42 percent of all COVID deaths in the US come from just three states—New Jersey, New York, and Massachusetts. These three states account for nearly 56,000 of the nearly 133,000 deaths in the US, even though they represent just 10 percent of the population. If these three states are excluded, the US suddenly finds itself somewhere in between nations such as Luxembourg (176/1M) and Macedonia (166/1M), where some of the better fatality numbers in Europe are found.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this year received a great deal of criticism when the state’s policy of prohibiting nursing homes from screening residents for COVID-19 came to light. Cuomo eventually reversed that decision under intense criticism from public health experts and trade group leaders.
This week, the New York State Department of Health issued a report that concluded 6,326 COVID-positive residents were admitted to nursing homes between March 25 and May 8 as a result of the order.
Deaths per million:
- New Jersey: 1,728.7
- New York: 1,660
- Massachusetts: 1,189
- Arizona: 265
- Florida: 179
- Texas: 94
Cruizer says
I wonder if the legitimate voters of those three states will see a relationship between the governing philosophy of these three state’s leaders and the political parties they represent. If not, the voters will not make changes . The nation should then expect the same huge death rates for similar problems in the future.
This statement could also be appropriate for those states whose major cities have the enormous murder and crime rates where guns are prohibited . These high rates have existed for years and don’t seem to be worthy of a major press campaign to assist in correcting. Condoning the shooting deaths of children by near press silence and general citizen acceptance of this norm, represents the worst of the U.S. culture!
Denise says
You don’t hear about most of the murder rates because they just say COVID. I live in mass and only go to the stores to get food that and medicine.
Paul Plante says
Andy Cuomo, the Democratic Socialist governor of New York state, is put in place by the votes of New York City, whose population far outstrips that of the rest of the state, which makes Cuomo unassailable.
People outside of NYC can’t stand Cuomo, but it makes no difference as our votes do not count.
Sorin Varzaru says
Of course higher density areas will get hit harder. But the rest of the country is catching up quick through the ignorance and incompetence of the Republican state governments. Just wait a month or two.
Todd Holden says
says the socialist, sniper wanna-be. I have not forgotten your ignorance.
You are a damned fool, if there ever was one.
Sorin Varzaru says
It’s entertaining to be called ignorant by people who think trump/republican states have the correct approach to covid. But, by all means, listen to the idiot republican governors. That’s how natural selection works.
Todd Holden says
I was talking about you and nothing else.
Bless Your Heart.
Lisa Pruitt says
There is a home for you, but it is most likely not here in our country. Have you ever stopped to consider if you are even welcome here?
tokenny says
Your country? I didn’t know you were American Indian. What tribe?
Paul Plante says
What a droll sense of humor you have, tokenny!
No, seriously, dude, I really mean it.
You are a laugh a minute with that bit about “what tribe are you?”
It should be “nation,” as in “to what nation do you belong then?”
There are 573 of them, afterall, tokenny, but hey, I bet you already knew that and are having some fun with us just to see if we are awake or asleep at the switch.
So job well done, then, tokenny, in that regard.
Sorin Varzaru says
I would expect not to be welcomed by small minded, xenofobic people. while I was surprised how many of these trump brought out from the shadows, luckily there is no way to overstate how much I don’t care about their opinions.
Kenny Parks says
https://www.facebook.com/sorin.varzaru.1
Take a look at this character.
Sorin Varzaru says
Some of us have the balls to put it all out there. Where is your FB page link?
Kenny Parks says
Why would I want a FB page? I would not live my life on FB if I were paid $10,00.00 a week to do so. Keep on making the cuckold zuckerberg rich. You are a Fool.
Sorin Varzaru says
“Why would I want a FB page? I would not live my life on FB if I were paid $10,00.00 a week to do so. Keep on making the cuckold zuckerberg rich. You are a Fool.”
You probably don’t need one. you see, when one has friends from all over the globe, freinds made when traveling and living abroad, one finds FB useful to keep in touch. if you live under a rock and that is your entire world, yes you don’t need one. Some of us take the time to learn and understand and use technology to our advantage. I understand that not everyone has the mental capacity to do so, and naturally , they will fear it. It’s how world works.
Kenny Parks says
As I said, you and those like you, just keep right on making the cuckold zuckerberg rich.
You are a fool and a foreign fool, at that.
Bless Your Heart!
Paul Plante says
The incompetence of Republican state governments?
Do tell, Sorin, and by the way, it is good to see you posting again, as we can always use the kind of light humor you are so good at providing.
What about the towering incompetence of Democratic Socialist governor of New York Andy Cuomo?
How have you forgotten him, who in a Press Release on March 1, 2020 entitled “Governor Cuomo Issues Statement Regarding Novel Coronavirus in New York” told us as follows:
“This evening we learned of the first positive case of novel coronavirus — or COVID-19 — in New York State.”
“There is no cause for surprise — this was expected.”
“As I said from the beginning, it was a matter of when, not if there would be a positive case of novel coronavirus in New York.”
“There is no reason for undue anxiety — the general risk remains low in New York.”
“We are diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as it becomes available.”
end quotes
Just forty (40) short days later, on April 10, 2020, NBC New York ran a story entitled “New York Has Most COVID-19 Cases in World, Deaths Top 7k as Curve Starts to Flatten” by Jennifer Millman , where we learned as follows about the towering incompetence of a Democratic Socialist administration, to wit:
New York saw its daily death toll spike to a new record Thursday for the third straight day, while New York City’s coronavirus toll surged well past 5,000 — more than the number killed on 9/11.
New York’s death toll alone is 44 percent of America’s, based on NBC News estimates.
As of Thursday, New York state had 7,067 deaths and 159,937 total cases; that caseload is more than any country in the world has reported to date, according to Johns Hopkins.
end quotes
So much for “(T)here is no reason for undue anxiety — the general risk remains low in New York,” and “(W)e are diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as it becomes available.”
Then, the next day, on March 2, 2020, the exceedingly arrogant Andy Cuomo came back with more braggadocio as follows:
“We have the best health-care system in the world, and we are leveraging that system to help contain any potential spread of the novel coronavirus in New York,” Governor Cuomo said.
“This isn’t our first rodeo – we are fully coordinated, we are fully mobilized, and we are fully prepared to deal with the situation as it develops.”
end quotes
32,218 COVID deaths later, we can all safely say, yeah right, Andy.
Maybe it wasn’t his first rodeo, but in all the others, he got bucked off just after the chute opened, and here, he did it all over again, which has him whining like a big crybaby, which he is, in the Albany Times Union article “New York DOH report says state blameless for nursing home deaths – Commissioner says data shows infections happened before controversial transfer policy” by Chris Bragg on July 6, 2020, to wit:
Asked on Monday if his administration could have done anything differently, Cuomo pinned the blame wholly on the federal government for not raising the alarm in December or January about the spread of COVID-19 to the U.S. from China and Europe.
By March 1, when New York had its first confirmed case, the disease had already spread widely here, Cuomo said.
“They should have said the virus was here when it was here,” Cuomo said.
“I don’t do global pandemics; I don’t have an international health department.”
end quotes
What an A-HOLE!
Now, Sorin, it may in fact be that the Republican state administrations are as incompetent as you say.
But they don’t hold a candle to Andy Cuomo of New York when it comes to being incompetent and having your arrogance and incompetence killing people like Andy Cuomo managed to do in New York.
Sorin Varzaru says
Well Paul, your love for Cuomo is well documented. Were there missteps in the handling the covid19 by Cuomo and the rest of the new York and NYC leadership. Obviously. But they got some things right, eventually. Unlike Florida and Texas who are still in denial.
Paul Plante says
“Love” for an ignorant thug who is an ex-Queens tough-guy tow-truck operator now Democratic Socialist governor of New York by the name of Andy Cuomo?
Surely you jest, and of course you do, which is what I meant about you bringing a lot of light humor into these otherwise serious discussions.
As a real American citizen, Sorin, I have no love for tyrants, thugs, despots and bullies, nor do I have respect for arrogant fools, so it would logically follow, then, and thanks for taking the time to call it to everyone’s attention lest they missed the contempt I have as an older America for Andy Cuomo in my own writings, that I have neither love nor respect for Andy Cuomo, who rules by fear.
And you obviously, in your delirium caused by too much CO2 in your system from constantly breathing too much recycled stale air though your mask, coupled with your zeal to run down the Republicans, who you hate, rightly or wrongly (I’m not a Republican, so I could give a damn, and I don’t), you haven’t been following the news because this was just out this morning, to wit:
Fox 11 Los Angeles
“California tops nation in positive COVID-19 cases as state breaks single-day record”
By Kelli Johnson
Published 22 July 2020
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced California has broken its single-day record for positive COVID-19 cases with an unprecedented 12,807 new cases and 115 deaths.
The state now leads the nation for positive cases, surpassing New York.
end quotes
Gavin Newsom is about as Democrat a Democrat as they come, nu este asa?
Seems Darwinism prefers Democrats as its agents more than it prefers Republicans.
Any thoughts on that, Sorin, why Darwinism would choose Democrats to kill more people in America than the Republicans have been able to manage?
Are the Democrats more effective killers because they simply don’t care about human life, being possessed of a depraved indifference towards it?
tokenny says
Aren’t you a real jackass but we knew that. “As a real American citizen, Sorin,”
Are there degrees of citizenship in America? What’s a “real” and “not real” America citizen? Did you do anything to get your citizenship?
