Odd things going on in the Republican presidential campaign. Unprecedented things, I think. Michele Bachmann proposes ending both the corporate and personal income taxes. What will she be president of — memories of the United States?

I see behavior I would think disqualifies someone from the White House. How do you take a candidate seriously when they offer definitive statements or positions on important issues that amount to farcical lies?

I find it hard to accept. Perhaps I am out of the mainstream here, as far as Republicans go. Of course, you couldn’t shoot me to be a Republican.

Cain Proposes Electrified Border Fence
October 15, 2011, 5:37 pm

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain said Saturday that part of his immigration policy would be to build an electrified fence on the country’s border with Mexico that could kill people trying to enter the country illegally.

This idea from Cain doesn’t surprise me. He’s as deep as one of his pizzas. When he sees an opportunity to excite the racists, he’ll take it. I’m surprised he didn’t promise to fund ten thousand armed guard towers and a permanent helicopter gunship patrol.

The remarks, which came at two campaign rallies in Tennessee as part of a barnstorming bus tour across the state, drew loud cheers from crowds of several hundred people at each rally. At the second stop, in Harriman, Tenn., Mr. Cain added that he also would consider using military troops “with real guns and real bullets” on the border to stop illegal immigration.

I spoke too soon. He edited “with real Blackhawks.”

“It’s going to be 20 feet high. It’s going to have barbed wire on the top. It’s going to be electrified. And there’s going to be a sign on the other side saying, ‘It will kill you — Warning.’”

Obviously, appointed with bullets and high-voltage electricity, Cain’s message is: I will kill the Mexicans. No wonder the crowds are crazy for him. He’s as murderously loony as they are.

Saying that some critics have told him that his remarks about building a fence are insensitive, Mr. Cain said that the fault lies with the actions of some illegal immigrants. “It’s insensitive for them to be killing our citizens, killing our border agents,” he said. “That’s what’s insensitive. And that mess has to stop.”

There you go, that’s why he leads in the polls. He’s practicing a different kind of retail politics and making a killing doing so. He will sell you anything you want to hear. He’s the Amazon.com of the campaign.

Cain Says His Deadly Fence Plan Was ‘a Joke’
October 16, 2011, 11:40 am

“That’s a joke,” Mr. Cain told the journalist David Gregory during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he was asked about the electrified fence. “That’s not a serious plan. I’ve also said America needs to get a sense of humor.”

And there’s the odd thing. Cain goes out on the campaign trail, delivers his own Meat-Lover’s solutions to America’s problems, and the crowds devour it. Hours later, he claims, “That? I was kidding.”

That plan, it was not serious. And neither was I. Herman is telling you that his posturing, not his words, will carry the vital message of his campaign. His ideas aren’t actually real, David, pay them no mind. Is this what Republicans will do from now on? Or did Calvin Coolidge bullshit his way into the White House? They’re kidding about being the “serious” party, too.

Obviously, Herman Cain isn’t worried about being labelled a con man. Maybe he knows he only has to be perceived as angry and potentially deadly to be considered serious among Conservatives. So amongst the crowds, he’s as hard as anyone. But, in person, he’s a softie, just like you. Isn’t that sweet? That he would lie to voters in order to appear so nasty demonstrates the type of gravitas Republicans are shopping for.

ADD: (Monday) If I’d have known Joe Arpaio, America’s dou-sheriff, was about to summarize my Herman Cain post with a single sentence, I could have dispensed with all that typing:

“Oh, I’m sure he was joking, but it probably means that he’s taking it serious to do something at the border and stop the illegal immigrations,” the Maricopa Country sheriff declared.

ADD: (Tuesday) Getting stranger. First . .

Halfway through the question about the electric fence, Cain butted in with “it was a joke!”

“Let me first say it was a joke, and some people don’t think that it was a good joke, and it’s probably not a joke that you’re supposed to make if you’re a presidential candidate,” Cain continued. “I apologize if it offended anyone.

. . and then . .

…however, I don’t apologize for using a combination of a fence. And it might be electrified — I’m not walking away from that,” Cain backtracked. “I just don’t want to offend anybody. It was a joke to the extent in the context of the views of that speech, but in terms of what we need to do, I fully intend to do so because I’m more sensitive to our citizens being hurt.”

If any of you are familiar with the neurological malady in play here, feel free to comment.

What is it like to be afraid of the state you live in? How does it feel to fear the government, the police, the paramedics, the meter maid? What do you do when you think you might be separated from your family at any moment? When you might be sent thousands of miles from home?

