A Liberal's Hit List: Sep 18, 2009

Same-Sex Among Us: Bangor Daily News Destroys Pro-Hate Groups

Friday, September 18, 2009

By Editorial
Bangor Daily News

The debate about the Nov. 3 ballot’s Question 1, the effort to repeal Maine’s newly minted same-sex marriage law, will heat up in the coming weeks. Heat is one thing. Falsehoods are another.

Opponents of the law are bringing children into the fray, suggesting their innocence would be sullied if the repeal fails. It’s a ploy that has been used effectively before; any candidate for elected office who supports sex education is said to favor handing out condoms to kindergarten children. This time, the claim by repeal proponents is that schools would be forced to teach “gay sex education.” It is baseless and betrays an ignorance about education.

The claim was made by the Stand for Marriage Maine group in a recent mass e-mail message soliciting donations. In addition, the Rev. Bob Emrich of the Emmanuel Bible Baptist Church in Plymouth, a member of the Stand for Marriage group’s executive committee, wrote in a BDN OpEd: “No matter what their parents may teach them, Maine schools would indoctrinate their children that homosexual marriage is completely normal and equally desirable as traditional marriage and there is nothing parents could do to prevent it.”

This is not true.

The same-sex marriage law does not address anything in state education law. And, further, there are no state mandates to teach sex education, let alone explicit “gay sex education,” as the repeal group’s e-mail stated. Sexuality is discussed in most Maine high schools, and has been for decades, but locally elected school boards oversee those curriculums and parents are able to exempt their children from those discussions...(Remainder.)

Blackwater Offers Training to 'Faith Based Organizations'

This is NOT a story from The Onion.

By Jeremy Scahill
Rebel Reports

In its ever-evolving re-branding campaign, Blackwater has created a new alter-ego for part of the company’s business. Meet the “Personal Security Awareness” program, which appears to be an off-shoot of Erik Prince’s Greystone, Ltd., a classic mercenary operation registered offshore in Barbados. On its website, which was registered on February 20, 2009 and went live recently, the “program” is described as “a multi-phase course which is designed to assist Non-Government Organizations, Faith Based Organizations and Commercial Businesses by providing individual personal awareness and driver training for their personnel when deployed to unfamiliar environments.” It adds: “Greystone recognizes the importance of “preparation by doing” and looks forward to you joining us for this exciting training!”

Blackwater, of course, works for such organizations as the International Republican Institute, but “Faith Based Organizations?” Are they serious? I’m sure there are just scores of Islamic aid groups just lining up to take courses from ~~Blackwater~~, Xe, ~~US Training Center~~, ~~Greystone~~, Personal Security Awareness. Moreover, any legitimate “faith based organization” that wants harmony with other faiths would be insane to work with this company. One of the courses offered is described as teaching “persons traveling to foreign environments how to remain safe during their travels in a vehicle.” This truly is surreal. What would seem more appropriate would be a company offering courses on how to “remain safe” in a vehicle when going anywhere near Blackwater forces. Remember how those unarmed Iraqi civilians were blown up in their car by Blackwater operatives at Nisour Square? Or the Afghan civilians allegedly killed in their car by Blackwater operatives in Afghanistan in May?...(Remainder.)

Racist Right-Wingers Have Panties is a Wad Over Being Called on Their Overt Racism

Grand Dragon Dobbs Attack Media Matters for Calling Him on FAIR Participation

Without Doing Any Fact Checking the Bullshit Factory Runs With San Bernadino ACORN Video As Fact

Right-Wing Tramp Kelly & Reichsminister Rove Totally Ignore Facts to Advance ACORN Lies

Stupid Bitch Carlson Completely Ignores Police Report to Lie About ACORN Employee Killing Husband

Racist Gensui Rikugun Taishō Pig-Man Attacks Jimmy Carter Calling Him "Nation's Hemorrhoid"

Right-Wing Cum Guzzling Gutter-Slut, Ingraham, Attacks Obama for Supposed "PC Speech Code"

After Comparing Obama to Hitler, the Oxy-Moron Insists He Never Called Obama a Nazi

Reichsführer Beck Praises "Muse" as Brilliant Band; In Related News, Muse Wants Beck to Retract Endorsement

Rachel Maddow Reports on Right-Wing Reach Around Between Grand Dragon Dobbs and Joe "KKK" Wilson

