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October 27, 2006

Know Them By Their Actions

Ignore for a moment that Keith Ellison was a member of an antisemitic hate group, that the Strib is in the bag for his campaign, or that he has a fairly self-indulgent sense of ethics.

Why would one not vote for him?

Reason number one, of course, is the reason so many on the left like him; "he's the most progressive candidate out there", where "progressive" equals regression to the thirties.

But, as Swiftee notes, his legislative record needs some examining. For example, in the past session, Ellison:

...authored a bill that would decriminalize making false reports of police brutality. He authored a bill that would make it easier for people to attack the police due to diminished legal consequence. I betting that the Bloods & Crips really appreciated Keith's attention to their issues.
SEE HF 2951 False information relating to police misconduct criminal provision repealed.
Read the whole thing.

Posted by Mitch at October 27, 2006 06:43 AM | TrackBack
Comments

In one breath you complain about lying, and in the next you accuse Keith Ellison of acting in ways supporting criminal gangs because he supported legislation which would allow people to make complaints against the police without fear of reprisal. I don't support what Ellison voted for, I understand his senitment, after all it's not as if the Government doesn't go after whistleblowers. However, in this case it's about making knowingly false statement - at least in part. I would suspect there is much Mitch, you aren't reporting that also existed in that bill. Regardless of whether that was the sum-total of the bill or not, the concern over retaliatory government is legitimate, if you don't think so, go ask Valerie Wilson how her career as a CIA officer is going.

and yet, in your very next breath you condemn Patty Wetterling for doing what you just did. Taking a point and overblowing it to the extreme, essentially accusing Ellison of aligning with the "Bloods" and giving an impression he is doing so knowingly and wilfully.

Having met Keith several times, I can assure you your comments are beyond false and defamatory, they are just this side of an out and out lie. Oh, antisemitic includes being anti-Muslim, which is a funny thing for a pro-Muslim group to be. By the way, which antisemitic group are you referring to? (I'm guessing it's the Nation of Islam) When you vilify him for his membership, contrast it if you will against the President's avowed drinking problems and DUI at a similar age to the age Ellison was when he briefly associated with NOI. I wonder which represents the greater character flaw; Getting behind the wheel with the real threat of killing someone, or briefly joining a group of outspoken black activists as in impressionable and idealistic youth? This President culled raw data to sex up a war that was predicted by experts to be the disaster it is, and the raw data he culled came from sources his "people" were told were highly unreliable (for example Ahmed Chalabi), but you hang your hat on the character issue, bud, I mean it's really your candidate's strong suit as well.

Let me give you the example in reverse. Mark Kennedy has accepted cash from multiple ultra-radical christian groups who's aim is "to restore Christianity to schools and Government", and who repudiate the idea of separation of Church and State. Apparently Mr. Kennedy doesn't mind supporting people who've called for the assassination of foriegn leaders, the destruction of U.S. cities, and labelled all Muslims as murderers and terrorists. I'm sure Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson appreciate his support.

Posted by: ted at October 27, 2006 08:17 AM

Mitch, you left out any mention of the bill to let people have open alcohol in their cars. Has anyone alerted the Muslim cab drivers up there? How about CAIR? Are they aware of the complete abandonment of Muslim morality?

These are the critical issues. You probably didn't mention it because you were concerned about car wrecks and death. Admit it. You always major on the minors.

Posted by: Scott at October 27, 2006 09:51 AM

Ted, you might want to reconsider the Valerie Plame issue. Maybe you didn't get the memo that identified Armitage as the outer, certainly no fan of the Bush administration. And there was no ongoing push to punish the lying, you know, person and her husband. All the adminitration did was point out the fact that he lied, as he later admitted to the Senate.

Actually, this issue supports the point that Mitch made in the post above this one: Patty Wetterlying - Again. An issue is raised that is patently a lie, but some in the left try to keep it alive. Using it to prove a point about protecting liars who make false charges against the police is certainly valid from anyone that accepts lies in an effort to destroy foreign policy.

Another lie of the left is that Bush sexed up the intel on Iraq. All he did was quote Democrats who were still in office or who left office: Clinton, Kerry, etc. He didn't have to sex up the intel. It was already quite sexy enough, thank you. Maybe you missed the Democratic memo on intel. When Bush, Cheney, et al, pointed out that the intel might be wrong, but liberals made the same statements before and after 9/11, and they can't write their former statements out of history, it stopped being a talking point for all Democrats but that nutter Conyers. Like Plame, you don't see Democrats trying to make hay on this issue, because they can't.