If you really want to know, you can ask the folks who live in Albertville, Alabama. They’ve become deathly afraid of the government. After a state judge ruled Alabama’s far over-reaching anti-immigrant legislation was legal, they’ve become frightened. They don’t know what will happen to them. They don’t feel safe.

As a result, the town isn’t the same. It’s become strange and quiet. As the New York Times reported, Albertville is changing because the townspeople are leaving.

By Monday afternoon, 123 students had withdrawn from the schools in this small town in the northern hills, leaving behind teary and confused classmates. Scores more were absent. Statewide, 1,988 Hispanic students were absent on Friday, about 5 percent of the entire Hispanic population of the school system.

John Weathers, an Albertville businessman who rents and has sold houses to many Hispanic residents, said his occupancy had suddenly dropped by a quarter and might drop further, depending on what happens in the next week. Two people who had paid off their mortgages called him asking if they could sell back their homes, Mr. Weathers said.

Grocery stores and restaurants were noticeably less busy, which in some cases may be just as well, because some employees stopped showing up. In certain neighborhoods the streets are uncommonly quiet, like the aftermath of some sort of rapture.

I have to offer my congratulations to Alabamians. You xenophobes have whined about the Messicans for years. You wanted them out, or dead. Now you’re getting your wish. Well done.

ADD: Pity poor Albertville. A year ago April, they got hit by a tornado:

Now they’re uprooting their own Hispanic population.

You don’t come across open, screeching racism like this very often. Especially outside of places like Stormfront or other white supremacist sites, you won’t see it much.

But we should get used to seeing it increasingly with Tea Party types. They’re less and less concerned with government over-spending and more and more concerned with American under-whiting.

AMERICA IN DANGER AS SHE CELEBRATES 235 YEARS INDEPENDENCE
Eliana Benador | Tea Party Nation

. . The invasion of America is taking place as we speak, but if we remove those blinders, we can still stop it.

What has happened to our country? How did this situation begin?

It all began when then Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy heavily supported the abolition of the National Origins Formula, in place since the Immigration Act of 1924, to replace it with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

WOW. When was the last time I heard talk of the “National Origins Formula”? Uh, let’s see . . *clackety* and/or *clickety* . . oh yeah, here it is. Well, that’s about two molecules and a quark from whites-only nationalism.

With immigration capped at a fixed yearly number, the NOF in 1924 portioned admittance based on the existing ratios of citizens’ national origins as determined by the census of 1920. For instance, after the potato famine, the Irish had emigrated and thrived for 70 years. If 15% of the American people in 1920 could trace their roots back to Ireland, a potential Irish immigrant had a humongous chance (open slots numbering 15% of the cap, I assume) of getting in. OTOH, if you were from, say Kenya, good luck.

The purpose of the NOF was to keep America looking exactly like it looked in 1920. White. Specifically: Northern and Western European White, to the exclusion of the Southern and Eastern Europeans, Brown Central and South Americans, Black Africans and ‘Orientals.’ The immigration reform act of 1952 re-affirmed the pro-white NOF policy, as the author of the bill lobbied for here:

“I believe that this nation is the last hope of Western civilization and if this oasis of the world shall be overrun, perverted, contaminated or destroyed, then the last flickering light of humanity will be extinguished… Today, as never before, untold millions are storming our gates for admission and those gates are cracking under the strain. The solution of the problems of Europe and Asia will not come through a transplanting of those problems en masse to the United States… I do not intend to become prophetic, but if the enemies of this legislation succeed in riddling it to pieces, or in amending it beyond recognition, they will have contributed more to promote this nation’s downfall than any other group since we achieved our independence as a nation.”

Sound familiar? Anybody? Benador?

That [1965] Act came into effect on July 1, 1968…

Despite assurances by the Kennedys that the immigration reform they were pressing for, would not upset America’s ethnical balance: “It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs…,” it ended up altering the immigration pattern and opening doors to non-European nations, thus changing forever the intrinsic tissue of American society.

