A Liberal's Hit List: Oct 29, 2009

Zogby Again Polls on Misleading Question, This Time with Racial Tinge

Thursday, October 29, 2009

By Nate Silver

FiveThirtyEight.com

As reported by FAIR, a new poll issued by Zogby Interactive on behalf of the conservative website The O'Leary Report poses the following question:

Federal Communications Commission Chief Diversity Czar Mark Lloyd wants the FCC to force good white people in positions of power in the broadcast industry to step down to make room for more African-Americans and gays to fill those positions. Do you agree or disagree that this presents a threat to free speech?

The question, obviously, is somewhat self-evidently incendiary, although it doesn't come completely out of the blue. Rather, the question refers to a set of remarks made in 2005 by Lloyd, the FEC's Chief Diversity Officer:

"There's nothing more difficult than this because we have really truly, good, white people in important positions, and the fact of the matter is that there are a limited number of those positions," he said.

"And unless we are conscious of the need to have more people of color, gays, other people in those positions, we will not change the problem. But we're in a position where you have to say who is going to step down so someone else can have power."

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Jon Stewart Explains Net Neutrality, Mocks GOP Opponents

Washed-Up Actor Leads Cause to Distribute Christianized Version of Darwin's Evolution Theory

By Randy Olson

Island Press

Last year comic actor Ben Stein bamboozled evolutionists with his anti-evolution movie "Expelled!". He hoodwinked evolutionists, even Richard Dawkins, into appearing in a movie that attacked them.

Now Kirk Cameron -- Mike Seaver in the 80s sitcom Growing Pains -- is lending some star power to the vocally anti-evolution ranks with a plan to distribute 50,000 copies [on Nov. 22] of Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" modified to fit his Christian beliefs and subvert the 150th anniversary of its publication.

Both Stein and Cameron invoke the dishonest and inaccurate suggestion that Darwin inspired Hitler. Both are celebrities playing the lead role for the anti-evolution forces. And both will elicit the same response from the world of science: thousands of furious, hateful comments on the science blogs crying foul -- and in both cases, all that ranting and rage won’t compete with the anti-evolution messaging.

There are only three options for the science world in dealing with this new phenomenon of the very vocal and savvy anti-science movement: repression, cooperation or competition.

Repression is out, though some scientists don't seem to realize it. We live in an open society. Other nations have tried to shut down debate and some even created gulags to deal with those who speak out against the orthodoxy. We don't want that, and it's simply not going to happen....(Remainder.)

The "War" In Afghanistan Is Over

By Rude One

The Rude Pundit

Okay, enough. We've tolerated this "war" in Afghanistan long enough. Both of the conflicts started by the Bush administration were the arrogant indulgences of a bloated, louche empire in decline. Like wealthy, young Victorian Brits who went off for a couple of years to Africa or India for an adventure among the brown people, this white colonial expedition is nothing more than a pathetic projection of putative power, and, like those Brits, some of whom made fortunes exploiting the lands and others who returned horribly scarred and dismembered, it's time to admit we're spread too thin and that if we haven't failed yet, failure, however long deferred, is merely the inevitable outcome of a mission that was doomed from day one.

Bush fucked it up from the start in making it a "war." He tossed a bunch of goals into a big muck pit instead of doing shit one thing at a time. What should have started as an international criminal pursuit of those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, followed by any military action, if necessary, began as "bomb the fuck out of 'em." Here's the thing: you bomb the fuck out of people who are used to having the fuck bombed out of them then your fucking bombs aren't really going to do much of anything.

But we indulged, on the left, on the right, no, not everyone, but most of us, because of a very human desire for revenge. What that "most" didn't recognize was how irrational it was. And when the invasion of Iraq happened, Afghanistan became that white noise in the background, and we had another, more comfortable target to use as evidence of the irrationality of the previous American regime....(Remainder.)

"Church" of Scientology Convicted of Fraud in France

By Nicolas Vaux-Montagny

Associated Press

PARIS - A Paris court convicted the Church of Scientology of fraud and fined it more than euro600,000 ($900,000) on Tuesday but stopped short of banning the group as prosecutors had demanded.

The group’s French branch immediately announced it would appeal the verdict.

