Another Breitbart Apologist

Jeffrey Lord, in what I assume is not parody, attempts to excuse Breitbart with this twisted (in all senses) logic:

It's also possible that she knew the truth and chose to embellish it, changing a brutal and fatal beating to a lynching. Anyone who has lived in the American South (as my family once did) and is familiar with American history knows well the dread behind stories of lynch mobs and the Klan. What difference is there between a savage murder by fist and blackjack -- and by dangling rope? Obviously, in the practical sense, none. But in the heyday -- a very long time -- of the Klan, there were frequent (and failed) attempts to pass federal anti-lynching laws. None to pass federal "anti-black jack" or "anti-fisticuffs" laws. Lynching had a peculiar, one is tempted to say grotesque, solitary status as part of the romantic image of the Klan, of the crazed racist. The image stirred by the image of the noosed rope in the hands of a racist lynch mob was, to say the least, frighteningly chilling. Did Ms. Sherrod deliberately concoct this story in search of a piece of that ugly romance to add "glamour" to a family story that is gut-wrenchingly horrendous already?

This is in reaction to Shirley Sherrod’s story of a relative, Bobby Hall, being lynched. This is the account from the Supreme Court documents:

This case involves a shocking and revolting episode in law enforcement. Petitioner Screws was sheriff of Baker County, Georgia. He enlisted the assistance of petitioner Jones, a policeman, and petitioner Kelley, a special deputy, in arresting Robert Hall, a citizen of the United States and of Georgia. The arrest was made late at night at Hall's home on a warrant charging Hall with theft of a tire. Hall, a young negro about thirty years of age, was handcuffed and taken by car to the courthouse. As Hall alighted from the car at the courthouse square, the three petitioners began beating him with their fists and with a solid-bar blackjack about eight inches long and weighing two pounds. They claimed Hall had reached for a gun and had used insulting language as he alighted from the car. But after Hall, still handcuffed, had been knocked to the ground, they continued to beat him from fifteen to thirty minutes until he was unconscious. Hall was then dragged feet first through the courthouse yard into the jail and thrown upon the floor, dying. An ambulance was called, and Hall was removed to a hospital, where he died within the hour and without regaining consciousness. There was evidence that Screws held a grudge against Hall, and had threatened to "get" him.

See, no ropes involved. From American Heritage dictionary:

Lynching: To execute without due process of law, especially to hang, as by a mob.

Not solely by hanging.

Somehow the Supreme Court came to the same conclusion as Lord:

It is said, however, that petitioners did not act "under color of any law" within the meaning of § 20 of the Criminal Code. We disagree. We are of the view that petitioners acted under "color" of law in making the arrest of Robert Hall and in assaulting him. They were officers of the law who made the arrest. By their own admissions, they assaulted Hall in order to protect themselves and to keep their prisoner from escaping. It was their duty under Georgia law to make the arrest effective. Hence, their conduct comes within the statute.

Beating a handcuffed man to death with a tire jack is apparently an acceptable way to “make the arrest effective.”

This more than makes up for the previous post from the American Spectator that had some sane moments in it.

Bloomberg Refudiates Palin

In a welcome display of Republican sanity, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has told Sarah Palin to piss off.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg "could not disagree more" with Sarah Palin's criticisms of the Ground Zero mosque, he said Monday.

Bloomberg said the $100 million mosque and community center is " a great message for the world that, unlike in other places where they might actually ban people from wearing burquas or building a building, that's not what America was founded on nor is it what America should become."

It’s alright Sarah, even Shakespeare in his prime had detractors. If those slings and arrows ever bug you and you’re wondering whether to be or not to be, please come down on the side of the latter.

Mark Williams chimed in with bits of insanity which can only be interpreted as attempts to make Palin look reasonable.

In other Ground Zero mosque news, Mark Williams, a Tea Party leader who called Borough President Stringer a "Jewish Uncle Tom" for supporting the project, has been kicked out of the National Tea Party Federation for making separate racially charged comments.

The Tea Party Federation also booted Williams’ Tea Party Express group after Williams wrote a mock letter from "the Colored People" to President Lincoln saying emancipation was a mistake.

