Gingrich: Latinos & Blacks Are Too Dumb For Small Business; Only Asians Qualify

Gingrich: ‘Most Of The Asians,’ Some Latinos, But Not Many African Americans Understand Entrepreneurship

GOP contender Newt Gingrich has built up quite a record of making derogatory, racially-charged remarks on the campaign trail. He frequently derides President Obama as a “food stamp president” and said he would go to the NAACP and tell African Americans they should “demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.”

Last week he said work is a “strange, distant concept” to Fox anchor Juan Williams, who had the audacity to ask Gingrich at a recent debate if he understood why blacks might be offended by his remarks.

More than 40 Catholic leaders recently challenged Gingrich to “stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes” with his divisive rhetoric.

For Gingrich, perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes is nothing new. Today, the Huffington Post reports that at the height of Gingrich’s power in Congress, one of his major speeches had to be edited to remove a racist characterization of Asians, Latinos, and black Americans:

But before Gingrich could deliver his grand new theory of American civilization to the public in a 1993 speech, his deeply divisive racial stereotypes would need to be removed.

“For poor minorities, entrepreneurship in small business is the key to future wealth,” Gingrich wrote by hand in a first draft. “This is understood thoroughly by most of the Asians, partially by Latinos, and to a tragically small degree by much of the American black community.” [...]

By the time a member of Gingrich’s staff typed up the notes and prepared the speech for delivery at the National Review Institute, the racial stereotypes were gone.
Here are Gingrich’s handwritten notes, which were among the more than 1,000 pages of records in evidence from the former speaker’s case before the House Ethics Committee:



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Sources: Think Progress, Young Turks, Wikipedia, Google Maps

Aung San Suu Kyi: Myanmar's Human Rights Champion

Suu Kyi's Freedom: A Catalyst For Change Or Not?


Nyi Nyi Aung learned the news just before sunrise Saturday: The woman who has inspired him in his two-decade-long struggle was free.

Myanmar's military rulers released democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest Saturday, and across the globe, hope stirred again in the hearts of those who have been advocating for change in the authoritarian nation.

"She is the only one who has the patience, the ideas on how to solve the problem in Burma," Nyi Nyi said, refusing to use the name for his country favored by the junta.

But amid the joy, Nyi Nyi, a resident of the Washington area, voiced the same cautious optimism that rang from all corners.

Was Suu Kyi's release conditional? What will she be able to accomplish under the thumb of a hardline dictatorship that has stamped out voices of opposition and just held an election that has been widely criticized as a sham?

This was the third time the regime has released Suu Kyi from house arrest. Benjamin Zawacki, Myanmar expert for Amnesty International, noted that her last release had been unconditional and then she was thrown again into house arrest.

He said conditions could be rolled out as events on the ground unfold, and the government could interpret a given event or act as a justification to make an arrest.

Zawacki also labeled the move as a political calculation.

The regime is trying to reinvent itself as democratic, he said, first with the elections last Sunday and now with Suu Kyi's release.

There is concern, he said, that other countries will take the regime's bait and lessen their resolve to continue to take tough actions in the sanctions and human rights arenas.

Among those concerned is Nyi Nyi, who appealed on behalf of the Burmese people for nations like the United States to maintain pressure on Myanmar's regime to implement change.

"We are planning to stand by [Suu Kyi]," he said. "But we need everyone to keep up the pressure."

Michael Green, a Center for Strategic and International Studies expert on Asia and a senior Asia adviser to former President George W. Bush, said the move was calculated precisely to forestall international isolation punishment, including a possible U.N. commission that would probe human rights abuses.

It was not at all a sign, he said, that the regime is trying to patch things up with its internal rivals.

"I think the starting premise for this is the incredible loathing and fear that this regime has for Aung San Suu Kyi," Green said. "It knows almost no bounds. You can discount that this is a gesture at international reconciliation."

The audience for the move, he said, was external, a conscious effort to "drive a wedge" between countries that are inclined to support Myanmar, such as India and China, and countries such as the United States, Japan, Australia and European nations, which want tough action.

The hardline military junta took power in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, in 1962. It's difficult to predict what will transpire in the days and weeks ahead, but most agree that Suu Kyi's release is not likely to spur change right away.

"This is, at best, a single step forward on the proverbial thousand-mile journey," said Jared Genser, one of Suu Kyi's lawyers who is based in the United States.

"We should recall she's been out on numerous occasions before over the last 21 years, and nothing has changed in the country. And indeed, in the last several years, the military regime in Burma has not taken even a single step to try to demonstrate its willingness to compromise," he said.

Still, Nyo Ohn Myint, a committee leader in Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party, said there is no doubt that Saturday's release is a key moment in modern Myanmar history.

