tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-66114305595233254762024-03-23T03:14:36.752-07:00Refudiate this SarahSarah Palin makes up a lot of stuff, now she is even making up words.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger25125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-15053213225410095572010-12-20T19:39:00.000-08:002010-12-20T19:41:37.375-08:00Sarah Palin’s Hypocrisy Is Bad For Your Health<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjinDsLGwpTBMY19M8U7IAZ3DuVpDSF5NJPrPEP2PF4DPnRY-_acXG0mi0XDJ-VsGj1v2SuATwM6I6rTZlkG6gWVmFADYOe_pwpcNKDTeMkDkkQffeOweeC6wHH7gN6GwSDL0hKKFRnQ4/s1600/Palin+Dessert.jpg"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjinDsLGwpTBMY19M8U7IAZ3DuVpDSF5NJPrPEP2PF4DPnRY-_acXG0mi0XDJ-VsGj1v2SuATwM6I6rTZlkG6gWVmFADYOe_pwpcNKDTeMkDkkQffeOweeC6wHH7gN6GwSDL0hKKFRnQ4/s320/Palin+Dessert.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5552969342518987794" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 178px; " /></a><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal">(Cross-posted from <a href="http://davescornertavern.blogspot.com/2010/12/sarah-palins-hypocrisy-is-bad-for-your.html">The Corner Tavern</a>.)<o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Oh, sure. I know it’s just politics. I know former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is purposefully divisive, using the stage she’s been given not to edify the public or to advocate for the good of the country but to whip her base into an anti-Obama frenzy – maybe to increase her chances to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, maybe just to line her own pockets.<span> </span>But either way, it’s nothing personal. Right?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But is that really the way we want our political leaders to behave?<span> </span>Or perhaps I should ask, is that the way we want our media phenomena to behave, since that’s an apter description of the woman who quit her one term as Alaska governor half-way through to sell books and do reality television.<span> </span>Because sometimes the way political creatures like Sarah Palin behave can be harmful to your health.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/12/20/palin-disses-michelle-obama/">To-wit</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>(CNN) – Sarah Palin is again taking aim at Michelle Obama over her anti-obesity campaign, taking the opportunity in Sunday’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” to land a diss against the first lady’s efforts to improve nutrition.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>While making s’mores at one point during Sunday’s episode, the former Alaska governor proclaims the marshmallow and chocolate treat is “in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert.”
<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>It’s not the first time Palin has taken a job at Mrs. Obama over her campaign to discourage fattening foods, especially from public schools. The former vice presidential nominee told conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham last month that “the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>Palin also hand-delivered cookies to a Pennsylvania school last month before delivering a speech there, saying: “Who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents? It should be the parents.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Of course, one might ask when, exactly, did Ms. Obama suggest that the government should tell parents what to feed their children – because she hasn’t. Ever, so far as I can tell.<span> </span>She’s tried to<a href="http://www.letsmove.gov/learnthefacts.php">educate kids and their parents</a> about <a href="http://www.letsmove.gov/eathealthy.php">nutrition</a> and <a href="http://www.letsmove.gov/getactive.php">exercise</a> so that they can make better individual choices about what they eat and how they live.<span> </span>And she lobbied for the <a href="http://www.letsmove.gov/blog/2010/12/13/the-president-first-lady-on-child-nutrition-bill-the-basic-nutrition-they-need-to-learn-and-grow-and-to-pursue-their-dreams/">Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act</a>, the purpose of which is to require school districts to provide healthier food for kids so that if parents choose to have their kids eat school lunches, or if parents can’t afford to provide lunches to their kids and have to rely on the meals provided by their local schools, their kids have healthier options.<span> </span>So, in fact, all Michelle Obama’s ever done is to give parents information so that they can <i>make informed decisions</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> about diet and exercise, and to give them healthy options for school lunches so that they can <i>choose </i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">to have their kids eat healthier meals in school.<span> </span>All of which is about <i>choice</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> – the very thing Sarah Palin claims to believe in.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">It’s odd, really, that Sarah Palin and her fellow conservatives attack Michelle Obama over her childhood obesity and healthy eating initiatives, given that it was <i>Republican</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower who created the <a href="http://www.fitness.gov/about-us/what-we-do/council-history/council-history-1953-1963/">President’s Council on Physical Fitness</a> way back in 1956.<span> </span>That’s right, it was a Republican who first thought to use the bully pulpit of the White House for the<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President's_Council_on_Fitness,_Sports,_and_Nutrition">purpose</a> of “encouraging American children to be healthy and active,” creating what was originally known as <a href="http://www.fitness.gov/about-us/what-we-do/council-history/council-history-1953-1963/">the President’s Council on Youth Fitness</a> (imagine how it would’ve made Sarah Palin’s head throb if it’d been <i>Pres. Obama</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> who came up with a name like that!).<span> </span>Oh – and guess who was the first Chairman of the President’s Council on Youth Fitness.<span> </span>Why it was none other than conservative Republican icon <i><a href="http://www.fitness.gov/about-us/what-we-do/council-history/council-history-1953-1963/">Richard Milhous Nixon</a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">.<span> </span>And later, Pres. George W. Bush – you remember him, the conservative Republican who was president from Jan. 2001 to Jan. 2009 – <a href="http://www.fitness.gov/about-us/what-we-do/council-history/council-history-1993-2009/">created</a> the <a href="http://www.presidentschallenge.org/">President’s Challenge website</a> and introduced the <a href="http://www.fitness.gov/presidents-challenge/presidential-active-lifestyle-award/">President’s Active Lifestyle Award</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Yet I’ve never – <i>never</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> – heard anyone on the right (or the left, for that matter) complain about the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, or the President’s Challenge, or the President’s Active Lifestyle Award.<span> </span><i>Ever</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">.<span> </span>All those years when I was a kid in the 1960s and ’70s, when we had to take those President’s Physical Fitness tests, counting how many sit ups and push ups and pull ups we could do, no one <i>ever suggested</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> Pres. Nixon or Ford or Carter was trying to dictate <i>anything</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> to our parents, or trying to deprive them of their right to make decisions for their kids. Because they weren’t; Pres. Nixon and Ford and Carter weren’t doing anything nefarious at all – they were doing the one thing Americans once uniformly agreed the president<i>ought</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> to do: Encouraging, not dictating, good personal habits.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But now that a moderately liberal (and African American) President and First Lady occupy the White House, all of the sudden, out of the clear blue sky, the idea that the First Lady would use her public position to encourage kids to eat healthy and to exercise – <i>now</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> it’s a reason for Sarah Palin and other conservatives to cry foul. When nobody ever complained about any previous administration doing essentially the same thing through the President’s Council on Physical Fitness.<span> </span>For more than fifty years.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">That’s some world class hypocrisy, my friends.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia;">And don’t kid yourself. It’s hypocrisy that’s not without serious consequences.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Earlier today I mentioned Sarah Palin’s attacks on Michelle Obama to my wife, who’s a <a href="http://www.slim-shoppin.com/">food blogger</a>, and she quickly referred me to <a href="http://healthyamericans.org/">the Trust for America’s Health</a>, an organization that gathers health statistics from around the country.<span> </span>The Trust for America’s Health <a href="http://healthyamericans.org/reports/obesity2009/">reports</a> that 30% of kids in 30 U.S. states are obese, and 75% of kids who are overweight as kids will also be overweight as adults – which will cost something like <i>$145 billion a year </i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">in healthcare costs for people who are overweight.<span> </span>But that doesn’t stop Sarah Palin from attacking Michelle Obama’s efforts to reverse that trend.<span> </span>And she – Palin – does it for base political purposes. Or self-aggrandizement.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">My wife’s conclusion? “Sarah Palin is insane.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Yeah. That’s kind of what I thought.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 32px; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">© 2010 David P. von Ebers.<span> </span>All rights reserved.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-43227963999070179832010-10-02T10:22:00.001-07:002010-10-02T10:37:58.950-07:00My Name Is Asher Brown<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1TKg5PmseoVj03kQut_M46LRTe58HwvWDCDKspFBfBkT4ctio4RoOh1np-cEJD8zuUssRzf6AbUZ8FUeMBGgCye4GPshTm6813PWkIC3lHfJrBAYbzlvFU1t983-DxkCBSN4YCx_QFc8/s1600/DSC03269.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1TKg5PmseoVj03kQut_M46LRTe58HwvWDCDKspFBfBkT4ctio4RoOh1np-cEJD8zuUssRzf6AbUZ8FUeMBGgCye4GPshTm6813PWkIC3lHfJrBAYbzlvFU1t983-DxkCBSN4YCx_QFc8/s320/DSC03269.JPG" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5523500978165892898" /></a><br /><div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">So, today’s unenviable task is to write about the most awful subject imaginable without being completely maudlin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And I’m not talking about the GOP retaking the House and Senate in November, although that would rank high on the list of most-awful-subjects, that’s for sure.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">No, today’s subject is something even worse than a return to the failed economic and foreign policies of the Bush/McConnell/Boehner Party of No.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Worse, at least, for those of us unfortunate enough to have dealt with it head on.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Because today’s subject is – and there’s no easy way to put this – suicide. Specifically, teenage suicide, and, more specifically still, the alarming number of suicides among gay, lesbian and transgender teens who have been bullied by their peers.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">First, some cold facts courtesy of <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/10/02/anti-gay-bullying/">Think Progress</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>Last week, Rutgers University freshman </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/nyregion/30suicide.html"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Tyler Clementi</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i> jumped to his death after two classmates secretly recorded his sexual relationship with a man and broadcasted it over the internet. Tragically, Clementi marks the fourth gay student to commit suicide in </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://voices.washingtonpost.com/blog-post/2010/09/suicide_of_gay_teenagers_four.html"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">three weeks</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i> because of anti-gay harassment from fellow students. </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Tehachapi-mother-hosts-anti-bullying-meeting/V9JhRWK1Z0O8cF68X_ETvQ.cspx"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Seth Walsh</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>, 13, </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7220896.html"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Asher Brown</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>, 13, and </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.fox59.com/news/wxin-greensburg-student-suicide-091310,0,1101685.story"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Billy Lucas</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>, 15, also took their own lives last month because fellow students bullied them in school.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>The growing number of suicides </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/safe-at-school"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">reveal</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i> the “unique set of safety concerns” that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students face both in secondary school and </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://out.com/detail.asp?id=27519"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">college</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>. According to a National Education Policy Center study </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/safe-at-school"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">released yesterday</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>, “over 85% report being harassed because of their sexual or gender identity, and over 20% report being physically attacked.” The “highly troubling pattern of mistreatment, negative consequences” and “the dramatic failure” of educational institutions to “adequately address” LGBT students’ concerns has contributed to a suicide rate among LGBT students that is “3-4 times higher than that of their straight counterparts.”</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">That’s hard enough to bear no matter who you are or what you’ve experienced in life: The thought of a young man or woman so distraught – and so badly mistreated by the people around him or her – that the only way out appears to be <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/30/nyregion/30suicide.html?_r=1">off the edge of a bridge</a>, or, in the case of eighth grade honor student <a href="http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7220896.html">Asher Brown</a>, at the business end of a loaded pistol.