Williams wrote an anti-mosque blog post in May saying that Muslims worship a "monkey god."

More Bloombergs, Fewer Palins!

Leftwing Slurs

Don Douglas gives us this disgusting bit of correspondence sent to Michelle Malkin. I am denouncing it, by the way:

You are a shitty Filipino prostitute, your only hope is to marry a white man. you are cheep and ugly. When I look to your ugly Filipino eyes , I feel ,I want to throw up. You want to be white but you are not. You are a shitty Asian horn and you will be for the rest of your life. Clean your rotten cunt before you write Filipino monkey.

I feel dirty just putting it up here. And Don goes on to say:

These are the kind of slurs I get routinely from Repsac3's merry band of haters.

As has been said so many times, put up or shut up. You know how to copy and paste, Don. Let’s see the slurs from the merry band of haters that approaches the bit above. I apologize for fat neocon hobo. You’re not a hobo, you just dress like one.

Might as well do a PowerMad roundup. Here’s another posting about a nut who attacks a group of DLI students. Included is this editorial comment:

Remember my comments about Repsac3's merry band of extremist henchmen? "I expect physical threats to my safety as forthcoming ... so always remember --- leftists are pure evil..."

Of course, my brother went to DLI and I would have myself if I hadn’t chosen another career field. I believe Don, along with Dick Cheney and most other neocons had other priorities while I was keeping Plattsburgh safe from the Rooskies. Love “extremist henchmen,” though.

In this posting, Don takes some really nice photos of some really lovely people. I’m sure the Department of Homeland Security under Lord Obama appreciates the quality. Names would nice, too. Probably not necessary, though.

What really struck me though is, why the Hell is the price of gas so high there?

 

That’s probably 40 cents a gallon more than it is here. Of course I don’t drive, so like I give a rat’s behind. Just curious.

Happy 4th to the Left from Johnny Pod

No, I’m just kidding! BTW,  the column is called “Patriotic Opposition.” Just trying to remember if John would have called any dissent against George Bush, “patriotic opposition.”

How are those of us who stand in opposition to the domestic agenda and foreign-policy views of President Obama and his administration to think about this country in 2010 as we approach the nation's birthday on Sunday?

Or, to put it another way: How should a self-described patriot think, act and talk about the United States if that self-described patriot believes the elected leadership of the United States has led the country into a ditch that threatens to expand into a bottomless chasm?

You could just STFU. I believe that was the message to all who disagreed with the marvelous adventure in Mesopotamia.

Does the fault lie with the president and his party, or does it reside in the electorate that installed them? If it resides in the electorate, what does that say about the condition of the United States?

The third option, of course, is that it lies within you and the other idiots whom the GOP has yet to see fit to send to a desert island somewhere.

Conveniently, this kind of focus on Obama personally exempts the rest of the country from any blame, except for being so foolish as to fall for Obama's patter: The fault lies not in ourselves but in our leaders.

But for those who are unsatisfied with this, the blame attaches not to Obama himself -- after all, he really did tell us what he intended to do, by telling Joe the Plumber he wanted to redistribute wealth.

Rather, the blame attaches to the electorate for its foolishness in believing the hype, or for falling for the siren song of the European social democracy that Obama is eager to impose. So the root question here is: Have the American people changed?

So, we the American people are to blame for Obama? Even if his premise is correct and we are suffering buyer’s remorse, he never mentions John McCain in this column. Obama wasn’t elected in a vacuum. Maybe Pod thinks we should have all written in Joe the Plumber.

The body politic is not panicking, even though the news is dire -- because it knows, somehow, that this too shall pass. America has faced worse times and weathered them. Even within our memory, it has had other leaders who also misunderstood their mandates and offered solutions to the nation's problems that only exacerbated them.

The body politic learns from its mistakes and uses its power to correct them. Taken as a whole, this bunch of rubes and dupes and boobs shows a remarkably commonsensical approach to these things by saying, in essence:

Nothing is irreversible. Change is possible.

Once again, this requires that the right actually put up a candidate that a majority of the United States citizenry will vote for. Don’t see that right now.