Nothing but little digs attempting to show your superiority but we all know about those boasters – they usually ain’t.
Paul Plante says
tokenny, you are so funny I can’t tell you how hard I am laughing, because I don’t have words for it, but let’s say it is so hard I can’t hardly see through the tears!
Laughter is real good for the immune system, tokenny, so thanks for the humor.
You’re a natural born slapstick comedian doing pratfalls all over the place for laughs and that is a natural fact!
Paul Plante says
And to help you out here, a “real” American is someone like myself who was born here, not in some ****hole with a dictator like Egypt, Somalia, Pakistan, etc., so that I learned “American” values from the time I was young, not the values of some ****hole with a dictator.
As Tommy Jefferson said so long ago, the first consideration in immigration is the welfare of the receiving nation, which in this case happens to be us, the United States of America. a free nation unlike, say, the ****hole Ilhan Omar crawled up out of with her anti-American value system.
As Tommy said back then, in a new government based on principles unfamiliar to the rest of the world and resting on the sentiments of the people themselves, the influx of a large number of new immigrants unaccustomed to the government of a free society could be detrimental to that society.
As a “real” American, then, tokenny, it would follow that unlike say Ilhan Omar, I am accustomed from the time of my birth to government for a FREE society, not a subdued and cowed society like you would find in , say, Romania.
As Tommy said in his Notes on Virginia Q.VIII, 1782. ME 2:118:
“[Is] rapid population [growth] by as great importations of foreigners as possible… founded in good policy?”
“They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth.”
Note the words, tokenny, or have someone read them to you, “They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave …”
So they come from a ****hole with a thuggish dictator, and that is what they are accustomed to, som that is what they accept, which is why Andy Cuomo’s political base is immigrants in New York City, not “born here” Americans who can’t stand his guts.
So it would logically follow that as someone born here, a “real” American, I would have no love for tyrants, thugs, despots and bullies, nor do I have respect for arrogant fools like Andy Cuomo who rules by fear.
Glad to help you out this fine morning with a bit of very basic American citizenship which I learned in kindergarten, and I hope you have a glorious day.
Sorin Varzaru says
I guess time will tell, but if I were to place a bet, I’d say that under current leadership, Florida and Texas will very soon top California and New York numbers per capita, if they didn’t do it already. Anyways, I am not sure what you are doing, but I am writing this post on the shore of Good Canal in Washington state, not wearing a mask because there is no one around me. And my oxigen level is 99% even when I am wearing a mask because as anyone giving a shit about reality knows, masks don’t restrict oxygen under 99.99% of circumstances.
Paul Plante says
You’re a hoot, too, Sorin!
You and tokenny ought to team up as a comedy duo.
As to the mask, Sorin, you are breathing what is in the mask, which is what just came out of your nose, which is carbon dioxide, which is to say that you are recycling your own carbon dioxide, but you don’t have to believe that if you don’t want to believe it.
And interestingly, and you will like this because you are scientific and intellectual and likje facts as opposed to the usual emotional crap people are dishing out in these types of discussions, the Journal of Biological Engineering, J Biol Eng. 2016; 10: 4, published online 2016 Feb 9. doi: 10.1186/s13036-016-0025-4, PMCID: PMC4748517, PMID: 26865858, had an article of interest on the subject entitled “Respirator masks protect health but impact performance: a review” by Arthur T. Johnson, wherein was stated as follows, to wit:
Although the protective mechanisms of respirators are largely physical and sometimes chemical, wearing respirators come with a host of physiological and psychological burdens.
These can interfere with task performances and reduce work efficiency.
These burdens can even be severe enough to cause life-threatening conditions if not ameliorated.
Quantitative assessments of these burdens have been made so that respirator design trade-offs, wearer usages, and regulations can accommodate the needs of the wearer.
Understanding possible physiological and psychological effects of respirator wear requires a thorough understanding of the wearer and possible respirator effects.
Respirators may appear to be rather simple, but they can interfere with:
* respiration
* thermal equilibrium
* vision
* communication
* feelings of well-being
* personal procedures such as eating and sneezing
There are two basic principles relevant to respirator use:
Work cannot usually be performed as long or as hard while wearing a respirator compared to when respirators are not worn.
Wearing protective clothing plus respirators makes this situation even worse. Either more time must be allowed for a particular task or more workers must be assigned to the same task.
There is a great deal of wearer variability.
Some wearers can tolerate respirator high inspiratory or expiratory resistance or pressure levels, while others cannot.
Some wearers are much more anxious about wearing respirators than others.
Some wearers can tolerate hot, humid conditions inside respirators, whereas others cannot.
Because of this variability, each wearer must be treated as an individual.
end quotes
Just saying!
But you are talking about a simple mask like stage coach robbers and horse thieves wear, so hey, maybe none of that applies.
And consider this, Sorin – in America, Florida is known as the place where old people go to die.
The place is saturated with them.
Look at that place The Villages, for example – it is packed right up pretty solid with old Republicans.
So given all the old folks in Florida waiting to die, you would think Florida would be leading the nation in deaths, especially as those congregations of old people down there are pretty dense, but it’s not.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is California, which is considered a young state full of healthy people, and yet, it is now leading the nation.
How come?
Lisa Pruitt says
Tkenny
Funk You! Those indians could not protect their homes or loved ones, so they were taken from them. The Krauts and The Coolies would have done the same to the US if we had not whipped their a$$e$. We Bullied the hell out them.
Sorin Varzaru says
Wow. Wow. Thanks for Lisa for identifing yourself as a racist bully not that would be a surprise to anyone. I féel sorry for you.
Lisa Pruitt says
You are most welcome! I feel sorry for you girlfriend.
Paul Plante says
Citing history as it happened, Sorin, at least in America, is not “racist,” and only a complete imbecile could think otherwise, and by the way, these Native Americans are as much members of the human race as you or I, or at least me, in case you are some other race than human.
Sorin Varzaru says
Lisa thinks the Indians are inferior because they could not defend themselves and they deserved what they “got”. The common name for that is “racism”. You can argue that since we are all human there is no such thing. so I stand corrected, i can call her a disgusting human being instead of a “racist”.
Paul Plante says
Hitler and his raving pack of Nazis in Germany are inferior because they could not defend themselves and they deserved what they “got.”
Is that a racist statement do you think?
Or a statement of fact?
Saddam Hussein and his pack of Baathists are inferior because they could not defend themselves and they deserved what they “got.”
How about that?
Is that a racist statement?
Or does that make me a disgusting human being instead for thinking that way?
Tu ce crezi?
tokenny says
Paul, glad I could make you laugh but you still didn’t answer the question. Is there a degree of citizenship?
Rereading what you wrote originally, you went out of your way to make a distinction between the citizenship of someone born in the United States and someone from another country who became a citizen. You chose to perceive a difference. So it got me to thinking and I call BS you don’t see things as Black and White, that you see them as humans, there is only one race as you have stated..
Complete hogwash, as you would say. You’re as racist as they come.
Paul Plante says
Is there a degree of citizenship here in the United States of America?
Yes, I would certainly say so, having had mine relegated to second or third class compared to registered Democrats, who have first class citizenship in this country.
And rereading what I wrote originally, I most certainly did go out of my way to make a distinction between how somebody born free and raised in this country thinks about thugs who rule by fear, and despots and tyrants, versus somebody from some ****hole who came here after growing up in the ****hole.
That has absolutely nothing to do with “degrees of citizenship,” tokenny, because if you didn’t walk around for all those years with your head parked up in your *** when you were supposed to be learning this stuff, you would know that in America, and this is in theory, not actual practice, there are not supposed to be “degrees of citizenship,” even though in actuality, there are.
And you asked me before how it was that I got my citizenship, the answer to which is that I was lucky or blessed enough to be born here instead of in war-torn Europe at the end of WWII.
So the question isn’t one of how I got my citizenship, rather, it is one of what I have done with my citizenship since then, the answer to which is that I have served MY country honorably and loyally.
How about yourself?
What have you done with yours?
tokenny says
NEWS FLASH, man of history – not everything Jefferson said was correct. As a supposed man of history you sure do forget alot about it. We have had waves of immigrants and our form of government still stands.
We had millions of slaves freed at the end of the civil war- that didn’t change our form of government. In the 1800s we had multiple waves of immigrants from eastern and western Europe. Followed by millions of Germans, followed by millions of Asians and still our form of government didn’t change.
In the early 1900’s another wave from central, eastern and southern Europe. Again our form of government didn’t waver. We have had waves of Cubans and Somalis and yet we are still here, the same form of government.
Just admit your wrong instead of digging this hole you’re in deeper. I have way more respect from someone from another country who decides to become an American citizen then I do someone who was bestowed their citizenship and continually bitches about it. The value of their American citizenship is the same as yours.
,
Paul Plante says
Actually, tokenny, the value of my citizenship is less than theirs.
And you have the right to respect whom you will because of countless generations of veterans like myself who have stood on the line to protect that right for you, so thank veterans for your freedom, tokenny, and consider what it would mean to you and for you if veterans like myself finally decided people like you aren’t worth fighting for, aren’t worth bleeding for, and aren’t worth dying for.
Where would you be then, eh?