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But it’s harder still to bear if you’ve actually been there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And by “there,” I mean sitting at home when the phone rings and you find out that somebody you care about, maybe your older brother who was the best man at your wedding, took an early exit and there’s nothing you can do or say to get him back. Because that sucks like nothing else you’ll ever experience in your life, even if you experience a boatload of suck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if you’ve gone through that yourself, chances are you’d like to spare anyone from ever having to go through that particular hell. Because that’s what it is, really: It’s hell you go through when the call comes and it’s too late to help your brother, or your best friend, or, God forbid, your kid.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">In my case, it was my brother John.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It was along time ago –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>April 1991 to be precise, about 19 years ago. John wasn’t gay and he wasn’t bullied.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He was clinically depressed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And he wasn’t a teenager; he was just shy of 36 years old.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But the thing is, it’s hard enough to deal with, the suicide of somebody close to you, even when that person is an adult and is more or less in control of his own life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When it’s a kid who does it, what the hell can you say about that.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">And that’s what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about <i>kids</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Tyler Clementi was 18 years old when he took his life; Asher Brown was only 13, as was Seth Walsh, and Billy Lucas was only 15.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What the hell.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nineteen years ago I watched my mother place her hand on my brother’s coffin to say good bye, and I thought I would never see anything sadder than that. But to think about what these parents are going through – the parents of Clementi, Brown, Walsh and Lucas – and what the parents of thousands of other LGBT teenagers all over the world are going through, and likely will go through … well, honestly, I cannot quite wrap my brain around that.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But the overwhelming sadness of it cannot be the thing that stops us from doing something about it. Sadness in the face of tragedy can be paralyzing, but it doesn’t have to be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1649114/20100930/story.jhtml">Enter Dan Savage</a>, openly gay advice columnist, and his husband Terry:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#1F1F1F;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#1F1F1F;"><i>[Savage] realized that, while it was too late to talk to Billy Lucas, it wasn't too late to talk to the millions of kids just like him. So, right then and there, he and his husband decided to do just that. They sat down in front of a camera and told their stories about their horrific high school experiences and, more importantly, how they both survived, thrived and have gone on to live happy, healthy, <u>joyful</u> lives. They posted the video on </i></span><span style="font-family:ArialMT;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject#p/f/0/7IcVyvg2Qlo"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:nonefont-family:Georgia;">YouTube</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#1F1F1F;"><i> and asked other gay, bisexual and transgender adults to do the same. And that’s when the </i></span><span style="font-family:ArialMT;color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/itgetsbetterproject"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:nonefont-family:Georgia;">It Gets Better project</span></a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#1F1F1F;"><i> began.</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#1F1F1F;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">There are now dozens of videos posted on Dan and Terry’s It Gets Better channel on YouTube, including messages from the <a href="http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/10/01/it-gets-better-take-it-from-some-card-carrying-members-of-the-aclu">American Civil Liberties Union</a>, the cast of the musical <i><a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/10/it-gets-better-ctd.html">Wicked</a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">, and the <a href="http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/09/it-gets-better-ctd-8.html">San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of course, it will be impossible to gauge the impact of this project, but it has to help.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Somehow we have to get the message to kids who are in this situation – who are bullied to the point of desperation, or ostracized and alone and staring up from the bottom of that abyss – we have to get the message to them that there is a way out and it’s not off the edge of a bridge or at the wrong end of a gun. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Meanwhile, the rest of us can do something even more remarkable than to say to kids “it gets better.” We can make it better <i>now</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">. We can stop tolerating intolerance. We can reach out to the kids in our community, gay or straight, who are treated like crap and we can defend them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>We can act like grown ups and take responsibility for our schools and our neighborhoods and our kids. Because we own every last one of them – we own the good kids and the bad; we own the kids who bully and the kids who suffer from it.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">No mother should ever have to lay her hand on her kid’s coffin to say good-bye. Not, at any rate, so long as we have the ability to stop hate before it kills another innocent kid.</span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p></div><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gAfZhjUVlWE?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gAfZhjUVlWE?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; line-height: 32px; ">[Photo at the top of post: A Raku vessel made by my brother John in the mid-1970s, given to me by my parents for Christmas in 1991.]</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-39598207829806537212010-09-10T14:06:00.000-07:002010-09-10T14:08:03.253-07:00Qu’ran Burning (or Not) Pastor Terry Jones’ Mysterious Past Exposed.<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zw5pmDgWMaU?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Zw5pmDgWMaU?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-75559105642453338712010-09-04T10:58:00.001-07:002010-09-04T11:06:31.345-07:00@SarahPalinUSA, Your Crazy Boyfriend @TedNugent Is At It Again<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKsFlRsQv9LD3QzlFdY0NQ6_fyp_pYyQCX0pRa9JPQ1b0mUXcrPJF8AKvgbrvmKR67jWcCUfljy_dEntF5Fvu_Bw2nAHo7_YFJzmKSbF8Vrk49UEX0IBJ5uhZmTrWgc6cSiRuFDR4ULyg/s1600/Nugent+Confederate+flag.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 177px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKsFlRsQv9LD3QzlFdY0NQ6_fyp_pYyQCX0pRa9JPQ1b0mUXcrPJF8AKvgbrvmKR67jWcCUfljy_dEntF5Fvu_Bw2nAHo7_YFJzmKSbF8Vrk49UEX0IBJ5uhZmTrWgc6cSiRuFDR4ULyg/s320/Nugent+Confederate+flag.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5513119307485906146" /></a> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">I have a theory about mediocre guitarist/serial ranter Ted Nugent, whose Twitter persona can be found <a href="http://twitter.com/TedNugent">here</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the theory is: he’s not so much a political conservative as he is <i>just plain nuts</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As in, if you think <a href="http://twitter.com/THEGaryBusey">Gary Busey</a> is a bit, uh, <i>bizarre</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">, Nugent makes Busey look like the sanest, most rational person you’ve ever met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But crazy or not, Terrible Ted loves him some Sarah Palin. Last spring, The Motor City Mediocrity shared his rock ’n roll fantasies about Gov. McQuitter with <i>Time</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> magazine, and it was, well, <a href="http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1984685_1984864_1984871,00.html">kind of creepy</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>If Sarah Palin played a loud, grinding instrument, she would be in my band. The independent patriotic spirit, attitude and soul of our forefathers are alive and well in Sarah. In the way she lives, what she says and how she dedicates herself to make America better in these interesting times, she represents the good, while exposing the bad and ugly. She embraces the critical duty of we the people by participating in this glorious experiment in self-government.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">(H/t <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/29/ted-nugent-on-sarah-palin_n_556880.html">Huffington Post</a>.)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">(A “loud, grinding instrument”? You mean, like <a href="http://www.grindergirl.com/bio.php">this</a>?)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">And Sarah, apparently, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/11/palin-appears-on-gun-righ_n_230023.html">loves her some Terrible Ted</a>:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Gun rights enthusiasts welcomed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as she made an appearance Friday [July 10, 2009] on a radio talk show, whose callers included rock n’ roller turned avid hunter Ted Nugent.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>Palin spoke on the Michael Dukes’ “Firearms Friday” show on KFAR radio in Fairbanks. She was in Alaska’s second largest city to sign a gun rights bill and several resolutions.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>Nugent, well-known for the 1970s hit “Cat Scratch Fever,” told Palin from his home in Michigan that he was firing up the grill to cook up some Alaskan black bear backstrap in her honor.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>The governor told Nugent that she thought that was “awesome.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Really, it’s like these two were caught passing notes in study hall or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Just ask her to the prom, Ted. You know she wants you to.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Anyway, if you dip into Ted Nugent’s utterly insane Twitter stream, you’ll normally find bizarre nuggets of testosterone-fueled rage, juvenile hyperbole about his latest crappy rock concert, and, of course, a lot of warped nonsense about hunting disguised as spirituality (not altogether unlike that “Monty Python” skit about <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcACaW9vwg4">mosquito hunting</a>: “I’ve been a hunter all my life.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I love animals – that’s why I kill them …”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But every so often Ted really lets his creep flag fly, saying things that make you wonder whether he’s just insanely stupid, or maybe genuinely depraved. To-wit, yesterday’s <a href="http://twitter.com/TedNugent/status/22915682668">offering</a>:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7_QIVlf2BdwDoQ2vqyM58LM2Wb8eZaLvPx1PhDIC7-ZHf6ID_AaeOUkwERIRF77JHhXD_pllKEsUm6Jctm82Mrwhn2KJyzZbTrn1G_zx8U4Iv_lPlDGw8n_s-QciWwH8eDyNY7Cvdxw/s1600/Nugent+%2522Final+Solution%2522+Tweet.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7_QIVlf2BdwDoQ2vqyM58LM2Wb8eZaLvPx1PhDIC7-ZHf6ID_AaeOUkwERIRF77JHhXD_pllKEsUm6Jctm82Mrwhn2KJyzZbTrn1G_zx8U4Iv_lPlDGw8n_s-QciWwH8eDyNY7Cvdxw/s320/Nugent+%2522Final+Solution%2522+Tweet.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5513119915565431922" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; "><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Wait. <i>Final solutions</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">?!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Really? It’s not like that ominous phrase –<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution">The Final Solution</a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> –<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>is obscure, even to a washed-out <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/27/1558/88084">draft dodger</a> like Nugent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’d like to chalk it up to stupidity, that Nugent tweets like he plays guitar or writes lyrics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Which is to say, stupidly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then again, it sure looks like Nuge chose his words carefully: As my friend <a href="http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/">Jesus’ General</a> <a href="http://twitter.com/JC_Christian/status/22917784773">points out</a>, the word “operator” is commonly used in military circles to refer to commandos (<i>see</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">, <i>e.g.</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">, <a href="http://www.military.com/news/article/operators-test-new-commando-rifle.html">here</a>); and I highly doubt a macho guy like Ted Nugent chose that word accidentally.</span></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Of course, this is not the first time Nugent has said things that make you wonder whether he’s a bigot.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008200023">Just last month</a> at a concert in Dubuque, Iowa, he blurted out: <i>“There’s a lot of white people in this crowd -- I like that! (Dubuque) is a white town.” </i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Nugent <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008200023">also</a> “pointed out at least one audience member and questioned his race.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that, according to the Dubuque <i>Tribune Herald</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">, is par for the course for Detroit’s most infamous has-been:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>This wasn’t a first for Nugent. For example, there was the Texas governor's inaugural ball in 2007. A newspaper reported that Nugent, whose conservative politics and pro-gun beliefs are well known, “appeared on stage wearing a cut-off T-shirt emblazoned with a Confederate flag and shouting unflattering remarks about undocumented immigrants, including kicking them out of the country.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>Enter Ted Nugent’s name in Google and you'll be treated to many racist and sexist gems. Here’s a Nugent rant delivered at a National Rifle Association conference: “Remember the Alamo! Shoot ’em! To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want ’em dead. Get a gun, and when they attack you, shoot ’em.”</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">(If you want more of Ted’s lunacy, Media Matters has gathered links to several of his more “incendiary” comments <a href="http://mediamatters.org/search/index?qstring=nugent&x=0&y=0">here</a>.)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">In any event, as to Ted’s use of the term “Final solutions,” I recognize that he was referring to hunting rather than genocide.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So, I’ll give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I’m willing to believe that he’s not anti-Semitic – at least, not genocidally so – but he is a racist jerk.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">And at a bare minimum, Ted Nugent is so out of touch with the world outside his narrow, Sarah-Palin-loving right-wing political cult, he apparently didn’t realize how stupid and offensive it is to use a phrase like that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Which speaks volumes about the both of them.