Reich-Wing Media Rushes to Defend Racist Joe "Complete Idiot" Wilson

Incredibly Moronic Right-Wing Screeching Slut, Crowley, Says "Obama is Van Jones, Obama is ACORN"

Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda Reports ACORN Video as Fact

Reichsführer Batshit Crazy Doesn't Like Being Called a Racist, it Hurts His Widdle Fealings

While Attacking Calling People on their Racism, Reichsführer Beck & Self-Hating Jew Horowitz Attack Pres. Carter as a Racist

Reichsführer Beck Compares Calling Out Racists to Taliban's Use of Children Suicide Bombers

Ed Schultz Calls Out the Pig-Man for His School Bus Fight Comments

Juan Williams Explains to Mental Midget Hannity About Racism of Joe Wilson and Birther BS

David Shuster Discusses Fox News' Failure to Investigate Video with ACORN CEO

Luogotenente Generale Retarded Baby Jesus Claims ACORN Getting $8.5 Trillion from Stimulus!?! This Guy is SERIOUSLY Retarded.

Juan Williams Calls Out Retarded Baby Jesus Over His ACORN Non-Story; Why Not "Go After Blackwater" or Wall Street?

Rockefeller Stands Up for Liberals on Health Care

By Jackie Calmes
The New York Times
Photo: Brendan Smialowski (NYT)

WASHINGTON — On Tuesday, John D. Rockefeller IV, a leading Senate liberal on health issues, said he would oppose a new Democratic proposal intended to win elusive Republican support to remake the health system. On Wednesday, he was summoned to a private meeting with President Obama.

After months in which the White House had seemed to ignore liberals as it courted centrists to join the president’s signature cause, liberal lawmakers have finally attracted the administration’s attention. They, in turn, have to decide how far to press their case.

All summer, the White House deferred to Senator Max Baucus, the Democrat from Montana who heads the Senate Finance Committee, as he negotiated with two moderate Democrats and three Republicans. Their failure to agree on a bipartisan bill left the administration scrambling to pass an overhaul with Democratic votes alone.

And that has emboldened liberals like the 72-year-old Mr. Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat. He heads the health subcommittee of Mr. Baucus’s panel, and yet he was relegated to the sidelines as the so-called Gang of Six talked and talked. Senate liberals are now pushing for an overhaul fully on Democratic terms — legislation more like that in the House, where liberal Democrats dominate.

“I represent a state that really needs health care reform, and I want it to be good,” said Mr. Rockefeller, who came to West Virginia 45 years ago with the Vista program to teach in a mining town. “It doesn’t make me liberal,” he added. “I care. That’s the Vista volunteer in me. My passion has not diminished one bit since 1964."...(Remainder.)

Rep. Ellison Lashes Out @MicheleBachmann

By Eric Rober
Star Tribune

Rep. Keith Ellison took Rep. Michele Bachmann to task today via his Blackberry.

Ellison, arguably the most liberal member of Minnesota’s congressional delegation, chided his conservative colleague on Twitter for leaving a Financial Services Committee meeting before witnesses had offered their testimony.

The hearing was held to discuss the possible expansion of the Community Reinvestment Act, which encourages lenders to aid low-income areas. Bachmann criticized the CRA and ACORN before leaving, according to Ellison’s tweets (below).

“Michele Bachmann uses her time at financial services to attack CRA, ACORN, and then promptly walks out when experts begin testimony,” Ellison wrote.

In a statement released today about the CRA, Bachmann said the law “encourages low underwriting standards and risky lending behavior” and contributed to this fall’s financial collapse. Bachmann’s problems with ACORN are also no secret....(Remainder.)

Indefensible: Fox Cuts Arms Control Expert Short, but He Still Schools Bolton Anyway

Teabaggers Think the Public (Transit) Option Inadequate

By Laura Clawson
Daily Kos

Let me get this straight.

Thousands of teabaggers take Washington, DC public transit -- let's call it the public option of transportation -- to their 9/12 protest.

And now they're complaining that this government-funded service wasn't lavish enough? Kevin Brady, Texas Republican House member, is even complaining on their behalf. Sorry, make that Kevin Brady who voted against $150 million in emergency maintenance funding for the DC Metro in July. Now, he'd like the government to spend more money investigating this alleged failure of a service he voted to deny funding and protesters were hypocrites to have even tried to use.

A spokesman for Brady says that "there weren’t enough cars and there weren’t enough trains." Brady tweeted as much from the Saturday march. "METRO did not prepare for Tea Party March! More stories. People couldn’t get on, missed start of march. I will demand answers from Metro," he wrote on Twitter.

