Today, the Anti-Defamation League released a statement coming out against the so-called Ground Zero Mosque. The statement is generally reasonable and well-couched, but more or less it argues that because there has been criticism about the though that something muslim-y might be going on in lower Manhattan, the people behind the proposed Cordoba House ought to back off and find somewhere else to worship. The ADL admits that much of the criticism against the project is founded in bigotry, but nevertheless thinks that it’s just a good idea for all involved if the muslims go away.

My immediate first thought was “what the hell is the ADL weighing in on this for in the first place?” At first blush, nothing about this issue touches, even peripherally, on issues of anti-Semitism or Israel, or even Arabs. My second thought was, “An organization dedicated to fighting bigotry is here arguing that it should be knuckled under to? I wonder how that jibes with their mission statement?” which is, by the way:

The Anti-Defamation League was founded in 1913 “to stop the defamation of the Jewish people and to secure justice and fair treatment to all.” Now the nation’s premier civil rights/human relations agency, ADL fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects civil rights for all.

A leader in the development of materials, programs and services, ADL builds bridges of communication, understanding and respect among diverse groups.

Note, of course, that in allowing that much of the criticism of the Cordoba House might be rooted in bigotry, the ADL gets cute and keeps that vague, preferring to not name (mostly pro-Israel Republican) names. And of course my third thought was how interesting it is that the ADL finds themselves giving cover to precisely those people (which, surely, had not occurred to them and in no way drove their decision to weigh in on this matter). As the GOP base is beginning to throw off the veil that they aren’t expressly anti-muslim and anti- the mere existence or expression of Islam, the ADL could take a courageous stand in line with their charter and call that out, but instead they’re advising muslims to retreat because it might hurt the feelings of the people taking a bigoted stand.

But mostly, on the sheer face of it, my last thought is how the ADL would react if the residents of Dearborn, Michigan got up in arms about the planned construction of a Jewish community center because reminding the muslim residents of their oppression at the hands of Israel would be a slap in the face to their community? My guess is the ADL would not advise the planned JCC board to just go somewhere else because they ought to be sensitive to such concerns, even if they may be rooted in bigotry.

All things considered, they got off relatively lightly, with the players merely forced to denounce their coach, who as then kicked out of the party and shipped off to become a construction worker somewhere.

The entire squad was forced onto a stage at the People’s Palace of Culture and subjected to criticism from Pak Myong-chol, the sports minister, as 400 government officials, students and journalists watched.

The players were subjected to a “grand debate” on July 2 because they failed in their “ideological struggle” to succeed in South Africa, Radio Free Asia and South Korean media reported.

Following ideological criticism, the players were then allegedly forced to blame the coach for their defeats.

The team’s coach, Kim Jong-hun, was reportedly forced to become a builder and has been expelled from the Workers’ Party of Korea.

The coach was punished for “betraying” Kim Jong-un – one of Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il’s sons and heir apparent.

However, media in South Korea said the players got off lightly by North Korean standards.

“In the past, North Korean athletes and coaches who performed badly were sent to prison camps,” a South Korean intelligence source told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

Could have been worse. They could have been caught with a cell phone.

Should have run when you had the chance…

This guy caught my ear with one of his songs featured on Dollhouse several months ago. The album this is from is actually available on sale on Amazon for only $5 for a couple more days. It’s got 14 songs and this video, making it a fantastic deal for some pretty awesome songs.

Greg Laswell “Take Everything” HD from FVMMO FILMS on Vimeo.

“I was told by voting section management that cases are not going to be brought against black defendants on [behalf] of white victims.” If the commission heard from other lawyers in the section, he said, “little doubt would remain whether or not open hostility exists toward race-neutral and equal enforcement of the voting laws.”

I thought it worth passing on a little bit of context on this guy, to wit:

J. Christian Adams was hired to the Civil Rights Division in 2005 by none other than Bradley Schlozman, the Bush appointee who, as acting head of the division in 2006, was found to have violated rules against politicized hiring, then lied to Congress about it.

Adams is also a former volunteer with the right-wing National Republican Lawyers Association, which just today charged that the Holder Justice Department’s stances on both the Panther case and the ACORN funding case show that “politics can thwart the rule of law.”

And in 2004, as a Bush campaign poll watcher in Florida, Adams publicly criticized a black couple that refused to accept a provisional ballot, after election officials said they had no record of the couple’s change of address forms, Bloomberg reported. Voters had been warned not to accept provisional ballots, because of the risk that they could later be discounted.

Now, I can’t say that Adams is a partisan hack, but it is worth noting that the main thrust of the US Attorneys scandal was the fear of precisely this: that partisan operatives would be installed in important DOJ posts across the country who would serve primarily right-wing campaign interests over some objective search for justice, and that they were more interested in voter suppression or at the very least putting political (as opposed to legal) pressure on swing districts or Democratic pols.

