RATIONAL CONSERVATISM AT........THE ROOT?

If you don't remember The Root, it got significant play last year during the controversy involving Henry Louis Gates, Cambridge police officer James Crowley, Barack Obama, and the White House beer summit. The Root is a blog that was founded by Gates, who posted about the controversy that erupted following his arrest by Crowley. Gates chimed in with a statement on the website he started. In the days after the incident, Gates gave his take.

Via Gates at The Root at the time.

Now we have an interesting post at The Root, courtesy of a writer named Sophia Nelson, a black woman who seems to get the Tea Party. The fact that she does so while writing for the site birthed by Henry Louis Gates warrants piqued interest. Check out what she has to say right out of the "gate":

As a black woman in America, I have remained largely silent about the Tea Party movement and whether the movement itself is ''racist,'' as it is being charged by many in our community, including the leadership of the NAACP.

As a community, we should take a step back for a moment and learn how to stop making emotional judgments and consider the facts about the Tea Party movement.

Nelson really seems to get it at the end, as she conveys to readers that regardless of how mistreated certain groups of people may feel, the ones who have the biggest beef with the Tea Party actually have the most in common with it:

The founders, all men of means (many of who owned slaves), risked their very lives and fortunes as ''traitors'' once they declared their "independence" from Great Britain in 1776. What I think we all miss is that the colonies rebelled against economic tyranny and oppression of individual freedom and liberties. This is a key takeaway that often gets lost in the modern Tea Party debate.

In the final analysis, I think we would all be wise to consider what Thomas Jefferson warned: "Every generation needs a new revolution." Does anyone among us really believe that government knows what is best for our lives? Does anyone among us really believe that paying more taxes will solve what is wrong with the poorest and least among us? Perhaps the African-American community needs to consider what we can do to secure our own economic wealth and our own individual liberties. Make no mistake -- we are in perilous times, and to sit by passively and do nothing in the face of such deprivation is against all that we as Americans stand for.

In addition to the column, I was also struck by the number of comments in support of Nelson.

I'd love to know if Henry Louis Gates is monitoring that blog of his.

h/t to Lynn Woolley for the Nelson piece.

MEMO PROVES WHITE HOUSE LOOKING AT AMNESTY VIA EXECUTIVE ORDER

The notion that the Obama administration was actually contemplating a bypass of congress in order to get the equivalent of comprehensive immigration reform seemed so outlandish, it actually got short shrift. Thanks to a memo penned by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, we now have proof that the word 'outlandish' would have been the wrong adjective for describing the White House's plans. The words in the memo, coupled with the actions of the Federal government toward Arizona leave no room for doubt on the objectives of this administration.

Via National Review:

According to an internal U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo going the rounds of Capitol Hill and obtained by National Review, the agency is considering ways in which it could enact “meaningful immigration reform absent legislative action” — that is, without the consent of the American people through a vote in Congress.

“This memorandum offers administrative relief options to . . . reduce the threat of removal for certain individuals present in the United States without authorization,” it reads.

Then, in true Obama administration fashion, when confronted with uncomfortable facts about what its opponents know, stonewalling ensues:

In recent weeks, Sen. Chuck Grassley and others in Congress have been pressing the administration to disavow rumors that a de facto amnesty is in the works, including in a letter to Department of Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano. “Since the senators first wrote to the president more than a month ago, we have not been reassured that the plans are just rumors, and we have every reason to believe that the memo is legitimate,” a Grassley spokesman tells NR. (NR contacted DHS, but a spokesman did not have a comment on the record.)

It should be more apparent than ever that Congress has lost its backbone and its limp exoskeleton is being stomped on.

NRO also posted a portion of the USCIS response memo to inquiries about the leaked memo. Here is a portion of that response:

Internal memoranda help us do the thinking that leads to important changes; some of them are adopted and others are rejected. Our goal is to implement policies wisely and well to strengthen all aspects of our mission.

Is it me or does that sound like a combination between the Journolist response to being outed as a repository for liberal hacks and the main argument of the Blagojevich defense team, that Blago may have white-boarded talk of extortion, bribes, blackmail, and corruption but he didn't mean it?

HERE is a link to the entire USCIS memo.

h/t to Free Republic

GLENN BECK SERIES ON WEATHER UNDERGROUND - WHERE IS GRATHWOHL?

On balance, when it comes to television, Glenn Beck is doing far more than anyone else to expose the radical agenda of the left. No one else is willing to dig as deep as he does. O'Reilly still has the culture warriors and games with cards on popsicle sticks; Hannity is better but how much is Bob Beckel really adding to the discussion with his repeated appearances? Besides, Beckel appears more interested in looking at himself on the off-screen monitor than in actually contributing anything substantive. Greta has gotten better in the last year but Beck has separated himself from all of them.

Beck is on-target about 90%-95% of the time. This week, we're witnessing part of that 5%-10% I'm afraid, relative to his three part series on the Weather Underground. The foundation for his series, designed to shine a light on the plans of the radicals in and around the White House is the Weather Underground's manifesto, right here:

Weather[1]

The problem with this series so far - only two of the three parts have aired as of this writing - is that the one man Beck should have with him on the set but hasn't even been mentioned is the only man to successfully infiltrate the Weather Underground for the FBI, Larry Grathwohl. That said, I have it on good authority that Grathwohl has not been contacted to this point and it is highly unlikely that he will appear.

Beck's decision not to incorporate a live appearance by Grathwohl into this series is made all the more curious by the fact that we know Beck is well aware of Grathwohl; he aired the shocking two minute clip of him from 1982 back on June 10th of this year. Here is a video portion of that segment:



A subsequent appearance by Grathwohl never came, though I know he would be willing to make that appearance.

The intent of this series is obviously to take viewers inside the motives of Bill Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Jeff Jones, and Mark Rudd. What did they have planned? What were they like when they were being themselves? What things did they say before they had been "made clean", as Beck likes to say, so they would appear upstanding? With the manifesto in his hands, Beck has a window into that world but Grathwohl was INSIDE that world; no one else shares his experience. Why on earth would Beck not have him on the set LIVE as an integral part of this series?

There are, no doubt, aspects of that manifesto that Beck either might get wrong or not explain completely enough. Grathwohl can do that too.

As a last bone of contention for me, Beck held up a copy of the Weather Underground's book, "Prairie Fire" for the audience to see and no one can sell books better than Glenn Beck. I'm sure he sold quite a few of them by displaying it and discussing it for his audience. Bill Ayers is quite the wealthy terrorist these days and I'm sure he loved the plug. On the other hand, Grathwohl has a book too - though you'd never know it. Beck never mentioned it.

Grathwohl is the hero and Ayers is the villain. Why wouldn't Beck hold up Grathwohl's book for the audience to see? Why wouldn't he place him in a chair on the set for the audience to see and hear?

Here is the full two minute clip of Grathwohl in 1982.