Check The Diagonal

Dude, Black is Black

I heard about this story last Friday.  Torii Hunter, the 11th highest paid MLB baseball player in 2009 provides us yet another example of why athletes should stick to sports and leave the social commentary to others.  Article here 

"As African-American players, we have a theory that baseball can go get an imitator and pass them off as us," Hunter says. "It's like they had to get some kind of dark faces, so they go to the Dominican or Venezuela because you can get them cheaper. It's like, 'Why should I get this kid from the South Side of Chicago and have Scott Boras represent him and pay him $5 million when you can get a Dominican guy for a bag of chips?'

The consensus seem to be that Hunter will get a pass for this.  Baseball people have come to his defense and many have said his comments were out of context and misinterpreted. The quote above is pretty emphatic and so I’m finding it difficult to find any context where Hunter is worthy his pass.  I found his entire rant racist in a way that feels inspired by jealousy and envy and ignorance.  School Daze was a 1988 flick.

Readers already know my wife and children are Dominican and I’ve spent a lot of time in D.R so I say this from experience. The Dominican Republic is a black country because they have the blood of African slaves running through their veins the same way Torii Hunter does. Dominicans, who are a fiercely proud and patriotic people, consider themselves Dominican first and Latino second but it doesn’t diminish the fact that the slavery history of the country makes it impossible for them to be called black imposters in any context.

Additionally, Hunter should summer league in D.R soon because his baseball knowledge is severely lacking as well.  Baseball is the national sport in the Dominican Republic in a way it will never be on the south side of Chicago or anywhere else in America.  Some Dominicans play a little basketball (my wife’s father was a basketball player) and Dominicans love to watch a good boxing match but aside from that there is nothing else but baseball.  There’s no football, soccer, tennis, lacrosse or track. Kids of all ages play baseball. They start with a stick and few rocks as soon as they can stand on their own two feet and if they’re lucky, they get invited to participate in one of the many baseball schools on the island where they do nothing else their entire childhood but get better at playing baseball. 

As for the dumb ass bag of chips comment, Torii should check that list of MLB salaries, there are multiple Dominicans who make at least what he makes and the top two highest paid in players in 2009, who make double what he does, are both Dominican and represented by Scott Boras.

UPDATE:  Speaking of Dominican Baseball, I caught Sugar again last night.  While I have problems with the movie and its portrayal of Dominican tenacity and temperment there is no question this is a movie about boys who are poor as dirt trying to make something of themselves through baseball.  It is their hoop dreams.  Let me know if you see a white Dominican face in the vid.  Maybe Vlad should rent this for Torii?

Fucking Progressives

The entire country was able to see the Brown win coming a mile away.  Coakley was without game, period.  The people of Massachusetts, the American public and even the winning Republican Senator Elect Brown all confirm what we also already knew; this was NOT a referendum on President Obama or his agenda. 

The big story of the week isn’t Brown and his big win, it is the collective collapse of the Democratic spine spurred on by Progressives who seem capable of only thinking in terms of Utopia and cannot tell the difference between what is best and what can be accomplished. In the absence of Utopia they simply throw up their hands and quit.  Weak.

Here is Krugman from yesterday making me ill.

But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.

And your alternative is what?  Get a backbone and do your job as a leading Progressive voice in America.  Present alternatives.  You are a Nobel Prize winner, get out there and explain to Joe Democrat what the angles are.  There are countless angles.  Prescribe don’t whine and cry.  If you can’t do that, get out of the way and STFU.

Punks jump up to get beat down

It’s interesting to watch a collective Republican response to the Christmas Day attack that is based purely on their fear and lack of faith in American fortitude.  This post from the White House is the exact way to handle the Dick Cheney Right these days.  They are the party of irrational hysteria and fear and should be spanked with impunity.

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

 

And

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.

The Chicago Way.  Watch and learn, Dick.

MSM Fail con't

We can do this all day, every day.  CNN: completely useless.  Watch them rewrite our history if we let them.

  

Think Progress has responded with the truth.  Will CNN issue a correction?  Don't hold your breath:

In reality, the terror attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center occurred on Sept. 11, 2001 — eight months into President Bush’s first term. Also, the 2001 recession technically began in March of 2001, well after Bush assumed office.

Let us not forget that Bush was warned well in advance of 9/11 about terrorist plans to use commercial airlines as weapons and did nothing.

and on paying attention

This is exactly what I’m talking about regarding paying attention.  If we don’t, we will be fed misinformation and untruths by people and organizations not concerned for our best interests, the public welfare or the greater good.