The court convicted the Church of Scientology’s French office, its library and six of its leaders of organized fraud. Investigators said the group pressured members into paying large sums of money for questionable financial gain and used "commercial harassment" against recruits.

The group was fined euro400,000 ($600,000) and the library euro200,000. Four of the leaders were given suspended sentences of between 10 months and two years. The other two were given fines of euro1,000 and euro2,000.
However, the court did not order the Church of Scientology to shut down, ruling that it would be likely to continue its activities anyway "outside any legal framework."

Prosecutors had urged that the group be dissolved in France and fined euro2 million ($3 million).

The verdict is "an Inquisition of modern times," said Scientology spokeswoman Agnes Bron, referring to efforts to rout out heretics of the Roman Catholic Church in centuries past.

The head of an association that helps victims of sects, Catherine Picard, called the verdict "intelligent."

"Scientology can no longer hide behind freedom of conscience," she said.

The Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology, founded in 1954 by the late science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard, has been active for decades in Europe, but has struggled to gain status as a religion. It is considered a sect in France and has faced prosecution and difficulties in registering its activities in many countries....(Remainder.)

Endorsing Hateful Anti-Gay Comic Books is a Christian Virtue to Beverly LaHaye

By BlackTsunami

Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

When we talk about religious right groups , it's important that we don't allow that we don't allow them to whitewash their beliefs or activities.

A perfect example of someone trying to do this is Concerned Women for America founder Beverly LaHaye speaking at a recent event in Texas about the history of her group:

Beverly LaHaye remembers standing in her kitchen about 30 years ago when she heard a secular feminist declare on national television that they spoke for America's women.

The California preacher's wife shared virtually none of National Organization for Women founder Betty Friedan's beliefs, LaHaye told a crowd of at least 100 people Monday during a dinner at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center.

She realized Christian women were "in the majority, but we had no voice," LaHaye said. "We were silenced."

Three decades later, her nonprofit activist group, Concerned Women for America, included 500,000 members fighting for the return of conservative Christian values to American life, she said.

. . . LaHaye, the wife of the accomplished Christian leader the Rev. Tim LaHaye and the author of nine books about the importance of being an effective Christian wife and mother, urged the crowd attending the Southern Baptists of Texas annual convention to become more active in politics to defend those values.

She called for the reintroduction of God into the day-to-day functions of American politics, where she said the framers originally intended him to be as they created the country more than 200 years ago.

. . . She repeatedly encouraged the audience to "stand up against the wiles of the devil" and join their Christian faith and with activism.

"It's time for Christian men and women to stand up for righteousness," LaHaye said.

Now I could go on a tear about how her group, Concerned Women for America, is no different from all of the other religious right groups with its eagerness to demonize the lgbt community via Paul Cameron studies, junk science, and distorted science. I have in the past and most likely will do so in the future....(Remainder.)

Federal Judge Rejects Anti-Gay Rights Group

PAC has to abide by campaign finance laws

By Chris Grygiel

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A federal judge has denied emergency requests from opponents of Washington's new "everything but marriage" same-sex domestic partner law to suspend a ban on big campaign contributions and a requirement that those donors identify themselves.

A new political action committee, Family PAC, said the laws were hurting its ability to collect last-minute political contributions before the Nov. 3 election.

U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton said the group hadn't shown strong enough evidence to back its case.

"I do not believe it is in the public interest for court, the week before an election, to intervene and change the rules of the game at the last minute," he said.

The case revolves around Referendum 71, which would broaden domestic partnership rights for gay couples. State campaign finance laws violate free speech rights, Family PAC said.

Family PAC was created after the legal deadline for large campaign contributions had passed. That unfairly keeps people who want to donate large amounts of money from participating in the political process, lawyer Scott Bieniek argued Tuesday.

The requirement to identify all but the smallest donors, with that information readily available to the public, also frustrates some people's right to speak their political mind, since a donation could draw retribution from others, Bieniek said....(Remainder.)

