An Alan West Connection? Attempted Bombing of Mosque in Dearborn

Islamic Center of America

Looks like Alan West’s rant is getting the typical response…

Man arrested with bomb outside of large mosque in Dearborn, Mich.; was busted after bragging at bar

A man allegedly armed with explosives outside of one of the country’s largest mosques in Dearborn, Michigan was arrested this past week.

Roger Stockham, due back in court on Feb. 4 for a preliminary examination, was charged with one count of making a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of possession of bombs with unlawful intent.

He is being held on a $500,000 bond, according to CAIR.

The downfall of his dangerous plan, according to the Detroit News, was bragging at a local bar that he was going to harm a mosque in the Detroit suburb. An alert bar employee followed the 63-year-old California resident outside, took down his license plate number and called police.

Religious leaders in the community lauded the police force’s quick actions in protecting the mosque.

“The increased number of bias incidents targeting American Muslim institutions must be addressed by local, state and national officials and law enforcement authorities,” Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR’s Michigan chapter said in a statement.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter said the accused wannabe bomber was arrested on Monday in the parking lot of Islamic Center of America.

The arrest is the latest in a rash of crimes on mosques, according to CAIR. Earlier this month, a mosque in Missouri was vandalized, the organization said.

 

 

Hillary Clinton In Haiti

Push come to shove time in Haiti. This week is it, relative to US involvement in negotiating an end to the corrupt political machine in Haiti. Hillary is there to make a point… Time to get off the pot.

Clinton heads to Haiti to mediate political crisis

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is flying to Haiti to mediate in a political crisis there while other administration officials are keeping watch on violent protests halfway across the world in Egypt.

Clinton will meet Sunday with President Rene Preval and the three candidates vying to succeed him during her visit. She will also see a treatment center for the cholera epidemic that has killed almost 4,000 people.

Haiti’s political crisis stems from a first-round presidential election in November that was marred by fraud.

The U.S. wants Preval’s preferred candidate, Jude Celestin, to bow out because the Organization of American States says he had the least support. The U.S warns that continued aid for Haiti’s reconstruction from last year’s earthquake is at stake.

Haiti’s presidential run-off is in March.

 

Mikkie and “Republican Justice” AKA Lynch Mob

Mikkie talks about being a victim of the Republican Lynch Mob…

Mikkie is shilling hard for that new high-paying job on cable.  Where he lands is going to be interesting. It would appear that Faux News is out, as his recent comments have effectively cut that string…

The new conservative Comcast directed MSNBC?

 

Baseball and Football, Conservative Economics vs Progressive “Socialism”

Bill Maher explains why Football’s socialist economics has beat out baseballs conservative disaster –

This one is a brilliant comparison of why conservatism fails.

 

 

Democrat Jim Moran – Racism Part of 2010 Election

Congressman Jim Moran (D) NoVa

Rep Jim Moran used to be my Congressman. He’s a good guy – but he is fooling himself here. While racism certainly played a key, if not pivotal part in the development and anger of the Tea Party, and is a key component of conservatism…

It wasn’t why Democrats lost the last election.

A fear of leadership is why the Democrats lost. With control of the legislative and Executive branches the Democrats wussed out, allowing Rethugs to control the agenda. Whether such was a failure of actual leadership (arguable) or a failure of perception – the result was the same…

Bogged down in Rethugly stalling, and an impossible goal of bipartisanship with the Devil…

Democrats failed to lead.

Democrat says racism played role in election losses

Democratic congressman Jim Moran said racism was one factor in his party’s losses in the 2010 midterm elections, invoking President Obama’s race, slavery and the Civil War in a TV interview.

Moran, a Virginia lawmaker, told Arab network Alhurra after Obama’s State of the Union Address earlier this week that “a lot of people in this country … don’t want to be governed by an African-American.”

He went on to say that Democrats essentially lost the majority in the U.S. House for “the same reason the Civil War happened in the United States…the Southern states, particularly the slaveholding states, didn’t want to see a president who was opposed to slavery.”‘

His comments were part of a larger interview, in which he discussed foreign policy, the economy and other issues. Moran has said that he believes concerns about jobs and the economy were the primary reasons Democrats took a drubbing at the polls.

