I think, as with Christmas or any other holiday, there is always rish in forgetting the deeper meaning of Pide. The struggles for marriage equity and other matters of fairness keep all progressives on our toes, but this letter posted on Andrew Sullivan’s site remind all of us that the it’s not just about the struggle here, but elsewhere in the world as well. Please forgive me for posting the entire content, but there is nothing I can see fit to leave out.

Gay Pride Parades may seem unnecessary in the US; this isn’t so everywhere. Last Thursday, I participated in the Jerusalem Gay Pride March. It is a very subdued affair – people are marching with placards and rainbow flags, none of the glamour you see in the Tel Aviv parades – yet for the last few years, there has been a strange coalition of rabbis, imams and priests against it.

Consider it for a moment: Israeli extremist rabbis, who call for the desecration of churches and the deportation of Muslims, find common ground with them for just one day in the year. Imams who routinely denounce Jews as “sons of pigs and apes”, put that aside for one day. Every year, Jerusalem is engulfed in riots, as the ultra-Orthodox set trash wagons on fire and clash with the police in the days before the parade.

The parade includes both Israeli and Palestinian gays, as well as many straight people, who, like me, think it is a battle front which must not be abandoned. In 2005, an ultra-Orthodox nutjob stabbed three of the marchers, screaming he did so in the name of God; he is now a minor hero of the ultra-Orthodox community. As a result, in 2006 the police have all but said they cannot secure the parade, and instead of it, a happening took place – in a secure, remote location, surrounded  by thousands of policemen.

This year the parade marched – for 500 meters. The police said they couldn’t guarantee anything more than that. The marching route was considered a “sterile zone”, and was cordoned; snipers took positions on many roofs along the route; helicopters kept buzzing over it. And the police seized an ultra-Orthodox wiho attempted to get near the paraders, having in his position an improvised pipe bomb.

“Anachronistic relic”? In New York, perhaps.

UPDATED with video over the flip.

.First of all, I’d like to thank the Edwards campaign folks for setting up the meeting for us.  It was really nice to get a chance to talk with somebody who is obviously an incredible woman. No matter what political bent or who you support, she is clearly a courageous and intelligent woman. In this picture, you see (L to R) Elaine Santore , Beth Spotswood, Sasha, Paul Hogarth, Mrs. Edwards, Julia Rosen, and myself

Sasha at Left in SF has a really good recap post of the entire day, including a really cool shooting-down of Bob Shrum’s book by telling the reporters to  go to youtube. Here’s the video.  But, I’ve got the video of the meeting, so you can see it in its entirety (um, hopefully soon, stupid computer…).

She addressed a litany of issues, including her husband’s Senate record, the Iraq war,  and economic/poverty issues. She had a very long speaking engagement, and she seems to be holding up remarkably well. I’m quite amazed that anybody, let alone a woman battling cancer, has the stamina to keep the kind of schedule that she’s keeping.

This video is mostly on Iraq:

(Also in orange. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

Well, it looks like the latest SF Chronicle story on Michael Kamburowski’s immigration problems have knocked him out of his perch as the Chief Operating Officer of the California Republican Party. Damn you wicked irony, why must you always stalk the Republican Party like a successful version of Elmer Fudd? You always create such hilarity, how can I take the Republican Party seriously?

Well,  thanks to the sometimes-fabulous, always-hilarious  Carla Marinucci in today’s SF Chronicle, it seems California Republicans are rid of the “Australian menace.” (Not to be confused with the Canadian Menace.)

Michael Kamburowski, an Australian immigrant who served as the California Republican Party’s chief operating officer, abruptly resigned Sunday — less than 24 hours after The Chronicle reported he had been ordered deported in 2001, jailed in connection with the order, and now has a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit pending against U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials. (SF Chronicle 6/25)

Flip it…

Yes, the delicious irony just keeps on giving.  Boy, are they enraged, and are thrilled to get one more “illegal alien” from “their country”.

Fleischman, in a letter distributed to GOP board members Sunday, warned that “needless to say, if any of this is true (especially alleged jail time, and alleged litigation against the U.S. government) it is a very serious matter.”

Red County San Bernardino, another GOP blog site, called the revelations jaw dropping, and added that “if it is true that Kamburowski did not disclose this arrest to the party, it suggests serious deficiencies in his character.”

Fleischman is the heart and soul of the CA conservative blogosphere, and he happens to be a board member of the CA Republican Party.  And, he’s generally a stand-up guy (with neolithic political views).  But, you know, he voted to bring him on board as COO. 

Poor, Poor Republicans.  The opportunity for schadenfreude is nearly impossible to resist here. But even Steve Schmidt, the man that ran Bush’s ’04 Campaign, and Schwarzenegger’s ’06 Campaign sees the irony and hypocrisy of the Republicans on these issues:

Former White House adviser Steve Schmidt, who ran the re-election campaign for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, angrily described the appointment of Kamburowski as “almost a parody of incompetence and malfeasance.”

