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  • What Muslims Wear

    What Muslims Wear

    My wife sent me this: Muslims Wearing Things. She would also like to point out if Muslims were going to crash Juan William’s plane, they probably wouldn’t be dressed in conservative Muslim garb. That should make Juan a little more relaxed next time he’s in an airport.

    Now don’t get me wrong, I think it’s crazy that NPR fired Williams for expressing his own irrational personal fears. But no, it’s not OK to think terrorist every time you see a Muslim (or a Greek priest… I wonder what ever happened to that idiot who attacked a Greek priest because he thought he looked like a Muslim terrorist.)

    Now you may also get the willies if you think there’s a Muslims on your plane. I unfortunately suspect many if not most Americans share this fear. But that doesn’t make it right. Thinking every Muslim is terrorist is just as wrong (and absurd) as thinking every black man is rapist, every Jew is money-grubbing shyster, every gypsy is a thief, every gay man is a pedophile, every cop is a bastard, or…. you get my point. I think I’ve said enough.

    Update: In the case of the marine reservist who attached a priest for looking like a Muslim terrorist, all charges were dropped. The priest didn’t stick around America to press charges. To rehash, this idiot chased a Greek priest for three blocks and beat him with a tire iron while telling a 911 operator (listen to the call here):

    I got a guy who’s trying to mug me. … He just grabbed my f—— b—- when I got out of my car. … I just hit him with a tire iron and he’s trying to take off. He said he was going to f—— kill me. … This guy’s not gonna come back. I wanna knock him out.
    …
    He looks like a Middle Eastern guy, a Taliban guy. … He straight up looks like he came from Afghanistan … knows where I live and knows what I drive and I’m not letting him come back. I’ll kill him. I got a wife.

    So let me get this straight. This priest, who says he was lost, looked like he was from Afghanistan, tried to rob the idiot, then grabbed his balls, and then yelled “Allahu Akbar.”

    Ohkaaay.

    The prosecuting lawyer called this ‘roid rage noting the attacker is “a 220-pound pharmacy manager who blogs photos of himself flexing his muscles and had worked as a drug informant for police.”

    The attacker, after charges were dropped, says he forgives the priest. Gee, that’s mighty Christian of him.

    Here’s a picture of the attacker.


    He’s not gay at all.

  • Where your tax money goes

    Where your tax money goes

    This has been making its rounds on blog (I got it from Ta-Nehisi but the original source is The Third Way.)

    So if you want to balance the budget without raising taxes, where would you start? If wikipedia happens to be factually correct at this moment, we’re spending more on mandatory programs than we get it total revenue. In other words, it is legally impossible to balance the budget without raising taxes.

    A deficit of $1,500 billion is not going to be closed by cutting congressional pay and Amtrak, that’s for sure.

    And is case you’re wondering, if TANF (aka: welfare) were put on this chart, it would fall (if my math is correct) at around $25, just below NASA (the TANF budget is about $16.5 billion).

  • Tyranny?

    Any thoughts on Radley Balco’s post?:

    So yeah. Tyranny. If there’s more tyrannical power a president could possibly claim than the power to execute the citizens of his country at his sole discretion, with no oversight, no due process, and no ability for anyone to question the execution even after the fact . . . I can’t think of it.

  • Bernstein defeats Jessamy!

    Jessamy may finally be on the way out as Baltimore City State’s Attorney. And good riddance to her!

    If these results hold, it’s good news for police and good new for Baltimore. Do I know anything about Berstein? No. Nothing than the fact he’s not Jessamy, who has been at the post since 1995. And while it wouldn’t be fair to blame Jessamy for Baltimore’s crime, she has, to put it mildly, never done much to help police. A sign of that was Police Commissioner Bealefeld’s public endorsement of Bernstein.

  • Our Evening Constitional Past the Mosque

    We went on a “hidden harbor” tour Tuesday evening that went through NY Harbor and down to Port Elizabeth (by Newark Airport). Industrial decay… working harbor… good stuff! It was a beautiful evening. But as a harbor, compared to Rotterdam, it looks like Single-A. The guide said the biggest six harbors in the world are now all in China.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Everybody thank the French for the Statue of Liberty. And for french fries.