In the biggest midterm election change since 1938, the GOP won 63 House seats — easily eclipsing the Republican Revolution of 1994 that put Newt Gingrich in the speaker’s chair.

Moran’s remarks were first reported by The Weekly Standardand picked up by other news outlets.

Anne Hughes, a spokeswoman for Moran, said the congressman “was expressing his frustration” about the nation’s struggle with racial equality. “Rather than ignore this issue or pretend it isn’t there, the congressman believes we are better off discussing it in order to overcome it,” she said in a statement.

Moran, first elected in 1990, has a history of making controversial remarks and is known for his combative personality. For example, he angered Jewish groups in 2007 by suggesting the American Israel Public Affairs Committee pushed the United States to go to war with Iraq. In the mid-1990s, Moran got into a shoving match with a Republican congressman.

 

 

Egypt Demonstrations… Saudi Arabia Next?

First Tunisia…Now Egypt…

Is Saudi next?

King Abdullah

The wave sweeping the Islamic world may or may not result in less repressive regimes in the Middle East. One hopes the demonstrators would have learned from Iran’s mistake. Indeed, Iran’s religious dictatorship is every bit as nasty as the worst of the Middle Eastern dictatorships.

Egypt protests draw mixed reaction in region

Saudi Arabia slammed protesters in Egypt as “infiltrators” who seek to destabilize their country Saturday while an Iranian official called on Egypt to “abide by the rightful demands of the nation” and avoid violent reactions.

Saudi King Abdullah called Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and “was reassured” about the situation in Egypt, the state-run Saudi Press Agency reported.

“During the call, the king said, ‘Egypt is a country of Arabism and Islam. No Arab and Muslim human being can bear that some infiltrators, in the name of freedom of expression, have infiltrated into the brotherly people of Egypt, to destabilize its security and stability and they have been exploited to spew out their hatred in destruction, intimidation, burning, looting and inciting a malicious sedition,'” the news agency said.

Saudi Arabia “strongly condemns” the protest, it said.

Mubarak assured the Saudi king “that the situation is stable” and that the protests “are merely attempts of groups who do not want stability and security for the people of Egypt, but rather they seek to achieve strange and suspicious objectives.”

Mubarak added that Egypt will “deter anyone who tries to exploit the freedom of (the) Egyptian people and will not allow anyone to lure those groups or use them to achieve suspicious and strange agendas,” the news agency said.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called Mubarak and “affirmed his solidarity with Egypt and and his commitment to is its security and stability,” according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa.

In the wake of protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Yemen, analysts say other Arab governments in the region are wary of demonstrations spreading to their countries.

In Iran, meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said Egyptian authorities should respect the demonstrators.

“Iran expects Egyptian officials to listen to the voice of their Muslim people, respond to their rightful demands and refrain from exerting violence by security forces and police against an Islamic wave of awareness that has spread through the country in form of a popular movement,”the state-run Press TV quoted Mehmanparast as saying.

 

 

Steve Harvey’s New Self Help Book – “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man”

Not sure how Steve Harvey became a relationship advisor, but in the spirit of keeping it somewhat real – here is an interview of Harvey on his new book…

 

Nelson Mandela Released From Hospital

 

 

Old Spice Guy… He’s Baaaack!

In what had to be the funniest commercials of 2010, Isaiah Mustafa, a former NFL football player hammed it up in his role as the “Old Spice Guy”.  Commercials starring Mustafa were a huge hit both on the TV and the Internet. Old Spice has contracted with Mustafa for a new round of commercials starting in February. Here is Mustafa’s “press release” about the upcoming commercials…

 

Egypt Shuts Down It’s Internet

There have been several bills before the US Congress to allow this to be done in the US.

This is the first time a country has shut down their entire public access Internet communications system, although other repressive governments such as Iran and China have sought to limit Internet access. There are 5 major Internet carriers in Egypt, which has about 58 million cell phones riding the 4 Cell Carriers – the primary connectivity methodology in third world countries. Apparently, Noor – the carrier on which most government traffic, and the Egyptian Stock Exchange is carried is still active.

Egypt Shuts Down Internet As Protests Intensify

As civil unrest continues to spread and intensify across Egypt, authorities within the country have taken a drastic and apparently unprecedented step: they’ve shut down the entire Internet.

