A Liberal's Hit List: Aug 13, 2009

7 Ways We Can Fight Back Against the Rising Fascist Threat

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Why the right-wing extremism must be stopped in its tracks or else we face the threat of outright violence and goon rule.

By Sara Robinson
Campaign for America's Future

Writing about fascism for an American audience is always a fraught business.

Invariably, a third of the readers will dismiss the topic (and your faithful blogger's basic sanity) out of hand. Either they've got their own definition of fascism, and whatever's going on doesn't seem to fit it; or else they're firm believers in a variant of Godwin's Law, which says (with some justification) that anyone who invokes the F-word is a de facto alarmist of questionable credibility.

I get letters, most of which say something to the effect of, "Calm down. You're overreacting. We're nowhere near there yet."

Another third will pepper me with missives that are every bit as dismissive -- for exactly the opposite reason. To them, anyone who's been paying the barest amount of attention should realize that America has been a fascist state since (choose one:) 1) 9/11; 2) Reagan; 3) McCarthy; 4) the Civil War; 5) July 4, 1776.

For them, my careful analysis and worried warnings are dangerously naive -- clear evidence that I'm simply not seeing the full horror of America as it truly is, and always has been, at least since (insert date here).

Given this general crankiness, I probably wouldn't bother with the subject at all -- except for that final third who keep me going. From them, I've gotten a blizzard of anecdotes, questions, meditations, ideas, suggestions, manifestos and love letters (including lots of link love)....(Remainder.)

GE Takes Gloves Off Against “Maliciously False” O'Reilly Bullshit

By Steve Krakauer
Mediaite

General Electric is no longer letting Keith Olbermann take the lead in responding to Bill O'Reilly. After O'Reilly's segment Tuesday night attacking GE, the company is coming out and responding for the first time to the FNC host.

GE tells the Associated Press the thinly-sourced report was "irresponsible and maliciously false" – and last night, Olbermann took it even further.

O'Reilly's report included the caveat that he "has been told, but cannot confirm, that the General Electric corporation is under suspicion in the case." And this lack of sourcing meant, according to GE, an egregious error.

GE does not do business with Corezing, and does not produce the radio frequency modules that were described in the report, he said.

"We usually do not respond to the misleading and inaccurate claims made on this program because very few people take them seriously," Sheffer said, "but tonight's report took this smear campaign to a new low."

GE better not be wrong about either of these facts, because O'Reilly will only use this as a reason to hammer the company that much harder and more often. But if it's true GE has never done business with the company in question, and that they don't even produce the modules, O'Reilly should (and has proven in the past he probably will) apologize to his viewers for getting the facts wrong.

Then there's Olbermann. Naming O'Reilly the "Worst Person" again last night, he spun the GE errors into a much larger problem. "You can talk all you want about feuds and ceasefires and childishness, but if I, or any actual reporter like me, had gotten as much wrong in any story as Bill O'Reilly got wrong in this one, I'd be fired in 15 minutes, as he should be now," said Olbermann. Wait, Keith thinks he's an "actual reporter"?...(Remainder.)

Maine Teabagger Freaks Out! Oh, Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom Ceremony

By The White House

President Obama honors this year's recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest medal awarded to civilians. Honorees were Nancy Goodman Brinker, Pedro José Greer, Jr., Jack Kemp, Sen. Ted Kennedy, Stephen Hawking, Billie Jean King, Rev. Joseph Lowery, Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow, Harvey Milk, Sandra Day O'Connor, Sidney Poitier, Chita Rivera, Dr. Janet Davison Rowley, Mary Robinson, Desmond Tutu, and Muhammad Yunus.

GOP Favorability Amongst Latinos Has Cratered Spectacularly

By Metavirus
Library Grape

In light of the following numbers, it looks like the GOP's strategy to attack Justice Sotomayor and paint Obama as an illegal alien Manchurian Candidate worked out great:

Yes, that's a 24-point decrease in net favorability over just three months!

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant....(Original.)

Wag the Blue Dog

By R.J. Matson
The New York Observer

Are the Health Care Protests Working? And are Liberals Helping Them?

By Nate Silver
FiveThirtyEight

It's been interesting to digest the interaction between liberal and conservative blogs on the issue of the health care protests. If you take a look at a service like Memorandum, you'll find that stories about the protests have almost always been the lede in the blogosphere over the course of the past 10-14 days. There are daily, and sometimes even hourly, ebbs and flows in who seems to be pushing the stories -- conservative blogs one day, liberal blogs the next. But both sides seem to feel as though they have something to gain. Quite frankly, I've felt a little lost here. The coverage has been so intensely partisan on both sides that it's hard to get any real idea about what the protests are really like on the ground: who is protesting, how many are protesting, what they're protesting about (the answer is not as obvious it might seem), in which sorts of districts the protesters live, and how all of this is affecting the views of average Americans on the health care reform bills pending before Congress (and more importantly, the views of the 535 Congressmen who will ultimately have to vote on the package).

The closest thing we have so far to objective evidence is a Gallup poll that came out today. The poll finds that 34 percent of Americans say the protests have made them more sympathetic to the protesters' views, 21 percent less sympathetic, and 46 percent unsure or indifferent.

Polls of this nature, however, are notoriously slippery. If there were some protest in favor of a policy that I supported -- like expanded stem-cell research -- I'd probably tell a pollster that the protest had in fact made me more sympathetic to the cause, even though my mind on the issue was already 100 percent made up and was not going to be swayed. The real question, then, is how many minds are being changed on the issue. And it may not be all that many. Three relevant polls have come out on this subject in August: a Rasmussen poll found some further erosion in support for the bills pending before Congress, but a Gallup poll did not find any further decline in Obama's approval on health care since mid-July. Nor did a CNN poll find any decline in support for the Democrats' health package, although that poll is now about a week old....(Remainder.)

Will Michele Bachmann Denounce Her Son's Entry in Obama Re-Education Camp?

By Teddy Partridge
Firedoglake
Photo: PunditKitchen.com

Last year, speaking about President Obama's planned expansion of AmeriCorps, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said she'd have a hard time if her child joined up for the planned re-eduction. Now that her son has enlisted in Teach for America, will Bachmann denounce him as an Obama fellow-traveler?

In April, Bachmann said:

I believe when it's all said and done, this service that — I believe that there's a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go and work in some of these politically correct forums. It's very concerning. It appears that there's a philosophical agenda behind all of this, and especially if young people are mandated to go into this. As a parent, I would have a very, very difficult time seeing my children do this. Again, a huge power-grab, at a cost of billions of dollars.

Who Was That Gun-Toting Anti-Obama Nutball?

