The cover of the New Yorker, seen here, is meant satirically. It’s supposed to represent the “lies” being told about Barack Obama, and the “fantasies” of right-wing racist Republicans.

But an examination of the symbols in the picture, show that most of them are basically accurate, and represent problems for Obama in the general election:

• Muslim Dress: Though born in the US, Obama was raised abroad as a Muslim, and dressed up as one on a 2006 visit to Kenya. Falsehood, if any–Obama is not actually a Muslim, and is willing to drop any religious practice or belief that might stand between him and the White House.
• Radical Michelle: Michelle Obama has never worn the costume or hairdo associated with Sixties radicals like Angela Davis, she is a radical, anti-American leftist. Falsehood if any–Michelle is not a violent radical, but a respectable Chicago leftist rent-seeker…like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. And neither she nor Barack would do something as American as owning a gun.
• The Burning Flag: Neither Barack nor Michelle is particularly patriotic in the Lexington and Concord sense. Many African-Americans aren’t, because they listen to people like Jeremiah Wright. Falsehood if any–Obama has never actually set a flag on fire. That’s not how you get elected President. As Pat Buchanan said “And that flag pin Barack got rid of after 9-11, calling it a “substitute … for real patriotism”? It’s back on the lapel. “
• Picture Of Osama: It’s fairly obvious that if America elects a man named Barack Hussein Obama, the terrorists will think they have won. Falsehood if any–Obama doesn’t actually like Osama. After all, the country Bin Laden was attacking is the country he plans to be President of.

Finally, the fist-bumping thing–that’s not even arguably false.  It’s   Obama’s somewhat phony looking way of “keepin’ it real.” It’s part of the Hawaiian/Indonesian/White Obama’s way of answereing the question “Is Obama Black Enough” in the affirmative. Steve Sailer: “Why Obama being “black enough” would be in the interest of the 7/8ths of the electorate that isn’t black has never been explained—but that’s hardly surprising because the MSM hasn’t even entertained it as a question. “

Ann Althouse called it a “hilarious spoof of the fears and lies about Obama,” but pointed out where they may be coming from. I’m not sure if anyone on the Republican side is actually willing to hold Obama’s sandalled feet to the American-flag fueled fire over any of this stuff, but there is someone who will. From an ordinary American in Althouse’s comments:

IN THE COMMENTS: ricpic says:

The dead on truth about these two America haters.

Congrats Blitt.

And congrats to the Hillary camp inside The New Yorker.

Yes, that could very easily be the source of this cover. Which is amazing, when you consider that John McCain won’t even allow references to Obama’s middle name.

Normally, financial crises happen because really, really rich people screw up, because they’re the ones who have most of the money. Yet, the mortgage meltdown is much more egalitarian in origins than the typical collapse. For instance, until a few months ago, mortgages backed by the now tottering Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were capped at $417,000. Certainly not all, but some of the blame should rest on the bipartisan consensus to social engineer the home ownership rate above the 64 percent level, where it had been stuck since the 1960s.

Here are some excerpts from my June 22 article in Taki’s Magazine on “The Diversity Recession:”

In 1992, Congress passed the Government Sponsored Enterprises bill, which set “targets” (i.e., quotas) for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are quasi-governmental publicly-traded for-profit thing-a-ma-bobs, to encourage “affordable” and “underserved” (more or less minority) home loans.

Both the Clinton and Bush departments of Housing and Urban Development raised the quotas repeatedly. For example, initially, the Clinton Administration required 21% of these quasi-governmental mortgages must go to ”underserved areas” (which are officially defined as “low-income census tracts or in low- or middle-income census tracts with high minority populations”), but the quota for 2008 established by the Bush Administration is 39 percent.