Brady says in his letter to Metro that overcrowding forced an 80-year-old woman and elderly veterans in wheelchairs to pay for cabs. He concludes that it "appears that Metro added no additional capacity to its regular weekend schedule."

For the record, the Metro was rush hour crowded. Not major sports event crowded. Certainly not inauguration crowded.

So basically, it's a whining sense of entitlement. Business as usual, in other words....(Original.)

Lies: Obama, the Republicans, and Health Care Reform

By Hendrik Hertzberg
The New Yorker

After the tea-partying, town-meeting-disrupting, pistol-packing mensis horribilis of August, more than a few commentators complained, as one of them put it, that “Obama should have seen it coming.” No one doubted that the current attempt to overhaul America’s uniquely wasteful and unjust system of health insurance and non-insurance would touch off the kind of demagogic, misleading attacks that have greeted every past attempt at ambitious reform, successful (Medicare) and unsuccessful (all the rest) alike. The plan is socialism; government bureaucrats will choose your doctor and prescribe your treatments; the economy will be ruined; taxes will crush you—all that and more was to be expected. But the predominant tone of opposition to the emerging Democratic health-care proposals, and to the President personally, came as a surprise to the White House and a profound shock to many who voted for Barack Obama last November.

Perhaps it was naïve, and obviously it was optimistic, to hope that once Obama—having been elected by a large and undisputed majority, unlike his two predecessors—took office the nastiness of the assault against him would subside. And so it did, briefly. But as the reality sank in that this temperamentally conservative President intends to make good on his substantively progressive promises, the fury returned, uglier than before and no longer subject to the minimal restraints inherent in a national electoral campaign aimed at persuading a plurality of voters. Lies and fantasies about health-care reform swirled together with lies and fantasies about the chief executive himself. Obama is plotting to set up “death panels,” government tribunals authorized to euthanize the old and sick. Obama was born in Kenya and therefore his very Presidency is unconstitutional. Obama will cut Medicare benefits to provide coverage to illegal aliens. Obama seeks to indoctrinate children in Marxist ideology and put teenagers in “reeducation camps.” Obama is a Communist. Obama is a Fascist....(Remainder.)

Glenn Beck's Which Hunt of the Day Selectively Edits Obama's Remarks About Constitution to Suggest He Doesn't Like It

By Ellen
News Hounds

With the ACORN witch hunt temporarily on hold, Glenn Beck went back to his Un-American activities witch hunt with the spotlight, as usual, on President Obama. For a bit of variety, Beck added a few more Democrats: Timothy Geithner, Nancy Pelosi, Ben Bernanke and, for good measure, Beck found a new black person to smear, Rep. Jim Clyburn. Without bothering to discuss or analyze the serious insinuations he was making, Beck played selective soundbites to suggest that each of the people shown were somehow disloyal to or a threat to the Constitution. In the case of Obama, Beck stole an old smear from Rush Limbaugh by playing a clip of Obama saying that the Constitution is “an imperfect document.” But though Obama was referring to the document’s treatment of slaves when he said that, Beck cleverly edited Obama’s comment to leave that part out. He also selectively edited out Obama’s statement that the Constitution is “a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now.” With video.

Beck began the segment, which was really a montage, with patriotic music and visuals of our founding fathers, as though that gave him the bona fides to assail other people’s patriotism.

Then we saw Obama taking the oath of office. That was followed by a clip of Obama saying, “The original Constitution, I think it is an imperfect document, and I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture -- the colonial culture nascent at that time. I think we can say that the Constitution reflected a enormous blind spot in this culture and that the framers had that same blind spot. It also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.”...(Remainder.)

And Obama's words in context and not twisted by a right-wing douche-nozzle like Beck.

Justice Sotomayor Challenges the Concept of Corporate Personhood

By Jess Bravin
The Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- In her maiden Supreme Court appearance last week, Justice Sonia Sotomayor made a provocative comment that probed the foundations of corporate law.

During arguments in a campaign-finance case, the court's majority conservatives seemed persuaded that corporations have broad First Amendment rights and that recent precedents upholding limits on corporate political spending should be overruled.

But Justice Sotomayor suggested the majority might have it all wrong -- and that instead the court should reconsider the 19th century rulings that first afforded corporations the same rights flesh-and-blood people have.