By Joan Walsh
Salon
Photo: Joel Page (AP)

One of Tuesday's big mysteries was the motivation behind anti-Obama protester William Kostric, the man who brought a loaded gun to the town hall meeting and carried a sign referencing Thomas Jefferson's famous credo, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots."

On Tuesday afternoon MSNBC's Chris Matthews asked Kostric why he carried "a God-damned gun" to a meeting with the president, "given the violent history of this country with regard to presidents and assassinations," and whether he supported the Birther movement. Kostric insisted his intentions were peaceful, and that he's not affiliated with Birther groups.

But at least one of those statements doesn't seem to be true. A right-wing activist named "William Kostric," who's left a lot of footprints around the Web, is listed as a "team member" of the Arizona chapter of We the People, the far-right group best known for joining a lawsuit challenging Obama's right to be president based on his not being a U.S. citizen. Kostric told MSNBC he recently moved from Arizona to New Hampshire. (Kostric did not reply to Salon's e-mail request for an interview.)...(Remainder.)

Strange Days

By Tom Tomorrow

Gun-Nut Outside Obama Town Hall Linked to GOP ‘Stop ObamaCare’ Effort

By Adele M. Stan
AlterNet

On Aug. 11, William Kostric of New Hampshire strapped a loaded gun to his leg, and went to greet the President of the United States.

His message was sponsored with the tacit approval of a social networking site promoted by a well-connected Republican public-relations firm.

Kostric's action was within the law; New Hampshire gun laws permit registered gun owners to carry their weapons in public, as long as they are not concealed. Standing with a crowd of anti-government protesters on the property of a church that abutted the high school campus where Barack Obama would conduct a town-hall meeting on health-care reform, Kostric carried a sign that read, "It's time to water the tree of liberty."

The slogan refers to a classic quote from Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

The sign bore the image of the coiled and threatening rattlesnake that adorned an early U.S. battle flag that included the words, "Don't tread on me."

At the bottom of Kostric's sign, viewers were informed that the message was "brought to you by restoretherepublic.org."

Visit the site of Restore the Republic, and you will find a wealth of information on some of the far right's favorite conspiracy theories: the Bilderberg conspiracy, the Tri-Lateral Commission, the New World Order and "FEMA internment camps." The site is a draw for anti-government gun enthusiasts and survivalists....(Remainder.)

Diebold Quietly Patches Security Flaw in Vote Counting Software

By Kim Zetter
Threat Level @ Wired.com

Premier Election Solutions, formerly Diebold, has patched a serious security weakness in its election tabulation software used in the majority of states, according to a lab that tested the new version and a federal commission that certified it.

The flaw in the tabulation software was discovered by Wired.com earlier this year, and involved the program’s auditing logs. The logs failed to record significant events occurring on a computer running the software, including the act of someone deleting votes during or after an election. The logs also failed to record who performed an action on the system, and listed some events with the wrong date and timestamps.

A new version of the software does record such events, and includes other security safeguards that would prevent the system from operating if the event log were somehow shut down, according to iBeta Quality Assurance, the Colorado testing lab that examined the software for the federal government.

It’s not known if Premier will offer the more secure version to election officials who purchased previous software. The company did not respond to a call for comment Tuesday.

Called the Global Election Management System, or GEMS, the software is used to tabulate votes cast on Premier/Diebold touchscreen and optical-scan machines, among other functions, and is used in more than 1,400 election districts in nearly three dozen states. Maryland and Georgia, which use Premier systems exclusively, count every vote statewide with the software. GEMS runs on the Windows 2003 and Windows XP operating systems....(Remainder.)

Umm, Townhall Protesters? Jefferson Was Actually Talking About Your Blood, Too

By Rude One
The Rude Pundit

So, like, for a long time, as a threat to people in power, protesters trot out this line from Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants." It's been tossed back and forth between the left and right like a football at recess at the special school, although most often it's proudly displayed by the yahoos in some extreme right wing nutzoid movements, be it militias or the townhall idiots. And it'd be a poignant quote, one that gets us back to our roots as a revolutionary society. Except that Jefferson was actually talking about the blood of ignorant people who rise up in arms against the American government, too. In fact, it was mostly their blood.

The entire letter makes this clear, and, as with so many things properly understood in relation to the Founders, it is stunningly prescient. Jefferson was talking to John Adams' son-in-law about Shays' Rebellion, a truly fascinating episode in the early history of the nation, pre-Constitution, but post-Revolution, where rural Massachusetts citizens rose up against the state's government over issues of taxes and debt. They were crushed, of course, and many of the politicians of the time were all a-twitter with how this was an attack on liberty and how the rebels should be put to death.

And while he could be something of a drama queen in his rhetoric - well, really, they all could be (it's the effect of long-term wig-wearing) - Jefferson's essential message in his letter was, more or less, "Chill. Stupid people will act stupidly." Or, as he put it, "I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty."...(Remainder.)

Why a Whole Foods Boycott Might Actually Work to Spur Real Health Care Reform

By tremayne
Open Left

The CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods has written a WSJ editorial attacking the still-in-the-works Obama health care plan in favor of less regulation on the insurance industry and downsizing Medicare. Here's one blogger's take:

Not very smart for a company that depends almost entirely on wealthy Democrats who are willing to pay five dollars for a six ounce carrot soda. Come on, you can do it, boycott them for at least a week and discover how much money you can save at Trader Joe's.

Actually, I think this is a great idea. A stupendous idea. Here's why:

1) Pretty much the only way to get the attention of corporate fat cats and the Senators and House members they own is to hit them in the pocket book. Remember when Sinclair Broadcasting was planning to air the anti-John Kerry "documentary" in 2004? The "sell Sinclair stock" meme was born and spread through the tubes and the stock started going down. Soon, plans for airing the documentary "changed." If a boycott of Whole Foods plan spreads, even if it is targeted for, say, the rest of August, they will notice. Similarly, a sell Whole Foods stock (WFMI) might also be effective.

2. My impression is that the customers of Whole Foods are left-leaning. If true, a boycott by even a quarter of Democratic customers would have a major impact.

3. While Whole Foods used to be a regional operation, it has now spread to 39 states. There are 3 locations in DC, 8 in Maryland and many more in Virginia. Congress members know of it and probably shop there.

4. If such a plan works, if the stock falls for example, the press will pick up on it and it will spread....(Remainder.)

Barack Obama So Far

Three leading political observers grade the President's first six months

By Eric Bates
Rolling Stone
Illustation: Shepard Fairey

During Franklin Roosevelt's first 100 days in office, congress granted every request the new president made. Barack Obama, despite enjoying a decisive majority in both houses of Congress, hasn't been so fortunate. His economic stimulus package failed to win a single Republican vote in the House, and conservative members of his own party are trying to block his ambitious plans to provide universal health care and curb global warming. What's more, Obama himself has alarmed supporters by compromising on key issues, and he has yet to flex his political muscle by mobilizing the tech-savvy network of grass-roots activists he assembled during last year's campaign. All of which raises the question: Is Obama raising false hopes? Or does he have what it takes to deliver real change?