    Afterward, because it was so close to the boat–like I said, everything is close in lower Manhattan)–we decided to walk past the World Trade Center and mosque sites. The World Trade Center site is still an embarrassing lack of actual building. But hey, it’s only been nine years. On the plus side, at least there are more cranes there actually lifting things.

    A few block away is the site of the mosque and center. Of course there’s a TV truck outside.

     

    The site already is used as a mosque, by the way. But now they pray in the basement.

    The building in question, next door.

     

    More interesting is the graffiti on the ground. I wasn’t expecting this. Not even in New York.

     

     

    Pro-mosque, pro-tolerance, and pro-Obama graffiti. And some lefty-fliers and a few books.

    It turns out that what kills at the location is not Islam, it’s dog feces and urine! I suspected that all along.

     

    Meanwhile, a few doors down, the AT&T sign made me think of the Constitution (a bit hokey, I know, but that’s what I thought of!)

     

    Walking back to the subway, another shot of the WTC site. The figures on the construction wall in front of the church are walk signs from cities around the world.

     

    And the gas lights and fountain at City Hall Park at night, one of New York City’s not so secret gems.

     

    Finally two candid shots of the subway, just in case you’ve never seen it. This is what New Yorkers look like when they are no TV or movie cameras around.

     

     

  • Not Ground Zero Mosque

    I wasn’t going to post on this… perhaps other than to say it’s absurd that we’re debating the right of a people in our country to build a house of worship. It’s kind of like debating legal segregation. Haven’t we moved past this a long time ago? (Or not so long ago in the case of racial segregation.) I don’t want to debate freedom of religion any more than I want to debate slavery.

    But I do mention this because my wife said that a friend of hers on facebook didn’t even know that this mosque is not being built at the World Trade Center site. Really? Do people really not know this? Are people getting all huffy over a moot point?

    45 and 47 Park Place. You can punch it into Google and see where it is. It’s nearwhere the World Trade Center was. Two blocks away, to be precise. So is the Hudson River. So is City Hall Park. I mean, in lower Manhattan, everything is close. If people really want to create a “no-mosque zone,” at want point exactly would it be OK to build a mosque?

    See, since the mosque and cultural center isn’t at Ground Zero, I see this much more as an issue for people who hate Islam. That’s not a debate I care to enter. Even though I like pork and drinking, I try not to hate. Islam is not terrorism (and if you don’t know that, you must learn. — But Wahhabism spread by our Saudi [pause for quotes] “allies”? That might be another story.)

    So is this “hallowed ground”? No. But why don’t you judge for yourself?

  • The New Republican Bill of Freedom

    With all this talk of changing the constitution for this and that (and yes, it’s strange that supposedly anti-big-government politicians always want to violate the explicit purpose of the constitution that protects the rights of citizens from big government), I’ve never quite understood the ultimately vision of conservative Republicans. What do they actually want? What if they weren’t restricted by politics, common sense, or the slightest sense of human decency? If the Bill of Rights is for commies, what are constitutional amendments that “real Americans” could rally behind?

    Let’s pick up a newspaper in the year 2013:

    WASHINGTON — Supported by super-majorities in both houses on Congress, the Republican president fulfilled a major campaign promise and sent The New Bill of Freedom to the states for constitutional ratification. Surrounded by senators, representatives, and five Supreme Court Justices on the steps of the Capital, President Palin marked this historic event with a speech to thousands of supporters:

    This Bill of Freedom reflects the original intentions of our Founding Fathers. The old Bill of Rights [boos from crowd] was all about Big Government protecting big terrorists [more boos].

    Oh, yes. No longer will terrorists and drug dealers and flag burners and abortionists and immigrants and sodomites and mainstream media — no longer will [making air quotes] “those people” be allowed to run amok because of — what do those big-L liberals [boos] call them? — technicalities! Today we get the rights we want. Today we get the freedom we deserve! [cheers]

    The new conservative Bill of Freedom [applause] fixes the Bill of Rights — or should I say [winks] Bill of Lefts? [laughter] — that were so easy for activist Democrat judges to misinterpret [loud boos]. One hundred years is big-G government and big-S socialism is enough! [mixed boos and cheers]

    With this New Bill of Freedom, America is ready for the twentieth century to bring real freedom to real Americans! [cheers] Eighty-seven years ago President Herbert Hoover stood right here and said:

    When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.