And seriously, tokenny, being quite charitable here with you this morning, given it is the Sabbath, and all that, you got some real serious issues with your cognitive functioning relating to the mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional and volitional processes.
What is the “form” of our government you say has not changed one whit since 1790?
Do you even know?
Can you explain the “form” of our government you say hasn’t changed to us?
What is it, tokenny?
An executive branch that is supposed to take care that our laws are enforced?
A bicameral legislative branch?
A judiciary?
Is that the form of our government, do you think?
How is that form any different from Germany under Adolph Hitler where they had the same things as the form of their government?
Or is the “form” of OUR government that which is stated in the Preamble, to wit:. To form a more perfect union — establish justice — insure domestic tranquility — provide for the common defence — promote the general welfare — and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity?
Focus on the words “insure domestic tranquillity,” where tranquillity is taken to mean calmness, peacefulness, quiet, serenity.
We DO NOT have domestic tranquility in this country today and you have named the causes and reasons for that above in your very learned disquisition on the subject, thank you very much!
And what about Noah Webster in his “A Citizen of America: An Examination Into the Leading Principles of America” essay on October 17, 1787, to wit:
The preamble to the constitution is declaratory of the purposes of our union, and the assumption of any powers not necessary to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, will be unconstitutional, and endanger the existence of Congress.
end quotes
Is that the form of OUR government, tokenny?
Or despite surface appearances, has it really become something entirely different?
Think about it carefully, tokenny!
And with respect to your serious cognitive processing issues, let’s go back to Thomas Jefferson and his Notes on Virginia Q.VIII, 1782. ME 2:118, where mhe asks this essential question youn can’t answer rationally, to wit:
“Is rapid population growth by as great importations of foreigners as possible founded in good policy?”
Take a look around you, tokenny, getting out of your little comfort zone, and tell us if what is going on in what used to be America today the beneficiary of “good policy?”
Of course, you are for the anarchy and the violence and so you are going to answer, yes, of course it is, because you like the anarchy and violence.
And in any event, as you again made clear in your learned disquisition above, that die has already long since been cast, and so, cannot be undone, which takes us to this next:
“They will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth; or, if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another.”
“It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.”
end quotes
Tell us, O wise one – is Tommy off the mark there in any way, do you think?
Getting back to Tommy, he states further as follows:
“In proportion to their number, they will share with us the legislation.”
“They will infuse into it their spirit, warp and bias its direction, and render it a heterogeneous, incoherent, distracted mass.”
end quotes
Isn’t that what we really have in the failing country today, tokenny?
tokenny says
Falling on the “veteran” crutch are we Paul? We are talking citizenship here Paul and how you feel there are degrees of citizenship.
Again, you and “Tommy” are off base. The population growth of the US is falling not increasing. So, are you and “Tommy” afraid of foreigners? You do realize this country was built upon foreigners and assimilation of cultures?
Look no further than yourself and your fellow Republicans here for a failing country my friend. They’re in charge not the Democrats, as much as you would like to think.
Paul, this discussion has run its course, you have tried to steer it away and I tire of bringing it back. You have laid out your prejudices quite clearly – denying that there is racism, believing that your citizenship is more “valued” because you were born here than the citizenship of someone who was not. I haven’t figured out if that is so un-American or American of you. Have a nice day.
Paul Plante says
FOR THE RECORD, EVERYONE, as our tokenny goes slinking back off to where he originally came skulking out of to turn this discussion far south of where it originally was, a discussion of how a real American does not tolerate nor fear thugs like Andy Cuomo who fancies himself the dictator of the corrupt third-world ****hole of New York where the illegal aliens who form Andy’s political base have a far better deal than do I, someone who was born here and who has served this country honorably and loyally as opposed to selling it out to the highest bidders as does Nancy Pelosi, it is our tokenny who has taken this discussion way off into the weeds by turning it from what it originally was, myself stating to Sorin, a Romanian who knows a lot more about life in dictatorial third-world ****holes far better than does tokenny, who only knows freedom because so many good Americans died in combat against fascism in France and Germany and Italy and North Africa and Sicily and the Pacific Islands to preserve that freedom from tyranny and oppression for him that as a natural-born American who has been free all his life that I have nothing but the utmost contempt for Andy Cuomo, a tyrant who rules by fear in the corrupt third-world ****hole of New York where the illegal immigrants who are his base get coddled by Andy at our expense, those of us merely born here, in the eyes of Andy, who is making New York state a home for immigrants from places where the people are very accustomed to and tolerant of having a dictator ruling over them.
Why tokenny made that transparent effort to divert this discussion over into something completely different, what his underlying motives were, remains a mystery as of the time of this writing.
What is he trying so hard to hide?
As of now, we truly do not kn0w.
Stay tuned then for further developments on this breaking story of political intrigue starring Cape Charles’ own slapstick comedian tokenny.
Stuart Bell says
I know a few veterans that would like for you to meet them in person and repeat the ‘crutch’ thing. Would you like to try?
Sorin Varzaru says
I was wondering when the threat of violence will come. Here it is. It’s the American way. Bully anyone that doesn’t align to your view of the world.
Paul Plante says
That, Sorin, has been the Democrat Party way here in the United States of America since the 1800’s anyway, using violence to get their way, as they did down south with their terrorist gangs like the KKK and White Shirts and Red Shirts after the Civil War, so it’s really the Democrat way, not the American way, to bully anyone that doesn’t align to their view of the world, and by the way, if you go back and carefully and unemo9tionaly read what Stuart Bell wrote in response to tokenny’s attempts to bully me, you will see no threat of violence in there, whatsoever.
With respect to Democrat party bullying, there is an interesting anecdote on the subject that you will enjoy, I am sure, being for the little guy as you are, and it relates to Teddy Roosevelt when he first came to the corrupt ****-hole of Albany, New York as a freshman assemblyman.
As to the corrupt ****hole of Albany, New York, political writer Paul Grondahl captures its essence quite vividly in the Prelude to his political thriller “I Rose Like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt,” to wit:
The New York State Legislature, which has convened in Albany since it became the state capital in 1797, epitomizes politics as plate tectonics.
It represents an ancient clash of opposing forces: downstate versus upstate, Republican versus Democrat, conservative versus liberal, insurgent versus incumbent, reformer versus party-liner.
Each January, for more than two centuries, the legislators have migrated to this modest river city, like the shad that have spawned in the Hudson River from time immemorial.
One hundred and fifty miles up the Hudson from Manhattan, the lawmakers convene to renew their seismic political battles.
Tremors are commonplace and full-scale quakes are expected.
In a city settled by the Dutch, which thrived in the Colonial era because of a bustling beaver trade, the coin of the realm in recent centuries has been the acquiring, spending, and replenishing of political capital.
Corruption, from the imperceptible to the spectacular, is as central to the rhythm of Albany across the ages of its political history as the tides on the Hudson River estuary.
end quotes
Andy Cuomo today not at all surprisingly is the KING of that corruption, Sorin, and while you think that you have experienced corruption in Romania, I would say that was penny-ante amateurish stuff compared to what goes on in Andy Cuomo’s personal empire of New York, where he reigns supreme because he rules by instilling fear in people.
Getting back to Paul Grondahl, we have:
The atmosphere in Albany during the legislative session is part carnival, part college fraternity.
Some of the city’s denizens are just passing through, looking to ride along on the political parade for a little while.
Others arrive full of idealism and a burning desire to make meaningful change.
A few seem perplexed to be elected public officials in the state’s capital, as if they had awoken from a Rip Van Winkle-like slumber to find themselves holding a seat in the Assembly or Senate.
It’s a dream job for some, a nightmare for others.
Many build their reputations here.
A few sacrifice their respectability on the altar of politics, learning the rules only to abuse them.
The Legislature is a closed system, a kind of political union shop.
The principles of prep school secret societies guide its old boys’ network, clubby familiarity, oaths of loyalty, and rituals of initiation.
end quotes
With respect to those who sacrifice their respectability on the altar of politics, learning the rules only to abuse them, topping that,list today id Andy Cuomo.
And now we come to Teddy Roosevelt, and the part you will like best because it is the triumph of the little guy over Democrat party evil, to wit:
Shortly upon arriving at the State Capitol in Albany as a freshman assemblyman from Manhattan in January of 1882, Theodore Roosevelt received his first lesson in the ceremonials of this secretive subculture.
The State Legislature was a world removed from Roosevelt’s familiar universe of cloistered privilege and enormous inheritances in Manhattan’s Gramercy Park neighborhood.
Albany, by comparison, was a rawboned, outlaw frontier town.
end quotes
Actually, having just recently been looted by a BLACK LIVES MATTER gang of hooligans and savages, it still is a rawboned, outlaw frontier town where Black lives in Black Town don’t matter at all to the other Black Lives who gun them down for the sport of it – thrill killings they call them.
Getting back to Teddy, we have:
Roosevelt was a boyish-looking and scrawny twenty-three-year-old who stood just five feet eight inches.
His education began in a dim corridor outside the Assembly chamber, where he was ambushed by “Big John” McManus, a massive brute and former heavyweight boxer who played the role of chief thug for the Tammany Hall political machine.
end quotes
I don’t know how they did things over there in your home town of Romania, Sorin, but in Albany, it is customary for the Democrat politicians, and today this starts with Andy Cuomo, to have what are called their “Pet Apes” that they can let “out of the cage” when they need some intimidating being done, especially the gutless, cowardly and craven members of the main-stream media.