To assess Obama's performance during his first six months in office, we sat down in our New York offices with three of America's leading political observers. David Gergen, a senior political analyst for CNN and director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, served in the White Houses of Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton. Paul Krugman, a New York Times columnist and professor of economics and international affairs at Princeton University, won the 2008 Nobel Prize in economics. Michael Moore is the Academy Award-winning director of Bowling for Columbine and Sicko; his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, will premiere on October 2nd.

Read Gergen, Krugman and Moore's full conversation in our new issue, on stands now. Keep reading for report cards on economic recovery, health care, the environment and education compiled by Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson....(Remainder.)

Fuck You, Sarah Palin, Just...Fuck You

By Rude One
The Rude Pundit

Sometimes, there's something delicious about offering a simple, sublime "fuck you" as a rejoinder to rank idiocy. In her Facebook "statement" on the health care reform debate, Palin protests that "we’re saying not just no, but hell no!" before launching into bizarro world, in her much-quoted: "And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." (By the way, has anyone pointed out how pathetic it is for a supposedly "major" political figure to make a "statement" through Facebook?)

The only possible response? "Hey, quitter, fuck you." And, then, as if to demonstrate said "fuck you," the Rude Pundit offers the following:

From the Columbus, Ohio TV station WBNS, here's a story about Margaret Druko, a woman with a four and a half year-old child with Down's Syndrome. Druko had to quit her job because child care centers wouldn't take her daughter. The only insurance she could get was for catastrophic care at $5000 a month. "Margaret said insurance companies told her Emily was considered a death risk. Without health insurance Margaret couldn't afford to pay for Emily to continue with her physical and occupational therapy. The Druko's go without medication for themselves because it's just too costly." The final fuck-you-Sarah? That story is from two weeks before Palin made her statement.

Or, in other words, ex-Governor, the death panel is there. It's called "the profit margin." Indeed, if the Grukos were a bit poorer, they'd qualify for government-run health care. Which would ensure that their daughter gets the care she needs. Denial of private insurance coverage because of Down's syndrome is unsurprisingly common. That's called "rationing."...(Remainder.)

Why Does Conservative Spoogebucket Kevin McCullough Admit That He's a Screamer?

By Rude One
The Rude Pundit

There are days you wake up, hungover, angry at the sun for rising, angry at the clouds for blocking the sun, and out of coffee. An irrational man would want to kick a small animal, the dog or the cat or, if possible, because they're so annoyingly cute, a marmoset. With no marmosets available, and with a modicum of rationality still available, the Rude Pundit, on mornings such as these, turns to his nemesis, Kevin McCullough, allegedly nationally-syndicated columnist (although there's no trace on Google searching of any actual newspapers that carry his work); host of, no shit, Xtreme Radio (the "X" apparently means Jesus or, at least, the thing he was nailed to) with the Christ-loving Baldwin, whichever one that is; and author of books that tell you how to act like a good Xian man, a man's man who worships a nearly naked dude on a cross. And McCullough's writing reveals, to the Rude Pundit's thinking, the filled-to-bursting desires for gay love. Actually, to be clear, look at the dude's picture: that's a man who wants cock, lots of cock, so much cock that he wants a cocktopus to wrap its cocktacles around him and penetrate every orifice. But instead of fulfilling his true identity and being the kind of man he should be, McCullough is given to bursts of projected rage at the supposedly decadent left. It's like Elmer Fudd in leather.

In his latest "column" (if by "column," you mean, "conspiracy-mongering for the townhall feces tossers"), McCullough flogs the newest lie about how Obama is gonna have conservatives castrated. See, on the White House blog, the following is posted: "There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

It seems innocuous enough. If you get an email that says, as this one does, "Health care will be denied based on age. 500 Billion will be cut from Seniors healthcare. The only way for that to happen is to drastically cut health care, the oldest and the sickest will be cut first. Paying for your own care will not be an option" (sic on all the errors), you could send it to the White House and probably get a nice form letter telling you the myriad ways that it's a lie. There's not a single thing the White House asks for that tells you to report anyone's name, unlike some funded programs of, say, the previous administration (Operation TIPS?). Besides, if you'll remember, one of the great qualities of the Obama campaign was its ability to respond quickly to lies and misinformation. So why not do it now, when lives are at stake, not just delegates?...(Remainder.)

Stupid C*nt Ann Coulter Says Rahm Emanuel's Brother is on Her “Death List.”

By Ellen
News Hounds

Given Fox News' daily drumbeat of hostility and invective toward the Obama administration and Democrats, it was probably only a matter of time before someone talked on the air about killing a prominent Democrat. Not surprisingly, that someone turned out to be Ann Coulter on the Hannity show last night (8/12/09). But what is shocking, even for Fox News, is that nobody condemned her statement that Rahm Emanuel's brother is on her "death list," meaning she has him marked for euthanasia. Given that Glenn Beck called President Obama a racist, and got the all clear sign from the boss, and given that Sean Hannity regularly refers to Obama as a radical socialist who hates America, and now Ann Coulter is talking about killing a high-profile Democrat, we demand to know, does Fox News draw the line anywhere? Or is discussion of murder permissible on the "we like America" network? With video.

In the discussion with Coulter, in the first video below, Hannity brought up an old statement by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, brother to Obama's Chief of Staff: "Services provided to individuals who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens are not basic and should not be guaranteed. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia."

Hannity showed that statement with the clear suggestion that it somehow indicated the current health care bill will include euthanasia, even though the statement was made in 1996 by someone who is not part of the Obama administration. Hannity went on to conflate the statement with the health care bill by (falsely) describing it as "taking seniors in a room and offering them end-of-life counseling."...(Remainder.)

If Right-Wingers Get Their Way, 22,000 Americans Will Continue to Be Killed by Lack of Health Care Each Year

This is a battle against people who want to protect a system that has killed more Americans than WW II -- not a debate tournament.

By Mark Ames
AlterNet

The right-wing anti-Obama-care movement is OK with killing off tens of thousands of Americans each year.

That's what this is all about: The right-wingers and their corporate sponsors are protecting a medieval and violent health care system that kills more Americans each year than all the Americans who have died in the war on terror since 2001, including the 3,000 victims of 9/11, and the 5,000-plus U.S. service members who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every two months, the American health care industry is party to the slaughter of more Americans than al-Qaida managed to kill. Osama bin Laden must look at the Tea Baggers, FreedomWorks, health-industry billionaires like Rick Scott and the rest, and think, "If only I could kill as many Americans as they do! These guys are pros!"