    Oh yeah well today he’d have to be politically correct and say [winks] “woman” [light laughter]. Well today, lipstick and all [chuckles], I am that common woman! [applause]

    It is for us to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which Hoover and Reagan fought for. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that this nation, under God [brief moment of silence], shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, will not perish from the earth! [loud applause, crowd breaks into spontaneous singing of campaign theme song, “We could use a man like Herbert Hoover again!”]

    The New Republican Bill of Freedom

    Amendment I: Congress shall make no law prohibiting people’s right to pray, in either the Judeo or Christian tradition, in public or private; or abridging the freedom of spoken speech or the rights of corporations to give money to politicians.

    [No more separation of church and state. Brings back school prayer. And without naming any religion in particular, limits “others” from building houses of worship like they belong here. Also sensibly limits the liberal press and expansive interpretation of “speech.”]

    Amendment II: The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

    [No more grammar debate here.]

    Amendment III: Marriage shall be defined as a union between one man and one woman.

    [Banning gay marriage is much more important than whatever the Third Amendment used to say. You don’t know the Third Amendment anyway.]

    Amendment IV: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects shall not be violated but upon reasonable suspicion, supported by oath or affirmation.

    [Probable Cause is too high a standard. And why bother with all those other “technicalities”?]

    Amendment V: No innocent person shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor shall private property be taken for public use. In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy trial.

    [Why protect the guilty? The innocent have nothing to hide. And who miss grand juries?]

    Amendment VI: The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

    [Rights of the criminals again. Blah blah blah.]

    Amendment VII: Only persons born to US citizens are citizens of the United States.

    [That’ll fix the Fourteenth Amendment. Besides, a jury trial for common law disputes in excess of twenty dollar? Get real. The Seventh Amendment has been obsolete even since we abandoned the gold standard.]

    Amendment VIII: Punishment shall be appropriate to the crime.

    [Like we want liberal judges defining cruel and unusual. That’s how they ban the death penalty.]

    Amendment IX: The right to life of the unborn is paramount.

    [The old amendment was just some constitutional mumbo-jumbo anyway.]

    Amendment X: Respecting the rights reserved to the states respectively, or to the people, Amendments Thirteen through Sixteen are hereby repealed.

    [If you gotta look them up, how important could they be?]

  • On the night train, with Charles Rangel

    It bothers me a bit when people (politicians included) blame politicians and “Washington” for our nation’s woes. Or when politicians encourage cynicism and promote the idea that running our country doesn’t take any special skill set or intelligence.

    Given his troubles, I thought I’d repost an edited version of something I wrote about my chance meeting with Charles Rangel in 2008. I don’t like to see the man, after all he’s done for New York, being left out in the cold.

    Our system ain’t perfect, but it’s the best we got. And if we throw all the experienced bums out, we’ll have mediocre bums leading a mediocre country. Churchill said democracy is the worst system except all other. And I wouldn’t swap it for any other system in the world.

    In some ways being a politician is like being a cop. It’s a dirty world out there and there are a lot of parts that are morally gray. So everybody violates some rules some of the time. And if they want to get you, they can always find a way. I wonder how many of us could live up the ethical regulations we impose on others in the name of “good government”? I doubt I could.

    October 12, 2008
    I was talking to Charles Rangel last night. On the night train coming back from Boston.

    I was in the bar car and heard a strangely familiar gravely voice order a wine. “That must be Charles Rangel,” I thought. This guy was shorter than I imagined Rangel to be, but when I saw an official looking Congressional Lapel Pin, I knew for sure.

    I was kind of caught off guard and told him to keep up his good work. He thanks me and squeezed my shoulder and left. Back in my seat, drinking my Budweiser, I thought, “Man, I handled that poorly. First of all, I should bought him his wine. Second, why didn’t I tell him that I was my father’s son? They kind of knew each other and were sort of buddies… or at least that was my father’s version of the story.

    But in this case I got a second chance. I went up for beer number two and started talking with the cafe guy. We shot the shit about North and South, white and black, and corporal punishment (He was from Virginia, black, and pro). Anyway, it was a quiet train and we were chatting for about 20 minutes.

    Then Rangel returns, a bit disheveled. He orders a cheeseburger and goes to the bathroom. I notice the cafe guy goes through the motions but doesn’t actually pop the bag on the cheeseburger and put it in the microwave until Rangel comes out of the bathroom and comes back for his order. He has no idea who this is, I think.