Baron of Batshit Plies His Brain Dead Views With Another Conspiracy Theory: Gov't Seizing Land to Back New Currency

Sexist Shitface Beck Tries to Rationilize Calling Hillary Clinton the "Antichrist"

Raving Lunatic, Beck Moronically Tries to Compare Himself to Woodward & Bernstein

Raving Asshat Beck Confuses the President with Osama bin Laden While Attacking Him for Being a "Marxist"

By David Neiwert

Crooks and Liars

Glenn Beck was trying real hard yesterday to convince people that his running theory -- that Barack Obama is secretly a Marxist who intends to radically transform America into a communist state -- just might be right.

He compared his theory to the early stages of the Monica-baiting of Clinton in 1998, when everyone was in denial -- because, you see, he thinks eventually he'll be proven right. OK, whatever.

Then he blurted this out:

Beck: I mean, at this point, you have to try to not pay attention. I mean, you have to be working to miss the pattern here. There's so much anti-free-market rhetoric from Obama and his top officials, you'd either have to either be living in a cave in Afghanistan next to Obama, and you can't hear anything that Ob -- uh, Osama is saying because of the goats going, ah-ah-ah, or you're so deeply in love with Obama that you can't detect a single flaw in him.

This is what we'll call a Beckean Slip: An apparent slip of the tongue that is most likely intentional, and at the bare minimum clearly exposes the desire to confuse the public.

It isn't the first time Beck has slipped and mixed up Osama bin Laden's name with President Obama's. And it certainly won't be the last....(Remainder.)

Keith Olbermann Discusses Ridding the Health Care System of Wasteful Spending

By Jon Perr

Crooks and Liars

In the wake of its shocking assessment that employer-provided health insurance now covers only 54.6% of the American people, Thomson Reuters released a disturbing assessment of wasteful spending in the U.S. health care system. Echoing the estimates of Obama OMB chief Peter Orszag and others, the analysis highlighted by Keith Olbermann Tuesday concluded that the United States wastes up to $700 billion a year - a third of the nation's total $2 trillion health care spending.

As Robert Kelley, vice president of healthcare analytics at Thomson Reuters and author of the white paper, put it:

"The bad news is that an estimated $700 billion is wasted annually. That's one-third of the nation's healthcare bill. The good news is that by attacking waste, healthcare costs can be reduced without adversely affecting the quality of care or access to care. That's the point of this report - to identify areas in the healthcare system that can generate game-changing savings."

Those game-changing savings, TR found, could be found across a broad range of health care spending. Between $600 billion and $850 billion, it estimated, is wasted on:

Unnecessary Care (40% of healthcare waste): Unwarranted treatment, such as the over-use of antibiotics and the use of diagnostic lab tests to protect against malpractice exposure, accounts for $250 billion to $325 billion in annual healthcare spending.
Fraud (19% of healthcare waste): Healthcare fraud costs $125 billion to $175 billion each year, manifesting itself in everything from fraudulent Medicare claims to kickbacks for referrals for unnecessary services.
Administrative Inefficiency (17% of healthcare waste): The large volume of redundant paperwork in the U.S healthcare system accounts for $100 billion to $150 billion in spending annually.
Healthcare Provider Errors (12% of healthcare waste): Medical mistakes account for $75 billion to $100 billion in unnecessary spending each year.
Preventable Conditions (6% of healthcare waste): Approximately $25 billion to $50 billion is spent annually on hospitalizations to address conditions such as uncontrolled diabetes, which are much less costly to treat when individuals receive timely access to outpatient care.
Lack of Care Coordination (6% of healthcare waste): Inefficient communication between providers, including lack of access to medical records when specialists intervene, leads to duplication of tests and inappropriate treatments that cost $25 billion to $50 billion annually.

(Remainder.)

Joe Conason Destroys Right-Wing Talking Points About Medicare on Lou Dobbs

By Heather

Crooks and Liars

I really don’t know how Joe Conason can manage to sit through these panel segments on Lou Dobbs’ show, but it’s nice to see him on there to dispel some of the right-wing talking points being thrown around by Dobbs and the other guests. He does a good job countering KellyAnne Conway on the Republicans' newfound love of Medicare, and Dobbs for downplaying some of the profits of the larger insurance companies.

He may not have known that Dobbs was parroting Glenn Beck at the end of the segment. Dobbs needs to just move on over to ClusterFox and get it over with.