Getting back to Teddy, we have:
McManus was an intimidating presence for Tammany, which had its tentacles wrapped around every stratum of the Legislature and state politics.
McManus had been milling about on the third floor of the Capitol with a crew of his sycophants, who were stirring up a plan to knock Roosevelt down a few notches and to pound some of the Harvard pretention out of this young, cocky newcomer.
McManus was rallying coconspirators around a plan to toss Roosevelt in a blanket, an embarrassing gag of that era tantamount to the prep school prank of flushing an underclassman’s head in a toilet bowl.
Roosevelt had caught wind of the hazing being contemplated against him, however.
He confronted the massive McManus.
Although Roosevelt was a head shorter and some one hundred pounds lighter, he locked eyes with McManus and spoke through clenched teeth, the veins standing up on his sinewy neck.
“By God!”
“McManus, I hear you are going to toss me in a blanket.”
“By God!”
“If you try anything like that, I’ll kick you, I’ll bite you, I’ll kick you in the balls.”
“I’ll do anything to you — you’d better leave me alone.”
Roosevelt’s spirited tirade stopped the brutish McManus in his tracks.
Quickly sensing that his coconspirators were losing their nerve, McManus called off the blanket tossing and his entourage of thugs cleared the Assembly corridor.
Little Teddy Roosevelt had stood up to the bully of the Legislature.
It was an auspicious beginning for the youngest state legislator ever to have been elected.
end quotes
Quite frankly, Sorin, as a natural-born American who detests bullies like Andy Cuomo, I like that story, and you know what – that’s how I see Stuart Bell standing up to tokenny’s bullying above here, and that Sorin, is the true American way, because while Democrats are thugs and bullies, real Americans who are not Democrats are not.
Sorin Varzaru says
“Natural born” Americans have a ridiculous sense of superiority that is not supported by any reasonable facts. What made America great, are the millions of immigrants that brought here their adventure spirit, their smarts and innovation. The hamburger, atomic bomb, Budweiser, Google, hotdogs, basketball, they are all things that “natural born” Americans would not have now without immigrants.
So, forget me for not having the kind of respect you seem to be expecting for being a “natural born” American.
As far as bullying, I didn’t point to Republicans or Democrats. Though the commander in chief certainly does seem to be following in the steps of hitler with his newly minted special troops he’s deploying to “fight crime”.
Paul, I’ve read your posts for a while now. You are a racist to your core. And just before you go on some rant about how there are no races, you think yourself as superior to people with other skin colors and people from other countries. I hate to break it to you. You are not special at all. You are an average Joe with a complex of superiority that found an outlet here for your endless rants.
I am an American citizen and was proud of becoming one. I hope a time will come when I’ll be proud of it again. As of now, for the last 4 years , I don’t feel is anything to brag about.
Note: These are not “newly minted” troops. Federal Special agents have been around since Elliot Ness. In the case of Elián González Attorney General Janet Reno sent federal agents who took González from the paternal relatives at gunpoint and returned him to his father in Cuba in June 2000. This was done under the Clinton admin, as were special agents aiding ATF in Waco (the film is a pretty accurate depiction).
Paul Plante says
Sorin, you are as wrong can possibly be – I don’t think myself superior to anyone, especially being a combat-disabled veteran over 70 years old, which is what makes your assertion so ******* ridiculous.
You have this picture in your mind from some propagandist that has painted combat veterans like myself as mindless berserkers and rievers, perhaps because of John Kerry’s senate speech where he likened us to some kind of Mongol horde, maybe Hulagu Khan’s, or one of them, anyway, and so you think that we only know violence, and therefore run around amuck getting into people’s faces telling them how superior we are to anyone else, especially the COMMIES over there in Russia (Is that a racist white supremacist statement, does anyone know?).
You think us brutes with low foreheads and a ridge of bone above our little pig eyes incapable of using reason.
But how wrong you are.
Oh, and welcome to America, Sorin, where you still can believe anything you want to believe, not because of Nancy Pelosi, who has single-handedly made the House of Representatives into a 24-hour a day CLOWN SHOW that is an embarrassment, and not because of Donald Trump, but because of veterans like me who won’t sell you out to the highest bidder the way the politicians will.
Getting back to operative reality here, the point you miss, the point that you seem unable to grasp, is that I am not inferior to anyone.
Why you are unable to grasp that concept of REPUBLICAN egalitarianism, the doctrine we have in this country, that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities, that I adhere to in life, eludes me.
Could it be because you don’t have a clue as to what it is?
And if that is so, how on earth were you made a citizen?
Sally Greene says
You keep bashing Veterans, karma will find you.
Paul Plante says
Sorin Varzaru , you are a weak, little coward who lacks respect. You will never be an American….no matter what you tell yourself.
Never.
Sorin Varzaru says
If being an American is being like you, racist , xenofobic, close minded, fearing change, topped off with a superiority complex, that is correct, I’ll never be one of those.
Sally Greene says
You keep bashing Veterans, karma will find you.
Paul Plante says
Either you are playing games here with my name here, Sorin, so you can heap some “shame” on me gratuitously, or somebody else is playing games with you, but that comment you are responding to with your vituperation is not mine.
Paul Plante says
That pisses me right off that someone has stolen my name above here.
Etnalp Luap says
You didn’t think this online world was real, did you? It is not. It is a place where a chinese woman can post as a white man, or a white man post as a black woman. This online space is cheap entertainment at best. Enjoy it for that, but real, it is not. Not hardly.
Paul Plante says
I’m a VEET NAM combat veteran.
I have known implicitly that reality is what you make of it, or not, for a long, long time now.
Thus, there is no reality but your reality, Etnalp Luap.
How would you say yours was treating you?
Or can’t you tell yet?
So many people can’t these days, you know.
Would you say that you were one of them?
Sorin Varzaru says
“Note: These are not “newly minted” troops. Federal Special agents have been around since Elliot Ness. In the case of Elián González Attorney General Janet Reno sent federal agents who took González from the paternal relatives at gunpoint and returned him to his father in Cuba in June 2000. This was done under the Clinton admin, as were special agents aiding ATF in Waco (the film is a pretty accurate depiction).”
I stand corrected, though I find that the distinction lacks relevance. whoever they are they act like thugs attacking anyone in their path. I’ve seen a video where they attacked, unprovoked , medics tending to injured people. even Nazis let medics do their work. Also, regardless of who is ordering it, sending special forces against unarmed civilians is cowardly to say the least.
Note: If you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. Not the fault of the police.
Paul Plante says
Sorin, have you ever bothered to get past the surface here and do a bit of in-depth digging?
If you did, you would know that it was Lyndon Baines Johnson, as DEMOCRAT as they come, who had the 82d Airborne and the 101st Airborne in Detroit in 1967 with live ammo and bayonets during the riots out there.
And what about April of 1968, when LBJ, as good a DEMOCRAT as there ever was, had federal troops on H street NE in Washington, D.C. during the famous Washington riots, a subject for high school children in America in their contemporary American history courses?
Why are you leaving that out of your narrative?
Do you think only Republicans are fascist thugs?
So, let’s fill some holes in your educational background by going hack to high school history, to wit:
Since taking office in 1963, Johnson had expressed interest in granting the District of Columbia self-government.
He viewed the passage of a home rule charter as an important piece of his broader civil rights agenda.
But the House District Committee, which oversaw local affairs from within the U.S. Congress, along with local white business and real estate groups, resisted home rule measures, fearing that the city’s black majority would dominate local elections and, in turn, the local government.
Following protracted battles with the House District Committee leadership, Johnson pushed through a reorganization plan that offered limited self-government to D.C. residents by replacing the city’s three commissioners with a single mayor-commissioner and a nine-member council appointed by the president.
Southern congressmen and white stakeholders — including Washington Post publisher Katharine Graham — continued to oppose black leadership.
Johnson himself did not initially want to appoint a black mayor.
In fact, he appointed Walter Washington, a 52-year-old politically moderate African American and head of New York City’s Housing Authority, for the top post only after a black Justice Department aide urged him to reconsider the poor racial optics of granting the majority-black city a greater degree of political independence only to appoint a white mayor.
The president continued to try to toe the line between granting black self-determination and preserving white control.
Although Johnson was willing to appoint a black mayor, he sided with the House District Committee’s southern representatives, the city’s white stakeholders and D.C.’s notoriously punitive police chief, John Layton, who did not want a black mayor to have control over the city’s police department.
But Walter Washington stood his ground, refusing to accept the job without jurisdiction over the police.
Because Johnson wanted to make a quick announcement, he relented in September 1967.
As the city’s newly appointed local government settled into office, the Johnson administration took aggressive measures to influence how the District would handle a potential uprising.
In December 1967, Johnson signed a D.C. crime bill that presented an increasingly punitive template for crime prevention designed by his conservative opponents.
The controversial bill permitted police officers to question suspects before their arraignment, introduced increased mandatory-minimum sentencing for certain crimes and allowed warrantless arrests for misdemeanors.
It also contained an antiriot provision, which included penalties of up to five years imprisonment and fines of up to $10,000 for engaging in, inciting or encouraging others to participate in a riot.