    While Rangel is waiting, I tell him he knows my father, Charles Moskos.

    “The draftee!” He explains in his trademark voice. “We were both draftees. That’s the point, the poor shouldn’t be the only ones to serve.” Rangel once told my father that if it weren’t for the army (and a Greek sergeant in particular), he’d be a bum.

    I told Rangel my father had died recently, which he didn’t know. “He was young,” he said, “at least younger than me!” “I know,” I said with a grimace and a reassuring pat on his arm.

    The cafe guy asked Rangel if he wanted anything to drink. He said a Pepsi and gave the guy his money. “Let me get that for you,” I said! “No, no, that’s not necessary,” he said.

    I insisted, in part because I knew my father would have loved any story that involved me paying for the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s cheeseburger.

    So there we are, Charles Rangel and Peter Moskos, each trying to get the cafe man to take our money. But because the cafe man knew me and not Charles Rangel, he took my money. Rangel thanked me, said a few nice things about my father, and returned to his seat.

    Here is one of the most powerful men in America. Taking the night train. Tired. No entourage. Willing to talk.

    At Penn Station I watched Rangel get off the train. There he was, gentleman, congressman, 78-years-old, draftee, carrying his own bags. I offered to carry them for him. But he politely declined. I figure in this day and age you could get in trouble for grabbing a congressman’s suitcase, so all I could do was offer again. He declined again. We went up the escalator and said goodbye. There he went, Charles Rangel, walking off alone into the night at 3am.

    It made me proud to be an American.

  • Checks and Balances

    Wouldn’t it be nice if the Senate said, “Liberal or conservative, we’re not going to approve any Supreme Court justice that won’t tell us his or her position on issues”?

    The Senate is not supposed to be a rubber stamp.

    The founding fathers had no stated opinions on many current issues. Semi-automatic handguns didn’t exist when they wrote the 2nd Amendment. Police didn’t exists. And on another subject I don’t think it’s a stretch to say the Founding Fathers did not write the Bill of Rights with for-profit corporations in mind.

    So can we move beyond the incorrect liberal/conservative activist/originalist lie? The Supreme Court is politics. Always has been. Always will be. Maybe it should be. But when the court passes “conservative” decisions related to corporate rights and gun control–when the court overturns local law and extends the reach of the constitution–that is by definition an activist court.

    The Constitution is and should be a living document. Of course justices have to interpret the Constitution. That is their job. I just want my side to win.

  • Right-Wing Lies: The welfare of Larmondo “Flair” Allen

    Right-Wing Lies: The welfare of Larmondo “Flair” Allen

    Am I really the only person who is skeptical enough to check the basic truth of emails before forwarding them to my 140 closest friends? I mean, it doesn’t take too long to go to Snopes

    The thing about mass-forwarded right-wing emails is that they are almost always never true. They’re like the headlines in the supermarket tabloid Weekly World News. There might be a grain of truth. But the basic theme, the ultimate point, is a lie.

    [Now liberals forward some lies too, but not as much. Certainly not as much since people stopped forwarding that damned “Save Sesame Street” email five years ago.]

    What here’s what bothers me deep down. I don’t know if conservatives really care about the truth. It seems that for too many “faith” and “belief” and “firm conviction” are more valued attributes that the truth. I always think, “Gee, I might be wrong.” Does that make me a wishy-washy French-loving lefty? Maybe. But if your faith and beliefs are built on lies, shouldn’t that matter?

    For the record: Obama was born in the U.S., Saddam Hussein was not behind September 11th, and the ACLU never tried to ban crosses from cemeteries. Just because you get an email or hear somebody who say something on talk radio doesn’t make it true! Not evenif they’re spittle-flying mad when they say it!

    So here’s the latest, an obit about one Larmondo “Flair” Allen. Now this is indeed a gem (and there’s nothing on Snopes).

    This apparently murderous drug dealer is called “an entrepreneur.” He was 25. He left eight brothers, five sisters, and ninechildren. Three of his daughters are named Larmondhall, Lamonshea, Larmomdriel.

    So I snicker at all this. I have a sense of humor. So do most liberals (despite what many conservatives think).

    But here’s the text with the email. As usual with right-wing email, it’s large and in many colors:

    Entrepreneur?????

