Colossal Idiot Makes the Most Idiotic Argument He Can Think Of

(Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos is the one who looks like David Broder, not doing a Nazi salute, on your right.)

Did you know that United States Marines were mentally deficient big babies, unable to protect themselves or others in battle situations, due to their inability to concentrate? United States Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos wants you to know this, because he doesn't want any of his big babies to get hurt:

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/14/amos-dadt/

Speaking to reporters this afternoon, Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos — who has opposed repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell — suggested that if Congress lifts the ban against open service and allows gays to serve without hiding their sexual orientation, the Marines could be so distracted that they would die in the line of duty:

The chief of the US Marine Corps said Tuesday that ending a ban on openly gay troops in the military could jeopardize the lives of Marines in combat by undermining closely knit units.

General James Amos, commandant of the Marine Corps and an opponent of lifting the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” prohibition, cited a Pentagon study saying Marines fighting in Afghanistan were worried that permitting gays to serve openly could disrupt “unit cohesion.”

“When your life hangs on a line, on the intuitive behavior of the young man… who sits to your right and your left, you don’t want anything distracting you,” Amos told reporters at the Pentagon.

“I don’t want to lose any Marines to distraction. I don’t want to have any Marines that I’m visiting at Bethesda (hospital) with no legs,” he said.

He added that “mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines’ lives. That’s the currency of this fight.”

His comments were the toughest yet on the issue, after he testified at a congressional hearing that he opposed lifting the ban at a time of war.

Amos said Marines fighting in Afghanistan sent a “very strong message” in the Pentagon’s recent study, expressing opposition to the repealing the ban in an survey.

“I have to listen to that,” he said.

The Pentagon’s survey did reveal that Marines are most opposed to repealing the measure, but nowhere did it suggest that the distraction of gay servicemembers would have the effect of killing their straight counterparts. 

Goodness-- I wonder if this sort of argument could be used in any other ways?

Black Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Catholic Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Atheist Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Jewish Marines could be a distraction-- Check!

Muslim Marines could be a distraction-- Double Check!

That's one amazingly useful argument, one used by governments and institutions and corporations and religions for all sorts of things, over all of human history, to prevent Justice. "It's not that we're against it, you understand, it's that we're afraid of the danger it poses to others."

So basically what Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos would like you to know is that the Marine Corps training is so useless and inept, and that Marines themselves are so useless and inept, that they would be institutional unable to make a procedural change and recognize the homosexuals already serving in their ranks, without taking major casualties.

Seems like we might have already known that.

When Having Your Own Highway Isn't Enough

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/15/muslim-hotel-workers-israelis/

The Washington Post reports today Muslim workers at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Washington, DC “said they felt discriminated against after being barred over the weekend from floors where an Israeli delegation was staying.” One supervisor reportedly explained to a Muslim worker that the Israeli delegation — which included Defense Minister Ehud Barak — “don’t want no face-to-face with Muslims.” The hotel’s general manager said she told some employees not to come in after the State Department had found “irregularities” in routine background checks on them before the Israeli visit. Yet one worker, who was teased by colleagues as a terrorist after the incident, said he’d worked with other VIPs before with no concern:

“In the cafeteria, they were looking at me, laughing, saying: ‘Ah, they don’t want you there. They maybe think you have a bomb in your belly,’” said the worker, who came to the United States from Africa more than two decades ago.

He said he had worked in proximity to other VIPs, such as George W. Bush, with no security concerns.

“I don’t care about Israel. To me, it’s just another country,” he said. “I work for [the hotel] 12, 14 hours a day, and they profile me like I’m a criminal, like I’m going to harm them. I’m like, ‘If I’m going to harm them, why would you keep me in your hotel even one day?’”

The Muslim civil rights organization Council on American-Islamic Relations is awaiting a statement from the hotel before determining whether to file a complaint. The Post notes that, in 2004 at another DC hotel, a Muslim security guard “was told to stay away from the 10th floor while an Israeli delegation was there. In that case, the hotel’s general manager said the request was made by security units guarding the delegation.”

Uh-huh, and if the Mandarin Oriental's guests were South African government officials during the Apartheid era, they would have had no problem clearing their floors of black workers.

 

The GOP is All Heart

Obama and the Democrats' utter capitulation on the Bush tax cuts is too Horrifying to analyze, but check this out:

http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/2010/12/07/comparing-priorities/

...[I]n order to get desperately needed help for the long-term unemployed and to provide the middle-class with tax relief in a weak economy, Obama agreed to tax cuts for a small, wealthy portion of the population that the Republicans were willing to go to the mat for, even if it meant that everyone’s taxes went up if the Bush tax cuts expired.

For comparison’s sake, here is a chart detailing both the number of people (in millions) who benefit from each side’s priorities, as well as the total cost (in billions). Obama’s components of the tax deal (extended unemployment benefits, the payroll tax cut, and the extended credits) will cost $214 billion to aid 156 million people. The Republicans priorities (extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich and cutting the estate tax), meanwhile, will cost $133 billion, but only benefit roughly 4.8 million people.

Excluded from this analysis is extension of the broad-based Bush tax cuts, on which everyone agreed. The total package will cost about $900 billion over the next two years, entirely financed through deficit spending.

How politicians keep getting elected pulling crap like this in a society where Votes are counted on a Numerical Basis is one for the ages. Even with an extra $133 billion dollars, how do 4.8 million people buy off 156 million?