The regime is at a political crossroads, he said. It could be that Myanmar's generals are feeling overly confident after the election, an issue Myint said is a priority on Suu Kyi's agenda. Her release again puts momentum on the side of the opposition.

"She has tremendous political power," Myint said about his friend of two decades. "This is not the end of the story, only the beginning of the struggle."

Meanwhile, human rights activists as well as global leaders -- including President Obama -- reminded the world that there is a long struggle ahead to secure basic freedoms for the people of Myanmar.

Despite Suu Kyi's release, more than 2,200 other political prisoners were still sitting behind bars in Myanmar jails.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. human rights commissioner, called Suu Kyi's release a "positive signal" that the Myanmar authorities are willing to move forward with the serious challenge of democratic transition.

"Clearly, Aung San Suu Kyi can make a major contribution to this process," Pillay said, adding her disappointment that Suu Kyi was not allowed to participate in the elections.

She urged the authorities to release the other political prisoners as "a clear sign that the new government intends to respect human rights and forge a new future for the country."

For Nyi Nyi, the matter is highly personal.

He himself spent time in jail in Myanmar for his activism, and his mother, Sann Sann Tin, has been imprisoned since she was arrested in protests in 2007. Not a day goes by that he doesn't think of his 63-year-old mother's plight.

That's why the joy of seeing the images of Suu Kyi again addressing her supporters was marred.

"That's why we don't think of it as freedom for Burma," he said.


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Sources: CNN, Google Maps

Asian Tsunami Anniversary: 230,000 Killed (Videos Actual Footage)

Tears, Prayers Mark Asian Tsunami Anniversary


Buddhist monks chanted on white-sand beaches in Thailand and thousands prayed at mosques in Indonesia to mark the fifth anniversary of the Asian Tsunami that left 230,000 people dead.

The devastating Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami struck a dozen countries around the Indian Ocean rim. Its towering waves wiped out entire coastal communities, devastated families and crashed over tourist-filled beaches the morning after Christmas. Survivors waded through a horror show of corpse-filled waters.

In Thailand, hundreds of residents and foreigners returned to the beaches on the island of Phuket to recall one of the worst natural disasters of modern times.

A moment of silence was observed on Phuket's Patong Beach, a popular strip of hotels and restaurants, to mark the moment the tsunami struck.

Buddhist monks in bright orange robes chanted prayers. Onlookers wept and embraced.

Giorgio Capriccioli, an Italian who lives on Phuket, carried a bouquet of white flowers into the ocean.

He waded knee-deep in water that five years ago was clogged with corpses and cast the flowers adrift to honor the memory of two friends. His wife owns several beach-front shops but decided not to go to work the morning the tsunami struck.

"My wife would be dead if it weren't for the fact that she were pregnant and didn't go to work that day," he said at a ceremony that also attracted suntanned tourists in skimpy swimsuits, as well as Thai villagers.

The ceremonies on Phuket were to culminate in the evening with candle-lighting ceremonies and the release of hundreds of light-filled lanterns into the sky.

Aceh hardest hit

Thousands of survivors in Indonesia's Aceh province, which was hardest-hit, held prayer services at mosques and beside the mass graves where tens of thousands were buried. Indonesia's loss of about 167,000 accounted for more than half the total death toll.

The tsunami was sparked by a 9.2-magnitude underwater earthquake off the Indonesian island of Sumatra — the mightiest earthquake in 40 years.

In Aceh, on the island of Sumatra, the quake toppled homes and buildings and sent panicked communities rushing into the streets. About 20 minutes later, a wall of water up to six stories high surged in from the sea. Traveling at jetliner speed, the wave carried with it toppled trees, crumpled cars and refrigerators. It sent people scrambling up the sides of buildings and in search of higher ground.

More than $13 billion in aid money poured in from around the world, nearly half for Aceh, where bridges, homes and full city blocks of cement buildings had collapsed. In some communities of the devout Muslim province only the mosque was left standing.

A huge reconstruction effort has rebuilt Aceh, providing more than 140,000 new homes, 2,227 miles of roads, 1,500 schools and 1,047 hospitals.

"After five years ... the people of Aceh have risen and have a new life," Indonesia's Vice President Boediono told a crowd gathered near Ulee Lheue port in Aceh. Like many Indonesians he uses only a single name

"Their struggle to rise from tsunami tragedy has inspired the people in this country, and around the region," said Boediono.

Traffic across Sri Lanka came to a standstill Saturday as people around the country observed two minutes of silence for the 35,000 people who died there. Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickramanayake presided over a ceremony in northwestern Kurunegala that was broadcast on live television.



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Sources: MSNBC, Youtube, Google Maps