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-69404780632052594792010-08-31T14:42:00.000-07:002010-08-31T14:59:06.012-07:00@SarahPalinUSA: Closet Socialist!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqM1Ip2qyAbbQBMKtf-I3fbjW_kXdEaJ9D4E3vH71l24LWtT0wTG3_iG5SJmSRVVl8AaaNzYBx2BmyUWtJYMCCDY-wS6ixirPk0yQbBFSvVQayn4VQ18Fttq6eU-xE2sXCumZEpZYwZ8/s1600/George+Orwell.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 267px; height: 311px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuqM1Ip2qyAbbQBMKtf-I3fbjW_kXdEaJ9D4E3vH71l24LWtT0wTG3_iG5SJmSRVVl8AaaNzYBx2BmyUWtJYMCCDY-wS6ixirPk0yQbBFSvVQayn4VQ18Fttq6eU-xE2sXCumZEpZYwZ8/s320/George+Orwell.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511695040586006306" /></a><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> <!--StartFragment--> </span></p><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Today’s <a href="http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/22646286541">pearls of wisdom</a> from the Half-Term Governor Extraordinaire, on the occasion of Pres. Obama’s Oval Office Address announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpZl7Iv4Li9ThrfNB_loaT_KZSNVJQZhztH5JC1NndwvoNuUqkmS4gF1XcPwbkDt80A-W5Ir4viXj9JHGzR_tOdqkrpf5kAfioM6YZfYqCGfCajPTio6gT_KGHVpzPrX7tDhc6sYt9VY/s1600/Palin+Orwell+Tweet.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 218px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwpZl7Iv4Li9ThrfNB_loaT_KZSNVJQZhztH5JC1NndwvoNuUqkmS4gF1XcPwbkDt80A-W5Ir4viXj9JHGzR_tOdqkrpf5kAfioM6YZfYqCGfCajPTio6gT_KGHVpzPrX7tDhc6sYt9VY/s320/Palin+Orwell+Tweet.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5511694389017701634" /></a></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:Georgia, serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><br /><br />As always, I’m here to provide the Sarah-to-English translation for the uninitiated. Quoth Gov. McQuitter:<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>Obama’s speech tonight may make you dig out your old Orwell books so rewritten history can be deciphered, depending on who is given credit for the Iraq surge.</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Now, I may be giving Sarah a bit too much credit here, but I believe she’s preemptively accusing Pres. Obama of rewriting history in tonight’s speech, and, therefore, literate Palinites (ahem!) will want to refer to their favorite George Orwell books – <i>1984</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">, perhaps, or maybe <i>Animal Farm</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> or <i>Homage to Catalonia</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> (nah, that last one’s probably a bit too obscure for them) – so as to familiarize themselves with common Orwell themes. Like, for instance, <i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink">doublethink</a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">: <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Or <i><a href="http://orwell.ru/library/novels/1984/english/en_app">newspeak</a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;">: <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to <u>diminish</u> the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Okay, so, anyway, this, apparently, is what she’s suggesting Pres. Obama will do in tonight’s speech – if, that is, he fails to give proper credit for the “surge” in Iraq. Credit for the “surge,” presumably, is supposed to go to George W. Bush (you know, they guy who said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had operational links to al Qaeda – <i>that</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> George W. Bush). Never mind the fact that there is <a href="http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3611">sharp disagreement</a> over whether the “surge” itself – that is, the significant escalation of U.S. troops in Iraq beginning in early January 2007 – actually had a positive effect there; the real question is whether the Ex-Governor really wants to go around citing George Orwell in the first place.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Because Orwell was, or became later in life, the very thing that Sister Sarah so vehemently abhors: A socialist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But you don’t have to take my word for it; <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/03/george-orwell-was-a-socialist/">Matt Yglesias</a> has done the work for us:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>[H]ere’s Orwell on socialism from “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”:<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><i><blockquote></blockquote></i><p></p></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>I have got to struggle against that, just as I have got to struggle against castor oil, rubber truncheons and concentration camps. </i><b><i>And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a Socialist regime</i></b></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a Socialist party.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>I have put the personal aspect first, but obviously it is not the only one.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it. </i><b><i>For perhaps ten years past I have had some grasp of the real nature of capitalist society. I have seen British imperialism at work in Burma, and I have seen something of the effects of poverty and unemployment in Britain</i></b></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>. In so far as I have struggle against the system, it has been mainly by writing books which I hoped would influence the reading public. I shall continue to do that, of course, but at a moment like the present writing books is not enough. The tempo of events is quickening; the dangers which once seemed a generation distant are staring us in the face. </i><b><i>One has got to be actively a Socialist, not merely sympathetic to Socialism, or one plays into the hands of our always-active enemies</i></b></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>.<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>In </i></span><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;color:blue;"><a href="http://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/European_Unity/english/e_teu"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>“Toward European Unity”</i></span></a></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>, written after the war, he explained that “a Socialist United States of Europe seems to me the only worth-while political objective today.”</i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">(Note that the emphasis is in the original post by Matt.)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Heh.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Socialism is <i>“the only worth-while political objective today.”</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So said George Orwell, Sarah Palin’s go-to guy on politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Sarah Palin, pallin’ around with socialists! <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Well, anyways, thanks for the tip Gov. McQuitter!<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-49543718159436639522010-08-28T10:40:00.000-07:002010-08-28T10:41:15.530-07:00The Antidote to Glenn Beck<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/56mjwycKuXA?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/56mjwycKuXA?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-10279374294853234612010-08-19T09:05:00.000-07:002010-08-19T09:47:33.149-07:00Time for Self-Refudiation: @SarahPalinUSA Goes Full-Metal Bigot<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Really, it was bound to happen. Staring down the end of another long hot summer of right-wing craziness – last year it was the health-care-town-hall insanity; this year it’s mosques and gay marriage – it was just bound to happen. Right-wingers have been race-bating so long, skirting right up to the edge of common decency and beyond … you had do know that one of ’em was going to lose it; that one of ’em was going to embrace his or her Inner Bircher and go full-on racist.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Enter <a href="http://www.drlaura.com/pages/about">“Dr.” Laura Schlessinger</a>, a self-professed advice-giver/relationship specialist with a PhD in … <i>physiology</i><span style="font-style:normal">?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Anyway, last week “Dr.” Schlessinger went on a <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201008120045">now-infamous rant</a> all full of n-wordy-goodness, explaining to an African American caller who was offended by her white husband’s friends’ racist remarks that black folks are just too darn sensitive about race; that African American comics on HBO (that, apparently, being the gold standard of African American culture to “Dr.” Laura) use the n-word regularly, so it’s okay for a right-wing white radio host to do the same … and ultimately telling the caller, </span><i>“If you’re that hypersensitive about color and don’t have a sense of humor, don’t marry out of your race.”</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Yeah. Um. Sure. It’s only <i>Two-thousand-friggin’-ten</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If you’re in an interracial relationship you’d better expect to face racist interrogations by alleged friends of your spouse. So, </span><i>suck it up!</i></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Of course, even the usually unapologetic “Dr.” Laura quickly realized she’d taken a long walk off a short pier, career-wise; so, she came back the next day, metaphoric tail between her legs, <a href="http://www.drlaurablog.com/2010/08/11/my-apology/">saying</a>:<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i></i></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><i>I was attempting to make a philosophical point, and I articulated the “n” word all the way out - more than one time. And that was wrong. I’ll say it again - that was wrong.<o:p></o:p></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">So she acknowledged she was wrong to say the n-word, but she stood by the rest of her rant – including her comments to the effect that African Americans are too sensitive about race and that if you marry “outside your race” you should expect to face a racial inquisition every time you get together with your spouse’s friends.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Hey, “Dr.” Laura, 1967 called. It wants its <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_Who's_Coming_to_Dinner">racially charged dinner party</a> back.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Meanwhile, “Dr.” Laura’s apology tour <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/celebrity.news.gossip/08/17/doctor.laura.ends.show/?iref=obinsite">continued</a> earlier this week when she appeared on Larry King’s show on CNN.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Once again, she said she felt bad that she’d offended people, but nonetheless reaffirmed her view that African Americans are too sensitive, and she went on to tell King she intends to leave her radio program at the end of the year to “regain [her] First Amendment rights.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Oy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because, you see, conservatives have the First Amendment right <i>not to be criticized for the insanely stupid things they say</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Got it?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, you’d expect “Dr.” Laura to have become a pariah on the right, especially after the Breitbart/Palin/Tea Party wing of the Republican Party spent the entire summer insisting <i>they’re not racists</i><span style="font-style:normal"> while calling anyone who criticizes them … </span><i>racist</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After all, if they really want to prove their racial neutrality, their “color blindness” as they like to say, you’d think Sarah’d get out her Big Book of Refudiation and throw it at the n-word-spewing, interracial-marriage dissing “Dr.” Laura.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Right?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/21534515854">Wrong</a>:</p><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYdv_kEH4526FjsyCzeYI72Rpx_g-xqL4U1TQ61-Vu4z4g7JmY87fqYcRdLzuWGaXS1g_4iVEbA33f0oDBlV1C7BLq0KrRLynYddy7CB_uxrQt1DCjcJuxY1gkxSLKZhNpn9TYfNTr5k/s1600/Palin+Tweet+Dr.+Laura.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 142px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkYdv_kEH4526FjsyCzeYI72Rpx_g-xqL4U1TQ61-Vu4z4g7JmY87fqYcRdLzuWGaXS1g_4iVEbA33f0oDBlV1C7BLq0KrRLynYddy7CB_uxrQt1DCjcJuxY1gkxSLKZhNpn9TYfNTr5k/s320/Palin+Tweet+Dr.+Laura.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5507153133406236450" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Allow me to translate from Palin-Speak to English: “Dr. Laura – don’t retreat, reload. ([Schlessinger] Step[ped] aside [because] her First Amend[ment] [rights] ceased [to] exist [thanks to] activists trying [to] silence [her] [and that] ‘isn’t American, [and it’s] not fair’).”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’m not sure who Palin was quoting when she said “isn’t American, not fair”; maybe it was the voices in her crazy-scary right-wing head.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But, so, between <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/14/sarah-palins-ground-zero_n_682382.html">opposing the construction of the Park 51/Cordoba House project</a> in lower Manhattan – which necessarily means she equates all Muslims with the 9/11 attackers (and <i>that</i><span style="font-style:normal"> folks, is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/8/17/is-the-mosque-issue-a-risk-for-obama/who-has-moral-courage">the very definition of racism</a>) – and endorsing “Dr.” Laura’s views on race and interracial marriage, what else can you say about the Half-Term Wonder? She’s finally showing her true colors (pardon the pun); she’s finally putting down the dog whistle and shouting out loud: </span><i>I’m a bigot and I’m proud of it!</i><span style="font-style:normal"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Glad we got that cleared up.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3RzBZsOeqOQ?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3RzBZsOeqOQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Garland Jeffreys’ 1973 tribute to New York City, “Wild in the Streets,” also included on his 1977 album, <i>Ghost Writer</i><span style="font-style:normal">. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-12115931697877054062010-08-11T08:35:00.000-07:002010-08-11T10:10:26.414-07:00@SarahPalinUSA, Finding Racist Extremism on the Right Is Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2aSydKoKZdheY_4BZa7uDcQWEK3GJr-1lYNlPyB2sAPrVfSQusObGbB-w1aa4sPRJWFG33VTkC3V8bSnRjVyT54u-nnhEXfPeT_UuraajIxpHqCMXosDxPrnqazEoWh58oExw3mO8GLA/s1600/Geller+MTA+Ad.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 78px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2aSydKoKZdheY_4BZa7uDcQWEK3GJr-1lYNlPyB2sAPrVfSQusObGbB-w1aa4sPRJWFG33VTkC3V8bSnRjVyT54u-nnhEXfPeT_UuraajIxpHqCMXosDxPrnqazEoWh58oExw3mO8GLA/s320/Geller+MTA+Ad.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5504176635225298002" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Hey, ex-Gov. Palin, we’re starting to see a trend here.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">We’ve talked before about the planned Cordoba House Islamic center in New York City (</span><a href="http://refudiatethissarah.blogspot.com/2010/07/dangerous-nature-of-sarah-palins-lies.