Biden The Gaffe Factory And Other Interesting Things
Sep 24, 2008 Political
Joe Biden has been a walking gaffe machine for the past few weeks. I imagine that Ole Joe has allowed Jack Daniels do the talking and it has gotten him in trouble (though Biden can make great gaffes when he is completely sober). Yesterday, here is what the man who has a higher IQ than you said:
“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.” Yahoo
The only problem is that Herbert Hoover was the president when the market crashed in 1929. FDR took office in 1933. The television was not commercially available until the mid 1930s. FDR was the first president on TV though. He appeared in 1939 at the NY World’s Fair.
A University of Massachusetts chaplain offered college credits to students who campaigned for Barack Obama. The school has disavowed itself but there is no indication if the plan will still go forward. Perhaps the school could step in and stop this activity that might run afoul of state ethics laws. [Boston Herald]
A fifth grader in Colorado was suspended for wearing an anti Obama T Shirt. The shirt read “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend.” A student at another school was forced to remove a shirt depicting an American Flag. He had to wear a bright yellow shirt that read; “DCV: Dress Code Violator.” If he had burned the flag they would have given him 2 extra college credits…. There might be some hope, students are planning to carry flags and wear red, white, and blue to school. Next thing you know they will be bitterly clinging to guns and religion. [Fox] [Merced Sun Star] Big Dog Salute to Jay at STACLU.
The FBI is investigating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, and Lehman Brothers to see if any illegal activities, like fraud, took place. The feds will be looking at the companies and the Senior Management. Good, it is about time. If they go deep enough they can hang quite a few Democrats and former Clinton people. [My Way News]
Iran’s baboon president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declared that the US was on the verge of collapse and should end its military involvement in other countries. I wonder if anyone made a speech saying that Iran should stop its involvement in other countries. Did anyone remind him that Iran is a top sponsor of terror and that it should stop arming Hamas and Hezbolla? This sawed off ape should be dragged around Ground Zero in New York by a New York City firetruck. [My Way News]
Feel free to comment on any of the above items.
Tags: Ahmadinejad, biden, gaffe, tom tancredo, united nations
Tancredo Trades Principle for Politics, Blows Immigration Stance
Dec 20, 2007 Immigration, Political
Tom Tancredo officially dropped out of the GOP race today and he threw his support behind Mitt Romney. Tancredo has great positions on immigration but he is a one trick pony. All he ever talked about was immigration. I am sure there are other issues he has positions on but he failed to come across as anything more than an advocate for tough immigration law enforcement. The one trick got old fast for a number of people who realize that there are many issues in addition to immigration. In dropping out Tancredo had the chance to show how principled he was with regard to his signature issue. Unfortunately, he failed miserably.
Tom Tancredo threw his support behind Mitt Romney who Tancredo met with to receive assurances that Romney would be tough on the issue of immigration. In throwing his support behind Romney Tancredo stated that he was “the best hope for our cause.” This is where I have problems and where it appears to me that he abandoned his principles and went for the politics of the issue. Romney is not as bad as Giuliani or Huckabee when it comes to immigration but he has had his issues with it. I don’t believe that Romney should be held accountable if the company he hired employed illegals. It is the responsibility of the company to do that. However, the company in question had been caught using ILLEGALS before and Romney failed to keep an eye on them or to replace them all together. It took a news report showing admitted ILLEGALS working on his property for him before he fired the company. This man is running for the presidency. He is under much higher scrutiny than the guy next door and he should have been on top of this. He says he is tough on immigration but it does not appear that way.
Fred Thompson, Duncan Hunter and Ron Paul are the only remaining GOP candidates with records that reflect tough immigration policies. If Tancredo wanted to show that he was absolutely concerned about the issue he should have selected one of these candidates to throw his support behind. Ron Paul has a very good plan with regard to immigration and while I am not in favor of many of his other policies I like his stance on immigration and our borders. Fred Thompson has an equally good plan at his site as does Duncan Hunter. Any of these guys would have been a better choice to be “the best hope for our cause.” Yet, Tancredo neglected each of these people, people who have stands and would not need to provide reassurance, in order to support Romney, a man with questionable views on Immigration. Before the Romney crowd beats me up, remember, Tancredo needed to get reassurance. That is usually not necessary if you have been clear and consistent.
It is unfortunate but Tancredo traded his principles. It gives the impression that Tancredo was not all that serious about immigration because he could not back one of the people who is actually tough on the issue. Since that was his only issue he could have at least picked someone who held the same beliefs. If Romney gets elected and he ends up signing an amnesty bill Tancredo and his efforts will go to the ash heap of history. He will be viewed as a man who backed the guy who gave the country away.
It is unfortunate that Tancredo could not get this right but at least it shows that he would not have been a good president. If he blew this easy choice this badly think about how terribly he would do with judges, justices, and just about any other appointee.
Source:
Des Moines Register
Tags: fred thompson, Immigration, mike huckabee, mitt romney, ron paul, rudy giuliani, tom tancredo
Don’t Take Flight 93 to Mecca Redux II
Nov 6, 2007 Flight 93
Tancredo condemns continued use of giant crescent in Flight 93 Memorial
In September 2005, Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo said that he would not be happy so long as the Flight 93 Memorial still included the giant crescent. He has kept his promise. The crescent is still there, and Tom Tancredo is NOT HAPPY.
Alec Rawls has just received from Representative Tancredo a letter of complaint that Mr. Tancredo sent to Park Service Director Mary Bomar this afternoon. It notes the continued presence of the crescent:
Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design – the crescent shape – have been made.