Reuters reported October 13, 1999:

“The mortgage industry intends to pursue minorities with greater intensity as federal regulators turn up the heat to increase home ownership in underserved groups. ‘We need to push into these underserved markets as much as we can,’ said David Glenn, president and chief operating officer of Freddie Mac. …

(more…)

The same days as the news of proposed government bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Washington Post runs a revealing article on how the drying up of subprime mortgages has badly hurt the advertising revenue of Spanish language radio stations in the DC area:

But these days the subprime mortgage meltdown has hit many Spanish-language radio stations hard. Real estate companies that targeted the Hispanic community have closed their doors or cut back on advertising and sponsorships. Aragon has lost most of the real estate agents who once advertised with him…

(more…)

Many European readers have commented over the years on how watching television with subtitles helped them learn English.

Univision is the giant of Spanish-language broadcasting in the U.S. In 2006 it was sold by Republican Italian-American billionaire Jerry Perenchio to a consortium headed by Democratic Israeli-American billionaire Haim Saban for $13.7 billion. Perenchio was the chief donor in 1998 to the campaign against Ron Unz’s Proposition 227 restricting bilingual education in California schools. The more Mexican immigrants who learn English, the worse it is for business. (Unz won easily, nonetheless).

Not surprisingly, according to Wikipedia, “Univision’s major programming is closed-captioned in Spanish, but unlike main competitor Telemundo, it almost never provides English subtitles.” This refusal to run subtitles in English costs Univision a slight amount of ratings — I recall stumbling upon “Repo Man” dubbed into Spanish on Univision and watching about 40 minutes because I know much of the dialogue by heart. But, to Univision, the principle of keeping Spanish-only residents of America Spanish-only comes ahead of short-term profits. If they started putting “Repo man is always intense” in English under Harry Dean Stanton’s mug while some guy says it in Spanish, who knows, somebody somewhere might someday learn enough English to watch a different station.

There are numerous campaigns against corporations for anti-social practices, but I’ve never heard any criticism of Univision for refusing to subtitle English-language movies in English. Criticizing Perenchio and/or Saban for holding back the spread of English in the interests of higher profits would be racist, so it’s just not done. (more…)

(Title adapted from W.B.Yeats)

The highly intelligent Irish Blogger Hibernia Girl (see Collecting my thoughts:

I’m Irish and, like most people in the world, I happen to have a preference for my fellow people and culture. We’re not a perfect group of people–not by a long shot–we have our failings like most peoples in the world. But, I like being Irish and I like the positive aspects of our “Irish-ness” and I don’t want to see that disappear.)

has an interesting post consciously applying one of Alien Nation’s key questions to her native land:

Supporters of current policy must explain why they wish to transform the Irish nation as it had evolved by (say) 1990….

Why does Ireland have to be transformed? What have you got against it?

It has attracted some incisive comments.

As it happens, I recently spent a Sunday wandering around central Dublin. A beautiful location and packed with reminders of the rich history of this surprisingly complex nation.

It was also packed with lean, tall, dark young eastern Europeans, peaceable enough, often couples, but definitely not Irish. Since I find Irish women easy on the eye this was a disappointment.

What was the point of the long Irish struggle for independence, if the country is to be swamped?

Considerably less intelligent is a recent post on the Latino chauvinist site Eristic ragemail, which consists of an imaginary telephone conversation between the perpetrator of this blog and Peter Brimelow.

The author seems pleased with his performance, hardly surprisingly since he wrote it. And I must admit he does land an effective blow unwittingly, by presuming (judging by his spelling) that Brimelow is a Londoner. A mortal insult to a North Countryman!

But in striking what he apparently thinks a decisive blow Eristic ragemail overbalances, quoting the fictional Brimelow:

I admits that I doesn’t much like the thought of my daughter marrying an illegal anything. But my concerns is purely for the integrity of our great white ‘ardworkin’ Protestant culture is all. That is what is at issue ‘ere, and that is what is threatened by illegal immigration.”

What is wrong with the imaginary Brimelow’s “concerns”? And what kind of febrile egocentric mental process thinks such a thought experiment useful?

Ask Eristic ragemail