They need to answer for this -- they need to explain why they are trying to protect a system that kills 22,000 Americans per year -- a figure based on a landmark report by the prestigious Institute of Medicine.

In fact, 22,000 is a conservative figure -- one of the authors of that report thinks the real figure in 2006 alone was 27,000 Americans killed from our health care system, perhaps as high as 40,000. But I'll stick to the conservative casualty number of 22,000, which is horrific enough....(Remainder.)

The Antilogical Reasoning of Glenn Beck

By Mark
News Corpse

Glenn Beck has already solidified his position as the Evangelist of the Coming Obama-Pocalypse. Now he is pioneering a revolutionary new model for polemics that introduces a level of absurdity heretofore unimagined in the world of rational thought. It is a breakthrough that rattles the foundations of conventional discourse. In recognition of this achievement, Beck will forever be remembered as the Stephen Hawking of what I shall dub “Antilogical Reasoning” - or reasoning that contradicts its own premise. Perhaps the best example of antilogics is Beck’s recent comments as to whether President Obama is a racist:

“This President has, I think, exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture. I don’t know what it is [...] I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. He has a…This guy is, I believe, a racist.”

Beck also employs antilogical concepts when he beseeches his audience not to engage in violence against their opponents, then describes those opponents as an imminent threat to everything you hold dear - your family, your country, your faith, your freedom. And just yesterday Beck antilogically asserted that eugenics was not coming to America, except for the fact that the forces that led to eugenics in Nazi Germany are all taking shape here with the obvious and inevitable conclusion that eugenics is coming to America. Textbook antilogica....(Remainder.)

Stop Pretending Grassley is Seriously About Reform

By Steve Benen
Washington Monthly

Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the leading Republican lawmaker negotiating a "compromise" on health care reform.

One of the three Republican senators working on a bipartisan health care bill perpetuated a particularly outrageous untruth about the legislation on Wednesday.

Appearing at a town hall in his home state of Iowa, Sen. Chuck Grassley told a crowd of more than 300 that they were correct to fear that the government would "pull the plug on grandma."

"There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life," Grassley said. "And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things out. And I don't have any problem with things like living wills. But they ought to be done within the family. We should not have a government program that determines if you're going to pull the plug on grandma."

Just yesterday, President Obama described Chuck Grassley as one of his "Republican friends on Capitol Hill" who is "sincerely trying to figure out if they can find a health care bill that works." Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) recently said of Grassley that he "couldn't ask for a better partner" in working towards reform.

Obama and Baucus are wrong; and negotiating with Grassley in good faith is a mistake....(Remainder.)

Rep David Scott Displays Racist Hate Mail He Has Received

Via The Huffington Post

Rep. David Scott, a Democratic congressman from Georgia, has been the target of several incendiary political attacks in recent days. Most notably, a large 4-foot-wide swastika was painted on the sign outside of his office earlier this week.

Today, during an appearance on CNN, Scott showed some of the other letters and faxes his office has received in recent days. One of them included an image of President Barack Obama with a Soviet-style hammer and sickle placed on his forehead, as well as a reference to the congressman as "Nigga David Scott."

WATCH:

(Original.)

GE Slams Fox Bombs Report as ‘Maliciously False’

By David Bauder
San Francisco Chronicle

The General Electric Co. called a Fox News Channel report about the company supplying terrorists with material used in bombs "irresponsible and maliciously false" on Wednesday as a feud between Fox's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann kept sizzling.

It was the first time that GE, the parent company of MSNBC and NBC News, had publicly responded to accusations made by O'Reilly on his Fox show.

Olbermann also kept up his attacks, naming O'Reilly his "worst person in the world" on Wednesday's show for the GE story. The two men have taken their feud to a new level since The New York Times reported Aug. 1 that the chief executives of both parent corporations of the cable news channels — News Corp. as well as GE — had encouraged them to cool things down.

O'Reilly said on Tuesday that his show's sources say there is a federal investigation into whether American companies supplied components being used in roadside bombs aimed at American soldiers. He said that radio frequency modules inside some bombs were part of a shipment made by a U.S. company to Corezing International, a Singapore company that does business with Iran....(Remainder.)

Right-Wing Morons Tear Into 11-Year-Old Girl for Asking Obama a Question

By Daniel Tencer
The Raw Story

Julia Hall may be the most hated 11-year-old among conservative pundits in America today.

Ever since the sixth-grade resident of Malden, Massachusetts, asked President Barack Obama a question at his town hall on health care Tuesday, the conservative punditocracy has unleashed a torrent of criticism against the girl, accusing her of being an Obama plant.

“As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care,” Hall asked the president when the microphone was handed to her. “How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that can — that help more of us?”

The president responded with a long polemic on the false rumors that the health reform bill before Congress would create “death panels” that would deny medical care to the elderly.

On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said the president’s town hall meeting was “a stacked deck. That thing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was totally phony. The little girl that asked a question is the daughter of a huge Obama supporter.”...(Remainder.)

Obama on Drugs: 98% Cheney?

By Greg Palast
For The Huffington Post

Eighty billion dollars of WHAT?

Obama pig copy

I searched all over the newspapers and TV transcripts and no one asked the President what is probably the most important question of what passes for debate on the issue of health care reform: $80 billion of WHAT?

On June 22, President Obama said he'd reached agreement with big drug companies to cut the price of medicine by $80 billion. He extended his gratitude to Big Pharma for the deal that would, "reduce the punishing inflation in health care costs."

Hey, in my neighborhood, people think $80 billion is a lot of money. But is it?

I checked out the government's health stats (at HHS.gov), put fresh batteries in my calculator and toted up US spending on prescription drugs projected by the government for the next ten years. It added up to $3.6 trillion.

In other words, Obama's big deal with Big Pharma saves $80 billion out of a total $3.6 trillion. That's 2%.

Hey thanks, Barack! You really stuck it to the big boys. You saved America from these drug lords robbing us blind. Two percent. Cool!

For perspective: Imagine you are in a Wal-Mart and there's a sign over a flat screen TV, "BIG SAVINGS!" So, you break every promise you made never to buy from that union-busting big box - and snatch up the $500 television. And when you're caught by your spouse, you say, "But, honey, look at the deal I got! It was TWO-PERCENT OFF! I saved us $10!"

But 2% is better than nothing, I suppose. Or is it?

The Big Pharma kingpins did not actually agree to cut their prices. Their promise with Obama is something a little oilier: they apparently promised that, over ten years, they will reduce the amount at which they would otherwise raise drug prices. Got that? In other words, the Obama deal locks in a doubling of drug costs, projected to rise over the period of "savings" from a quarter trillion dollars a year to half a trillion dollars a year. Minus that 2%.

We'll still get the shaft from Big Pharma, but Obama will have circumcised the increase.