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, </span><a href="http://refudiatethissarah.blogspot.com/2010/07/when-fact-is-fiction-and-tv-reality.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> and </span><a href="http://refudiatethissarah.blogspot.com/2010/07/capping-off-week-in-crazy-will.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">here</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">), which Fox News and the shrieking right like to call the “Ground Zero Mosque” – even though it’s neither at Ground Zero nor a mosque – but it’s worth revisiting if only because it has proven to be a veritable bottomless pit of right-wing histrionics.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">It’s the gift that keeps giving, so to speak, if the gift you’re looking for happens to be Islamophobic lunacy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And speaking of lunacy, few conservatives plumb the depths of crazy quite like one Pamela Geller, the wild-eyed banshee of right-wing Muslim-bashing.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Ms. Geller, you may recall, believes that </span><a href="http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/01/obama_aids_the_enemy_he_will_n_1.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">al Qaeda “is Islam”</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> and once </span><a href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2010/03/pig-flying-moment-on-hannity-moderate-islam-does-not-exist.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">nearly swooned</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> when a guest on Sean Hannity’s propaganda show said that moderate Islam “doesn’t exist.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Not surprisingly, she also has a </span><a href="http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/pam-geller-insists-she-loves-muslims"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">big problem</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> with Cordoba House:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><i></i></span></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The Ground Zero mosque is an offensive insult, it’s a stab in the eye. I have no problem with mosques across the city. But we’re talking about history, and Islamic history, of building triumphal mosques on the cherished sites of conquered lands.</span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">“A stab in the eye”? That’s a little melodramatic, even for Pamela Geller.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">But if you think Pam’s a bit, well, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">nuts</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> when it comes to Islam generally and to the Cordoba House in particular, wait’ll you get a load of her partners in crime – John Joseph Jay and David Yerushalmi.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">These two are worse than the worst parody of right-wing hate and paranoia. But don’t take my word for it; here’s the Southern Poverty Law Center’s </span><a href="http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/08/10/prime-islam-basher-pam-geller-outdone-by-colleague/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Hatewatch on Mr. Jay</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Nobody on the far right, it seems, has been able to surpass Geller for anti-Obama epithets with a Muslim-bashing twist. She has called the president “a third worlder and a coward” who is anxious to “appease his Islamic overlords.” On another occasion, she wrote that Obama “wants jihad to win.” But now a founding board member of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) — a group founded by Geller, apparently to act as an umbrella for the SIOA [Stop the Islamization of America] she co-founded — is doing his best to be even more vitriolic than her. His rants, coupled with his apparently close relationship to Geller, cast new doubt on Geller’s already extremely doubtful claim to be a reasonable critic of Muslims and Islam generally.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/8/3/890055/-SIOA-co-founder:-kill-your-liberal-relatives-and-all-Muslims"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">According to the Daily Kos</span></span></a></i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, AFDI board member John Joseph Jay recently has posted a series of truly vicious anti-Muslim rants — apparently without the benefit of a capital letter function on his computer. “if islam kills non-believers as a matter of religious doctrine, then why should muslims expect to be free of retribution in the name of those islam kills?” he wrote. “why should muslims get a free pass? if it is right for muslims to kill non-believers, then why is it no less right for the rest of us to kill muslims?”</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">In another screed, the Daily Kos said Jay wrote: “there are, friends, no ‘innocent’ muslims. they obey. and they obey the dictates of the koran on jihad. and, they obey the commands of local clerics. in this, they have no choice. because, friends, there is no ‘free will’ in islam, one obeys the dictates of allah.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Um, what? Pamela Geller’s associate in the stop-the-mosque nonsense advocates </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">genocide</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">? And yet Ms. Geller is a </span><a href="http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201008110002"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">regular</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><a href="http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/pam-geller-insists-she-loves-muslims"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">guest</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> on Fox News. Whoa.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">But, it seems that Mr. Jay wouldn’t be satisfied with anti-Muslim genocide. Nope. He’s apparently looking for </span><a href="http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2010/08/10/prime-islam-basher-pam-geller-outdone-by-colleague/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">all-out revolution</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> here at home:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Last month, Jay expanded on his advocacy of violence against Muslims to include people in positions of power. He commented on his blog about a magazine article regarding America’s “ruling class” as follows: “friends, if you wish to retain and preserve individual virtue, you are going to have to kill in order to do so. if we are to excise the ruling class, it will be with violence. they used violence to attain their privilege, they use it nakedly in the form of the s.i.e.u. [an apparent reference to the SEIU, the Service Employees International Union] and black panther thugs in elective politics to maintain it, they contemplate relocation camps to preserve it. … buy guns. buy ammo. be jealous of your liberties. and understand, you are going to have to kill folks, your uncles, your sons and daughters, to preserve those liberties.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">I’m going to have to kill members of my own family? That’s taking the old </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/7/14/1832/95972"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">“Tree of Liberty”</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> thing a bit too far, don’t you think?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And then there’s Ms. Geller’s lawyer, David Yerushalmi, who</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; ">’</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">s helped Geller’s “American Freedom Defense Initiative” organization place anti-mosque ads on New York’s public transportation system.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36930_The_Leaders_of_the_Anti-Mosque_Movement"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Says Charles Johnson</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><i></i></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">This is a good time for some background information on Pamela Geller’s associate David Yerushalmi, who is an advocate for criminalizing </span></i><i><a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:nonecolor:windowtext;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Islam</span></span></a></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> itself and imposing 20-year sentences on practicing Muslims. Yes, really.</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">He’s not simply anti-Muslim, though; Yerushalmi also wrote a now-infamous article titled “On Race: A Tentative Discussion, Part II,” in which he advocated a return to a pre-Bill of Rights Constitution, and the restriction of voting rights to white male land-owners. Again … yes, really.</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Here’s a lengthy article at Talk To Action on the bizarre views and causes of David Yerushalmi: </span></i><span style="color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.talk2action.org/story/2007/12/27/20819/823"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Anti-Semitic White-Supremacist Orthodox Jew Tries To Ban Islam In US</span></b></span></a></i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">.</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Yerushalmi has deleted as much evidence of the “On Race” article as he could; he removed it from the Internet Archive and the Google </span></i><i><a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:nonecolor:windowtext;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">cache</span></span></a></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, and put his entire website behind a </span></i><i><a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:nonecolor:windowtext;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">registration</span></span></a></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> wall. But here’s a PDF that contains </span></i><span style="color:blue;"><i><a href="http://www.mcadamreport.org/The%20McAdam%20Report%28585%29-05-12-06.pdf"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">the full article</span></b></span></a></i></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, and it’s as ugly and twisted a piece of racism as anything I’ve ever seen. Yerushalmi opens by calling Islam “an evil religion,” and “blacks … the most murderous of peoples.”<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">A quote:</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><i></i></span></p><i><blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">There is a reason the founding fathers did not give women or black slaves the right to vote. You might not agree or like the idea but this country’s founders, otherwise held in the highest esteem for their understanding of human nature and its affect on political society, certainly took it seriously. Why is that? Were they so flawed in their political reckonings that they manhandled the most important aspect of a free society - the vote? If the vote counts for so much in a free and liberal democracy as we “know” it today, why did they limit the vote so dramatically?</span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></i><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#111111;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#111111;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Well, at least Yerushalmi only wants to </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">criminalize</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> the practice of Islam, as opposed to actively </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">killing</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> practitioners of the faith.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">But really. These are the folks supposedly respectable Pamela Geller hangs out with.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">More to the point, this is the true nature of the opposition to Cordoba House. They’re not people who worry about the feelings of 9/11 victims and their families. They’re not people who are themselves pained by the idea that an Islamic center would be built in the vicinity of Ground Zero, nor are they people who really believe Ground Zero is sacred ground. They’re just haters, plain and simple. They hate Muslims, and, if Mr. Jay and Mr. Yerushalmi are any indication, they democracy and they hate African Americans too.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">But there’s no racism on the right, eh, Ms. Palin?</span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-43085735228800022832010-08-07T12:59:00.000-07:002010-08-07T13:15:15.649-07:00Uh, @SarahPalinUSA, Looks Like You’ve Got Another “Tea Party American” to “Refudiate”<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">Well, our good friend the Half Term Governor may find this interesting.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It seems that while a federal judge in Arizona recently <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/viewpoints/articles/2010/08/01/20100801berg-bolton-arizona-immigration-law.html">enjoined</a> the worst aspects of that state’s infamous S.B. 1070 – the law that requires local law enforcement to ask for proof of citizenship or alien status whenever they stop someone whom they “reasonably believe” might be in the U.S. illegally – Arizona Tea Partiers are more fired up than ever.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Witness <a href="http://unitedwestandforamericans.org/2010/07/23/united-border-coalition-tea-party/">this</a>, a planned August 15, 2010 rally in the border town of Hereford:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2X6mLuo0E1T1KApeoOR7JIhACeSs39MSNr2hRw1OIGc6VWTVRIis8xsQGmbeIQkYQvibGAzCqk4yDfOoP79mFSW3cO3Dw2wI1GbXdBAaCS8x2I38hGAKy_yO7IDG8AYUEsgl-sjEtl1o/s1600/United+Border+Coalition+Tea+Party+Rally.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 286px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2X6mLuo0E1T1KApeoOR7JIhACeSs39MSNr2hRw1OIGc6VWTVRIis8xsQGmbeIQkYQvibGAzCqk4yDfOoP79mFSW3cO3Dw2wI1GbXdBAaCS8x2I38hGAKy_yO7IDG8AYUEsgl-sjEtl1o/s320/United+Border+Coalition+Tea+Party+Rally.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5502761068749497170" /></a><br /><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The organizers of the event <a href="http://unitedwestandforamericans.org/2010/07/23/united-border-coalition-tea-party/">describe</a> the even this way:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">The United Border Coalition Tea Party Rally’s purpose is to show support for Arizona and its rights to enforce the ‘Immigration Laws’ that the Federal Government won’t. SB1070 is a common sense law that enables Arizona to enforce federal law on illegal immigration.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Which might sound prosaic enough, were it not for this:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="color:#333333;"><b></b></span></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#333333;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Local AZ Carpooling Coordinators:</span></b></span><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#E82719;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Phoenix:</span></span><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> Chris Flowers </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><a href="http://unitedwestandforamericans.org/2010/07/23/united-border-coalition-tea-party/%3Chref=%22mailto:cflow21@gmail.com%22%3E"><span style="color: rgb(87, 139, 164); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">(Click to contact) </span></span></a></span><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:#E82719;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Tuscon:</span></span><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> Tony Venuti </span></span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><a href="http://unitedwestandforamericans.org/2010/07/23/united-border-coalition-tea-party/href=%22mailto:tony@aztourist.com%22%3E"><span style="color: rgb(87, 139, 164); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">(Click to contact)</span></span></a></span><span style="color:#333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Because as it turns out, this Tony Venuti – one of the apparent organizers of the United Border Coalition Tea Party Rally – has some rather interesting (one might say, <i>repulsive</i><span style="font-style:normal">) views on race in modern day America. <a href="http://beyondpuke.com/blog/2010/06/24/racist-perpetuated-grief-the-guilt-of-%E2%80%9Cwhite-people%E2%80%9D/">Take it away, Tony</a>:</span> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-style:normal"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">The Abomination and the Abolishment of Slavery </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">To all of the Black/Negro professionals athletes and media star, I say the following