CONWAY: The opt out is a canard because if you really want people—if you really want to provide an opt out, allow small business owners to opt out. This administration's policies have been an assault on small business owners, believe me, and or allow seniors to opt out of the cuts in Medicare which are currently on the table.
CONASON: Cuts in the private Medicare.

CONWAY: But Joe it's huge. When people hear it, they think it’s mostly a bad idea.
CONASON: We should discuss what that really is.

CONWAY: Go ahead because, again—explain the differences.

CONASON: It's the $500 billion in cuts. It’s to cut something called Medicare Advantage…

CONWAY: Right, which a lot of seniors rely on.

CONASON: No, it’s a subsidy to private insurance companies to try to compete with Medicare because they can't compete with Medicare. When people complain about a government-run health care program Lou, they're complaining about a program that is very like Medicare which the Republicans now claim to be defending. So it's a very interesting contradiction in their positions. On the one hand, they're trying to save Medicare, that government run program. On the other hand, they don't want anyone else to have it…

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In a Stunning Display of Right-Wing Hypocritical Bullshit, Frank "Really Bad Wig" Luntz Whines About Pelosi "Rebranding" Public Option

The Retarded Baby Jesus Says "These are Critical Weeks if You Don't Want Health Care"

Racist Tub of Rat Shit, the Oxy-Moron, Says the AIDS Crisis in Africa is Being "Hyped"

Screeching Howler Monkey Malking Whines About Defacing Flag to Hannity, IGNORING Beck's Desecration

Incredibly Stupid Steve King (R-Racistfuckistan) Tries to Tell NFL Commish Nothing the Pig-Man Said was Offensive

Rep. Joe Sestak Responds to Fucktard O'Reilly's Attacks on Judge Chen

Überhomophobe & Christian Taliban Leader, Robertson, Attacks Hate Crimes Bill

Dana "What's the Cuban Missile Crisis?" Perino Admits Darth Cheney Tried to Ban NYT from Plane

Raging Right-Wing Xenophobe Attacks Obama Adviser, Mogahed, Calls Her "Toga Head"

WORST. TRANSITION. EVER! Gretchen Carlson Asininely Tries to Connect Doing Meth to AMTRAK

Stewart Mocks Media Coverage of Health Care Debate

Hannity & Washington Times Oppose Judge Chen Over His Personal Views, but Previously Criticized Dems for Doing That

By Media Matters

Recently, Sean Hannity and The Washington Times editorial page have both claimed that the Senate should oppose judicial nominee Edward Chen based on reported comments he made in the past about America and 9-11. However, both Hannity and the Times editorial page previously claimed Senate Democrats were wrong for opposing judicial nominees based on their political views and personal opinions, claiming that, as Hannity put it, "nominees' personal opinions are irrelevant."

**Hannity, Wash. Times call for opposition of Chen's nomination based on his political views**

Wash. Times: "Judge Chen should not be confirmed." An October 25 Times editorial argued that Chen is "another Obama nominee who doesn't appear to love America," who "should not be confirmed." As evidence that Chen "doesn't appear to love America" the Times added:

Judge Chen's words speak for themselves. When the congregation sang "America the Beautiful" at a funeral, Judge Chen told the audience of his "feelings of ambivalence and cynicism when confronted with appeals to patriotism -- sometimes I cannot help but feel that there are too much [sic] injustice and too many inequalities that prevent far too many Americans from enjoying the beauty extolled in that anthem."

In a speech on Sept. 22, 2001, he said that among his first responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America was a "sickening feeling in my stomach about what might happen to race relations and religious tolerance on our own soil. ... One has to wonder whether the seemingly irresistible forces of racism, nativism and scapegoating which has [sic] recurred so often in our history can be effectively restrained." [The Washington Times, 10/25/09]

(Remainder.)

Conservative "Outrage" Over Flag Video Undercut by Beck and Bush Defacing Flags

By Media Matters

Saying, "Words will not express my contempt," Lou Dobbs told listeners he was "outrage[d]" by a report that the group Organizing for America's website had listed as a finalist in a health care video contest a video in which a mural of the United States flag is "splattered with health care graffiti until it's covered completely by black paint." But conservatives' purported "outrage" over the video is undercut by the fact that Fox News' Glenn Beck and President Bush previously defaced U.S. flags.