“Somebody who has been imprisoned, faced deportation, has never worked on a state political campaign … and who is suing the government for harm inflicted by his deportation order defies description,” Schmidt said. “The bylaws of the Republican Party invest enormous authority in the position of chief operating officer — and it’s clear that this person brings no experience and qualifications to run a state party of the size of California, not to mention the assorted legal issues involved.”

Of course, Schmidt is more a corporatist than Minuteman-type, so  it is hardly shocking that he would level this criticism at Ron Nehring, the current CA Republican Party Leader, and San Diego anti-immigation zealot (well, San Diego Republican and immigration zealot are probably redundant, aren’t they?).  But, the tone of that remark is just classic.  But, now that Kamburowski is out at the CRP, Schmidt needn’t worry about ol’ Mike’s threats.

Kamburowski generally suggested that Hanretty will never be able to eat lunch in Washington again.

“This story would not have the ‘legs’ it does were it not for the role Karen Hanretty is playing in fanning it,” Kamburowski said in his letter. “I do not know Karen, but I find the spectacle of someone who has fed at the trough of the CRP (California Republican Party) behaving in this way despicable and sad. If she desires a career in Republican circles in Washington — she may find her career rather short-lived.”

By the way, IMHO, this story should win Marinucci some kind of award. If no Pulitzer arrives, we may have to create the Calitics Journalism Award.

The Chron gives a follow-up to last week’s hilarious story that the California Republican Party has been hiring non-citizens to staff their top jobs, even as they decry the menace of immigration.  In fact, it turns out that one of their hires may not even be in the country legally.

Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations — and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents.

Kamburowski was named in March to be the chief operating officer of the California GOP. He is responsible for the state party’s multimillion-dollar budget and oversees campaign funds and financing for the nation’s largest state GOP organization.

This is hypocrisy on steroids.  You have a party that never misses an opportunity to rail against illegal immigration, hiring an illegal immigrant, essentially, as their COO.  Kamburowski says he’s a legal resident now, and that he’s suing DHS for unlawfully jailing him and attempting to deport him.

But the funniest part is, for a lot of this time, Kamburowski was selling real estate in the Dominican Republic:

But Kamburowski’s former boss in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana — where Kamburowski worked until February — expressed astonishment that the Australian was hired for such an important financial job in a major political party.

“I wouldn’t give him my company to run, I can tell you that,” said Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty in the fashionable Caribbean beach region.

Pester said Kamburowski arrived in Punta Cana in the summer of 2006 and “was so successful that he couldn’t sell anything the whole time he was here — and we provided him with clients. He didn’t rent anything and he didn’t sell anything. … I have no idea what he was doing.”

Then, in February, Kamburowski “ran away without mentioning anything to us,” he said.

“I couldn’t understand how somebody like him could become a (Republican Party) COO,” Pester said in a telephone interview.

Look, if you’re bad at selling prime vacation property in the D.R., maybe you’d be good at selling a brand as damaged as the Republican Party in California!

Of course, someone like Kamburowski doesn’t have to worry about money.  He’s a classic wingnut welfare recipient who cut his teeth with a Grover Norquist-affiliated group.  He overstayed his visa after coming to this country, did the game of marrying an American woman to get a green card, then divorced her but remained in the country.  The INS tried to deport him but Kamburowski claimed he never got their messages because he moved to DC.  There’s more in the article.

This is someone who’s seemingly never had to answer for any of his actions, and somehow keeps falling upward.  What a perfect symbol for the state GOP.

juls and dday have previously mentioned Kamburowski.  I believe today’s SF Chronicle moves the ball forward with more info on him.

Lead paragraph:

Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations — and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents.

The immigration story is a real doozy – that that isn’t the only thing about this guy.

According to the article, his previous boss said he was a complete failure at his job:

But Kamburowski’s former boss in the Dominican Republic resort town of Punta Cana — where Kamburowski worked until February — expressed astonishment that the Australian was hired for such an important financial job in a major political party.

“I wouldn’t give him my company to run, I can tell you that,” said Rico Pester, the owner of Re/Max Island Realty in the fashionable Caribbean beach region.

Pester said Kamburowski arrived in Punta Cana in the summer of 2006 and “was so successful that he couldn’t sell anything the whole time he was here — and we provided him with clients. He didn’t rent anything and he didn’t sell anything. … I have no idea what he was doing.”

Then, in February, Kamburowski “ran away without mentioning anything to us,” he said.

But in the GOP, of course, incompetence and problems with the law don’t matter – connections and loyalty are paramount.

Kamburowski’s resume states that he worked from November 1995 until December 2000 on a series of projects for Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform — including lobbying on issues of immigration reform and H1B visas, and tort reform. News stories from 1999 cite his work at the Norquist group with Nehring to push for “paycheck protection” measures that would bar the collection of union dues for political purposes.

For three years, from 1997 until 2000, Kamburowski said he was executive director of the Norquist-affiliated Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, which aimed to name major monuments after the late president in all 50 states.

I’m glad they’re running their own organization into the ground and not just the governmental bodies that they manage to get control of.