And it calls for scrapping the crescent design entire and starting anew:
And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.
Thank you Tom Tancredo! The full text of Mr. Tancredo’s letter is pasted below.
G Gordon Liddy is on it
Alec Rawls will be on G Gordon Liddy’s radio show tomorrow morning (Tuesday) from 11-12 EST, talking about the many Islamic and terrorist memorializing features in the planned memorial. The show should be a blockbuster.
Tom Burnett Sr. is going to call in. Tancredo or his press secretary may call in. And YOU can call in:
1 800 GGLiddy
Streaming audio and broadcast stations here. Podcasts here. For the full expose, see Alec’s Crescent of Betrayal book, available for free download until the print edition of the book comes out in February.
A crescent and star flag on the crash site
For those who are not familiar with the memorial debacle, the original Crescent of Embrace design would have planted a bare naked Islamic crescent and star flag on the crash site:
Architect Paul Murdoch’s job is to work with symbols. He did not plant an Islamic flag on the crash site by accident. But even if this were somehow coincidence, it would still be wrong to build the memorial in a shape that the hijackers claimed as their own.
Representative Tancredo was the only Congressman to state the obvious, that “the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam–and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists,” raises the possibility that “the design, if constructed, will in fact make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers.” (Tancredo Press release, 9/12/2005. See Crescent of Betrayal, download 1, page xiii.)
Two days later, Tancredo’s press secretary laid out Tom’s conditions:
… that the congressman would be happy with the changes only if the crescent shape is removed.
Nothing was changed
All the Memorial Project did was add some surrounding trees. Every particle of the original Crescent of Embrace design remains completely intact in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. The crescent shape was NOT removed. It was only very slightly disguised:
The graphics were recolored, and a few trees were added outside of the mouth of the crescent (lower left). Every particle of the original crescent and star structure remains. (Click here for site plan view.)
Representative Tancredo was right to demand removal of the crescent. It turns out that a person facing directly into the half mile wide crescent will be facing Mecca. That makes it a mihrab, the central feature around which every mosque is built. You can plant as many trees around a mosque as you want and it will still be a mosque. This is the world’s largest mosque, by a factor of a hundred.
If you want to thank Tom Tancredo for keeping his Flight 93 promise and standing up again for the honor of our murdered heroes, his phone numbers and online email form are here.
Full text of Representative Tancredo’s letter to Park Service Director Mary Bomar
November 5, 2007
The Honorable Mary A. Bomar
Director
National Park Service
U.S. Department of Interior
1849 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20240
Dear Director Bomar,
I am regrettably writing you in reference to the proposed memorial to commemorate the victims of Flight 93 which crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. As you may know, I contacted Director Mainella in late 2005 about my concerns with the design.
The appropriateness of the original design, dubbed the “Crescent of Embrace,†was questioned because of the crescent’s prominent use as a symbol in Islam – and the fact that the hijackers were radical Islamists. As I pointed out in my September 2005 letter, the use of the crescent has raised questions in some circles about whether the design would make the memorial a tribute to the hijackers rather than the victims whose mission the flights passengers helped to thwart.
When I received Director Mainella’s response to my letter on October 6, 2005, I was pleased to read her assurance that the advisory committee and the architect were amenable to “refinements in the design which will include negating any perceptions to the iconography.†I was also pleased to learn that the name of the memorial was to be changed.
Unfortunately, it appears that little if any substantive changes to the most troubling aspect of the design – the crescent shape – have been made. This deeply concerns me. As I told Director Mainella in 2005: Regardless of whether or not the invocation of a Muslim symbol by the memorial designer was intentional, I continue to believe that the use of this symbol is unsuitable for paying appropriate tribute to the heroes of Flight 93 or the ensuing American struggle against radical Islam that their historic last act has come to symbolize.
I remain committed to ensuring that this memorial is a powerful symbol for the whole nation and a testament to the courage and will of the passengers of the flight – as I am sure you are. And while I regret having to contact the Park Service again about this issue, I sincerely hope that you will direct the committee to scrap the crescent design entirely in favor of a new design that will not make the memorial a flashpoint for this kind of controversy and criticism.
Thank you in advance for your assistance.
Sincerely,
Tom Tancredo, M.C.
The phony redesign
To see clearly how the redesign leaves the original Mecca-oriented cescent fully intact, note that the orientation of the crescent is determined by connecting the most obtruding points of the crescent structure, then forming the perpendicular bisector to this line (red arrow):
The green circle shows the direction to Mecca (the “qibla” direction) from Somerset PA. It was generated using the Mecca-direction calculator at Islam.com. Just place this qibla graphic over the original Crescent of Embrace site plan and the Mecca-direction line almost exactly bisects the crescent.
Looking closely at the above graphic (click for larger image), you can see that the most obtruding tip at the bottom of the original crescent structure is the last red maple at the bottom. On top, the most obtruding tip of the crescent structure is the the end of the thousand foot long, fifty foot tall, Entry Portal Wall. Here is an artist’s rendering of the end of the Entry Portal Wall as seen in the Bowl of Embrace redesign. It shows how overtly this upper crescent tip remains intact in the redesign:
The redesign only added the extra row of trees on the left, behind the visitors in this graphic. Notice that these trees are not even visible to a person who is facing into the crescent. They do not even affect a visitor’s experience of the crescent, never mind affect the presence or integrity of the crescent itself.
Tags: crash site, crescent design, crescent shape, Flight 93, flight 93 memorial, g gordon liddy, park service director, tom tancredo