….where would they have been without that abomination slavery…..think about it…..I know it hurts…but still…where would you be…. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">African leaders THEMSELVES are co-conspirators of this abomination called Slavery. We will convince you that you should……you must.. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Stay down, we will take care of you, you are the leg to which we stand. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">just make sure you know WHO is BUTTERING your bread….Yes as my mouth is Wattering in success, I’m Buttering your bread please don’t forget that I enable you.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Yes, that’s right.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mr. Venuti thinks that African Americans <b><i>benefited from slavery</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal">, because without it they would never have come to America and become … </span><i>wait for it</i><span style="font-style:normal"> … professional athletes and media stars! Plus, Mr. Venuti says, “African leaders” are trying to convince African Americans to “stay down” and are “enabling” … what, exactly?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Poverty? Discrimination? The lack of equal opportunities?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Mr. Venuti’s rambling tract doesn’t quite clarify that point.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">But wait, <a href="http://beyondpuke.com/blog/2010/06/24/racist-perpetuated-grief-the-guilt-of-%E2%80%9Cwhite-people%E2%80%9D/">there’s more</a>: </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Again, Whitey’s think about it….give yourself some credit…..If those poor souls, the first slaves, the true victims, if they were to come back to witness ..
first hand, generations ahead, the 2 minute time clock of the Super Bowl or the NBA Championship watching one of their own,… 10 score forward,…. make the grade…
what do you think great, great, great, great grandfathers thoughts might be? Don’t know…well perhaps …talking story….. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">So, um, African Americans are responsible for the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-minute_warning">two minute warning</a>?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, who’s responsible for the rule that says the half can’t end on a defensive penalty, huh? That’s what I want to know.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">But so, anyway, Mr. Venuti’s <a href="http://beyondpuke.com/blog/2010/06/24/racist-perpetuated-grief-the-guilt-of-%E2%80%9Cwhite-people%E2%80%9D/">on a roll</a>: </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Open your eyes “White America”….it is inability to face these questions and to talk about the bitterness we all feel from both sides of the racial issue.
The racial issue is simple…I’m more concerned with Human Relations we are all failing at…and in this “Error of Obama” notwithstanding, </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">We are risk of losing the very nation that we struggled to become…overnight…..and we did it to ourselves…</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">.wake up…Black and White America</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><snip></snip></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Look at all of the Black/Negro professionals athletes and media stars….where would they have been without that abomination slavery…..think about it…..</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">I know it hurts…but still</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Think about it!</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none">Well, sir, I <i>am</i><span style="font-style:normal"> thinking about it. I’m thinking about the fact that </span><b><i>you keep saying African Americans, whom you call “Negroes,” should be thankful for slavery.</i></b><span style="font-weight:normal;font-style:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And the more I think about it, the more my brain hurts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Please make it stop.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Anyway, here’s the thing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sarah Palin likes to say that “Tea Party Americans” have been “<a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/14/sarah-palin-defends-tea-p_n_645883.html">falsely accused</a>” of racism, but I’m having a hard time seeing how Mr. Venuti – one of the organizers of next week’s United Border Coalition Tea Party Rally – isn’t treading on the same racist ground over which <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Snyder">Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder</a> waddled back in 1988.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It’s really simple, my fellow white folks: If you try to excuse slavery by saying it was good for black folks, <i>you’re a racist</i><span style="font-style:normal">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And that, Ms. Half Term Governor, is something worthy of “refudiation.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">(By the way, a major tip of the old helmet to my good friend, <a href="http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/">Jesus’ General</a>, who brought Mr. Venuti’s work to my attention via <a href="http://twitter.com/JC_Christian/status/20568951284">Twitter</a>.)<o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-51949062356315924812010-08-06T17:27:00.000-07:002010-08-06T17:30:35.150-07:00The Political Carnival: Sarah Palin’s pants are on fireVia partner <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/08/sarah-palins-pants-are-on-fire/">The Political Carnival</a>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Sarah Palin’s pants are on fire</span><br /><br />Friday, August 6, 2010 at 5:19 PM by GottaLaff<br /><br />Pants on Fire!<br /><br />Via Ben Smith, it seems Former Half-Gov Fabricata McFibLips is blahblahblahing that “Democrats are poised to allow [the] largest tax increase in U.S. history” by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Wrong:<br /><br /> Palin’s main defense was the absence of any clear proposal from President Barack Obama or congressional Democrats stating an intention to limit the increase to wealthy taxpayers. But PolitiFact noted in a rebuttal posted today, “Obama has indeed published his proposals in some detail — at least twice, in the annual budget documents that the White House releases.”<br />-snip-<br /><br />Visit <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/08/sarah-palins-pants-are-on-fire/">The Political Carnival</a> for the rest of the storyUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-50540378463826610992010-08-04T14:47:00.000-07:002010-08-04T15:16:55.290-07:00I’m Sure @SarahPalinUSA Will Refudiate Judge Walker’s Ruling, But Just Let Me Enjoy the Moment …<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/G3onnJuBS18&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/G3onnJuBS18&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br /><div><br /></div><div><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">From <a href="http://metroweekly.com/poliglot/2010/08/judge-walker-prop-8-unconstitu.html">Chris Geidner</a>: </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California today issued its decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the federal constitutional challenge to Proposition 8. The ruling is a blistering opinion that pulls together all of the developments of the three-week trial in a striking decision finding that the amendment violates both the Equal Protection and the Due Process clauses of the U.S. Constitution.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal">Chris has a link to the Court’s written decision and lots of excellent anaylsis.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Twenty-three years I’ve been a practicing lawyer. I’m not sure I’ve ever been prouder of my profession than I am today.<o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment--> </div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-67900295609064621382010-07-30T08:46:00.000-07:002010-07-30T09:15:05.834-07:00Capping off the Week in Crazy: Will @SarahPalinUSA “Refudiate” the California Mosque Protest?<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Well, Sarah, it’s been hard to figure out which right-wing crazies were the most deserving of, um, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">refudiation</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> this week, hasn’t it?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">We had, for example, disgraced but “not racist” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich </span><a href="http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2010/07/28/newt-gingrich-has-become-frankly-a-hate-mongering-bigot/?cxntfid=blogs_jay_bookman_blog"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">doubling down</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> on the anti-Muslim rhetoric:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Newt Gingrich went on Fox last night [July 27] to peddle more of his hateful, vile garbage regarding the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque,” which is not at ground zero and is not a major mosque, but an Islamic community center.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">“The idea of a 13-story building set up by a group many of whom, frankly, are very hostile to our civilization — and I’m talking now about the people who organized this, many of whom are apologists for sharia, which is a form of law that I think we cannot allow in this country, period,” Gingrich said.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Frankly, the more he talks the more I’m convinced </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Newt Gingrich</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> is “hostile to our civilization” … but I digress. Newt wasn’t the only one getting his crazy on this week.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Because (and more than a little ironically) while Newt was wetting the bed over fears of creeping Sharia law in New York City, the odious “National Organization for Marriage” was dancing around its own </span><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/7/27/888034/-NOM-Sign:-Protect-marriage-by-lynching-gay-couples"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Leviticus-fueled</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> hate mongering:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The National Organization for Marriage brought its antigay “One Man, One Woman” bus tour to Indianapolis on Monday, and the news from the Hoosier State is that it was something of a fail. Only about 40 wingnuts showed up, and the LGBT supporters outnumbered them by over 200. So that’s a bit of good news for you to savor, since it’s only downhill from here.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">…<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Meet Larry Adams:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbOSX5fHi4B0cNrIS_kk77o0P3oHYrWQNDMi2dH65TFO9SnFLqIIZFbz-L0tya-mI9vr0yhtgR11hqUM6I-N-2rJ4X6cFYsUeMlw-Qj4v1IaGAU4qR4rZ3dZai7ACTgf3ZOO5e5eNdan4/s1600/Larry+Adams+1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 214px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbOSX5fHi4B0cNrIS_kk77o0P3oHYrWQNDMi2dH65TFO9SnFLqIIZFbz-L0tya-mI9vr0yhtgR11hqUM6I-N-2rJ4X6cFYsUeMlw-Qj4v1IaGAU4qR4rZ3dZai7ACTgf3ZOO5e5eNdan4/s320/Larry+Adams+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499726855448530786" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br />Larry is an ardent NOM supporter and a believer in “traditional” marriage. And he apparently represents Cross Bearer Ministry in Indianapolis.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">This is how Larry feels about gay people:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigj5mC7g4l-Xaw5ebakzte1lgcFsLoMJ9d8mVW9bxbpF51-ToUIoBE6Ig7zljgxRP2YqzBXJUsMOM_cREj6_IOBIlexvbvq-wOe7Y0hoC-zJ25R_bFTZ2oxg5JCdmn24jVNBOWuJfHY6k/s1600/Larry+Adams+2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigj5mC7g4l-Xaw5ebakzte1lgcFsLoMJ9d8mVW9bxbpF51-ToUIoBE6Ig7zljgxRP2YqzBXJUsMOM_cREj6_IOBIlexvbvq-wOe7Y0hoC-zJ25R_bFTZ2oxg5JCdmn24jVNBOWuJfHY6k/s320/Larry+Adams+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499728201712002578" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Ugh. “Despicable” doesn’t quite do justice to Mr. Adam’s brand of crazy. And, according to </span><a href="http://www.freedomtomarry.org/page/s/nomstopthehate"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Freedom to Marry</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, NOM has yet to distance itself from Adams’ hateful message despite a week of non-stop criticism. Maybe NOM is “not advocating” a Leviticus-style pogrom against gays and lesbians the same way the Tea Party “isn’t” racist …</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">But wait. There’s more.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, some low-life cretins publish what they call </span><a href="http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2010/07/playing-race-card.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">“Tea Party Comix”</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> – including full-on, KKK-style racist caricatures of Pres. Obama and disgusting 1920s-ish faux-black argot that could’ve come straight out of “Birth of a Nation.”</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">I won’t quote any of the existing “Tea Party Comix” editions, because, frankly, they make me want to chuck my laptop out the window; but suffice it to say they’re so over the top that they literally make you question your understanding of </span><a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Poe's_Law"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Poe’s Law</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">If you really have to see more, </span><a href="http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/07/28/4771518-the-incredibly-racist-tea-party-comix"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Rachel Maddow’s blog</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> has the grisly details.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">So, what can cap off a week of crazy that brought us more of Newt Gingrich’s sharia-dementia, a gay-bashing Christianist openly embracing lynching at a NOM-sponsored event, and racist cartoon images of the Commander in Chief?