And what did Obama give up in return for $80 billion? Chief drug lobbyist Billy Tauzin crowed that Obama agreed to dump his campaign pledge to bargain down prices for Medicare purchases. Furthermore, Obama's promise that we could buy cheap drugs from Canada simply went pffft!

What did that cost us? The New England Journal of Medicine notes that 13 European nations successfully regulate the price of drugs, reducing the average cost of name-brand prescription medicines by 35% to 55%. Obama gave that up for his 2%.

The Veterans Administration is able to push down the price it pays for patent medicine by 40% through bargaining power. George Bush stopped Medicare from bargaining for similar discounts, an insane ban that Obama said he'd overturn. But, once within Tauzin's hypnotic gaze, Obama agreed to lock in Bush's crazy and costly no-bargaining ban for the next decade.

What else went down in Obama's drug deal? To find out, I called C-SPAN to get a copy of the videotape of the meeting with the drug companies. I was surprised to find they didn't have such a tape despite the President's campaign promise, right there on CNN in January 2008, "These negotiations will be on C-SPAN."

This puzzled me. When Dick Cheney was caught having secret meetings with oil companies to discuss Bush's Energy Bill, we denounced the hugger-muggers as a case of foxes in the henhouse.

Cheney's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were creepy and nasty and evil.

But the Obama crew's secret meetings with lobbyists and industry bigshots were, the President assures us, in the public interest.

We know Cheney's secret confabs were shady and corrupt because Cheney scowled out the side of his mouth.

Obama grins in your face.

See the difference?

The difference is 2%.

Disgusting & Pathetic Beck Exploits Special Needs Daughter to Further Right-Wing Talking Points

By Jonathan
News Hounds

One thing I've come to notice while watching Glenn Beck is that the man is always trying to find new ways to go one better and one step lower in order to whip up his audience, be it with over the top rants , making insensitive comments, making "jokes" that involve political leaders and a glass of poisoned wine, or basically reducing himself to a baby crying his eyes out . The stuff he does needs to be larger than life, and bigger and better than the last go around, kind of like the Irish rock band U2 does with concerts and their albums (with full apologies to Bono et al. for that analogy). On Tuesday, Beck outdid himself – by exploiting his special-needs daughter to deliver his latest message of hate and fear.

Yes, you read that right. In his latest emotive, blubbering, crocodile-tears performance, Beck managed to top his controversial “joke” that he poisoned Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, by - and I wish I were kidding about this - exploiting his cerebral palsy daughter to link Nazi Germany's ideas of euthanasia to the bullshit talking point that under the Obama health care plan, senior citizens are going to be killed and special needs patients will be facing "death panels" by the government.

"I want to show you a poster that I saw this morning getting ready for the show, and I want you to know that I have a daughter who was born (insert voice quaver here) with cerebral palsy. And when she was born, they said she would never walk or talk (lip quiver) or feed herself. She went to college, they were wrong. This poster bothers me so much because the hand of the person shown in this poster reminds me of my - uh - (fake tears/choke up) - my daughter's hand."

To quote Joseph N. Welch: "Have you no sense of decency sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" That is extremely disgusting and low of you, Mr. Beck. How dare you use your daughter, your own flesh and blood, to scare your viewers like that. Is there no low you won't sink to, no ethical stone that can’t be unturned in your eyes? Sadly, the answer is not just no, but hell no! Anything to scare, enrage and mislead your audience is fair game for you, isn't it, Glenn?...(Remainder.)

Obama in Physical Danger from Crazy Right-Wingers

By Matthew Rothschild
The Progressive

If I were Barack Obama, I wouldn’t be doing many public events.

And if I were Michelle, I’d be demanding that he stay home.

Why?

Because the crazies are out in force.

When the rightwing nuts start carrying signs with Obama as Hitler and the Antichrist, when they start bringing loaded guns to his events, when they start saying things like “Euthanize Obama,” the climate is getting just too ugly.

“Since Mr. Obama took office, the rate of threats against the President has increased 400 per cent from the 3,000 a year or so under President George W. Bush, according to Ronald Kessler, author of In the President's Secret Service,” reports the Telegraph of London.

Obama is facing more than 30 death threats a day, the paper said. And the Secret Service doesn’t have the resources to handle them all.

“We have half the agents we need,” one Secret Service member told Kessler....(Remainder.)

What Orly Taitz Believes

The head Birther talks about Obama's boyfriends, the long arm of Hugo Chavez and how the Web is rigged against her

By Gabriel Winant
Salon

I'm on Skype with Orly Taitz, and from Israel the queen bee of the Birthers is telling me that Barack Obama had all his gay lovers rubbed out, Chicago-style. Well, that's not fair. Taitz isn't explicitly accusing Obama of clipping his boyfriends to shut them up. She just wants to make sure I know that a few homosexuals from Obama's church, oddly, mysteriously, ominously, wound up dead. "Now, I don't want to say that Obama did it," explains Orly, in her dense Moldovan accent. "I don't want to say that people close to Obama did it. But those are the facts."

Taitz drops this bomb an hour into our two-hour-plus conversation, by which point I have already staggered past surprise and wonder into woozy, weak-kneed unease. The gay murders are just one accusation in a bloody, Byzantine list as long as the Chicago white pages. And I have long since surrendered to Taitz's recitation of "facts," after feebly suggesting that the odds are long that the president is guilty of all these transgressions. Could she just pick one? Please? "It seems," I whimper, "as though you sort of throw everything against the wall to see what sticks."

By now, if you know what the word "Birther" means, you've heard the name Orly Taitz. You're aware that she's a lawyer/dentist/real estate agent, that she believes Barack Obama is not a natural-born American citizen and thus not qualified to be president, and that she turned into barking Bessarabian goo on camera when trying to explain her belief system to MSNBC's David Shuster....(Remainder.)

Bachmann Says Obama Health Advisor Thinks Health Care Ought Not to be Extended to Disabled

By PolitiFact
St. Petersburg Times

You know Rahm Emanuel, President Barack Obama's intense chief of staff. And maybe you've heard of his brother, Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood talent agent who provided the inspiration for the Ari Gold character on HBO's Entourage. Now a third Emanuel brother, Ezekiel Emanuel, has been thrust into the spotlight.

Ezekiel Emanuel is a Health Policy Adviser at the White House Office of Management and Budget, and is a member of the Federal Council on Comparative Effectiveness Research, but until last week, he had largely flown under radar of the national political media.

That changed when Rep. Michele Bachmann, R- Minn., made a statement from the floor of the House on July 27 in which she said the American public needed to know what the people who advise Obama about health care reform think. Specifically, she said, Dr. Emanuel "says medical care should be reserved for the nondisabled. So watch out if you're disabled."