I SNOTTED THE INTRINSIC CRACKER KLEENEX BAAAAH BOOOOO . . *snuffles* *hacklez* *sobbers* . . HAND ME THE . . *deja vu* . . AWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. And now, the oyster-free “original Americans.” You know — Charles Lindbergh and his crew of wing-walking flappers:

As we celebrate America’s Independence Day, it’s noteworthy that the percentage reduction of original American voters, might have been a defining factor in the election of someone like the current president, who among other goals, seems to be keen in opening further our borders to endlessly increasing numbers of immigrants…

And there you go. True Americans, original Americans, don’t want anything to do with “someone like the current president.” Although I’m perplexed. I’m as Irish as any American, and I voted for him. The non-originals also like this Barack fella? Quick admit: never actually seen him, not once (not big on TV). But seeing as I’m on the internet, I imagine it would be easy to take a peek, as I click this special link while my mouth just happens to be . . . MY . . . GOD . . . HE’S . . .

…endlessly increasing numbers of immigrants who, regardless of their skin color, are bringing in a whole new texture of culture, 100% foreign to what America’s origins were as its wonderful adventure began back in 1776.

. . . BUUUHHHWOAH. What now? We gotta go back to the Pilgrims’ kids? The 1770s? So much for my lily-White whisky guzzlers. Right. Aaaaaaaaaannnd fast-forward post: melting pot Eliana Benador whore from Central America the end.

Alabama state Senator Scott Beason currently sits in some very hot water.

The FBI had recruited Beason to help uncover evidence of political corruption in Alabama’s gaming community. Powerful owners and operators were apparently bribing the politically well-connected to protect and further gambling interests.

As part of his evidence gathering, Beason wore a wire to record his conversations with gambling executives. Why he forgot he was being recorded, maybe we’ll never know. Perhaps he didn’t care. But the recordings, made public in the gaming executives’ trial, have cast Alabama Republicans in an unflattering light, race wise.

It’s apparent that Beason and his Conservative pals did not hold a very high opinion of the Black gamblers they were seeing at a casino.

In one transcript, Beason and two other Republican legislators were talking about economic development in predominantly black Greene County and the customers at one of the county’s largest employers, the Greenetrack casino in Eutaw.

“That’s y’all’s Indians,” one Republican said.

“They’re aborigines, but they’re not Indians,” Beason replied.

To be clear: Beason is not an ethnologist, and African Americans trace their ancestry to Africa. The comments have been used by defense attorneys to shift focus from their defendants to Beason.

“Isn’t it true you call black men ‘boy,’?” [Defense attorney] Segall asked

Beason replied that he calls everyone he meets boy.

Segall also asked Beason about his use of the term “aborigines” when discussing Greenetrack, a casino in predominantly black Greene County.

“I want you to acknowledge you intended that as a derogatory characterization of African-Americans in Greene County,” Segall asked.

“I cannot figure out why that term would have been used,” Beason replied.

‘Racist? Me?’ Umm . . maybe? Or: ‘Racist? A whole bunch of us?’

Beason was present when another Republican lawmaker complained that “every black, every illiterate” would show up at the polls in 2010 if the Legislature offered a constitutional amendment to legalize electronic bingo machines at certain locations.

And . .

Beason can be heard on one of the recordings agreeing that “HUD-financed” buses would take black voters to the polls. Another lawmaker said those voters would be given free food and certificates to gamble.

This isn’t the first time Beason’s gotten into some trouble for making racially insensitive remarks. During the months-long debate on Alabama’s ultra-restrictive anti-illegal immigrant law, Beason drew attention for his tough talk and his inappropriate use of metaphor.

“The reality is that if you allow illegal immigration to continue in your area you will destroy yourself eventually,” said Beason. “If you don’t believe illegal immigration will destroy a community go and check out parts of Alabama around Arab and Albertville . .”

“The illegals are always praised for sending money back home, ‘they are so great’, ‘such family people’,” he said. “But why is it right for them to send billions of dollars home, before they even try to buy some health insurance here that you and I pay for— it doesn’t make them sound so wonderful does it? They’re basically saying, no we’re going to keep the money and you’re going to pay for what I need.”

Beason ended his speech by advising Republicans to “empty the clip, and do what has to be done”.

His final comment caused a commotion, and Beason had to make clear he wasn’t advocating the shooting of Hispanics.

“Look, I’ll take my beatings when I mess up. But no way was I urging anyone to do harm to Hispanics or illegal immigrants. I would never do that.”

He’ll be taking his beatings for a while, now.

Alabama Democratic Party Chairman Mark Kennedy has called for Beason to resign, but Republican Party Chairman Bill Armistead says Beason is an honorable man who doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.

They are just . . SUCKERS. Like our writer and foil, Alan Caruba. And doesn’t he know it well? It’s easy pickings for the likes of him when your readers are all Black Cloud Christians.