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Why, it seems the crazy has circled back on itself. It’s </span><a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/tpm_talks_to_organizer_of_anti-mosque_protest_they.php"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Mosque-Mania, Part II</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"></p><blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Let’s get one thing straight, Diane Serafin told me this afternoon -- the people (and their dogs) </span><span style="color:blue;"><a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/ca_anti_mosque_protest_organizers_bring_dogs_because_muslims_hate_dogs.php"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">protesting a planned mosque</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> in Temecula, California tomorrow are not bigots. It’s not Muslims </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">per se</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> that they have a problem with – it’s the fact that Imams are slowly infiltrating American society, hoping to force Sharia law on us all.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Muslim construction projects have been the subject of public protests nationwide these days (as we’ve </span><span style="color:blue;"><a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/mosque_ado_about_fear-mongering_right_wing_takes_o_1.php"><span style="text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">reported</span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">), but Serafin’s demonstration is different from all the rest. She’s calling on people to bring their dogs and join in song tomorrow afternoon because, she told me, Muslims just hate dogs and songs. Of course, Muslim antipathy toward canines isn’t their worst offense, she told me.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">“They hate Jews, they hate Christians, they hate women, they hate dogs,” Serafin said. “[The idea of the new mosque] scares the daylights out of me.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p></blockquote><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Well, Ms. Serafin (</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqk1kdjk5o0"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">with apologies to Mick and Keith</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">), sometimes the sunshine bores the daylights outa me, but we all have our problems.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The thing is, you can’t really say you’re </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">not</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> prejudiced and then go around making sweeping generalizations about how “they” feel about Jewish folks and Christians and dogs and so forth.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">dogs</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">?! Seriously – you’re encouraging people to bring dogs to a protest because you think Muslims are afraid of them?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">That’s like </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bull_Connor"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Bull Connor</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> meets Gitmo, you sick, sick puppy.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Okay, so, the question remains, with so many examples of right-wing nutty goodness this week, I wonder if our favorite ex-Governor can spare a moment from her busy </span><a href="http://www.newser.com/story/96842/palin-obama-should-be-at-border-not-on-view.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Tweeting</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> (or </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-stir/kate-gosselin-sarah-palin_b_657260.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">camping</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">) schedule to “refudiate” just one of ’em.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Really, Sarah, just pick one example of over-the-top bigoted right-wing nonsense – just one – and go all maverick-y on it.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">We’re waiting …</span><o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-50158108318486228982010-07-29T07:49:00.000-07:002010-07-29T07:54:41.573-07:00@sarahpalinusa needs to "refudiate" Cook Country GOP for sexual misconduct/harassment of whistleblowerIt seems like Chairman Roupas, needs to be forced out as well. Not only is the alleged sexual misconduct bad so is the attack on the whistleblower.<br /><br />From <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/28/jeremy-rose-resigns-cook_n_662270.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Huffington Post Chicago</span></a><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Jeremy Rose Resigns: Cook County GOP Official Leaves Amid Growing Scandal</span><br />-snip-<br />Jeremy Rose, the executive director of the Cook County GOP, resigned Tuesday night after word spread of a past allegation of sexual misconduct. According to documents obtained by Huffington Post Chicago, his boss -- Cook County GOP chairman Lee Roupas -- has known about the allegations for over a year, during which time he hired and promoted Rose. And when a whistleblower came forward about <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyrT2jKHmLaKWFIzva8bDqm6T1BMBJlGkvknltIpj6nOESJ7aDnqlOIuTpuSISdv4o9BIbWbU3l1p-iVjuN-jdp1sHNFOZYTe8RW_Jk1Vg91NVEzqUmrLOTlPRLUgxUPEj71F43FVmaI4/s1600/s-ROSE-large.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 146px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyrT2jKHmLaKWFIzva8bDqm6T1BMBJlGkvknltIpj6nOESJ7aDnqlOIuTpuSISdv4o9BIbWbU3l1p-iVjuN-jdp1sHNFOZYTe8RW_Jk1Vg91NVEzqUmrLOTlPRLUgxUPEj71F43FVmaI4/s200/s-ROSE-large.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499341465583616642" border="0" /></a>the complaint, Roupas organized a concerted effort to remove that person from her elected position within the party.<br />-snip-<br /><br />According to many sources, including Lee Roupas in his interview, tensions between the Chicago Republican Party (CRP) and the Cook County Republican Party (CCRP) have long run high. In order to address those tensions before an important election, Roupas tried to organize a meeting early this summer between himself and Jeremy Rose from the county, and Steve Boulton and Eloise Gerson from the city.<br /><br />Gerson, a Jewish woman who immigrated to the U.S. from Peru, rose through the ranks to become the head of the Chicago Republican Party in April of 2008. When Roupas reached out to meet with her, she encouraged Boulton, her general counsel, to join her in doing so.<br /><br />But in a two-page letter sent on June 3, 2010, Boulton refused his boss's request. He told Gerson that he was wary of Rose's tactics, and mentioned the allegations made against Rose by the woman from the Young Republicans.<br />-snip-<br /><br />Frustrated with his failure to oust Gerson, Roupas was allegedly overheard in an angry rant after the meeting, calling Gerson "boss b**ch." And, despite objections by many committeemen that the new post appeared to undermine Gerson's authority, Roupas announced the appointment of a Chicago Chair of the CCRP in an email on July 1.<br />-snip-Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-15496598095174845392010-07-25T18:54:00.000-07:002010-07-26T16:21:24.560-07:00When Fact Is Fiction and TV Reality: @SarahPalinUSA, Manhattan and Sectarian Violence<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV8KalTo3TUAOmPpxjgVa7_9rGO3xYTiyq_zJlodVS-raf7X8ABBw5V0p6I8kYO4-ovZPdSvIcxj5CRhZnvGKggTrYewy_eizZZP3Svs86GySjFBt4UBMgJog2nfhxXY9y7sdmLVlbqko/s1600/Sligo+Crest.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 297px; height: 306px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV8KalTo3TUAOmPpxjgVa7_9rGO3xYTiyq_zJlodVS-raf7X8ABBw5V0p6I8kYO4-ovZPdSvIcxj5CRhZnvGKggTrYewy_eizZZP3Svs86GySjFBt4UBMgJog2nfhxXY9y7sdmLVlbqko/s320/Sligo+Crest.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5498028558116315474" /></a><br /><!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><!--StartFragment--> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">My mother is a Durkin and her family comes from the Land of Heart’s Desire, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Sligo">County Sligo</a> in Connacht on the northwest coast of Ireland, where William Butler Yeats spent much of his youth.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In other words, the Moms is Irish. For my part, I’m a mutt; but being part Irish and growing up in the Chicago area within dead-cat-swinging distance of literally hundreds of thousands of Irish Catholics (which is to say, you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting one), it was hard <i>not</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> to identify with them.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Consequently, I grew up with the idea that all thirty-two counties of my mother’s ancestral homeland should someday be one nation; that after 800 years or so of British oppression, it was time for Her Majesty’s Armed Forces to head back across the Irish Sea where they’d come from and to leave Ireland to the Irish. That’s most likely what you thought if you were Irish Catholic in Chicago in the 1960s and ’70s. Even if you were only part Irish.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But, so, anyway, this <a href="http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/07/dangerous-nature-of-sarah-palins-lies.html">business with Sarah Palin and the proposed “mosque” in Lower Manhattan</a> in the vicinity of Ground Zero has got me thinking about growing up (partly, at least) Irish Catholic in a heavily Irish and heavily Catholic part of the world. (And by the way, I say “mosque” in quotation marks in the preceding sentence because what we’re talking about isn’t a mosque at all, but “<a href="http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2010/06/a_symbol_of_progress_in_lower_manhattan.html">a proposed community center</a> in Lower Manhattan that would be founded by Muslims but serve all New Yorkers.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It just so happens that the community center includes a prayer room, which explains why Sister Sarah’s head nearly exploded.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, anyway, back to the Irish thing …</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">As it happens, when I first started frequenting the Madison Street bars in the early 1980s (Madison Street in Forest Park, Illinois, that is – it being the place where just about all the taverns were located in the vicinity of once-dry Oak Park, my home town), <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/recent/troubles/the_troubles_article_01.shtml">the Troubles</a> in Northern Ireland – what the Irish call Ulster – were in full swing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And if you frequented taverns with Irish-sounding names back in the early 1980s in places like Forest Park, or in, say, Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood or in the Southwest suburbs, you were likely to see, as I often did, pro-Irish Republican Army graffiti on the walls of the men’s rooms – nasty things about the personal shaving habits of Queen Elizabeth II, and even nastier things about Margaret Thatcher, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/northern_ireland/understanding/profiles/ian_paisley.stm">Ian Paisely</a> or the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/recent/troubles/fact_files.shtml?ff=p08#factfile">UDA</a> – the kind of things that seemed oddly out of place in America in the age of Reagan, darkly threatening and bigoted and ugly; militant in the worst sense of the word.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">And what’s funny is, in places like Chicago – and, I’m sure, New York and Boston and any big city with a large Irish Catholic demographic – support for the IRA was not only not uncommon, it was often fairly out in the open.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For example, back then my late brother Tom was the lead guitarist in a British Invasion-themed band – you know, four guys in matching white-shirts-with-skinny-ties-and-pointy-shoes type outfits, playing Beatles and Stones and Kinks tunes in front of a huge Union Jack – and, ironically, on at least a couple of occasions they were booked to play private parties that turned out to be <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NORAID">NORAID</a> benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Maybe the party organizers figured the Union Jack provided cover, or maybe they just didn’t care. But, in any event, according to Tom these were parties with automatic-weapons-toting armed guards at the door, that sort of thing; and at one particular NORAID function, during a break between the band’s sets, the organizers passed around a black coffin-shaped box with an infamous bit of IRA graffiti scrawled on it: </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span></p><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i><blockquote></blockquote></i></span><blockquote><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>13 Gone and Not Forgotten/</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia;"><i>We Got 18 and <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920606,00.html">Lord Mountbatten</a> …</i></span></blockquote><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia;"><i></i></span><p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">into which party goers stuffed wads of cash.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">And I don’t think any of that money was declared on anybody’s tax return, if you catch my drift.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">In fact, in the late ’70s and early ’80s support for the IRA and its sectarian cause was so wide spread, a young Republican Congressman from New York, Rep. Peter King – yes, <i><a href="http://peteking.house.gov/">that</a></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> Rep. Peter King – <a href="http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/peter-kings-secret-terrorism-loving-history">openly embraced</a> the terrorist organization:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">[King] forged links with leaders of the IRA and Sinn Fein in Ireland, and in America he hooked up with Irish Northern Aid, known as Noraid, a New York based group that the American, British, and Irish governments often accused of funneling guns and money to the IRA. At a time when the IRA’s murder of Lord Mountbatten and its fierce bombing campaign in Britain and Ireland persuaded most American politicians to shun IRA-support groups, Mr. King displayed no such inhibitions. He spoke regularly at Noraid protests and became close to the group’s publicity director, the Bronx lawyer Martin Galvin, a figure reviled by the British.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Mr. King’s support for the IRA was unequivocal. In 1982, for instance, he told a pro-IRA rally in Nassau County: “We must pledge ourselves to support those brave men and women who this very moment are carrying forth the struggle against British imperialism in the streets of Belfast and Derry.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">That’s worth repeating: <i>In the early 1980s, Rep. Peter King’s “<b>support for the IRA was unequivocal</b></i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><i>.”