Every Republican lie and vague misinformation should be attacked in the very same way.

 

Thought Al Franken was a comedian?  Think again, he’s got game.

I'm feeling all WTF today....

With work and school and life and the holidays I am way too busy to be here right now but I'm just so disgusted with the left's reaction to the Obama speech on Tuesday I had to drop a link and a few quick thoughts. 

Republican wingnuts and tea baggers are absolutely bat shit crazy, this is a fact.  If the past 8 years taught us anything its that Republicans have NO business governing a majority when their ideals and ideas are skewed to satisfy such a ridiculous and insane minority.  The Democrats on the other hand have no business having a majority they don't know what to do with.  They lack the balls and political instinct to move any agenda forward.  On health care, military and foreign policy, spending, taxes, stimulus, you name it, President Obama's worst enemies reside on HIS side of the aisle.  I'm exasperated by the uselessness of the left.  In 3 years Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney are going to be the legitimate Republican Presidential nominees...getting a picture of the alternative yet.

Jamelle Bouie sums it up nicely here:

This isn't a one time thing either; throughout the speech Obama calls for more troops and more resources to be directed towards the war in Afghanistan. The simple fact here is that Obama has done exactly what he said he would, and it's ridiculous for liberals to claim that they've been "betrayed." No, they just haven't been paying attention.

Yes, Barack Obama's decision to double-down in Afghanistan will cost us thousands of American and Afghan lives, but frankly, that pales in comparison to the destruction we know right-wing foreign and domestic policy will cause. In a mere eight years, the right-wing was responsible for two invasions (and hundreds of thousands of lost lives), the destruction of a major American city, torture, illegal spying on American citizens, indefinite detention, and the near-total collapse of the global economy. Don't get me wrong, it's cool to be pissed at Obama -- lord knows I am -- but threatening to inflict that on the the world again is irresponsible verging on criminal.

Joe Lieberman

I think the Democrats should threaten to strip all his senority and remove all his commitee chair positions.  That should make all the health care lobby bribes dry up.

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Business as usual in Georgia

Georgia State Congressman, candidate for Govennor and racist Nathan Deal. 

Think he regrets what he said or that he got caught saying it?

AJC has the story here.

“We got all the complaints of the ghetto grandmothers who didn’t have birth certificates and all that. We wrote some very liberal language as to how you can verify it. My mother was born in 1906 and she didn’t have a birth certificate. They didn’t give birth certificates back then. But we got her one, because you can do it under the proper procedures of your state.”

George Will's unoriginal meme

Funny, this "Obama is a narcissist" meme started with Marty Peretz over at TNR who prefers to only support a president when they agree with him.

What I suspect is that the president is probably a clinical narcissist. This is not necessarily a bad condition if one maintains for oneself what the psychiatrists call an "optimal margin of illusion," that is, the margin of hope that allows you to work. But what if his narcissism blinds him to the issues and problems in the world and the inveterate foes of the nation that are not susceptible to his charms?

Joe Klein calls it like I see it:

I don't mind when Peretz, or anyone, goes off the liberal reservation--so long as his argument is carefully reasoned. I've been known to be flagrantly "unreliable" myself...and the Left has been known to be disastrously wrong, from time to time. But at a moment when Israel is intransigent on an important element of Middle Eastern peace--freezing the settlements--and Iran is showing some flexibility in the nuclear talks, Peretz's name-calling and long-distance psychiatry seems the behavior of a brat who isn't getting his way. It would be sad if he weren't so vicious.

The GOP's alternative to universal coverage- Oh grow up!

Representative Lynn "The GOP is looking for a Great White Hope" Jenkins thinks the answer for uninsured Americans is that they should "be a grown up and buy their own health insurance."

The woman questioner in the video is a full-time working, single mother of two whose employer does not provide health coverage. I cannot imagine any more grown up than that.  This is not a welfare case and if it were, the government would already be paying for her health care.  This woman works for a living and wants an insurance option that she can actually afford to pay for herself and Lynn Jenkins laughed at her. 

Call Lynn Jenkins and let her know single working mothers who cannot afford health care for their children is no laughing matter.

Washington, DC Office
Phone: (202) 225-6601

Topeka Office
Phone: (785) 234-LYNN (5966)

WTF Chuck?