Judges "created corporations as persons, gave birth to corporations as persons," she said. "There could be an argument made that that was the court's error to start with...[imbuing] a creature of state law with human characteristics."

After a confirmation process that revealed little of her legal philosophy, the remark offered an early hint of the direction Justice Sotomayor might want to take the court.

"Progressives who think that corporations already have an unduly large influence on policy in the United States have to feel reassured that this was one of [her] first questions," said Douglas Kendall, president of the liberal Constitutional Accountability Center....(Remainder.)

Regarding Jimmy Carter: Was This Even Up for Discussion?

By Rude One
The Rude Pundit

Listen: when former President Jimmy Carter, from rural Georgia in the goddamned 1920s, says something is racist, he knows what the fuck he's talking about. Can you imagine the number of toothless crackers he grew up around? No, you can't. Don't even try. Because if you didn't grow up during a time when racism was seen as the way things were, where a white person who was polite to a black person was seen as a traitor to their race, where being a dirt poor white man meant that you had to find someone to beat up on and you sure as hell weren't gonna go after the rich white people actually keeping you down, where there were more lynchings of blacks than in any other state but Mississippi, you shut the fuck up and listen to the man. Because he knows from racist.

The people attacking Carter in their usual ginned-up, politically-motivated way know that the organized fanning of the flames of extremist positions within the Republican party stinks of anti-black and anti-Hispanic rhetoric and action. These days, white people, not just from the South, but often so, are so good at using code words to hide their racism that the ones who have deluded themselves into thinking that they're not racist all of a sudden act shocked when someone trots out the Obama monkey sock puppet.

This ain't new. The Rude Pundit knew people who worked for Jesse Helms, and they all said that, in private, Helms was one of the most despicable racists they ever heard. As much of a motherfucker as he was in public, that probably means that "nigger" was a noun, verb, and adjective to him. As mentioned here before, years ago, the Rude Pundit was at a David Duke rally when he was running for Senate in Louisiana, where Duke told a group of white people that "I'm just saying in public what we've been saying in the back rooms for years." The white people agreed. And wouldn't it be nice if they could say it in public....(Remainder.)

Joe Wilson Campaign Rally

By Bill Schorr
United Media

Limbaugh: It's Open Season on White People in Obama's America!

By Joan Walsh
Salon.com

Today in crazy: In Barack Obama's America, it's open season on white people!

That's the word from Rush Limbaugh and Matt Drudge, who are hyperventilating over the story of a black teenager in Illinois who beat up a white kid, apparently while other black teens cheered him on. "White student beaten on school bus; crowd cheers," was the screaming headline on the Drudge Report this morning, and Limbaugh told his radio listeners: "In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering."

Of course, kids of every color have been beaten up by kids of every color from time immemorial, but in Barack Obama's America, wingnuts are going to a) insist it's about black racism and b) say it's Obama's fault. It's despicable, but it's becoming a daily occurrence.

The video is hard to watch, but while it's clear the victim is white and his attacker (or attackers, it isn't clear) are black -- and should be punished -- it's also clear that kids of both races riding the bus were horrified, while kids of both races also cheered the fight on. And of course what Drudge and Limbaugh didn't note is the racial history of Belleville, Ill., the town where the assault occurred, which according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has had "a long history of racial turmoil, with a past that includes police harassment of black motorists, cross burnings and discrimination in city hiring." The paper also reports today that the Belleville police chief who earlier called the beating "racially motivated," based on zero evidence, has backtracked. "After having reviewed the video, it doesn't strike me nearly as racially motivated," the chief now says. I still don't see that headlined on Drudge. Not holding my breath....(Remainder.)

Gale Norton Faces Federal Corruption Probe

By Stygius
Square State

Remember when ProgressNow called for a federal investigation into fmr. Interior Secretary Gale Norton's sweetheart deal with Shell Oil over some oil shale leases?

Well, here's a headline for you, via the LA Times:

Former Interior Secretary Gale Norton is focus of corruption probe

The Justice Department investigation centers on a 2006 decision to award oil shale leases in Colorado to a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary. Months later, the oil giant hired Norton as a legal counsel.

You may recall that a couple of Norton's close political cronies at Interior were swept up in the Jack Abramoff scandal, yet Norton herself managed to dodge any direct implication in her subordinates' corruption convictions. But this time, we're talking about way more than fleecing a couple of Indian tribes:

The criminal investigation centers on the Interior Department's 2006 decision to award three lucrative oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary. Over the years it would take to extract the oil, according to calculations from Shell and a Rand Corp. expert, the deal could net the company hundreds of billions of dollars.