Then, with White House consent, Attorney General Ramsey Clark, a Texan known for his moderate views on law and order, established a secret intelligence unit within the Justice Department to collect information on black activists inside and outside the capital and to better coordinate responses with state and local officials.
It also allowed the U.S. Army to conduct its own surveillance operation and commissioned the Office of the Secretary of Defense to issue riot-control plans, which included pre-positioning Army officers in assigned precincts.
Collectively, these measures illustrated that the federal government would always overrule local black officials in the name of law and order.
On April 4, 1968, within a half-hour of hearing the news of King’s assassination, a crowd congregated on 14th and U Streets NW to mourn the loss of the great civil rights leader.
Protests quickly spread in black neighborhoods throughout the city, including the Seventh Street NW and H Street NE corridors.
By dawn, 14th Street had finally quieted down and, by midmorning April 5, the D.C. police confidently predicted the worst was over.
But it was wrong.
Following more protester-police confrontations that afternoon, federal officials took over, working both to suppress protesters and to limit the authority of local black officials.
On April 5, Johnson authorized the military to restore order.
By noon on April 8, the National Guard had stationed over 13,000 troops at key points throughout Washington.
It would be more than a week before troops stopped patrolling the city’s black neighborhoods.
Johnson had initially approached home rule with enthusiasm.
But the self-government measure he ultimately implemented, combined with his major crime fighting and riot prevention measures, limited the local black government’s response to the 1968 protests.
Meanwhile, white stakeholders and national lawmakers criticized the city’s black appointees for their purportedly lenient approach to the uprising and used the protests as evidence of the need to curb future home rule legislation.
There, Sorin, is some actual American history for you, and if you bother to consider it unemotionally, you will see who put in place the template Trump is using today, as well as creating the precedent.
There is nothing new under the sun, Sorin – it only seems that way to people who have been living asleep at the switch until this morning.
Sorin Varzaru says
I don’t care who did it before, it’s wrong now and it was wrong then. I guess I have to thank trump for being such a despicable human being that it awaken my interest in politics and social justice.
Paul Plante says
Define if you could, Sorin, how it is wrong.
Are you talking from an emotional perspective?
A legal perspective?
Or a political perspective?
Paul Plante says
And what do you consider to be “social justice,” Sorin?
Letting the savages loot, burn and destroy at will?
Have you ever bothered to look at photographs of the damage to the property of others the savages cause with their rioting?
And speaking of that, what has the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis got to do with the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon?
Supposing I was some poor black person with a civil rights complaint waiting trial in federal court in Portland.
I would be pretty much screwed, would I not, since the savages have got the courthouse closed, DENYING ME JUSTICE!
How does that fit into your “social justice” formula?
Should the howling mob of savages be allowed to burn down the federal courthouse and my legal papers along with it?
Is that social justice in action, do you think?
And how are these savages different from the Iron Guard death squads in Romania, who were also for social justice at the point of an assassin’s blade.
As you must recall, and as we were taught as children in this country when I was young, during the 1930s, three notable death squads emerged from Romania’s Iron Guard: the Nicadori, the Decemviri and the Răzbunători.
Motivated by a combination of fascist political ideology and religious-nationalist mysticism, they carried out several high-level political assassinations in the inter-war period.
As we learned as children, death was a central part of the Iron Guard’s ideology.
Its members, known as Legionnaires, were officially asked “to embrace death” if needed; in practice, they were supposed to be ready to both give and embrace death — in other words, to be willing to assassinate their political enemies at the risk of their own life.
As someone with an intellectual bent, to understand the psyche of these savages in this country, I personally think it is necessary to study groups like the Iron Guard of Romania to try and get an inkling of what might be running through the minds of these savages today.
What do you think?
Is it an apt comparison?
Sorin Varzaru says
“And what do you consider to be “social justice,” Sorin?
Letting the savages loot, burn and destroy at will?
Have you ever bothered to look at photographs of the damage to the property of others the savages cause with their rioting?”
I’m not a fan of riots or looting. But there is a big difference between that and people protesting peacefully. LEOs should be capable of making the distinction and have the required restraint to treat people differently. Those goons from bortac obviously have none of that going. Also so called LEOs driving around in unmarked vans, with masks and no identification and loading up people from the street without due process or anything else resembling a lawful process should scare the shit of you you, the vet who fought for freedom.
Paul Plante says
That BULL****, Sorin, both right-wing and left-wing, has been going on in this country longer than I have been alive.
After WWII, both J. Edger Hoover and Allen Dulles of the CIA brought scads of former Nazis into this country to counter the left-wing, COMMIE BULL**** coming here from Europe and the Soviet Union going back to the 1920s.
Consider the New York Times article “In Cold War, U.S. Spy Agencies Used 1,000 Nazis” by Eric Lichtblau on Oct. 26, 2014, as follows:
WASHINGTON — In the decades after World War II, the C.I.A. and other United States agencies employed at least a thousand Nazis as Cold War spies and informants and, as recently as the 1990s, concealed the government’s ties to some still living in America, newly disclosed records and interviews show.
At the height of the Cold War in the 1950s, law enforcement and intelligence leaders like J. Edgar Hoover at the F.B.I. and Allen Dulles at the C.I.A. aggressively recruited onetime Nazis of all ranks as secret, anti-Soviet “assets,” declassified records show.
They believed the ex-Nazis’ intelligence value against the Russians outweighed what one official called “moral lapses” in their service to the Third Reich.
The agency hired one former SS officer as a spy in the 1950s, for instance, even after concluding he was probably guilty of “minor war crimes.”
And in 1994, a lawyer with the C.I.A. pressured prosecutors to drop an investigation into an ex-spy outside Boston implicated in the Nazis’ massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in Lithuania, according to a government official.
Evidence of the government’s links to Nazi spies began emerging publicly in the 1970s.
But thousands of records from declassified files, Freedom of Information Act requests and other sources, together with interviews with scores of current and former government officials, show that the government’s recruitment of Nazis ran far deeper than previously known and that officials sought to conceal those ties for at least a half-century after the war.
In 1980, F.B.I. officials refused to tell even the Justice Department’s own Nazi hunters what they knew about 16 suspected Nazis living in the United States.
The bureau balked at a request from prosecutors for internal records on the Nazi suspects, memos show, because the 16 men had all worked as F.B.I. informants, providing leads on Communist “sympathizers.”
Five of the men were still active informants.
Refusing to turn over the records, a bureau official in a memo stressed the need for “protecting the confidentiality of such sources of information to the fullest possible extent.”
Some spies for the United States had worked at the highest levels for the Nazis.
One SS officer, Otto von Bolschwing, was a mentor and top aide to Adolf Eichmann, architect of the “Final Solution,” and wrote policy papers on how to terrorize Jews.
Yet after the war, the C.I.A. not only hired him as a spy in Europe, but relocated him and his family to New York City in 1954, records show.
The move was seen as a “a reward for his loyal postwar service and in view of the innocuousness of his [Nazi] party activities,” the agency wrote.
Image
His son, Gus von Bolschwing, who learned many years later of his father’s ties to the Nazis, sees the relationship between the spy agency and his father as one of mutual convenience forged by the Cold War.
“They used him, and he used them,” Gus von Bolschwing, now 75, said in an interview.
“It shouldn’t have happened.”
“He never should have been admitted to the United States.”
“It wasn’t consistent with our values as a country.”
When Israeli agents captured Eichmann in Argentina in 1960, Otto von Bolschwing went to the C.I.A. for help because he worried they might come after him, memos show.
Agency officials were worried as well that Mr. von Bolschwing might be named as Eichmann’s “collaborator and fellow conspirator and that the resulting publicity may prove embarrassing to the U.S.” a C.I.A. official wrote.
After two agents met with Mr. von Bolschwing in 1961, the agency assured him it would not disclose his ties to Eichmann, records show.
He lived freely for another 20 years before prosecutors discovered his wartime role and prosecuted him.
He agreed to give up his citizenship in 1981, dying months later.
In all, the American military, the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and other agencies used at least 1,000 ex-Nazis and collaborators as spies and informants after the war, according to Richard Breitman, a Holocaust scholar at American University who was on a government-appointed team that declassified war-crime records.
The full tally of Nazis-turned-spies is probably much higher, said Norman Goda, a University of Florida historian on the declassification team, but many records remain classified even today, making a complete count impossible.
“U.S. agencies directly or indirectly hired numerous ex-Nazi police officials and East European collaborators who were manifestly guilty of war crimes,” he said.
“Information was readily available that these were compromised men.”
The wide use of Nazi spies grew out of a Cold War mentality shared by two titans of intelligence in the 1950s: Mr. Hoover, the longtime F.B.I. director, and Mr. Dulles, the C.I.A. director.
Mr. Dulles believed “moderate” Nazis might “be useful” to America, records show.
Mr. Hoover, for his part, personally approved some ex-Nazis as informants and dismissed accusations of their wartime atrocities as Soviet propaganda.
In 1968, Mr. Hoover authorized the F.B.I. to wiretap a left-wing journalist who wrote critical stories about Nazis in America, internal records show.
Mr. Hoover declared the journalist, Charles Allen, a potential threat to national security.