Now, again, who knows if that’s the case here. I sure don’t. But, if that were the case, one would expect that such a person might continually try to wedge themselves into the political debate and assert further things that seem specifically geared towards advancing right-wing narratives. Entirely unrelated to that thought, J. Christian Adams whistle-blows for us another startling revelation – the Democratic administration is trying to suppress the vote of our heroic service-members fighting for democracy overseas!

The Department of Justice is ignoring a new law aimed at protecting the right of American soldiers to vote, according to two former DOJ attorneys who say states are being encouraged to use waivers to bypass the new federal Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment (MOVE) Act.

The MOVE Act, enacted last October, ensures that servicemen and women serving overseas have ample time to get in their absentee ballots. The result of the DOJ’s alleged inaction in enforcing the act, say Eric Eversole and J. Christian Adams — both former litigation attorneys for the DOJ’s Voting Section — could be that thousands of soldiers’ ballots will arrive too late to be counted.

[...]

Adams, a conservative blogger (www.electionlawcenter.com) who gained national attention when he testified against his former employer after it dropped its case against the New Black Panther Party, called the DOJ’s handling of the MOVE Act akin to “keystone cops enforcement.”

“I do know that they have adopted positions or attempted to adopt positions to waivers that prove they aren’t interested in aggressively enforcing the law,” Adams told FoxNews.com. “They shouldn’t be going to meeting with state election officials and telling them they don’t like to litigate cases and telling them that the waiver requirements are ambiguous.”

[...]

“It is just offensive to most Americans that we can send soldiers to the front lines but they can’t vote,” said Eversole. “This is an issue that tugs at the heartstrings of America and people can’t understand why we can’t get that right. This is something we have to get right. We should be fighting as hard for their rights as they’re fighting for ours.”

In addition to the aforementioned Election Law Center site, you can also find Adams at the Washington Times and blogging at Pajamas Media.

I submit to you not that Adams is an unreliable source—I honestly have no idea if he is or not, and there are certainly alternative reads where it just so happens that the former Bush campaign worker hired by the guy who specifically sought to put political operatives in sensitive DOJ posts has stumbled on legitimate problems that might have gone unnoticed by people without a right-leaning perspective, and thus he really is doing a service by shining the light. But, I do find it all worth mentioning, lest someone be given the impression that Adams was a career lifer in the DOJ’s Voting Section who has suddenly stumbled upon massive left-wing reverse-racism and anti-military conspiracy and whose neutral conscience demanded that he step down and blow the whole thing open regardless of and entirely unconcerned with political fallout and who, you know, doesn’t blog for Pajamas Media.

It’s an imperfect analogy, but my guess would be there would be such a monumental shitstorm against said Democratic administration, that it’d be comparable to Watergate in its cultural impact.

When it’s all that oil money from Iraq that was supposed to pay for reconstruction…meh.

Remember how ridiculous it sounded, when the old hippies and far lefties, in the run up to the Iraq War, were making accusations about Haliburton and Republicans just trying to steal oil and yadda yadda yadda? It continues to astound me how, at the time, we all poo-pooed them as profoundly unserious, while we serious folks debated about the extent to which Iraq posted an immediate national security threat requiring of immediate U.S. unilateral intervention.

To recap: from 2003-2007, all oil revenues from Iraq were put into an account earmarked for reconstruction, and 95% of it just disappeared.

I think it’s now reached the point where, if you put a gun to my head, I’d have to predict that this, or some slightly modified version of it, will actually happen in the not-too-distant future. Large states like IL, NY, CA, NJ, and others, have an incentive, because not only do they have the most people, but because the gross totals would matter more than the predictable first-past-the-post winner, politicians suddenly have every incentive to try to win, say, the 45% of Californians who are Republican, or the 52% of Texans who are Democrats, versus now instead focusing on the, say, 10% of swingable voters in Iowa. Add in a few of the “progressive” small states who will sign on just because they think it’ll protect against another Bush in 2000, and you can probably get to 270. The guys behind this campaign have been exceedingly effective at making their case to state legislatures. If only those range score voting knobs would get their act together.

Do you have a higher opinion of Barbara Boxer’s hair or Carly Fiorina’s hair?

Barbara Boxer’s hair………………………………… 19%
Carly Fiorina’s hair…………………………………… 14%
Not sure………………………………………………… 67%

Stay classy, PPP.

I guess it does dovetail with the recent Washington Post series, but it seems to me that the presumption of transparency has fundamentally shifted, both by the bureaucracies involved by also on the part of the citizenry. I understand the bits that specifically name people, but in the main, of the 90,000 pages of stuff WikiLeaks has released, very little of it, it seems to me, requires it be withheld from release in the name of national security. Unless, of course, you define national security so broadly as to include any political or PR purpose the Pentagon sees fit to pursue. But now I’ve gone and answered my own question.