Emanuel is a well-known oncologist and bioethicist, which means he ponders such moral questions as "You have three people who need a liver, but you've got just one liver, who gets it?"

Like other academics (see our article on claims about science czar John Holdren), Emanuel has found that high-brow articles for academic journals make great fodder for opponents trying to score political points. Academics often write theoretically about ideas that are being kicked around. And they repeat and explore those ideas, without necessarily endorsing them.

Bachmann's comments from the House floor substantially repeat claims made in a July 24, 2009, New York Post op-ed piece written by Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York state.

Under the headline, "Deadly Doctors: O Advisers Want to Ration Care," McCaughey argues that "Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else....(Remainder.)

India's Water Use 'Unsustainable'

Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages according to results from NASA's gravity satellites.

By Richard Black
BBC News

The Grace mission discovered that in the country's northwest - including Delhi - the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year.

Writing in the journal Nature, they say rainfall has not changed, and water use is too high, mainly for farming.

The finding is published two days after an Indian government report warning of a potential water crisis.

That report noted that access to water was one of the main factors governing the pace of development in the world's second most populous nation.

About a quarter of India is experiencing drought conditions, as the monsoon rains have been weaker and later than usual.

But weather and climatic factors are not responsible for water depletion in the northwestern states of Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, according to the Nasa study.

"We looked at the rainfall record and during this decade, it's relatively steady - there have been some up and down years but generally there's no drought situation, there's no major trend in rainfall," said Matt Rodell, a hydrologist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC....(Remainder.)

Fundamentalist Christian Taliban Tulsa Mayoral Candidate Wants Creationist Nonsense Displayed at Tulsa Zoo

By Brian Barber
Tulsa World

Republican mayoral candidate Anna Falling said Tuesday that putting a Christian creationism display in the Tulsa Zoo is No. 1 in importance among city issues that include violent crime, budget woes and bumpy streets.

“It’s first,” she said to calls of “hallelujah” at a rally outside the zoo. “If we can’t come to the foundation of faith in this community, those other answers will never come. We need to first of all recognize the fact that God needs to be honored in this city.”

Falling, who has founded several Christian nonprofits and is a former city councilor, also said the next mayor needs to appoint people to city boards, authorities and commissions who will “honor God.”

“We will also look for people who want to characterize the origins of both man and animals in a way that honors Judeo-Christian science that proves God as the creator,” she said.

When asked whether she meant she would recruit Christians to serve the city, Falling said she was talking about “people committed to their churches,” and when asked whether she meant Christian churches, she said, “churches, yes.”

Falling’s campaign has been overtly Christian-themed. But she said she wants to embrace people of all religions, not alienate them.

“I’d love to be able to visit with them,” she said, adding that there’s common ground. “I know God loves them. I love them. This is an opportunity for us to be able to be friends and make a difference in this community.”

Controversy over having a creationism display at the zoo dates back to 2005, when it was proposed by
Dan Hicks, a Christian activist....(Remainder.)

Return of the Militias

By Southern Poverty Law Center

The 1990s saw the rise and fall of the virulently antigovernment "Patriot" movement, made up of paramilitary militias, tax defiers and so-called "sovereign citizens." Sparked by a combination of anger at the federal government and the deaths of political dissenters at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and Waco, Texas, the movement took off in the middle of the decade and continued to grow even after 168 people were left dead by the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City's federal building — an attack, the deadliest ever by domestic U.S. terrorists, carried out by men steeped in the rhetoric and conspiracy theories of the militias. In the years that followed, a truly remarkable number of criminal plots came out of the movement. But by early this century, the Patriots had largely faded, weakened by systematic prosecutions, aversion to growing violence, and a new, highly conservative president.

They're back. Almost a decade after largely disappearing from public view, right-wing militias, ideologically driven tax defiers and sovereign citizens are appearing in large numbers around the country. "Paper terrorism" — the use of property liens and citizens' "courts" to harass enemies — is on the rise. And once-popular militia conspiracy theories are making the rounds again, this time accompanied by nativist theories about secret Mexican plans to "reconquer" the American Southwest. One law enforcement agency has found 50 new militia training groups — one of them made up of present and former police officers and soldiers. Authorities around the country are reporting a worrying uptick in Patriot activities and propaganda. "This is the most significant growth we've seen in 10 to 12 years," says one. "All it's lacking is a spark. I think it's only a matter of time before you see threats and violence."

A key difference this time is that the federal government — the entity that almost the entire radical right views as its primary enemy — is headed by a black man. That, coupled with high levels of non-white immigration and a decline in the percentage of whites overall in America, has helped to racialize the Patriot movement, which in the past was not primarily motivated by race hate. One result has been a remarkable rash of domestic terror incidents since the presidential campaign, most of them related to anger over the election of Barack Obama. At the same time, ostensibly mainstream politicians and media pundits have helped to spread Patriot and related propaganda, from conspiracy theories about a secret network of U.S. concentration camps to wholly unsubstantiated claims about the president's country of birth....(Remainder.)

Special Prosecutor on the Horizon?

By Scott Horton
Harper's Magazine

Last night I discussed the latest reports about the pending appointment of a torture special prosecutor with Keith Olbermann. Here’s the video:

Here’s another question. According to the Los Angeles Times, “Officials said it wasn’t clear that any CIA interrogators were ever informed of the limits laid out in the Justice Department memo. ‘A number of people could say honestly, correctly, “I didn’t know what was in it,”‘ said a former senior U.S. intelligence official.” How would that affect the work of a special prosecutor?

The Times piece builds off accounts furnished by “former senior Justice officials,” close to the torture issue, with apparent knowledge of “investigations.” In all likelihood, we’re talking about Bush Administration political appointees apprehensive about what a special prosecutor might uncover. I would strongly discount the claims that the investigations will never go anywhere because of a lack of witnesses and evidence. That conclusion can’t be justified until a serious investigation has actually been conducted—and it’s clear that the Bush Justice Department did not conduct a serious investigation because they were concerned about where it might lead....(Remainder.)

Visions of Nazis are Dancing in Glenn Beck's Head

By David Neiwert
Crooks and Liars

Glenn Beck was in prime form last night. He warned everyone up front that he wasn't arguing that eugenics are about to descend on America.

But then it becomes clear that what he is arguing is that the Democrats and progressives in general and President Obama in general are just like the Nazis. And in case you didn't get it the first time, he caps the whole thing off by comparing a Nazi cartoon to liberals' dismissal of the teabaggers.

Of course, he knows he can get away with this kind of nonsense because, hey, if Rush can get away with it, he probably can, too.

And he makes plain that he completely supports Sarah Palin's intimations of "death panels" and subscribes to her view that universal health care will bring about euthanasia.

In other words, he's a "deather."