</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">And lest anybody should forget, the IRA was involved in the business of killing people – innocent civilians, civilian politicians and civilian police officers among them – for the purpose of effecting political change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That’s what we call “terrorism” – using violence against civilian targets to terrorize a civilian population and pressure its political leaders to act in accordance with the terrorists’ wishes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Say what you will about the Irish Republican cause – I, for one, have always supported it – the methods of the IRA were despicable and unacceptable, as were the methods of their Unionist opposition in Ulster.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Not to put too fine a point on it, but <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/death-toll-intensifies-search-for-a-solution-david-mckittrick-examines-the-unrelenting-toll-of-violence-during-more-than-20-years-of-the-troubles-1543134.html">more than 3,000 innocents</a> died in Northern Ireland’s Troubles from the early 1960s until the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And that’s a number that ought to resonate with Americans today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">3,000 innocent men and women killed in the name of sectarian extremism.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That’s pretty close to the number of people killed on September 11, 2001; and while the IRA and their Protestant extremist enemies may have been less efficient at killing than al Qaeda, they proved they could be no less deadly over time. So, you’d think support of the IRA – as I say, once common in the U.S., at least in the big cities – would carry the same sort of stigma as support for Islamic extremism.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You’d think that, but if the political success of Rep. Pete King means anything, you’d be wrong.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">But I digress. My point is, this whole thing about the <a href="http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/07/dangerous-nature-of-sarah-palins-lies.html">proposed Cordoba House in New York City</a> – and the opposition to it from the usual suspects, including Sarah Palin – has got me thinking how some forms of violent sectarian extremism are, apparently, acceptable in the United States and some aren’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And it’s equally got me thinking how oddly inconsistent we are in terms of how we deal with broader religious communities that include small, usually negligible, groups of extremists within them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Sarah Palin is offended that a Muslim group wants to build a community center in the vicinity of the World Trade Center, where an unrelated group of extremist Muslims killed thousands of innocent people, as if all Muslims are to be held accountable for the actions of the lunatic few. But no one has ever suggested that all Catholics, or all Irish, or all Irish Catholics, should be held accountable for the actions of the IRA and/or their American supporters.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">Just imagine if someone were to contact Rep. Peter King and demand that <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Patrick's_Cathedral,_New_York">St. Patrick’s Cathedral</a>, located on Madison Avenue in Midtown, be moved out of Manhattan because it somehow represented or symbolized the IRA’s thirty-five year reign of terror.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The very idea is absurd; what does a cathedral named for the Patron Saint of Ireland have to do with sectarian violence in Ireland, after all? Nothing, of course, because we don’t do that in America: We don’t blame the actions of a few extremist Catholics or Irishmen on all Catholics or all Irishmen, even though we know that <i>some</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> American Catholics and <i>some</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> Irish Americans in fact supported those extremists.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">So, too, with the Cordoba House, it seems to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You don’t blame the deranged acts of nineteen Saudi Arabian jihadists on the Muslim Americans who want to build a community center in Lower Manhattan, any more than you blame the violent acts of the IRA on the Catholics, Irish or otherwise, who worship at St. Patrick’s or anywhere else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Sarah Palin ought to know that, and she ought to “refudiate” that type of thinking if she really believes in America and in freedom of religion.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" ;font-family:Georgia;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;">She <i>ought</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;"> to refudiate right-wing Muslim bashing and intolerance, but you know she won’t. Some people never learn ...<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Georgia;"><br /></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <p></p> <!--EndFragment--><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/JFM7Ty1EEvs&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/JFM7Ty1EEvs&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-61656225666120356662010-07-22T17:22:00.000-07:002010-07-22T17:57:52.562-07:00The Dangerous Nature Of Sarah Palin’s Lies & Hateful Rhetoric: NY City “Mosque” Controversy<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/facebook-palin-comments.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-16428" title="facebook palin comments" src="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/facebook-palin-comments-763x1024.jpg" alt="" height="709" width="528" /></a><em><span style="font-size:x-small;"><br /></span></em></p><p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size:x-small;">At this moment there are 2,884 comments and a majority of them are like the ones shown in the screenshot.</span></em></p><br />Our good friends over at Palinsgate has shared a post with us. I'll give you some rather than cross-post the whole thing, and request that you<a href="http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/07/dangerous-nature-of-sarah-palins-lies.html"> pop over to their site for the rest:</a><br /><blockquote><a href="http://www.facebook.com/notes.php?id=24718773587">This is the post Sarah Palin made:</a><br /><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><strong>An Intolerable Mistake on Hallowed Ground</strong></em></p><br /><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Earlier today, Mayor Bloomberg responded to my comments about the planned mosque at Ground Zero by suggesting that a decision not to allow the building of a mosque at that sacred place would somehow violate American principles of tolerance and openness.</em></p><br /><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>No one is disputing that America stands for – and should stand for – religious tolerance. It is a foundation of our republic. This is not an issue of religious tolerance but of common moral sense. To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks. Just days after 9/11, the spiritual leader of the organization that wants to build the mosque, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, suggested that blame be placed on the innocents when he stated that the “United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened” and that “in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.” Rauf refuses to recognize that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of our ally, Israel, and refuses to provide information about the sources of funding for the $100 million mosque. Rauf also plays a key role in a group behind the flotilla designed to provoke Israel in its justifiable blockade of Gaza. These are just a few of the points Americans are realizing as New York considers the proposed mosque just a stone’s throw away from 9/11’s sacred ground.</em></p><br /><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>I agree with the sister of one of the 9/11 victims (and a New York resident) who said: “This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000 people were torn to pieces by Islamic extremists. I think that it is incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened.”</em></p><br /><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Many Americans, myself included, feel it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground. This is nothing close to “religious intolerance,” it’s just common decency.</em></p><br /><p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>- Sarah Palin</em></p><br /></blockquote><br /><blockquote>First of all, lets dispel some of the misinformation. Cordoba House is NOT, I repeat NOT "at Ground Zero" as Sarah and her ghostwriter would have you believe. [...]<br /><br /><strong>Now lets address this "building a mosque" claim.</strong><br /><br />This is not a building being erected, but a renovation of a building that is already in place. This building will be named "Cordoba House" and will include many many more things than just a prayer center, <a href="http://www.cordobainitiative.org/?q=content/cordoba-house-new-york-city">which by the way is already in place and being used regularly</a> [...]<br /><br /><strong>Now just for a bit of a refresher, lets revisit the 1st Amendment to the Constitution shall we? You know that pesky document that Sarah Palin keeps demanding we stick to when she feels she has another rant coming on?</strong><br /><br />The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law "respecting an establishment of religion", impeding the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.<br /><br />Seems to me that Sarah Palin and those opposed to this Community Center are trying to impede the free exercise of religion by demanding that this place not be allowed to go forward, and they are also interfering with the right to peaceably assemble by demanding that this community center be moved to a different location simply because they dislike the specific religious beliefs of those who are going to be using the prayer center. [...]<br /><br />There is so much involved in this subject that we could go on for days discussing it, but the main thrust of this post is supposed to be about getting the facts out there, and showing the dangerous attitude of the people who are supporting the misinformation that Sarah Palin and those like her are distributing in the name of politics or personal bigotry.<br /><br />How are people reacting to her facebook note? Good question, and I have some answers. It isn't pretty. Not pretty at all and it shows how she stirs anger and is quite happy to do it as we've seen from the many incidents where she has sought to divide people in this country. [...]<br /><br />So as is obvious there is a lot of hate, misinformation and dangerous attitudes among Sarah's followers. The anger displayed toward individuals who have a different belief system than they do is plainly evident and exceptionally frightening. To believe that Muslims are all bad, or that this Community center is some kind of dangerous place or disrespectful slap in the face to those who died is a joke, but sadly one that is becoming more and more popular with a select group of citizens.<br /><br />How sad that this is what so many feel, when they themselves are likely to cry foul if someone tried to trample on their right to free religious expression.<br /><br /><strong>"What better place to teach tolerance than near the site where hate tried to kill it?"</strong><br /><br />That comment stands out for me.<br /><br />Sarah Palin could have taken this opportunity and used it to show herself to be a true Christian, and instead she went down the opposite path. She could have shown herself to be supportive of the Constitution like she professes herself to be, but again that is not the path she wanted to take.<br /><br />I am not surprised by the behavior she displays and encourages in people, but I am saddened by it. I have been paying close attention to her for what feels like an eternity but in reality is has only been a few years. In those few years, I have watched her lash out, encourage rage and anger in her supporters, lie, deliberately misrepresent, and bilk people out of money, and all of it to feed her own ego, and to become a celebutaunt on the national stage.<br /><br />She is a dangerous person and one who should not be ignored, as she will do everything in her power to continue to encourage dangerous behavior from as many people as she can. That is what she does and it is who she is. Sadly she has conned a lot of good decent people into believing her, but I am always hopeful that people will finally remove the blinders from their eyes and simply look at the facts which show how shallow, egotistical, and narcissistic her behavior is. [...]<br /><br />If they are going to continue to claim that this "Mosque is being built at Ground Zero", which we have now proven to be two separate and distinct lies, (it is a building that is being renovated & it is not at Ground Zero) then you have to ask yourself, what else are they willing to lie about? The answer to that is ..whatever they want to lie about in order to scare people and use that fear to bring in support both emotional and financial.<br />They certainly aren't going to tell people that this center is housing much more than a prayer room (which is already being used) because that would seem much more reasonable and not so frightening to people who are already leery of those who are "different".<br /><br />What is so frightening and damaging to the community about restaurants, bookstores, swimming pools, art exhibitions and worship groups? Nothing about those things are frightening at all to reasonable people so that is why they aren't mentioned, and that is why this is being labeled a Mosque instead of a Community Center.<br /><br />I had been trying to write a conclusion to this piece and had rewritten it several times when I noticed someone had linked to this article by Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic who wrote a wonderful piece titled <strong><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/07/why-sarah-palin-endangers-american-national-security-and-israels-as-well/60088/">"Why Sarah Palin Endangers American National Security (and Israel's, as Well)"</a> <strong>[...]</strong></strong><br /><br />I agree with his conclusion as it was what I was trying to put into word. She is more than just simple-minded, she is willing to take on any cause if she thinks it will keep her in the news, and she doesn't care about what the issue is, nor does she care to understand the issue. For Sarah it has always been about making noise and riling up her supporters in whatever way she can.<br /><br />There is no doubt that there are people in the world who want to do harm to others and they will always find a reason to do so in their own warped minds, but we should not be playing into their hands and into their deliberately misinformed viewpoints by ensuring that their supporters are seeing us act out in the ways that these terrorists claim we will and do. Sarah Palin and those who blindly follow her are dangerous to this country for the simple reason that they seek to divide us, which weakens us in many different ways, on many different fronts.<br /><br />We will never completely eradicate terrorism. There will always be those who seek power through intimidation and fear, but we can fight it, and we only lose to them if we allow ourselves to change who we are and what we do out of fear and intimidation.</blockquote><br />There is much more. Patrick is very thorough. He has video, photos, quotes I left out. <a href="http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/07/dangerous-nature-of-sarah-palins-lies.html"><strong>Please go take a look</strong></a>.GottaLaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04142109320878981629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-80861788635567864682010-07-21T18:21:00.000-07:002010-07-21T18:32:59.913-07:00Will @SarahPalinUSA Join Country Western Legend Willie Nelson and “Refudiate” Andrew Breitbart’s Race-Baiting Smears of Shirley Sherrod<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Now, I know that Willie Nelson isn’t exactly what Gov. McQuitter would call a Tea Party American, but he is a country music luminary and he’s always been a diehard supporter of farmers in the heartland – you know, Real Americans™, in Sarah parlance.