What are those? They’re the faithful that believe everything is going to hell, literally, because that’s the Gospel.

Everything’s awful because of them. Men, they’re bad. People, horrible. Regular old non-Christians, MUCH worse. It’s all awful because, well, it better be if the whole Jesus thing’s gonna play out while I’m around.

Stumbled upon this bit of X-tian immigrant persecution, courtesy of Alan and the right-wing evangelical site RenewAmerica.com. If the immigrants aren’t taking over everything to turn America into an island of lazy, hip-shaking limbo sheep, then why is Alan even alive?

Multicultural suicide
By Alan Caruba | Renew America | Feb 14, 2011

In his famed poem, Mending Wall, the American poet, Robert Frost chided the rock wall that he and his neighbor blah blah blah . .

Right in the middle of his white-boy mewling, Caruba dumps this load of shit:

In 2008 Los Angeles County, population 10.2 million, was where 42% of workers were paid cash and did not pay taxes; 90% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; more than two-thirds of all births were to illegal aliens; nearly 40% of all inmates in California were Mexican nationals who were there illegally; and, nationally, while less than 2% of illegal aliens were picking crops, 37% were on welfare.

What a dumb old turd. Snopes hit this in May of 2006. That’s how pathetic and crotchety Caruba is. He’s been gratefully duped by e-mail artifacts from the Rumsfeld/Bush era, and now he’s dumping them on his gullible, angry readers.

“. . more than two-thirds of all births were to illegal aliens . .”

NO. Around 60% of L.A.’s babies are born to HISPANICS. Alan is apparently the sort of racist asshole that despises to see the difference.

“. . 90% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens . .”

NO. 90% of OUTSTANDING murder warrants are for aliens. When the suspect lives in the area, he’s easy to arrest, duh. I imagine the high school truancy rate for itinerant students is pretty high as well.

Never, ever, trust the likes of an old stupid, racist Alan Caruba.

If you act like an ass while you’re running in the western states, you suffer the consequences. Hows about you Republican fools getting a healthy dose of rebound messaging? They may not make up their political minds quickly, but — when they do?

. . do not fuck with Latinos:

1.) Early Sharron Angle campaign messaging:

2.) October polling:

TCJ Research 10/7-10/9 Polls Analysis: Angle Expands Lead, O’Donnell Still Behind
Monday, October 11, 2010 | Rick @ The Conservative Journal

Nevada Senate: Finally for my favorite Senate race of this election cycle, the Sharron Angle v. Harry Reid contest. Our numbers show Angle (52%) widening her lead to 6 points, largely due to Reid’s numbers falling a bit to 46%. With only 2% undecided, Angle looks to be in good position for this race. The only remaining variables are: How many people will vote none of these, and who, if anyone, will vote for 3rd party candidate Scott Ashjan?

3.) Latinos’ concerns:

October 16th . .

4.) Result:

Latinos made up 12 percent of Nevada voters, with 90 percent of them supporting Reid. Angle got only an 8 percent sliver of their support, according to a Latino Decisions poll.

90% to 8%?! Are you kidding?! You might have gotten 3-4% of WWII Jews to vote for Hitler.

Next: Meg Whitman vs. Jerry Brown, Governor of California.

1.) Early Meg Whitman campaign messaging:

Meg is ‘tough as nails’ on illegal immigration
May 14, 2010

SAN DIEGO –Meg Whitman says she’s got the guts and determination to stand tough on illegal immigration, and she won’t back down.

And she told a crowd of nearly 175 at a stop Thursday in San Diego, “I am 100 percent against amnesty, no exceptions.”

2.) September Polling:

SurveyUSA Poll: Whitman Leads Brown By 47%-40% In CA-GOV Race
Eric Kleefeld | September 3, 2010, 11:14AM

The new SurveyUSA poll of the California gubernatorial race gives Republican Meg Whitman an expanding lead over Democrat Jerry Brown . .

3.) Latinos’ concerns:

Former Whitman housekeeper alleges she was treated like ‘garbage’
September 29, 2010 | 12:10 pm

The California governor’s race took on a circus-like atmosphere Wednesday as a former housekeeper for Meg Whitman alleged the Republican gubernatorial nominee employed her for nearly nine years, even though Whitman knew the housekeeper was in the country illegally . . “I felt like she was throwing me away like a piece of garbage,” Diaz said.

. . Whitman continued: “As required by law, once we learned she was an illegal worker, I immediately terminated Nicky’s employment.”