Oh, and as an added bonanza, he cries. Again. He always does this whenever he mentions his disabled daughter. Which reminds me: Why do these people who get all indignant when their families get mentioned always hold their families up for public displays of whatever political point they want to make? Just wondering.

File this one under "Deluxe Nutball Rant, with Nazis on the side."...(Original.)

Day in the Life of Joe Middle-Class Republican

Surprise! Michelle Malkin's Attacking Little Kids Again

By Media Matters

Wasn't Malkin's infamous, and creepy, 2007 Baltimore drive-by bad enough? I guess not, because now Malkin's zeroing in on a young Massachusetts school girl. Why? Because she got to ask president Obama a question at a town hall forum. Bad idea! (She was an "in-the-tank questioner.") The girl may as well have painted a bull's eye on her back because Malkin and her online detective pals are takin' that kid down!!

Stay classy, Michelle.

And how much hate mail and how many angry phone calls to the house from wingnuts do you think the little girls' family is now going to receive thanks to Malkin's vilification? And all because the youngster participated in a town hall forum.

Malkin's larger point seemed to be that the Obama town hall wasn't diverse enough, and that too many Obama fans were in attendance. (i.e. It was all staged.) As HotAirPundit complained, "During the Town Hall at the end of Obama's speech nearly everyone gave Obama a standing ovation, on their feet clapping. This is propaganda 101."...(Remainder.)

Anti-Gay ‘Focus on the Family’ Faces Dire Financial Straits

Evangelical group faces 'serious' shortfall: Conservative Christian group Focus on the Family suffers 'serious budget shortfall'

By Eric Gorski
Associated Press via The Raw Story

A "serious budget shortfall" at Focus on the Family has prompted the conservative Christian group to issue a special fundraising plea, and contributed to a decision to cede control of its contentious "Love Won Out" conferences about homosexuality to another religious organization, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Focus on the Family, founded by child psychologist James Dobson, is on pace to fall $6 million short of a $138 million budget for the fiscal year that began last October, spokesman Gary Schneeberger said.

Jim Daly, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based evangelical ministry, explained the challenges in a letter to approximately 800,000 donors.

"Right now we're facing a serious budget shortfall that threatens our ability to reach out to parents, families and married couples who count on our help," Daly wrote. "Income is down nearly $6 million from what we expected and planned for this year. I want to assure you that we're committed to good stewardship AND living within our means, just as so many families are today."

Focus on the Family also announced Tuesday it would no longer stage "Love Won Out" conferences across the country. The events drew both participants and picketers for their promise to "help men and women dissatisfied with living homosexually understand that same-sex attractions can be overcome."

The events will go on, instead staged by Orlando, Fla.-based Exodus International, a network of ministries whose core message is "Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."...(Remainder.)

“Traditional” Marriage Moron is Getting a Divorce...Hypocrisy Much?

By Eric Wolff
San Diego CityBeat

In July 2008, hotelier and developer Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to help gather signatures for a proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in California. The early money was crucial to getting the initiative—which ultimately passed—on the ballot. At the time, he told The New York Times that he made the donation because of "my Catholic faith and longtime affiliation with the Catholic Church," which preferred that marriage remain between a man and a woman. Indeed, the Catholic Church has vehemently opposed gay marriage. Then again, it's also not too keen on divorce.

On Oct. 9, 2008, Manchester ended 43 years, eight months and nine days of marriage to Elizabeth Manchester by moving out of their La Jolla abode. The couple spent the next several months trying to reach a quiet settlement on how best to distribute millions of dollars in cash and other assets. In July, those talks totally broke down, and Doug started playing financial hardball with Elizabeth, allegedly draining the couple's shared accounts and stealing her mail. On Aug. 6, Elizabeth filed a petition for redress in family court. All of the information in this story comes from those petitions. CityBeat contacted attorneys for both parties, but neither returned calls by press time.

The court records say Doug pushed very hard for a speedy divorce agreement after he moved out, but Elizabeth would have none of it. She insisted on hiring lawyers and forensic accountants to fully assess Doug's assets. Doug controls the Grand Del Mar Resort, the Manchester Hyatt, the Torrey Executive Center and the Manchester Financial Building. He also has $56.9 million divided among nine bank accounts, though the papers make clear that her accountants believe there's far more holdings to be assessed. Elizabeth's petition alleges that Doug has withheld some of the documents needed to make a full accounting. As negotiations dragged on, Doug apparently became impatient....(Remainder.)

The Time to Start Mocking Rick Santorum is Now

By Ali Davis
365 Gay

Oh, Goody. Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum is back.

Just when I was really getting used to the pleasant roll of the words “FORMER Senator Rick Santorum,” he comes lurching back into the public eye.

According to an article in Politico, Santorum is planning to go to Iowa in October to do a fundraiser for the America’s Future Fund PAC and has a full docket of other public appearances.

It is, of course, too early to talk about a Presidential run… but going to Iowa is what you do when you’re considering a Presidential run.

It’s possible that you’ve blocked Former Senator Santorum out of your thoughts, and I can’t blame you.

To refresh, he’s been an outspoken opponent of gay marriage and once said that the repeal of sodomy laws would open the door to pedophilia and “man-on-dog” sex.

He’s recently joined forces with the National Organization for Marriage to help try to keep the Defense of Marriage Act from being repealed.

Santorum has also compared same-sex marriage to incest and, though he says he doesn’t have a problem with homosexuals, he does think that “homosexual acts” are a threat to the very fabric of society....(Remainder.)

Harvey Milk Awarded 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom

Protester With a Handgun Outside of President Obama's NH Town Hall

By John Amato
Crooks and Liars

NBC caught a man outside the NH town hall with a gun strapped to his leg. It appears to be legal as long as it's not concealed in Portsmouth. And get this. He's on private property and if the owner of the property consents then he can carry the cannon on his leg. What's weird about that is the private property is a church. A man of GOD thinks it's swell to let this man carry a loaded weapon on church grounds. What would Jesus think?

Carlos: You're saying a guy has a gun in the open and we already know there are concerns about every president 's safety, but certainly this president...and the guy's just being allowed to stay there, is that right?

Allen: The Chief of Police, I just asked him because I was amazed too, but apparently the law allows this man to be here as long as the gun is not concealed, it is registered to him apparently and he's on private property on a church ground...

Do you think anybody would be allowed to be near President Bush who had a huge gun strapped on his leg? I doubt that, but this is the country the right wing wants us to live in. And if Sen. John Thune had his way, it wouldn't matter what NH law said if the state that this man came from did let you walk around with a gun. Unbelievable....(Original.)