The blackout began at about 12:30 a.m. local time, when four of the Egypt’s major service providers abruptly shut down. Calling the nationwide outage “an action unprecedented in Internet history,” the U.S.-based Internet analysis firm Renesys found that the simultaneous shutdown rendered virtually every Egyptian site inaccessible, from anywhere in the world. The country’s four major ISPs (Link Egypt, Vodafone/Raya, Telecom Egypt, and Etisalat Misr) have all suspended network services, with Noor Group standing as the lone exception. (The country’s stock exchange, perhaps not coincidentally, is still active at a Noor address.) According to statistics from BGPmon, a full 88-percent of the “Egyptian Internet” has been completely wiped out.

Looks like the Egyptian Government is getting ready to get “down and dirty”, and wants to cut the ability of the outside world to know about it. Today’s protests may well be running into something a bit more lethal than tear gas, and protest leaders could be looking at being “disappeared”.

The shutdown also is heavily impacting mobile phones, knocking out text messaging, email, and the ability to send images. IP based carriers would be down entirely, and (especially outbound)  communication with the outside world would be largely shut down, although inbound calls might still be possible.

 

Clarence Thomas’ New Robes May Be Orange…

Instead of the standard Orange Jumpsuit...Perhaps an Orange Robe would be more apropos?

This one is beginning to gain momentum. As I said in a previous post, there are a lot of questions as to the conduct of Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel Alito in terms of their cozy relationships with ultra-right wing groups funded by the Koch Brothers.

Thomas in particular – seems to have been the beneficiary of a lot of cash – well north of $1 million funneled through his wife’s work on conservative “causes” including for the Heritage Foundation and her own PAC which anonymously was “gifted” $550k…

Thomas also failed to report his wife’s income from 2003-2009…

Editorials across the country are beginning to call for a full  investigation, or a resignation…

From Tampa – Lack of disclosure should be pursued

The 1978 Ethics in Government Act requires federal officials to disclose income from spouses. When federal judges ignore the law, the act directs the Judicial Conference to refer those matters to the attorney general. This seems like a clear case. Despite Thomas’ efforts to correct the record, the matter should be pursued.

From Seattle – Time To Go (You Never Should Have Been There)

Clarence Thomas should step down from the US Supreme Court. Immediately. Before, he was merely a bad judge; now he is a judge in violation of the law.

His excuse is that he didn’t know the law. “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.” It is especially bad that a Supreme Court Judge has choosen this flimsy garb to mask his naked transgressions.

The New York Times reports on January 24th that Judge Thomas admitted that he has failed to disclose his wife’s income for the last six years. This is not bake sale money; she earned $686,587 from 2003-2007. This came from the Hertitage Foundation, a fairly-to-the-right political think tank. She also began and directed a political action committee that took in $550,000 and they aren’t saying who donated that bit of extra change.

Judge Clarence Thomas must resign. It the only right thing to do.

And this may be just the tip of the iceberg – WikiLeaks next exposure is making public private Swiss Bank Accounts held by Americans…

Apparently a number of Judges have popped up, and the sources of the money are, in at least the initial cases from big banks… Apparently in the form of bribes. One needs to wonder if Mssrs Thomas, Scalia, Alito, or Roberts also have secret accounts at this point, with their cozy relationships with the far right’s financiers.

Will U.S. Judges Get Exposed in Swiss Banking Scandal?

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas might not be the only judge feeling a tad uncomfortable in the coming days. Thomas is under scrutiny for his failure to disclose his wife’s income for at least five years–and possibly going back more than 20 years. But we are seeing signs that other stories soon will be breaking about judicial chicanery.

Federal and state judges are among those likely to hold Swiss bank accounts that have become the subject of a WikiLeaks investigation, reports a California-based human-rights organization.

Closer to home, we’ve had considerable interaction in recent weeks with two federal judges–William M. Acker Jr. and Abdul Kallon, both of the Northern District of Alabama. We soon will be presenting detailed information showing that Acker and Kallon are violating their oaths to uphold the law. We have seen evidence that at least one of these judges has engaged in a possible criminal conspiracy.

Used to be only the criminals hid money... Now it's the judges.

 

 

 

 

 

Gladys Horton, Lead Singer, Founder of the Marvelettes

“Deliver the letter…The Sooner the better!”