Chuck Grassley's job is to slow everything down, pretend he is willing to work with the Left while making sure the Right knows nothing is ever going to get done as long as he is leading the negotiation.

Check out these two juicy bits within a moment of each other:

I don't think it's going to be possible to work it out with the administration because they're all over the field -- all over the ball park, I guess, as we say.

But, yes, I do believe it's possible to reach an agreement.

 

The answer is that unemployed Americans are lazy....

...and fat on the free Government cheese, says Michelle Malkin.

"If you put enough government cheese in front of people, they are just going to keep eating it and you're just kicking the can down the road. And just to hammer this point about the unemployment benefits extension again, it was Larry Katz, who's a chief labor economist for the Clinton labor department, who came out with a study -- and there are a lot of these smart economists who say this -- that if you keep extending these 'temporary' unemployment benefits you're just going to extend joblessness even more."

Dr. Katz actually thinks unemployment benefits should be extended.  In the NY Times:

For every job that becomes available, about six people are looking, Dr. Katz said. “Unemployment insurance gives income to families who are really suffering and can’t find work even if they are hustling to look,” he said.

It is too easy to say I'm offended by Malkin or that I'm disappointed and amazed that This Week would give her a seat at the round-table, even if it was their vacation edition.  Growing up poor in Washington Heights we ate a lot of government cheese.  It is one step above a Wish Sandwich.  Not a meal went by where I didn't wish I had eggs or meat to go with that cheese.  The American unemployed are not lazy, they are suffering the effects of 8 years of Bush economic mismanagement and there aren't enough jobs to go around.

The height of American journalism

This whole clusterfuck is exactly what is wrong with American journalism today.  They all work so hard to be pleased with each other, all the while 16% of adult Americans without health care, we are in two wars, there is pro-West revolution in Iran and 48% of Republicans think Obama might not be American.

Dana Milbank is the same guy who went after Nico Pitney for asking Barack Obama the toughest question of the press conference a few weeks ago.  The same Nico Pitney who live blogs the revolution in Iran tirelessly here.  Get a clue, dick.

Joke of the week.

I think Fareed Zakaria GPS is one of the most educational and insightful news show on TV today. Anyone interested in the goings on outside of the United States should read his book and TIVO the show. That out of the way, nothing is perfect. One of his guests this weekend was Columbia University J School Dean Sree Sreenivasan who graced us with this brilliant exchange.

ZAKARIA: Sree, what strikes you about this? I mean, what I'm struck by is how -- the fact that you don't have that much coming out of television has meant that news organizations like CNN have to rely on people on the street, iReports, Twitter. SREE SREENIVASAN, PROFESSOR, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY JOURNALISM SCHOOL: Right. And it's causing a lot of consternation within newsrooms, because they're not used to putting things on the air that they cannot verify 100 percent, or as close to that as possible.

The uselessness of the Ivy never ceases to amaze. Only 100 percent verifiable on air. Right. Clown.

Your words are as feeble as an old woman's

Newt's letter is titled "Real Change Requires Real Change" but the only thing he seems to be changing these days is his words as the wind blows. After marching in lockstep with Rush like good Conservative and calling Sotomayor a racist Newt wants to apologize and stick to the real issue, the fact that Judge Sotomayor is a racist. I kid you not.

My initial reaction was strong and direct -- perhaps too strong and too direct. The sentiment struck me as racist and I said so. Since then, some who want to have an open and honest consideration of Judge Sotomayor’s fitness to serve on the nation’s highest court have been critical of my word choice. With these critics who want to have an honest conversation, I agree. The word “racist” should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable (a fact which both President Obama and his Press Secretary, Robert Gibbs, have since admitted). So it is to her words -- the ones quoted above and others -- to which we should turn, for they show that the issue here is not racial identity politics. Sotomayor’s words reveal a betrayal of a fundamental principle of the American system -- that everyone is equal before the law.

He goes on to say:

Father’s Day is coming up on June 21 and Newt.org is running specials on autographed books. And speaking of Father’s Day, Jackie is asking for your help with for a Father’s Day gift for me. Sure sounds mysterious. Go to 5principlesoflife.com and she’ll tell you all the details.

Bleh. I for one hope Newt, his size 10s that fit so perfectly in his mouth, his snake oil autographed books for sale and his 36% favorable rating, run in 2012. If only to hope the beating he will get be SO bad that it runs him out of public life so we don't have to listen to the bullshit anymore.

Words matter.