4.) Result:

White hypocrisy + nasty boss = familiar insults. Latinos aren’t stupid.

ADD:

Did Polls Underestimate Democrats’ Latino Vote?
By NATE SILVER | November 3, 2010, 9:33 PM

. . “There is one overarching reason why the polls were wrong in Nevada,” Mr. Barreto wrote in an e-mail to FiveThirtyEight. “The Latino vote.”

His firm, which conducts interviews in both English and Spanish, had found that Latino voters — somewhat against the conventional wisdom — were relatively engaged by this election and for the most part were going to vote Democratic. Mr. Barreto also found that Latino voters who prefer to speak Spanish — about 40 percent of Latino voters in California meet this description, he told me — are particularly likely to vote Democratic. Pollsters who don’t conduct bilingual interviewing at all, or who make it cumbersome for the respondent to take the poll in Spanish, may be missing these voters . .

So, if you’re a blogger, and you wanted to double-check if some racist Republicans in Florida just wrote a law meant to precisely attack a very general group of people — non-Whites — by constructing an even more twisted version of Arizona’s anti-immigrant law, how would you go about doing that?

Well, you might go straight to the legendary, premiere White supremacy website on the planet, Stormfront.org, and you might ask: “On planet Earth, who are the White people?” And (just trust me) they will tell you: “That would be European Christendom and their obvious descendants.” [note: that is a hilariously long thread, what with everybody being an expert on the genetics and ancestry of every group of peoples ever in existence]

So then you’d probably say to yourself: “So, White folks would roughly be the Europeans, Americans, Canadians and, err, Australians?”

Florida’s Arizona-Style Immigration Bill Would Give Canadians, Europeans a Free Pass
By Tim Elfrink, Mon., Oct. 18 2010 | Miami New Times

​Florida state Rep. William Snyder, the slow-drawling ex-Miami-Dade Police officer who has drafted Tallahassee’s version of the hotly debated Arizona immigration bill, is adamant that his law would not lead to racial profiling.

“Race, ethnicity, and national origin cannot be used in making arrests. It’s immoral, illegal, and unconstitutional,” he said in a recent radio interview.

Well, then roll the bill in gator crap and call it all of that:

So why does his bill explicitly offer a free pass to Canadians and Western Europeans, who need only show a passport to be “presumed to be legally in the United States”? . .

Even if an officer has “reasonable suspicions” over a person’s immigration status, the bill says, a person will be “presumed to be legally in the United States” if he or she provides “a Canadian passport” or a passport from any “visa waiver country.”

Yes, why does this ‘tough’ bill allow all those White people off the hook? Is it because they’re . . White?

“What we’re doing there is trying to be sensitive to Canadians. We have an enormous amount of… Canadians wintering here in Florida,” he said. “That language is comfort language.”

I call bull. With respect to the 36 visa waiver countries, their citizens are normally allowed to stay up to 90 days in the U.S. But they are not allowed to hold jobs or to overstay the period.

Nonetheless, if a Florida law enforcement officer pulls over a heavily-accented Estonian Fed Ex truck driver and, in compliance with the law, asks him for his papers (c’mon, just play along), once the trucker pulls out a valid passport, he’s off the hook. Even though he’s employed by a trucking company and therefore residing illegally. Even though he may have been here for years. Florida’s law says ‘we don’t care.’

Convenient, huh? Clearly, the law was written to give cops every excuse never to bother with bothering White people in Florida, which is pretty much the only way anyone important would ever get pissed off enough to complain.

Btw, who are America’s visa waiver countries? Here:

. . with a couple of exceptions, it’s Europe. And, of course, Australia.

There must be some reason for this sort of behavior. You’ve got to be a helluva lot more than just a whack Tea Partier to be so insultingly, shamelessly full of shit. Especially considering that teenagers are your entire audience.

Angle, a tea party favorite who has rallied for stricter border enforcement, played down her usual conservative rhetoric in a brief discussion with a Hispanic high school group Friday in Las Vegas. The students asked her to explain her repeated use of TV spots denounced by national pro-immigrant and Hispanic organizations as race-baiting attacks.

They were students at Rancho High School. They had good reason to be concerned: she’s been hammering the ‘illegal alien’ issue to try to pull ahead of Harry Reid in her Senate campaign. These are the sorts of images she’s been flooding Nevada TV channels with:

So you can see why they’d wonder about her. There’s definitely a ‘scary brown people’ theme running through her messaging. I might feel like there were a lot of angry white people staring at me if I were one of these students. So, when she dropped by, they asked her:

Why is it that in all of your commercials you have the image of Latinos? What do you see when you hear, and I quote, “illegal aliens?”

