeat these vicious (Un)Real Americans - and win. We need to be prepared to help stitch this country back together once the GOP neo-Terrorist suffer yet another defeat, the loss of public tolerance for their crazy and violent ideas once people finally see exactly where their cowardice and hate mongering are leading us.

It may take yet another bombing like those of McVeigh or Rudolph, it may take something else like yet another Ruby Ridge of Waco - but eventually it will happen, something ugly and violent and full of "a muslim terrorist has taken over our governmment" rantings the will be easily traced back to the hate-filled GOP as we know it today, which as a result, will be utterly and completely destroyed. Reduced to ashes by the flames of their own bullshit.

That will be an awful day. A terrible day. I for one, do not welcome it or look forward to it. But that day is coming, and we have to be ready for it - and ready for the new dawn that will follow.

The dawn of a New - Finally Unified - America.

Vyan

Muslims for McCain!!!?

Yes, it's true - and frankly about time that someone stood up against the hate, lies and smears. In this case a set of McCain supporters who happen to be Muslim's all stood against an anti-Obama Hate Monger.



This video stands in contrast to this one which claims that Obama isn't even an American Citizen, and that he's a fraud who has hidden his birth certificate.

Obama is a fraud


Problem is that Obama's Birth Certificate his RIGHT HERE.
http://fightthesmears.com/articles/5/birthcertificate



It takes two seconds to find it.

He was born in Hawaii, which is part of the United States. The seal is perfectly visible. His mother was a U.S. Citizen, just like John McCain's parents were. John is also a citizen even though he was born in PANAMA. Barack never renounced his citizenship, regardless of where he lived when he was a child.

If you want to vote for McCain - do it, enjoy it. But do it based on the facts not made up bullshit!!

And now a word from your local neighborhood "Socialist"

Powell endorses Obama, Buchanan Loses it