John Fox, the bureau’s chief historian, said: “In hindsight, it is clear that Hoover, and by extension the F.B.I., was shortsighted in dismissing evidence of ties between recent German and East European immigrants and Nazi war crimes.”
end quotes
That story goes on and on, Sorin, and it never has been a secret in this country, because members of the U.S. military were involved at the end of WWII in aiding and assisting these Nazis in Europe where they were hiding after the war to get to what were called Allen Dulles’ “ratlines,” https://erenow.net/modern/the-devils-chessboard-allen-dulles-the-cia/6.php which itself is a very interesting story.
An old friend of mine who was a paratrooper in the 82d Airborne and jumped into France on D-Day was kept in Europe after the war as part of a team to go rescue these special Nazis.
So yes, as an American citizen, this BULL**** should theoretically “scare” me.
But it doesn’t because I am not a part of that on-going war between the left-wingers and anarchists versus the right-wingers.
That war has been going on all my life and I don’t see it ever ending, to be truthful.
Unless maybe Ragnorok finally happens.
And I have zero sympathy for those blockading that federal courthouse so as to deny real justice to poor Americans who now can’t get access to justice in a federal court of law, because these anarchists and thugs in Portland have denied it to them, in the mocking name of social justice for George Floyd, who is dead.
And Sorin, reflecting back, I fought for the concept of freedom.
As these anarchists and thugs in Portland who have closed off access to justice in a federal court of law for the poor folks, freedom from their kind of tyranny in this country no longer exists.
Sorin Varzaru says
“So yes, as an American citizen, this BULL**** should theoretically “scare” me.
But it doesn’t because I am not a part of that on-going war between the left-wingers and anarchists versus the right-wingers.”
I know you LOVE quotes, so here is one for you
”
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Paul Plante says
That’s saying is now as old as the hills, Sorin.
It goes back to the Nazis in Germany.
Is it true that it happened that way?
And exactly what relevance does it have today here in the United States of America?
Do you see it happening here in the United States of America in our lifetimes?
And what do you think we should do about it?
Get on TWITTER and TWEET like crazy about it?
Get on FACEBOOK and join some group?
How about I drop everything I have to get done to secure my life for another winter, which isn’t all that far in the future, and make my way across the country some 2,921.6 miles out to Portland to join that crowd of what you call “peaceful” protestors blocking access to justice for other Americans in the federal court out there?
Or maybe go to Saratoga and lay down in the road and block traffic like BLACK LIVES MATTER just did the other day.
Will that help to stop them coming for the socialists, and the trade unionists, and the Jews, and then me?
Sorin Varzaru says
“Will that help to stop them coming for the socialists, and the trade unionists, and the Jews, and then me?”
It’s a better chance of stoping them by doing any of the things you mentioned, then doing nothing at all.
Posting about it raises attention to the thugs sent by trump and maybe sufficient people who are leery about sending SS commandos against unarmed protestors will show up to vote in November.
Paul Plante says
An old friend of mine who was a paratrooper with the 82d Airborne in WWII, who jumped into Normandy on D-Day and then fought his way across Europe actually fought real SS commandos, Sorin.
The Malmedy Massacre on 17 December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, where eighty-four American prisoners of war were massacred by their German captors after being assembled in a field and shot with machine guns, was a war crime committed by members of Kampfgruppe Peiper (part of the SS Division Leibstandarte), a German Waffen-SS unit led by Joachim Peiper, at Baugnez crossroads near Malmedy, Belgium.
At the post-war Nuremberg Trials, the Waffen-SS was judged to be a criminal organisation due to its connection to the Nazi Party and direct involvement in numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Those are SS commandos, Sorin.
Personally, I think it is a bit of a stretch to call anyone in Portland an SS commando, outside of the ANTI-FA.
Certainly, I’m not going to make an ass out of myself, knowing the difference, to call anyone but ANTI-FA an “SS commando.”
Sorin Varzaru says
Trump sent BORTAC. From their pamflet :
BORTAC’s Selection and Training Course (BSTC)
was designed to mirror aspects of the U.S. Special
Operations Forces’ selection courses.
Sounds like commandos to me.
Paul Plante says
Sorin, don’t you think you are being over-emotional here as well as overly dramatic?
For the record, at least as we know the term, a “commando” is a soldier specially trained to carry out raids.
Is that what you see going on here – commandos in Portland, Oregon carrying out raids on the BLM crowd?
Truthfully, I haven’t been paying any attention to what is going on out there, so if there are in fact commandos, as you call them carrying out raids in Portland, I missed that news.
Now, above here @ August 1, 2020 at 7:26 pm, you said and I quote:
Posting about it raises attention to the thugs sent by trump and maybe sufficient people who are leery about sending SS commandos against unarmed protestors will show up to vote in November.
end quotes
As I said above, however, the SS, or Schutzstaffel, literally ‘Protection Squadron,’ was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe during World War II.
It began with a small guard unit known as the Saal-Schutz (“Hall Security”) made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for party meetings in Munich.
In 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit, which had by then been reformed and given its final name.
Under his direction (1929–1945) it grew from a small paramilitary formation during the Weimar Republic to one of the most powerful organizations in Nazi Germany.
From the time of the Nazi Party’s rise to power until the regime’s collapse in 1945, the SS was the foremost agency of security, surveillance, and terror within Germany and German-occupied Europe.
The two main constituent groups were the Allgemeine SS (General SS) and Waffen-SS (Armed SS).
The Allgemeine SS was responsible for enforcing the racial policy of Nazi Germany and general policing, whereas the Waffen-SS consisted of combat units within Nazi Germany’s military.
A third component of the SS, the SS-Totenkopfverbände, literally “Death’s Head Units,” ran the concentration camps and extermination camps.
Additional subdivisions of the SS included the Gestapo and the Sicherheitsdienst (SD) organizations.
They were tasked with the detection of actual or potential enemies of the Nazi state, the neutralization of any opposition, policing the German people for their commitment to Nazi ideology, and providing domestic and foreign intelligence.
The SS was the organization most responsible for the genocidal killing of an estimated 5.5 to 6 million Jews and millions of other victims during the Holocaust.
Members of all of its branches committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during World War II (1939–45).
The SS was also involved in commercial enterprises and exploited concentration camp inmates as slave labor.
So as I said @ August 2, 2020 at 11:39 am, personally, I think it is a bit of a stretch to call anyone in Portland an SS commando, outside of the ANTI-FA, so I’m not going to make an ass out of myself, knowing the difference, to call anyone but ANTI-FA an “SS commando.”
So now you have changed tack and are equating U.S. special forces to Hitler’s SS, and in doing so, Sorin, you are taking for a trip to outer space.
In this country, which is not yet Nazi Germany, the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (SWCS) primarily trains and educates United States Army personnel for the United States Army Special Operations Command (USASOC) and United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which includes Special Forces, Civil Affairs, and Psychological Operations personnel.
Its purpose is to recruit, assess, select, train and educate the U.S. Army Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations and Special Forces Soldiers by providing training and education, developing doctrine, integrating force-development capability, and providing career management.
The command originated in 1950, when the U.S. Army developed the Psychological Warfare (PSYWAR) Division of the Army General School at Fort Riley, Kansas.
The U.S. Army Psychological Warfare Center and School, which included operational tactical units and a school under the same umbrella, moved to Fort Bragg in 1952.
SWCS offers 41 different courses, including courses for Civil Affairs, Psychological Operations, Special Forces and Cultural Support.
Advanced skills courses include combat diver training in Key West, Florida, sniper training at Fort Bragg and military freefall training at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona.
Regional studies and education constitutes Phase II of the three branches’ qualification courses.
This phase lasts 18 to 24 weeks depending on the language category (CAT) assigned them.
Students who are assigned to CAT I or II languages such as Spanish, French and Indonesian spend 18 weeks of study with the end goal being to achieve a score of 2 on the Interagency Language Roundtable Scale (ILR).
Students spend 24 weeks studying CAT III or IV languages such as Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Tagalog, Persian, Korean, Thai, Pashto, or Urdu with the end goal being to achieve an ILR score of III or IV (indicating professional proficiency).
All students must pass an Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) before moving to the next phase of their qualification course.
As to the training you mention, the first phase of the Special Forces Qualification Course is Special Forces Assessment and Selection (SFAS), consisting of 24 days of training held at Camp Mackall.
Events in SFAS include numerous long distance land navigation courses.
All land navigation courses are conducted day and night under heavy loads of equipment, in varied weather conditions, and in rough, hilly terrain.
Land navigation work is done individually with no assistance from instructors or fellow students and is always done on a time limit.
Each land navigation course has its maximum time limit reduced as course moves along and are upwards of 12 miles (19 km) each.
Instructors evaluate candidates by using obstacle course runs, team events including moving heavy loads such as telephone poles and old jeep trucks through sand as a 12-man team, the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), a swim assessment, and numerous psychological exams such as IQ tests and the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB) test.
The final event, which was discontinued in early 2009 and reintroduced sometime before December 2013, is a road march of up to 32 miles (51 km) known as “the Trek” or Long Range Individual Movement (LRIM).
We have special forces in this country, Sorin, because John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, decreed that for the defense of this nation, we needed them to fight against other countries who had organizations like Hitler’s SS.
So you are getting yourself all tangled up here, Sorin with your attempt to paint our special forces soldiers as some kind of Nazis.
Just saying, anyway.
Sorin Varzaru says
Fine, special forces. Not commandos. Happy? Trump sent special forces to “fight” unarmed protestors who did some minor damage to a building. I gave seen footage of these assholes beating medics, completely unprovoked. Thugs!