Good question, fair enough. Sharron responded to it by lying to their faces:

I think that you’re misinterpreting those commercials. I’m not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through. That’s the most porous border that we have. We cannot allow terrorists; we cannot allow anyone to come across our border if we don’t know why they’re coming.

Those weren’t Latinos. That’s not the Mexican border.

Take a look at the ads’ images again, and then take a look at that answer. In the ‘fence’ video, you can see that it says ‘illegals’, clear as could be. And these are Latinos she’s talking to, telling them that they don’t know what Latinos look like, they must be mistaken. Perhaps she’s mentally ill.

ADD: WOW. Now I’m almost sure of it. Who behaves this way in dealing with a Hispanic Student Union? By accusing some of them of being secretly Asian, what does that prove? How does it help her campaign?

First: Christopher Columbus didn’t ‘discover’ America. He discovered the Caribbean islands, and they were already inhabited. Second: He didn’t set foot in the United States of America. The first explorer to do that, if memory serves, was Ponce De Leon, who got as far as Florida. Third: He was your basic colonial monster.

We shrugged off, repelled — killed — our colonial oppressors because their ways were so antithetical to freedom and Americanism that we would sacrifice our lives to expel them forever from our shores. But Columbus? Let’s have a holiday and take time to remember and celebrate him:

Christopher Columbus: Hero
by Daniel J. Flynn | 10/11/2010

Upon returning to Spain, Christopher Columbus wrote of his discovery that “Christendom ought to feel delight and make feasts and give solemn thanks to the Holy Trinity.” Until fairly recently, all of Christendom agreed. Just as much of Christendom now recoils at the term “Christendom,” the “delight” and “thanks” for Columbus’ historic voyage hardly remains universal . .

But fixation upon his sins obscures his accomplishment: Columbus discovered the New World. Any assessment of the admiral that doesn’t lead with this fact misses the forest for the trees. Enslavement and cultural conquest are common. Discovering two continents is unprecedented. Other than Christ, it is difficult to name a person who has changed the world as dramatically as Columbus has.

That’s a shocking white-washing of ‘enslavement.’ In a war, rapes are common, so let’s not get dragged down into details, shall we?

Incidentally, Christ’s historical impact comes as a result of his example and his philosophy. What were Columbus’ example and philosophy, exactly? Time for Thom Hartmann’s yearly reminder of the exploits of Christopher Columbus:

When Columbus and his crew arrived on their second visit to Hispaniola, however, they took captive about two thousand local villagers who had come out to greet them . .

[Diarist] Cuneo further notes that he himself took a beautiful teenage Carib girl as his personal slave, a gift from Columbus himself, but that when he attempted to have sex with her, she “resisted with all her strength.” So, in his own words, he “thrashed her mercilessly and raped her” . . .

Columbus and his men also used the Taino as sex slaves: it was a common reward for Columbus’ men for him to present them with local women to rape. As he began exporting Taino as slaves to other parts of the world, the sex-slave trade became an important part of the business, as Columbus wrote to a friend in 1500: “A hundred castellanoes (a Spanish coin) are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm, and it is very general and there are plenty of dealers who go about looking for girls; those from nine to ten (years old) are now in demand” . .

Eventually, life for the Taino became so unbearable that, as Pedro de Cordoba wrote to King Ferdinand in a 1517 letter, “As a result of the sufferings and hard labor they endured, the Indians choose and have chosen suicide. Occasionally a hundred have committed mass suicide. The women, exhausted by labor, have shunned conception and childbirth… Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.”

It only took 60 years for Columbus’ genocidal intervention, for the imprint of his ‘philosophy,’ to extinguish the Taino from Hispaniola. So much for civilized, peace-loving ways — those quaint Indian ideals can’t compete with the bloodthirsty European Christians. But then that’s exactly the thing that Christianist Conservatives love:

All of history points to some kind of eventual conquest. Isn’t it worth celebrating that the pope’s mariner, rather than, say, the henchmen of sultans or khans, discovered the Americas? . .

Couldn’t he be more plausibly viewed as the catalyst for ensuing greatness?