The investigation's main focus is whether Norton violated a law that prohibits federal employees from discussing employment with a company if they are involved in dealings with the government that could benefit the firm, law enforcement and Interior officials said.

They said investigators also were trying to determine if Norton broke a broader federal "denial of honest services" law, which says a government official can be prosecuted for violating the public trust by, for example, steering government business to favored firms or friends.

Pelosi Says Anti-Obama Rhetoric Sounds Same as Anti-Gay Slurs of the 70s

By Paul Kane
The Washington Post

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday said she worries that the protests of President Obama's health-care legislation may be of a similar nature to anti-gay rhetoric in the late 1970s in San Francisco, which culminated in the assassinations of two of her home town's political leaders.

Pelosi, responding to a question about anti-Obama sentiment, said that partisans on all sides of an issue have the right to voice their opinion. But after pausing, she added: "I have concerns about some of the language that is being used, because I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco. This kind of rhetoric was very frightening, and it created a climate in which violence took place."

Republicans rejected this assertion and accused her of likening protesters to Dan White, a member of the city's board of supervisors who killed Harvey Milk, the first openly gay member of that board, and Mayor George Moscone in 1978.

"The speaker is now likening genuine opposition to assassination," said Rep. Pete Sessions (Tex.), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "Such insulting rhetoric not only undermines the credibility of her office, but it underscores the desperate attempt by her party to divert attention away from a failing agenda."...(Remainder.)

Glenn Beck Chases "Far Left Radicals" in White House, but Loves Right-Wing Fascist Radicals Himself

By David Neiwert
Crooks and Liars

The centerpiece of Glenn Beck's incessant attacks on "White House czars" like Van Jones, as well as his attacks on ACORN, is his claim that this is all about rooting out the deep-seated radicalism within the Obama White House -- and ultimately, the deep-seated radicalism of Obama himself. He's been quite explicit about this.

But what about Glenn Beck himself? Beck has shown a powerful affinity for right-wing radicals dating back at least to his days at CNN's Headline News, when he declared his sympathy for the John Birch Society (in its campaign to stop the non-existent "NAFTA Superhighway") and warned that Al Gore's real purpose behind his "global warming campaign" was to install a global government. (Back then, it was Gore, not Obama, who was just like Hitler.)

It's only intensified since he left CNN for Fox. Given the freedom to let his fetid imagination run amok, has quickly amassed a massive record of mainstreaming ideas and talking points from the genuinely radical right of American politics. (The accompanying video gives you a 17-minute compendium of Beck's extremist rhetoric.)...(Remainder.)

Conspiracy Nation: Right-Wing Demagogues Reach Out to a Supposedly Beleaguered White Middle Class

By Chip Berlet
The Indypendent
Image: Gino Barzizza

Even before Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, the internet was seething with lurid conspiracy theories exposing his alleged subversion and treachery.

Among the many false claims: Obama was a secret Muslim; he was not a native U.S. citizen and his election as president should be overturned; he was a tool of the New World Order in a plot to merge the government of the United States into a North American union with Mexico and Canada.

Within hours of Obama’s inauguration, claims circulated that Obama was not really president because Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts scrambled the words as he administered the oath of office. A few days after the inauguration came a warning that Obama planned to impose martial law and collect all guns.

Many of these false claims recall those floated by right-wing conspiracy theorists in the armed citizens’ militia movement during the Clinton administration — allegations that percolated up through the media and were utilized by Republican political operatives to hobble the legislative agenda of the Democratic Party.

The conspiracy theory attacks on Clinton bogged down the entire government. Legislation became stuck in congressional committees, appointments to federal posts dwindled and positions remained unfilled, almost paralyzing some agencies and seriously hampering the federal courts.

A similar scenario is already hobbling the work of the Obama administration. The histrionics at congressional town hall meetings and conservative rallies is not simply craziness — it is part of an effective right-wing campaign based on scare tactics that have resonated throughout U.S. history among a white middle class fearful of alien ideas, people of color and immigrants.

Unable to block the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, the right-wing media demagogues, corporate political operatives, Christian right theocrats, and economic libertarians have targeted healthcare reform and succeeded in sidetracking the public option and single-payer proposals....(Remainder.)

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