Paul Plante says
Whatever, Sorin, call them what you will.
If you want to think of them as SS commandos, be my guest.
As for me, to be honest, I haven’t been paying any attention at all to what is going on out in Portland.
It’s not a function of my reality, which is that of a disabled veteran over 70 years of age who lives in a cold climate with winter coming.
I honestly do not have the time or the inclination to pay attention to what is going on in Portland.
If the special forces commandos are beating the **** out of them out there because they are blocking entry to a federal courthouse so as to deprive the American people out there of access to justice in a federal court of law, oh, well!
Same old ****, different day, if you happen to remember the riots in Chicago in 1968 during the Democrat national convention, or the Dow riots, an anti-war protest on the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus on Oct. 18, 1967 when hundreds of students protesting recruiters from Dow Chemical, the makers of napalm, blocked access to the University’s Commerce Building, and Madison police removed them by force, so that dozens of students were beaten bloody, tear gas was used for the first time in an anti-war demonstration, and 19 police officers were treated at local hospitals.
If I was to get all emotional about this **** like you are, I would be an emotional basket case by now, which is where you are heading with all your angst about Portland.
And I am still waiting for you to explain how the murder of George Floyd, known by all to be the living epitome of the model American citizen, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1,730 miles east of Portland, Oregon, justifies the Portland mob closing down the federal courthouse out there so as to deprive American citizens of access to justice in a federal court of law.
Note: Sorin should note that these are US Marshalls, not Special Forces. Geez.
Paul Plante says
Sorin, let me take this opportunity to apologize to you on behalf of the people of America for the crowd out in Hollywood misleading you about the United States of America and leading you over here on what were false pretenses.
The streets were never paved with gold.
All the women are not whores.
And the place is far from perfect, never having been perfect to begin with.
Too bad that you were sucked in as you were by the Hollywood movie makers.
And for that, we owe you an apology.
Maybe even reparations for having ruined your life by deceiving you so.
You actually might have been better off staying in Romania, when you think about it, since there is no Donald Trump over there, or SS commandos beating the crap out of a bunch of real A-HOLES in Portland, Oregon who are denying American people access to justice in a federal court of law.
Sorin Varzaru says
“You actually might have been better off staying in Romania, when you think about it, since there is no Donald Trump over there, or SS commandos beating”
Paul, your ability to rationalize anything is outstanding. You and your conservative friends here would literally vote for Hitler if it furthered your anti liberal agenda.
As such, I will bow out of this thread. Cheers
Paul Plante says
It was people like me, Sorin, and what you call my “conservative” friends in here who whipped Hitler’s *** but good for him in WWII.
A “conservative” uncle of mine used to fly as a waist gunner on the American bombers out of North Africa that were bombing the **** out of the fascists in Romania who were on the side of Hitler, so I think you got your connections crossed as to who the fans of Hitler, the rug-chewing madman, actually were, and it was not people like me and what you call my “conservative” friends.
And my goodness, Sorin, what a sour attitude on your part when the apology was both real and sincere.
Sorin Varzaru says
“And my goodness, Sorin, what a sour attitude on your part when the apology was both real and sincere.”
Bullshit. And sure, Americans fought the Nazis. That doesn’t mean your hate of the liberal agenda won’t make you blind to the totalitarian regime Trump is dreaming about which conservatives are supporting by bowing to the orange POTUS.
Paul Plante says
EARTH TO SORIN:
POINT I: I am not a conservative, I am a human being.
POINT II: I don’t support fascists!
POINT III: If I supported fascists, I would be a Democrat.
POINT IV: I didn’t vote for Donald Trump, I wouldn’t vote for Donald Trump, I haven’t supported Donald Trump in the past, I don’t support Donald Trump today, and frankly, I don’t like Donald Trump.
POINT V: Donald Trump can dream all he wants about a totalitarian regime, but his dreams do not make it so, anymore than the dreams of “Corn Pop” Biden will make his anti-conservative agenda and his totalitarian regime come true.
POINT VI: As a liberal, I sincerely to apologize to you on behalf of the people of America for the crowd out in Hollywood misleading you about the United States of America and leading you over here on what were obviously false pretenses on their part.
The streets in America were never paved with gold.
All the women in America are not whores despite Hollywood making the naive like yourself looking in from the outside believe they are.
And the place is far from perfect, never having been perfect to begin with.
So I am sincerely sorry that you were sucked in as you were by the Hollywood movie makers.
And for that, we American people who were born here owe you an apology.
Maybe even reparations for having ruined your life by deceiving you so.
You actually might have been better off staying in Romania, when you think about it, since there is no Donald Trump over there, or SS commandos beating the crap out of a bunch of real A-HOLES in Portland, Oregon who are denying American people access to justice in a federal court of law.
Paul Plante says
And what exactly is this “liberal agenda” you are always on about, Sorin?
Do you even know?
Can you articulate it in rational and logical terms, instead of getting all emotional about it?
It is a Marxist dictatorship they intend for us, is it not?
Sorin Varzaru says
“Can you articulate it in rational and logical terms, instead of getting all emotional about it?
It is a Marxist dictatorship they intend for us, is it not?”
Who’s getting emotional now?
I was not very precise, I was referring to “social liberalism”.
Here you go :
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_liberalism
And for me the relevant bits are this : secularism in government 100%. I also don’t want kids brainwashed into any religious ideology on my dime. I think gay people should not be prevented from getting married. It doesn’t hurt you, why on earth would you care. Healthcare should be a right in any country.
Paul Plante says
Reading your post with respect to the question of who is getting emotional, I would have to say it appears to be yourself.
But that’s okay, Sorin, better for your mental health to let the emotions out in stead of making yourself a literal basket case by keeping them all bottled up inside.
As for your “social liberalism,” Sorin, I don’t know where you have been all these years, but here in the United States of America where I am, and have been for over 70 years, not counting the time spent in VEET NAM fighting on behalf of Democrat LBJ to impose social liberalism on the Vietnamese at the point of a bayonet, unlike say Romania, where there is no effective separation of church and state, and as I understand it, according to Law no. 142/1999, state-recognized religious denominations employees receive salaries from the state budget, so that all Romanian citizens who pay taxes contribute to clergy salaries, regardless of their religious affiliation, in this country, unlike Romania, we have secularism in government 100%, so that you need not fear kids being brainwashed into any religious ideology on your dime.
And as to you thinking gay people should not be prevented from getting married, they are not prevented from getting married, and in fact, had you been paying the slightest but of attention to the world outside of yourself, you would know that Democrat presidential contender “Pistol Pete” Buttigieg was a gay dude married to Chastin.
There are tons of gay people who are married in America, Sorin, scads of them, in fact, and I even know some, and it doesn’t hurt me, so why on earth would I waste precious time caring what the gay folks are doing?
In fact, Sorin, five (5) years ago on August 2, 2015, the liberal publication the Cape Charles Mirror ran an article on that very subject entitled “DESTINATION: GAY CAPE CHARLES” wherein was stated thusly, to wit:
This June, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that state-level bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and the refusal to recognize those marriages performed in other jurisdictions violates the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
“Under the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right,” Kennedy wrote.
In essence, the ruling recognized the LGBT community as fundamental to American life.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who has written all of the court’s decisions recognizing and expanding gay rights, said the decision was based on the fundamental right to marry and the equality that must be afforded gay Americans.
From an economic standpoint, Cape Charles as a wedding destination could benefit greatly.
At SheWired.com, Cape Charles was ranked 15th best gay wedding destination in the country:
Cape Charles, VA – Once you get to this remote location the beauty and charm will overwhelm you and your guests!
This small beach town is unmatched for brides looking for a beautiful and secluded destination, especially since you need to cross a 23 mile bridge to get there!
Of course, the Mirror staff disputes that ranking, noting that our sunsets alone should move us up to at least number seven.
That said, advertising and promoting the Town as an LGBT wedding destination should be part of our integrated Tourism strategy, which benefits not only hospitality professionals, but other members of the workforce such as photographers, event specialists such as Eastern Shore Events & Rentals , all the part time staff that do everything from setup to parking, and even the aquaculture industry.
Long term, it may also lead to more LGBT&Q folks deciding to make this their home, making our community more diverse, vibrant and culturally relevant.
end quotes
Talk about real patriotic American social liberalism, Sorin, there it is staring you in the face, big as life, FIVE FULL YEARS AGO NOW.
And of course, and this is speaking as someone qualified to practice as an associate level public health engineer, of course healthcare should be a right in any country.
What idiot told you otherwise?
Of course, achieving that goal is sometimes not as easy as saying it should be so, for many reasons.
Consider Romania, for example.
Romania offers benefits of a universal healthcare system.
Citizens of the European Union, along with Romanian citizens without paid insurance have the right to free emergency medical assistance.
However, at the same time, Romania has Europe’s highest rate of hospital-acquired infections.
Though the country produces high numbers of medical graduates, many do not stay to practice.
Since joining the EU in 2007, Romania has hemorrhaged 15,000-20,000 doctors, who move in search of better pay.
And that is in a country with a population of only 19.41 million.
Consider that the population in this country is some 321 million.
And consider Sierra Leone which has the dubious distinction of being the worst country in providing healthcare to its citizens, with a score of 0.00 on the WHO health systems performance index.