Another of the 60’s favorites…

Gladys Horton of the Marvelettes Dead at 66

Gladys Horton, the powerful soul singer who co-founded the all-female Motown ensemble the Marvelettes, died late Wednesday in a nursing home outside of Los Angeles. The 66-year-old’s cause of death is unknown, though she was recovering from complications due to a stroke she suffered last year, her son told the Associated Press.

Horton was born in 1944 in a suburb of Detroit and raised by foster parents. She joined a glee club in high school and almost immediately recruited four club members, including Georgia Dobbins, to create the modestly named the Casinyets (as in, can’t sing yet).

The group’s big break came in 1961 with an audition for Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson of the then-startup label Motown. They weren’t originally given the opportunity — they had placed fourth in their high school’s talent show, with the top three receiving auditions — but were granted an exception.

The quintet wowed the label with a second audition, performing what would become their first hit single, ‘Please Mr. Postman,’ co-written with Dobbins’ friend and songwriter William Garrett. They settled on a new band name, the Marvelettes, and recorded the song with the infamous Funk Brothers backing them. The song and its eponymous album skyrocketed to the top of the charts.

The fame was short-lived, however. While the group released several records over the next six years, they failed to garner the same success as their debut. During that time one member, Juanita Cowart, had a nervous breakdown and quit. Another, Georgeanna Tillman, was diagnosed with lupus and left. At the same time, Motown began to shift its focus to newer artists better positioned to compete with suddenly popular English rock bands like the Beatles.

Horton left the group in 1967 to get married, and never returned fully to music. She devoted herself to taking care of her handicapped son, and largely stayed out of the public eye, even during the controversy that surfaced when the Marvelettes chose to continue performing with no original members. She performed only occasionally in the ensuing decades with no apparent interest in launching a solo career, billing herself simply as “Gladys Horton from the Marvelettes.”

 

Piano In the Dark

Must have been one heck of a party!

Grand Piano Found on Sandbar off Miami Coast

It’s not exactly sunken treasure, but it’s just as mysterious: A grand piano has appeared on a sandbar off the Miami coast. Weighing in at 650 pounds (or more), it sits at the highest spot along the sandbar, which keeps it from being submerged during high tide, reports the Miami Herald. Authorities aren’t sure how it got there—and they have no plans to move it. “Even a car can become a habitat for wildlife,” says a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission rep. “Unless the item becomes a navigational hazard, the Coast Guard would not get involved.”

You’d think somebody would wake up and realize they were missing a grand piano…

 

SOTU…And the Wingdizzie

Good speech tonight by President Obama. Good response also by the Republican side.

Then the was the clown show, by Michelle Bachman which CNN carried.

The key earth shaker in the speech was Obama’s plan to restructure the Federal Government. This was an interesting move, and basically a statement that Obama would (finally) begin utilizing the apparatus of the Federal Government to accomplish his goals. It also means the bloated infrastructure developed under the Bush Administration is going to get torn down – moving us back to a Clinton style small lean federal  government.

He said the corruption is a target – I think that is a serious warning to the miscreants, in Congress, in politics, in Wall Street, and in the Banks.

Would have liked to see him take on the gun lobby.

But overall – President Obama moved the dime in his direction.

 

Lawn Jockey alert! Alan West Attacks Keith Ellison

The Tea Party’s favorite Lawn Jockey is at it again – this time in an attack against Congressman Keith Ellison for being a Muslim…

Folks down in Palm Beach ready for that Recall Election yet?

Keith Ellison’s response to West’s hate fueled diatribe –

I was surprised to hear of Congressman West’s comments because he has never expressed these sentiments to me directly.

Contrary to the views expressed by Congressman West, I work to represent the highest ideals of our great nation – ideals like freedom of worship and respect for all faiths, equal protection under the law as well as a civil and open public discourse.

I call on Americans of all colors, cultures and faiths to turn to each other, not on each other, especially in the renewed spirit of finding a more respectful and productive public dialogue.

Americans across the country want their public servants to reject the toxic and corrosive chatter that yields more heat than light. I hope to have a productive and respectful dialogue with all of my colleagues, including Allen West.

Come on down and get you “Lawn Jockey of the Week Award – Alan West!

Lawn Jockey of the Week Award to Alan West - For his ad hominum racist attack on Congressman Keith Ellison's religion and Patriotism