George Tiller is dead and the far Right anti-abortion lobby, Fox News and Bill O'Reily share as much responsibility in his death as the person who pulled the trigger. Words matter and there should be consequences for using influential platforms to do harm.

Punks jump up to get beat down

Rosen having accomplished his mission of providing the anti-Sotomayor script to the Right attempts to twist the knife with yet another attack disgused as a clarification here.

Of course, Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed to the Supreme Court. She obviously wasn't my first choice, for reasons I reported three weeks ago, having mostly to do with concerns about her temperament reported to me by former clerks and New York prosecutors.

Tempermental concerns fueled by annoymous gossip and sexist double-standards. There is not a single on the record source in his three peices on the subject. Thankfully, Greenwald jumps him again here

If they had even a small amount of intellectual integrity, TNR Editors would be deeply ashamed of the central role they played in enabling this baseless, plainly false attack on Sotomayor as an intellectually deficient mediocrity. But for The New Republic, there is no greater source of pride than being approvingly cited by the Right with the "Even The New Republic . . . . " head-pat. That's their role in life, even if accomplished with patently reckless gossip masquerading as "journalism." That's one aspect of Obama's decision that is so commendable -- discarding the sleazy tactics from our corrupted establishment Beltway sources.

After the Rosen peice, the cookie-cutter comments by Chris Mattews, and the Affirmative Action jabs our President is essentially staring down the opposition down and begging them for a fight. and then this which I hope develops more fully. There should be consequences for this type of slander:

Relatedly, Brian Williams, on his blog, has a somewhat cryptic post that cites Rosen's original hit piece on Sotomayor along with my response to Rosen, and implies that he's revealing some new information about that episode based on his "reporting," though it's unclear what exactly is being revealed. Williams says that Rosen's piece "got the attention of White House staffers" but "now the original piece is under great scrutiny, as is the author's possible motives." If anyone knows what any of that means, please let me know. What I think Williams' note does reflect, as I speculated at the time, is that Rosen's gossipy smear attack will likely do far more damage to his own reputation than to Sotomayor's -- and justifiably so.

Racism alive and well in Georgia

Nathan Deal wants to end birth right citizenship in the United States. Story here. And why is a Georgia Representative proposing this roll back of the Civil Rights Act of 1866? Because he is a candidate for Governor of course! In Georgia, the majority of menial and domestic workers are Mexican illegals and while it is OK by Georgians for these workers to continue in this capacity, paid at slave wages, living in slave like conditions, it is not alright to consider them human beings with rights. Deal's proposal is little more than a rally flag for his campaign in a state that still treasures its ancient and storied tradition of racism.

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Unless your Mexican in Georgia.

Hack!

Wannabe Drudge look alike Mark Halperin crushed the ball out of the park with this one...Not! HALPERIN'S TAKE: Don't Be Surprised If.... The list includes:

3. Someone you had assumed would win a gubernatorial primary doesn't. 4. Someone you had assumed would win a senatorial primary doesn't. 5. The White House continues to use Fridays to bury bad news.

Could he be more of a genius!!? Genius I say!! Let's add: 1. I will not win the MegaMillions on Tuesday 2. I will turn 40 this year and the end all killer prediction of the year.... 3. The sun will come out tomorrow. What a dick.

Who Polices the Press Cont...

What does it say about the press that there is more coverage and more outrage over this joke by Wanda Sykes:

"Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails, so you're saying, 'I hope America fails', you're, like, 'I don't care about people losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq'. He just wants the country to fail. To me, that's treason. "He's not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker. But he was just so strung out on OxyContin he missed his flight."

Then there was about the actual quote by Limbaugh that prompted the joke (full transcript here) :

So I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "Okay, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words, I need four: I hope he fails."

TNC makes a great point:

Moreover, I think people need to remember the context. Sykes belongs to three groups which Rush has made a career maligning--blacks, gays and women. I don't have time to dig up the Rush-file. But I'm willing to bet that if take together all the abhorrent things Limbaugh has ever said about those three groups and measured them against Sykes few minutes, it wouldn't be a contest.

Wanda is an easy target and she can't fight back. On the other hand Rush is now the great untouchable so much so that its become akin to someone in the rap music industry criticizing Jay-Z or in the movie business criticizing Will Smith. Serious CLM. P.S. The best part of the night was when Michael Steele actually looked proud of Obama making fun of his pretending to be ignorant routine. I don't think he got the joke.