Perhaps a y'all should make this a continuing series. What's with all those black people and the Democratic Party anyway? AR minds want to know! Sheesh, indeed.

The Dominican Republic is a country, not an ethnicity, Russ. Despite what progressives would have us believe, not everything is about race.

Reminds me of when the undisputed leader of the American Family Values Conservative Movement, Rush Limbaugh was arrested on his return from the Dominican Republic, where child sex tourism is a major problem, with an illegal prescription for Viagra. Rush was traveling with 4 of his wing-nut buddies and no woman.Why would he need Viagra ?

Inquiring minds would like to know
(he called Sandra Fluke a slut LOL)

Sammy The Troll - What public office does Rush Limbaugh hold? Gosh, recycled irrelevancies from a decade ago are so exciting!

Back in the 70's and early 80's I had an office in the Dominican Republic. The crush on English speakers by prostitutes was unbelievable. Although I never engaged their services, I did have occasion to talk to one, or two. Their preference for English speakers was to improve their language skills. It seems that they all wanted to work for the telephone company (I understood that they paid American wages) and fluent English was required. Maybe now they all want jobs as Congressional aides.

On the race issue, all Dominican politicians were essentially white. They had a joke about this which I now forget. They despised truly black Haitians (Cubans dispised Puerto Ricans). The medical school got their cadavers from Haiti, and stored them on the roof. The dissecting room did not even have window screens and students had to brush flies off the cadavers.

"The Dominican Republic is a country, not an ethnicity..."

Ummm...
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=ethnic%20group
ethnic group: people of the same race or nationality who share a distinctive culture.

You'd be better off arguing that, unlike folks from the DR, U.S. blacks aren't an ethnic group, but I'd say that's a stretch as well.

Ugh... Russ... stop playing word games. You know that people in this country use ethnic background interchangeably with race. The Dominican Republic is not a *race*. There, does that short circuit your semantics debate?

White boy Russ is gonna lecture us on race again-what a joke.
If Menendez partook of adult prostitutes in a place where it is legal,who should give a damn?Maybe his wife(if he is married)but it's no one else's business.The hypocrisy angle is valid since he came down hard on the Secret Service guys for the same thing.
@Sammy-opening a can of worms about frequenting child prostitutes in the DR oughta be interesting-BTW Rush Limbaugh seems to prefer grown women and probably need Viagra because all the opiates he consumed might have messed up his sexual abilities.I hope you don't take opiates sammy boy because they are constipating and you are already full of s**t

"Ugh... Russ... stop playing word games. You know that people in this country use ethnic background interchangeably with race."

Hey, you keep bring it up. And sorry to confuse the discussion with the actual definition of the word (note, you might want to look into the meaning of the Greek word root, ethnos).

btw, here's the city announcing the upcoming "ethnic festivals" in 2011. We can only assume how confused everyone must have been...
www.goprovidence.com/articles/index.cfm?action=view&articleID=132&menuID=162

Russ -

World English Dictionary (Collins):

Ethnic/Ethnical

1.relating to or characteristic of a human group having racial, religious, linguistic, and certain other traits in common
2.relating to the classification of mankind into groups, esp on the basis of racial characteristics

I don't deny that ethnicity can also refer to national origin, but from the context of my statement it was clear that I was using it as a synonym for race, as it commonly is used in the English language and in the United States.

As several of the bloggers here have noted, when multiple interpretations of a statement are available, you have a well-established pattern here of selecting unfavorable interpretations for your political opponents and favorable interpretations for your political allies. This is not effective advocacy, this is dishonesty. It gives you a bad reputation, and it's a poor form of argument.

*Yawn*... Sorry to interupt the ethnocentrism (with apologies to Dan who thinks that means racism). Continue on.

Except that Marc wasn't besmirching the shared cultural or racial characteristics of a group of people, as you have attempted to tar him as doing by comparing his piece to a hypothetical rant against black people. He was noting the coincidence of a pattern involving a relatively uncommon national origin. Noting that three big stories involving Democratic scandals involve the Dominican Republic isn't racist, as wondering about "those black people" would be in your example.

I reiterate that at least 90% of your objections on this site would be resolved if you simply extended the benefit of the doubt to people before commenting and made the slightest effort to interpret statements in a more favorable light.

Expecting honest or rational discourse from a leftist ideologue is like scraping gum off the sidewalk next to a hydrant and hoping a dog didn't piss on it before you chew it

Ah, of course, what a relatively uncommon national origin the DR is in Providence.

Marc, you forgot to mention... Angel Taveras' (gasp) has parents from the DR. What's with that? AR minds want to know!

"was arrested on his return from the Dominican Republic, where child sex tourism is a major problem"
Posted by Sammy The Troll

Damn Sammy you got me excited by that line--thought you were referring to Gayvid.