Dobbs expresses "outrage" and "contempt" over video

Dobbs: "[W]ords will not express my contempt" for "outrage" of video in which flag mural is "splattered with health care graffiti." On the October 28 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Dobbs cited a Politico.com article that reported, "One of the 20 finalists in health care video contest run by Barack Obama's campaign arm features a mural of an America flag splattered with health care graffiti until it's covered completely by black paint." Dobbs stated, "You know what we ought to do? We ought to put that up on the website. If we can get a hold of that, I mean, people should see this kind of outrage. This is -- I have no -- words will not express my contempt." [United Stations Radio Networks' The Lou Dobbs Show, 10/28/09]

Beck, Bush also defaced U.S. flags

Beck wipes stars from U.S. flag onto his studio floor, replaces them with logos of corporations, organizations. On his July 30 Fox News show, Glenn Beck stated that the stars on the U.S. flag "used to represent the states" but they now represent the Service Employees International Union, Wal-Mart, General Electric, General Motors, CitiBank, and ACORN, which he said were "the new people that we're really representing in America." After stating that "I think we should replace all of the stars" on the U.S. flag, Beck wiped the stars from the flag onto the floor of his studio and replaced them with the logos of the six organizations he mentioned. He then stated: "We should stop calling it a flag. We should just start calling it the logo of our nation." [Glenn Beck, 7/30/09]...(Remainder.)

The Judge Chen Smear: O'Reilly and Crowley Aghast Anyone Might Think the Forces of Nativism are Alive in America

By David Neiwert
Crooks and Liars

The latest campaign by Fox to smear another Obama appointee, it seems, is the Washington Times-based attack on Judge Edward Chen, who it seems is too liberal for their tastes. Or, as with Judge Sonia Sotomayor, not white enough.

Either way, they're trying to paint him as a radical for saying things like this:

In a speech on Sept. 22, 2001, he said that among his first responses to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America was a "sickening feeling in my stomach about what might happen to race relations and religious tolerance on our own soil. ... One has to wonder whether the seemingly irresistible forces of racism, nativism and scapegoating which has [sic] recurred so often in our history can be effectively restrained."

Bill O'Reilly, of course, was all over this like stink on smegma. He hosted Monica Crowley and Alan Colmes to chew it over.

Crowley practically shrieked at Chen's concerns, and O'Reilly was appalled. Colmes, as he has become adept at doing, was the sole voice of reason:

O'Reilly: It sounds radical left, does it not? It sounds Phil Donahue.

Crowley: And that speech was delivered 11 days after Sept. 11, when this country was still so raw with the deaths of 3,000 dead Americans in the street, and Chen is worried about nativism -- he was essentially there accusing the United States of being a country of bigots and racists.

O'Reilly: But the thing that bothered me most about it, Colmes, is that didn't happen.

Colmes: Well, I have to disagree. We have seen nativism, we have seen racism. Just the other day, we saw the Broward County Republican Club, having their meeting at a gun club where they put up a likeness of Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, and a stereotypical --...

(Remainder.)

Republican Introduces Resolution To Honor Anti-Government Teabaggers

By Logan Murphy

Crooks and Liars

From the department of You Can't Make This Sh*t Up:

Republican Rep. Tom Price, of Georgia, has introduced a House resolution that would, if passed, express the legislative body's "gratitude and appreciation" to Tea Party members who marched on Washington on Sept. 12 to "show their love of liberty and their grievance with recent government actions."

The proposed resolution is co-signed by more than 70 members of the House.

The proposed resolution would single for praise the "hundreds of thousands of American patriots, who refuse to sit idly by as the Federal Government advances skyrocketing deficits, taxpayer-funded bailouts, pork-barrel projects, burdensome taxes, unaccountable policy czars, command-and-control energy policy, and a government takeover of health care, came to Washington, D.C, to show their disapproval ..."

So let me get this straight...Price wants to pass a resolution that would praise anti-government, right wing extremists who want to overthrow their president? Really? If one single Democrat votes for this garbage, you can be sure we will call them out and ridicule them mercilessly.

Just to be clear, there weren't hundreds of thousands of people at that joke of a march on September 12th. And this was not an anti-tax march, this was a well funded hate-fest that was organized by Fox News and Glenn Beck....(Remainder.)