Hartmann’s same writing sheds light on this:

Dr. Jack Forbes, Professor of Native American Studies at the University of California at Davis and author of the brilliant book “Columbus and Other Cannibals,” uses the Native American word wétiko (pronounced WET-ee-ko) to describe the collection of beliefs that would produce behavior like that of Columbus. Wétiko literally means “cannibal,” and Forbes uses it quite intentionally to describe these standards of culture: we “eat” (consume) other humans by destroying them, destroying their lands, taking their natural resources, and consuming their life-force by enslaving them either physically or economically. The story of Columbus and the Taino is just one example.

We live in a culture that includes the principle that if somebody else has something we need, and they won’t give it to us, and we have the means to kill them to get it, it’s not unreasonable to go get it, using whatever force we need to.

It was only today I came across this very truth in a post by Tintin at Sadly, No! who mocked wingnut Moe Lane’s cheering of Columbus:

The killing off of Native Americans was a small price to pay so that I could still have most of my teeth at age forty!

Moe, doing a fair Jame Gumb:

It will read up on ‘virgin field epidemic’ and understand the concept before it may converse with me again.

The Moe had searched the Wikipedia and discovered “Virgin Field Epidemic,” and then it had felt disastrously superior. That would not last:

Indian Removal Act of 1830. Sealed the fate of the Indians in the Southeast, resulting in the Trail of Tears.

The Supreme Court did worse: Johnson v. M’Intosh. Indians who pretended to own land could only sell it back to the U.S. Government. Wait — nevermind – Indians do not own any land at all. They have a few tenancy rights, but that’s it.

People who had been here for thousands of years, living on, improving on, farming on, building on, birthing on and burying their loved ones in the land had absolutely no claim to their businesses, cemeteries or homes. Why? Christopher Columbus. Period. Yes, that’s the sum total of the legal reasoning, read it for yourself.

Happy Friday. Yes, sshhh, I’m lazy. Let the silliness begin.

Okay. Number One: suave, thoroughly skull-ectable candidate:

Janny! You got my vote.

Number Two: Who’s sufficiently expert to volunteer testimony before the Senate Committee on Lipsticked Sloth Snacking?

Jan Brewer! Yay!

. . and whatever, who cares, it’s a peach Skele-Jan:

Marry me! Mexicans suck!

Laredo, Texas, wiped off the map by a Mexican drug cartel! Ranchers dragged out of their homes! Shot! Slugged! Slapped! Gutted and wrapped in foil! Grilled with salt and lemon!

Digger’s Realm
BREAKING: Multiple Ranches In Laredo, TX Taken Over By Los Zetas
By Digger / July 24, 2010 04:11 AM

The bloodbath continues along our southern border and now word is coming in that Los Zetas, the highly trained killers formerly with the Gulf Cartel, have crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area. I am receiving word that the owners of the ranches have evacuated without being harmed. The source is law enforcement in the area.

(Update 2 story is now 100% confirmed by second source within the Laredo Police Department)

Founder of the San Diego Minutemen Jeff Schwilk tipped me off to this story and passes along the following information on the location. The ranches are said to be “near Mines Rd. and Minerales Annex Rd about 10 miles NW of I-35″.

I’m sure the Minutemen aren’t given to panic! Especially over incendiary stories about border violence! By all means, let’s listen to an honest man like Jeff!

There is currently a standoff between the unknown size Zeta forces and U.S. Border Patrol and local law enforcement on two ranches on our side of the Rio Grande. The source tells us he considers this an “act of war” and that the military is needed on the border now!

AAAAUUUGGHHH! I’M SCARED! AND PATRIOTIC!

Anonymous sources in law enforcement in the Laredo area tonight have passed on word that US law enforcement agencies are in the area and are weighing their options regarding the ranches.

THEY”RE SCARED TOO! YIKES! GOD BLESS AMERICA!

The media has been silent on this incident and some law enforcement in the area says that they are furious that the media is not reporting the whole story of the continued violence along the border. Their frustrations are understandable because keeping the truth suppressed continues to hamper law enforcement from receiving the true support they need along the border.

TRUTH COMING! HELP ON THE WAY! YOU PEOPLE ARE MORONS!

“Starting to smell like a hoax.”

*sniff* *sniff* I don’t smell anything.

As far as a hoax, that is a willfully done falsity. Why would I sacrifice my 8 year old website and any benefit I can provide the issue I have dedicated my life to on a fake story?

SEE ABOVE!