The 'Tea Party' Nexus: Mainstream Conservatives Empowering Far-Right Extremists Who Want New Civil War

By David Neiwert
Crooks and Liars

The right-wing media have been aghast at the unpleasant realities being reported about all those shouters and disruptors at town-hall forums -- namely, that their anger is being ginned up by corporate interests using right-wing populists to derail their political opponents; and that their ranks are riddled with extremists.

And to the extent that the critics of these protesters try to portray the scenes as purely a product of corporate machinations, they have a point. There is real anger out there, and the anti-reform interests are successfully tapping into it.

But the anger they're tapping into is not a new thing; in fact, it's been around a long time. It's a larger anger at the federal government, stoked (as we've seen in the health-care debate) by a combination of real grievances and a pathological belief in explanations for those grievances that are provably untrue, wrapped in paranoid conspiracy theories about government officials and a conspiracist view of history.

In the 1990s, they called themselves militias or "Patriots." Nowadays, they're organizing around the so-called "tea parties" and now the health-care town halls. These are the wellspring of the anger at these meetings -- but this faction has a long history of being motivated by anger anyway.

This is not to downplay the vital role behind the scenes being played by ostensibly mainstream conservative operations, fueled by corporate money. Adele Stan at AlterNet has a thoroughly devastating expose of the machinations behind the protests, beginning with Dick Armey's FreedomWorks operation all the way down to the Birther nutcases who are bubbling up at these shows....(Remainder.)

Steve Doocy And Tucker Carlson Do "The Fox Reach Around" On Fox & Friends

By Priscilla
News Hounds

The term “reach-around” does have a certain – ah – connotation which implies a stimulatory action involving mutual satisfaction. I’ve coined the phrase the “Fox reach around” because the Fox program hosts do seem to engage in a metaphorical “reach around” in that they, rather than challenge the guest, agree with the guest by rephrasing (“reaching around”) the guest’s right wing talking point The guest subsequently agrees with what the host says and that makes everybody happy. Thus, the point is made, restated, and affirmed with the total effect being a reinforcement of whatever meme is being pushed. The propaganda beat goes on. So metaphorically speaking, it’s a verbal reach around. This morning, Steve Doocy and Tucker Carlson engaged in the “Fox Reach Around” when they reinforced each others points, during the weekly propaganda piece, “The Trouble With Textbooks,” while doing a lot of giggling. So I guess it was good for them.

The title of the video says it all “Say It Ain’t So, Liberals Lobby To Remove Words From Your Kids Textbooks.” Within a few seconds, Steve Doocy established the right wing talking point theme of the video: “We’ve been telling you about words that liberals are lobbying to take out of our children’s textbooks.” Naturally, Doocy didn’t say which liberals are doing this or where this is taking place. He listed a few more words “that are gonna knock your socks off.” Famous “dick” Tucker Carlson claimed that “the point of textbooks under the activist left is not to describe the way the world is; but to hope for the way it should be…” (Kinda like Fox News and Teabaggers, Tucker?) "and sometimes that entails changing history when the facts are inconvient.” (Oh, the irony!) In the background, Doocy was giggling. Tucker obviously has a problem with the demise of the white, Christian, male power structure because he claimed that these unnamed groups want to change Adam and Eve to Eve and Adam to imply that women are in control. (Oh, Tucker, we should be so lucky!) In a classic, Fox “reach around,” (interviewer takes what interviewee says and rephrases it which, in turn, stimulates the speaker to agree – message reinforced) Doocy said that “they’re not just rewriting textbooks, they’re rewriting parts of the Bible.” Tucker laughed uproariously. (Seriously, guys, get a room!). “Scripture itself, that’s right.” According to Carlson, there is no more “grandfather clause” because that, according to Carlson, is sexist. The new phrase is “retroactive coverage.” Tucker said that “sportsmanship” is out because it has the “dreaded word man” in it. As he said the replacement, “sporting conduct,” Doocy breathlessly intoned, “you gotta be kidding me.” For Carlson, the replacement of jungle, with the more scientifically correct “rain forest” or “savannah” “reeks of political correctness.” As Carlson joked about no more “George of the Jungle,” Doocy, looking quite verklempt (oh, a foreign word, - am I being too liberal?), said “I wish you were making this up. Tucker Carlson talking about how they are trying to take these words out of our kids textbooks.” (Who is "they" are what, exactly are "they" doing?) Carlson affirmed that with “oh, yes” and them pimped his hour long documentary about which Doocy said “we’ll be promoting.”...(Remainder.)

Same-Sex Marriage Advocates Target 2012

By John Woolfolk
San Jose Mercury News

Wednesday's word that a major same-sex marriage advocacy group was getting cold feet about going to the ballot next year came as a relief to Silicon Valley activists who worry that trying to overturn California's same-sex marriage ban only two years after voters endorsed it under Proposition 8 would be too risky.

"I think 2010 is just too early," said Rick Infantino, a spokesman for Marriage Equality Silicon Valley. "Eventually, marriage equality will happen for everyone. But we think we have a better chance of winning 2012."

San Francisco-based Equality California, the largest fundraiser in last year's unsuccessful campaign against Proposition 8, announced Wednesday that it would work toward a ballot measure to legalize same-sex marriage in 2012 rather than next year. The group cited extensive polling and outreach indicating 2012 was the date a campaign to legalize gay marriage in the Golden State would stand a reasonable chance of success.

Local backers of Proposition 8 disagree and say they stand ready to take them on at the polls any time.

"Certainly, their supposition is that support for homosexual marriage will increase over the years," said Larry Pegram, president of the Values Advocacy Council in San Jose, which led the local campaign for Proposition 8. "I do not believe they will be successful in '12 simply because a majority of people in California, as well as nationally, believe marriage should be between a man and a woman.
Advertisement
We're continuing with our organizing efforts. The coalition is still in place. We know it's not a question of if, it's a question of when. We're staying battle-ready."

California voters in November approved Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment declaring only marriages between a man and a woman valid, by 52 percent after the state's most expensive campaign over a social issue. In Santa Clara County, 44 percent of voters backed the measure. The measure followed a state Supreme Court ruling that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. The high court has since ruled that same-sex marriages officialized before Proposition 8 passed remain valid.

Even among same-sex marriage supporters, the idea that 2012 is the better year for a do-over at the ballot box is not universally shared. Many, most notably the 700,000-strong Courage Campaign based in Los Angeles, insisted Wednesday on pressing ahead with a 2010 ballot measure....(Remainder.)

Fox News Major "Retard" Garrett Claims Stimulus Has Failed Contradicting His Own "Network"

Fox's Blonde Banshee, Gretchen Carlson, Big Time Fail Claiming Cash-For-Clunkers a Failure

Dumb-as-a-Sack-of-Dead-Gerbils Kilmeade Falsely Claims Pelosi Called Protestors "un-America"

Kondracke Calls Out the Pig-Man For Hitler Comments

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