    It took me a couple of minutes to get it, but imagine,

    He’s 25 and has 3 sons and 6 daughters

    NINE welfare recipients collecting $1500 each…..

    That equals $13,500 a month !!! Now add food stamps,

    Free medical, free school lunches, on and on and on.

    Now that, to me, is a real Entrepreneur.

    Do the math, that’s over $156,000.00 a year.

    Anybody out there sittin’ on their a** while reading

    This message making that kind of money?

    YOUR TAX $$$$ AT WORK??

    So the message isn’t just to laugh at the obit and this loser (and I wouldn’t be surprised if the writer of this obit was fully aware of the humor in using the word “entrepreneur”), but to blame the entire Obama communist liberal welfare state for everything that is wrong with America.

    First of all (and I only went online for a few minutes to find this out–so I can’t vouch with certainly that this is all true), the obit is from 2004. OK, but it’s still true, I suppose.

    But who the hell thinks that an able bodied man (much less one with “flair”) gets $1,500 a month per child? That’s what set off my B.S. alarm.

    I mean, this is America. We don’t have such a welfare system. And yet I firmly believe that opposition to this non-existent welfare system is what drives the world view of so many conservative Americans.

    And don’t get me wrong. I know there is much abuse of disability and what little welfare system we have. But you can’t help the “deserving poor” (my wife grew up on food stamps some of the time) without some abuse from those trying to milk the system. So friggin’ what? It’s not like we’re talking big bucks.

    In all of 10 minutes online, I couldn’t find details about the welfare benefits (now called TANF) in Louisiana. But let’s take Texas simply because I could find it on line. This is federal aid. In Texas, a family of eight with one or two parents gets less than $500 a month. Total. For each additional person, add… $60. [see the update below for Louisiana stats.]

    $1,500 or $60 per kid? It kind of matters.

    There might be some people out there who might have a kid for an extra $60 a month. But there can’t be too many. But in addition to TANF, there are also food stamps and sometimes some city and state aid is well. Still, it doesn’t add up to much. And if “Flair” had a legitimate job (ha!), he could get some earned income tax credit, something I have received for more than one year of my working life.

    But the straight-up federal welfare for you and your Texas family of nine kids? $6,636 a year. Live large, baby. Live large.

    Update, August, 2011. This is from a reader’s comment:

    In Louisiana, this (now) single mother with 9 children would receive $512/month with a lifetime limit of collecting this for 5 years. She’d be able to get another $500/mo roughly in food stamps and probably get some housing assistance as well.

    Now as far as Survivor Benefits from Social Security for the children, it depends on whether or not Larmondo had a regular job and paid into Social Security for at least 18 months. If he did, then they’ll qualify for benefits. If not, no soup for the kids. Being generous and saying Larmondo spent some time workin’ at McDonald’s to get his 18 months in… his partner may be able to collect the one time payment of $255 for his death and 7 of the kids would be eligible for continuing payments until 18. Those payments would be kind of small though, a total of less than $500/mo. combined.

    Shameless Promotion: This post has been viewed almost 30,000 times. If you found this post interesting, even if you don’t agree with it, please consider buying one of my books! Cop in the Hood is about my days as police officer in Baltimore. Published Weeklycalled this award winning book , “An adrenaline-accelerating night ride that reveals the stark realities of law enforcement.” Colonel (ret.) Margaret Patton of the Baltimore City Police Department said, “Cop in the Hood should be made mandatory reading for every recruit in the Balto. City Police Academy. … I am so proud that you were a Baltimore Police Officer and a good one.” By the end, you too may learn what police already know (but won’t tell you): the federal war on drugs is doomed to failure.

    Or maybe In Defense of Flogging is more up your alley. It’s been called a Swiftian satire, except I’m serious. I say we whip the motherf*ckers. Or at least offer the choice: five years or ten lashes — what’ll it be? In Defense of Flogging is a short and fun book that makes a great Father’s Day present in June. (Is it December? Then I mean Christmas. Hanukkah, too!)

    In Defense of Flogging has been talked about on everything from Fox TV to NPR. Even The Blaze liked it. Atlantic Magazinelisted me as one of the “Brave Thinkers” of 2011. It’s a short book, a fun read, and, as Fat Albert used to say, “you might learn something before we’re done.”