It is an African coastal country bordered by Guinea and Liberia, and has a population of almost 6 million.
So yes, Sorin, health care should be a right all over the world, but the devil is in the details.
Make it happen if you can!
Sorin Varzaru says
Your conservative friends are doing every they can to reverse all the progress us has made in these areas. Gays marriage threatens their families (somehow), getting government funding for religious schools, getting churches involved in politics, reversing roe vs Wade, etc. I am nouns fan of everything Democrats do, but conservatives would have us back to the dark ages.
Paul Plante says
I don’t have any conservative friends, Sorin.
All my friends are into social liberalism and have been for years.
Paul Plante says
And Sorin, I know that for you, living in a free country scares you and confuses you and thus deprives you of the ability to think clearly and rationally, but here in America, when the United States Supreme Court rules as it did in Obergefell v. Hodges that state-level bans on same-sex marriage are unconstitutional and that the denial of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and the refusal to recognize those marriages performed in other jurisdictions violates the Due Process and the Equal Protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution, and that “(U)nder the Constitution, same-sex couples seek in marriage the same legal treatment as opposite-sex couples, and it would disparage their choices and diminish their personhood to deny them this right,” in essence, recognizing the LGBT community as fundamental to American life, which decision was based on the fundamental right to marry and the equality that must be afforded gay Americans, then regardless of what you and all your conservative friends might think about it, the matter is SETTLED unless and until you and your conservative friends can go to court with a valid case and get that decision overturned, and good luck with that is my thought.
In America, Sorin a Supreme Court decision is LAW OF THE LAND, and applies to you and your conservative friends as well as everyone else in America.
Sorin Varzaru says
I am familiar with the role of Scotus , which is why I am terrified about another 4 years of trump. All the rulings about LGBT, choice, etc are something conservatives are itching to overturn. Another 4 years of trump and two more conservative judges and US will look “the handmaid tale” TV show.
Paul Plante says
I don’t own a TV, viewing the thing as a running sewer outfall I don’t want inside my home to pollute it with excrement and garbage, and I don’t watch it, since I have no desire to be made stupid, so I am totally clueless as to what “the handmaid tale” TV show is all about, other than it is probably juvenile and infantile and plain stupid, some type of pablum produced by fools and idiots to feed the minds of morons, so what it might be relevant to, God alone knows, because I don’t.
With that said, the justices of the Supreme Court cannot simply sit down and on their own reverse some prior decision like gay marriage.
IF gay marriage were to be overturned, there would have to be a challenge in some lower court, since min America, at least, some conservative that you are so scared of cannot simply waltz into the Supreme Court and ask his conservative buddies and pals to do away with what the court has previously ruled, right or wrong, is a “right” enjoyed by certain members of the public, like the gays.
In this country, we have a doctrine known as “stare decisis,” which the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute tells us is Latin for “to stand by things decided.”
They continue by stating that courts cite to stare decisis when an issue has been previously brought to the court and a ruling already issued.
According to the Supreme Court, stare decisis “promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.”
In practice, the Supreme Court will usually defer to its previous decisions even if the soundness of the decision is in doubt.
A benefit of this rigidity is that a court need not continuously reevaluate the legal underpinnings of past decisions and accepted doctrines.
Moreover, proponents argue that the predictability afforded by the doctrine helps clarify constitutional rights for the public.
The doctrine operates both horizontally and vertically.
Horizontal stare decisis refers to a court adhering to its own precedent.
A court engages in vertical stare decisis when it applies precedent from a higher court.
Consequently, stare decisis discourages litigating established precedents, and thus, reduces spending.
Although courts seldom overrule precedent, Justice Rehnquist explained that stare decisis is not an “inexorable command.”
On occasion, the Court will decide not to apply the doctrine if a prior decision is deemed unworkable.
In addition, significant societal changes may also prompt the Court to overrule precedent; however, any decision to overrule precedent is exercised cautiously.
So if some conservative wants to overturn gay marriage, I would say they have some heavy lifting in front of them.
And as to FASCISM, you still haven’t clued to why Trump is president and not Hillary Clinton, have you.
Why isn’t Hillary president, Sorin?
The answer is that people hated her guts based on her past performance and discriminatory statements, and they greatly feared what life in America would be like if she became our dictator, which is what she would have been.
Under her, the would look like “the handmaid tale” TV show.
Trump is president because America did not want four more years of the Hussein Obama administration forced upon us by a dangerous lunatic named Hillary Clinton.
The default was Trump.
So thank Obama for making Trump president, Sorin, along with the Democrats offering up Hillary Clinton as their choice.
As for me, I am sick and tired of what the conservatives think, and what the liberals think, because I have been listening to that same BULL**** for well over fifty years, and if you bothered to read in depth about the impeachment of Andy Johnson after the Civil War, you will see the same BULL**** happening then, as well.
Paul Plante says
And Sorin, seriously, dude, I personally don’t have an anti-liberal agenda, because there isn’t such a thing in the first place, and in the second place, I myself am about as liberal as they come, so why would I then have an agenda against myself?
It would be a sign of some kind of mental deficiency, wouldn’t it – hating myself because I was a liberal?
Sounds sick to me, anyway, hating yourself because you are a liberal.
But hey, there are a lot of real sick minds in America today, so I suppose it is both possible and feasible to find scads of people out there who think, but at not sure, whether they are liberals and so hate themselves as a result.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that, anyway.
As I say, a lot of real strange people loose out there in America, so nothing really surprises me, anymore.
Sorin Varzaru says
“And Sorin, seriously, dude, I personally don’t have an anti-liberal agenda, because there isn’t such a thing in the first place, and in the second place, I myself am about as liberal as they come, so why would I then have an agenda against myself?”
You? Liberal? That’s funny.
Paul Plante says
Those “peaceful” protesters as you call them, Sorin, who have closed down the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, so that simple people seeking justice in a court of law are now denied that opportunity by these so-called “peaceful” protesters, what exactly is it that their “peaceful” protest which has closed down justice in Portland is all about?
Do you have a clue?
Or is it a protest for the sake of protesting?
Sorin Varzaru says
“Those “peaceful” protesters as you call them, Sorin, who have closed down the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, so that simple people seeking justice in a court of law are now denied that opportunity by these so-called “peaceful” protesters, what exactly is it that their “peaceful” protest which has closed down justice in Portland is all about?
Do you have a clue?”
I do, I’m sure you can figure it out too.
Paul Plante says
No, Sorin, I can’t figure it out, at all, and it is not because I am the stupid one here.
That federal courthouse has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis while a BLACK cop watched.
And blocking roads, blocking sidewalks, blocking traffic on a public thoroughfare and blocking access to justice in a federal courtroom are not “peaceful” protests, as you like to call them – they are acts of violence against American citizens.
That’s what I can figure out, because it is the only thing that can be figured out.
What can’t be figured out is where these people think they have earned or gained a right to do violence to the American people by their actions of intimidation as we are seeing in Portland with them blocking access to justice in a federal courthouse.
Where do you think their right to do violence to others comes from, Sorin?
The First Amendment?
Paul Plante says
I’m now reading an on-line book entitled “Recollections of a World War II combat medic” by Bernard L. Rice, and actually having been in WWII* in Europe, he talks about American ambulances in the Ardennes Forest being fired on by the Germans, or Nazis.
So much for the Nazis letting medics do their work.
Perhaps they didn’t get the memo from Hitler telling them to do so.
Perhaps you will also recall the Malmedy massacre, a war crime committed by members of Kampfgruppe Peiper (part of the SS Division Leibstandarte), a German Waffen-SS unit led by Joachim Peiper, at Baugnez crossroads near Malmedy, Belgium, on 17 December 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge.
Eighty-four American prisoners of war were massacred by their German captors.
The prisoners were assembled in a field and shot with machine guns; those still alive were killed by close-range shots to the head.
Paul Plante says
And God bless America and the Cape Charles Mirror and Moms and apple pie and the millions of immigrants what made America great for Donald Trump to be able to brag about today to the rest of the world, thanks to those countless waves of immigrants flooding onto our shores in search of the American Dream which is a condo on the beach and a blonde on each arm, countless waves of immigrants that brought here their adventure spirit, their smarts and innovation along with the hamburger (God bless the immigrants for that, say I!), atomic bomb (Donald Trump says God bless the immigrants for that), Budweiser (American red necks say God Bless the immigrants for that contribution to our society), Google, hotdogs, basketball, they are all things that “natural born” Americans would not have now without immigrants, and while we are on the subject of hot dogs and immigrants in the same breath, it was an immigrant from Holland who provided the Iroquois with their first taste of roasted Dutchman, and as a result, gave them a taste for roasted white man, or sometimes put in the pot and boiled, which is a big part of our violent American history thanks to immigrants.
Ray Otton says
Whoa, whoa, whoa, there are blondes?
I didn’t get one, let alone two.
Of course, at this advanced age I’d probably be better off with the beach condo.
Paul Plante says
Only if you are an immigrant!
Born here Americans need not apply!
Sorin Varzaru says
“I don’t have any conservative friends, Sorin.
All my friends are into social liberalism and have been for years.”
You sound very aligned with the conservatives posting here so I assumed that is how you pick your friends. My bad.
Paul Plante says
It’s okay, Sorin, I actually like you, you know.
You stand up for what you think, which I admire.