The comparison of Ellisons' relationship with the Nation of Islam with Bush's drinking problem is also significantly flawed.
- Bush admitted he used to a drunk. No attempt to hide it.
- Ellison tried to hide his association with the Nation of Islam.
- Bush quit drinking, as evidenced by the fact that Laura is still with him. Bush repented, reformed, stopped being a drunk.
- Ellison upgraded from the Nation of Islam (which is not respected in the Muslim world as patently racist) to CAIR, which has small issues of supporting terrorism and destroying freedom of speech in this country.

Finally, separation of church and state. Robertson is out of the mainstream for even us Religious Right folks. Falwell is not, because as far as I know, Jerry hasn't advocated assassination. But neither man has advocated destroying the Constitution. They have been pretty vocal about a Supreme Court that has magically discovered positions and hidden meanings in the Constitution completely unknown before the 1950's. That small gap of 180 years to discover constitutional truth is bothersome to us Christianists.

Posted by: Scott at October 27, 2006 10:17 AM

"Oh, antisemitic includes being anti-Muslim"

Here we have a highly visible case of a public school education hard at work.

Might as well say "being a Republican includes supporting, campaigning for, and voting for, Democrats."

"the age Ellison was when he briefly associated with NOI"

I suppose you could say 18 months of an association with a truly racist organization is "brief". I mean heck, Sheets Byrd was with the KKK long enough to become a regional leader.

However, he had expressed support for this group beginning in 1989, and continued public statments of support as late as 1997. That's not so brief.

And, I might interject, that if the tables were turned, and Bush was "briefly" tied to the KKK while Ellison had a previous history of alcoholism that has been overcome for close to 2 decades, the left would be SCREAMING BLOOODY MURDER over the fact that we're having someone run for office who would "set the nation back 150 years", and Ellison's bacchanalia would be brushed off as "it happened in the past, he didn't hurt anyone, who cares?". You know DAMN WELL that's what would happen.

Why is it that if it's a democrat or leftist being a racist, they're given a pass by their own?

Oh, because the left is rife with blatant, glaring hypocrisy. But we already knew that.

Posted by: Bill C at October 27, 2006 10:28 AM

good one Bill C, "because the left is rife with blatant, glaring hypocrisy. But we already knew that."

but don't forget to include the right in that statement as well.

Posted by: Fulcrum at October 27, 2006 11:01 AM

Ellison also authored a bill to restore voting rights to convicted felons on supervised release (e.g., probation).

Posted by: Spectator at October 27, 2006 12:32 PM

Fulcrum said:

"good one Bill C, "because the left is rife with blatant, glaring hypocrisy. But we already knew that."

but don't forget to include the right in that statement as well."

Another shining example of Leftist Thinking: Moral Equivalence.

Posted by: Paul at October 27, 2006 06:42 PM

Ted wrote:
"Oh, antisemitic includes being anti-Muslim"
This is ridiculous. Go to dictionary.com and look up "anti-semitic". There are three definitions there from three different sources. None of them mention the word "muslim". 'Semite' can describe descendants of the aboriginal inhabitants of parts of the middle east, or people whose native tongue is derived from a certain branch of the afro-asiatic family of languages. It can be used to describe a Jew either by race or religion. "Anti-semetic" bears the same relationship to "anti-muslim" that "anti-european" bears to "anti-christian". You've been spun, chum.
If it really irritates you to read about muslim anti-semitism just mentally substitute the word 'judenhass'. That word coveys the spirit of muslim anti-semitism without confusion and with greater linguistic accuracy.

Posted by: Terry at October 27, 2006 09:50 PM

Ted,

Most of your little brainfart isn't worth a response. But while "Semitic" means (as Terry noted) an entire ethnic group and linguistic family, in common usage "Anti-semitic" DOES in fact mean "anti-Jewish". To claim that referring to "anti-semitism" refers in any meaningful way to the entire Semitic language family is sophistry, and giggly sophistry at that.

Posted by: mitch at October 28, 2006 07:06 AM
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