As for the mud slinging, sling away. I have put my name on the line, you have put an anonymous moniker on the line. As a reader I would put my faith in the veteran blogger of 8 years, with a proven track record, rather than some commenter who just showed up a few hours ago.

I stand by the story. You obviously have not read what a media blackout entails.

WHAT? IT’S A BLACK OUT! IT’S BLACKED OUT!

Here is another source claiming that authorities in Laredo will not confirm or deny.

VERY BLACK! GOOD REPORTING!

Hector Garcia , a city council member of the City of Laredo TX, has returned my phone call and aboslutely denied that any armed conflict has occured with the Laredo PD. He is quoting the Chief of Police, Carlos Maldonado. Mr Garcia went on to say that it appears two ranchers had a disagreement.

I STILL SAY SOMETHING”S WRONG!

Is this really happening? Probably not (despite the upsurge in violence just over the border), but what’s even scarier than the heavily armed Zetas is that stories like this have become difficult to confirm or refute.

WHY DIDN”T WE KNOW? IT’S SO FISHY! I AM SCARED AGAIN!

We know that the establishment media places supporting Obama far ahead of informing the public. But as for whether a blanket of silence has been thrown over a military incursion — in the short term, we can only guess.

UNLESS THEY BLACK OUT THE BLACK OUT! THEN WE’LL NEVER KNOW! EXCEPT FOR I JUST MENTIONED IT! HOLY CRAP, I JUST BEAT THE BLACK OUT! WELL TECHNICALLY IT’S THE ‘BLACK OUT’ BLACK OOT! WHOA LOOK AT THAT TYPO! STARTING TO FREAK HERE! I KNEW — wait, now it’s a ‘military incursion’?

In a totalitarian state, rumors supplant news. We’re not there yet, but we can see it from here.

WE MADE IT UP! THAT PROVES OBAMA’S A FASCIST! IMPEACHMENT!

. . On Wednesday, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) was on Lou Dobbs’ radio show and went a step further. He agreed with Dobbs’ statement that President Obama is “awfully close” to violating his “oath to protect the Constitution of the United States” by not completely securing the border [audio]:

DOBBS: The fact that we’ve witnessed both the Bush administration and now the Obama administration…refuse to secure the borders, refuse to enforce immigration law — at what point does this rise to the level of a breach of oath to protect the Constitution of the United States?

SMITH: I think we’re on the verge of being there right now. … Whatever law they’re not enforcing, I think it comes awfully close to a violation of their oath of office.

No? Well me neither. I’m scanning the History books but drawing a blank. He never secured the borders. In fact, no President has ever secured the borders in any way that would prove satisfactory to Conservatives — you know, those folks who demand a simply, routinely, patently Mexican-proof ‘secure border’ to repel The Brown People, of the type seen separating North and South Korea, or the Israelis and Palestinians.

Here’s a typical sign at the Canadian border:

. . but when did we impeach President Bush for his failure to protect our Northern border and our precious Constitution in this regard? After 9/11, no less?

More crossings feared along Canada border
Posted on Monday, November 12, 2007

BLAINE, Wash. — . . At most points, the only thing separating 0 (Zero) Avenue in Canada from the houses, fields, woods and narrow roads of the United States is a shallow, 3-foot ditch or a metal highway guardrail. Security cameras on tall poles swivel to track suspicious vehicles. Border Patrol cars barrel around corners to confront uncertain threats . .

But if the area immediately surrounding the inn and the border crossing at Blaine is one of the more secure along the U.S.-Canadian border, the other 4,000 or so miles are a security nightmare.

Given Canada’s open immigration policies, terrorist organizations have established cells there seeking “safe havens, operational bases and attempting to gain access to the USA,” according to a 1998 report from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. The report said that more than 50 terrorist groups might be present, including Hezbollah, Hamas and other radical Islamic groups from Iran and Algeria.

A 2006 report from the Nixon Center, a Washington, D.C., policy institute, quoted a senior FBI official as saying that Canada is the most worrisome terrorist point of entry and that al Qaida training manuals advise terrorists to enter the United States from Canada. The report concluded that “despite widespread alarms raised over terrorist infiltration from Mexico, we found no terrorist presence in Mexico and a number of Canadian-based terrorists who have entered the United States.”

After Alaska became a state in 1959, we then had an Eastern border, too:

When was that secured? Ever? Why has every President failed to uphold the Oath of Office? Why has no one impeached every single one of them? Why won’t Republicans do the right thing when Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush piss on the Constitution this way? Why don’t they love the United States of America the way I do?