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">So, maybe, just maybe, Sarah might be interested in what the Red Headed Stranger has to say about the former, and perhaps to soon to be re-instated, USDA employee at the center of </span><a href="http://refudiatethissarah.blogspot.com/2010/07/will-sarapalinusa-refudiate-andrew.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Andrew Breitbart’s race-baiting refuse storm</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">. Here’s Willie </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/willie-nelson/shirley-sherrod-a-family_b_654824.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">on HuffPo</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> today:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Shirley Sherrod has been a great friend to me, Farm Aid and family farmers for 25 years. She has always worked to improve economic opportunities for family farmers in the South, going back to when I first met her as the director of the Georgia Field Office for the </span><a href="http://www.federationsoutherncoop.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">. Like Ms. Sherrod herself has said, she’s always tried to help those who don't have so that they can have a little more.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The real story of Shirley Sherrod deserved to be told a long time ago. She has had an amazing impact on the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of families and communities throughout the South. Farmers of every race have struggled with the income inequities that have persisted for generations, and advocates like Ms. Sherrod have moved mountains to ensure that families can remain in their homes and on their farms.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Wow. Reading this, you’d almost think Ms. Sherrod is a Real American™, too. Is it possible that there are African Americans who plow the land, just like good old fashioned white folks?</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Apparently, </span><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/willie-nelson/shirley-sherrod-a-family_b_654824.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">there are</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">While all family farmers in our country face an uphill battle to stay on their land, growing good food for rest of us, black farmers have lost their land at an alarming rate, faster than any other family farmers. Lending discrimination and inequities in agriculture programs are largely responsible for the shrinking number of black farmers. Farm Aid began supporting the Federation in 1985, where Shirley worked at the time, because of the group’s unique ability to reach out and help struggling farm families in the South. Many had owned their land for generations and were, and continue to be, under constant threat. We continue to support the Federation’s work to this day, and hundreds of farmers are still on their land because of Ms. Sherrod's efforts.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">…<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">This country desperately needs more farm advocates with Ms. Sherrod’s expertise. But this is not just about a job – it’s about ensuring that Shirley Sherrod has the opportunity to continue to support family farmers and the rural poor, something she has spent her life doing.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">So there you go. There are African Americans suffering in rural areas just like the white farmers – the Spooners – whom Shirley Sherrod </span><i><a href="http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201007200058"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">didn’t discriminate against</span></span></a></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> 24 years ago.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Seems like Shirley Sherrod, the Once And Future USDA Employee, has been helping all sorts of folks in need, regardless of the color of their skin. Or, as they say in Downstate Illinois, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">disirregardless.</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And speaking of Downstate Illinois, I spent the better part of six years down on the prairie in the midst of the corn belt when I was an undergraduate and law student at the University of Illinois, the home of the first Farm Aid Concert which took place in September 1985, at the start of my second year in law school.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">In fact, I still have friends down there.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">So the story of Ms. Sherrod’s honest efforts on behalf of hard working rural folks, black and white, strikes a certain chord with me. It reminds me that there are good people everywhere in this country; but it also reminds me that the problems of race permeate urban and rural America alike.</span><span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">And given the good work Shirley Sherrod has done not only </span><a href="http://www.ajc.com/news/getting-to-shirley-sherrods-575702.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3333FF;">to overcome the racial strife she faced growing up</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, but to come to help family farmers of all walks of life, I don’t think it’s too much to ask of the Half Term Wonder to “refudiate” Andrew Breitbart’s race-bating attack on this fine American.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Now, if you’ll excuse me – and with apologies to my co-bloggers – I feel the need to get my Steve Earle on:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /></span><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/jz9RqwWtZSM&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jz9RqwWtZSM&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-70440459453776447102010-07-21T06:07:00.000-07:002010-07-21T06:20:43.256-07:00Will @sarapalinusa "refudiate" Andrew Breitbart and FOX NEWS?Well Andrew Breitbart and FOX NEWS have succeeded in getting the USDA/Obama administration to force Shirley Sherrod's resignation over comments that many people interpreted as racist, however after further review it would appear that those folks were peddling a heavily edited video, manipulated to make her look bad.<br /><br />Sarah, please "refudiate"<br /><br />From: <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007200083">MediaMatters</a><br /><h1><span style="font-size:130%;">Full video vindicates Sherrod, destroys Breitbart's accusations of racism</span></h1> <p class="post-pub-info">July 20, 2010 10:39 pm ET by Matt McLaughlin</p> <p>The NAACP has <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.naacp.org%2Fnews%2Fentry%2Fvideo_sherrod%2F">posted the video</a> of Shirley Sherrod's March 27 speech, and it definitively proves false Andrew Breitbart's claim that the <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fbiggovernment.com%2Fabreitbart%2F2010%2F07%2F19%2Fvideo-proof-the-naacp-awards-racism2010%2F">edited video</a> he posted at his BigGovernment.com website is "evidence of racism."<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYo_R2-gL_Fa2iJxBgRZaLt4eqypMqZmgQD-mpEjIlVFGywD0z9o4iqhvP_xoZ7gADqEtta_xBG-KbH02EScevRiJYXZ_OgD2OEAAvIlT9e0FAtmcMvA5QaCFderuJRjCBtYLqJnDCMrs/s1600/gma-20100721-breitboehl-1.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYo_R2-gL_Fa2iJxBgRZaLt4eqypMqZmgQD-mpEjIlVFGywD0z9o4iqhvP_xoZ7gADqEtta_xBG-KbH02EScevRiJYXZ_OgD2OEAAvIlT9e0FAtmcMvA5QaCFderuJRjCBtYLqJnDCMrs/s200/gma-20100721-breitboehl-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496348615881680162" border="0" /></a></p> <p>In his first post about the video, Breitbart wrote: "In the first video, Sherrod describes how she racially discriminates against a white farmer. She describes how she is torn over how much she will choose to help him. And, she admits that she doesn't do everything she can for him, because he is white."</p> <p><em>Media Matters</em> previously <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/201007200047">documented</a> that Breitbart's original post suggested that the actions Sherrod described in the video came in her capacity as the USDA Georgia Director of Rural Development during the Obama administration. In fact, the actions she described came 24 years ago, when she when she worked with the Georgia field office for the Federation of Southern Cooperative/Land Assistance Fund -- before she began working for the Agriculture Department.</p> <p>And in the full video, Sherrod recounts how she ultimately helped the farmer avoid the foreclosure on his farm. Indeed, while Breitbart's video included Sherrod saying that she <em>initially</em> didn't to everything she could, it omitted her explanation that later she went to much greater lengths to help the farmer:</p><p>-snip-<br /></p><span style="font-weight: bold;">From our partners</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">The Political Carnival:</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span><a href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/07/clusterfox-o%e2%80%99-the-day-fox%e2%80%99s-misleading-sherrod-headline/" title="Permalink to ClusterFox-O’-The-Day: Fox’s Misleading Sherrod Headline"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;"> </span>ClusterFox-O’-The-Day: Fox’s Misleading Sherrod Headline</a></span></span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Windy City Watch:</span> <span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://blog.windycitywatch.com/2010/07/dear-president-obama-its-time-for-more.html">Dear Mr. President its time for "A More Perfect Union" to fight the race baiting</a></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-54598660350584278092010-07-20T10:07:00.000-07:002010-07-20T18:18:57.327-07:00Much Ado About Nothing, Or, Elena Kagan Is a Secret Islamo-Facist Manchurian Supreme Court Nominee …<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">… It is a tale <o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,<o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Signifying nothing.</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in;line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">William Shakespeare, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Macbeth</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, Act V, scene v.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Now that ex-Gov. Sarah Palin, the Patron Saint of Cashing In, imagines herself to be a regular Shakespeare with the English language, maybe she can take a moment to pen a verse “refudiating” the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Washington Times</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> latest example of religious intolerance and race-bating.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/20/kagan-turban-again/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Via ThinkProgress</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">:<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Less than a month ago, the Washington Times ran a </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/21/courting-shariah/?page=1"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">bizarre op-ed by Frank Gaffney</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, claiming that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is caught up in a conspiracy with the Muslim Brotherhood and the TARP program to impose oppressive tenants of Islamic Shariah law on America. The highlight of that op-ed was a </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/06/23/kagan-turban/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">doctored photo of Kagan in a turban</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">The Washington Times’ editors must think that their readers have a very short attention span, because yesterday’s Washington Times also featured an op-ed by Frank Gaffney which touts the same tired conspiracy theory…and features </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/19/kagans-shariah-problem/print/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">yet another graphic of General Kagan in a turban</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Um, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">what?<br /><br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrrwi98C9gha9Xp1G_I7PY7oLaH8NCyelWPBRu31icdcoZBhYP27WBhd4H44iFZUioZDTiFDp4QOiCnac3WPRbdB8hpAyjdQGR7_6-yCJNrZhnxz7Dgt7bmzpo4TiJv486XzhNNy7sl6Y/s1600/Kagan+in+Turban+1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 172px; height: 180px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrrwi98C9gha9Xp1G_I7PY7oLaH8NCyelWPBRu31icdcoZBhYP27WBhd4H44iFZUioZDTiFDp4QOiCnac3WPRbdB8hpAyjdQGR7_6-yCJNrZhnxz7Dgt7bmzpo4TiJv486XzhNNy7sl6Y/s320/Kagan+in+Turban+1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496036586734484194" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKQ7TIM67WXgKrVXCz_Ax-cwg1SLxXukurqTnmXJ4QXS4B1cDjdxFdY9BqVJEKTV18LL8KRSxVQ2Kt4HZWNMAHEmtbw91Qm-B-mUadO1XNOCYk_Sr7i1OOzCW05CXs3YQGlCFbo1ze4Y/s1600/Kagan+in+Turban+2.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 170px; height: 275px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitKQ7TIM67WXgKrVXCz_Ax-cwg1SLxXukurqTnmXJ4QXS4B1cDjdxFdY9BqVJEKTV18LL8KRSxVQ2Kt4HZWNMAHEmtbw91Qm-B-mUadO1XNOCYk_Sr7i1OOzCW05CXs3YQGlCFbo1ze4Y/s320/Kagan+in+Turban+2.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496037818367298578" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Yeah, that’s right, Elena Kagan – who, for what it’s worth, happens to be </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elena_Kagan"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Jewish</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> – is part of a secret Islamist cabal hell-bent on transforming the American financial sector into a Caliphate on the Hudson. Or maybe the Charles. Or something.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Anyway, </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/20/kagan-turban-again/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">take it away, Frank</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">That is where </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/elena-kagan/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Elena Kagan</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">’s enabling of the penetration of Shariah into our capital markets through the </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/harvard-law-school/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Harvard Law School</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">’s Islamic Finance Project comes in. The purpose of that project is, according to an excellent essay by </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/andrew-c-mccarthy/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Mr. McCarthy</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, “</span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/elena-kagan/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Elena Kagan</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ Shariah Policy,” published last week in National Review Online “to promote Shariah compliance in the </span><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/united-states-of-america/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">U.S.</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> financial sector.”<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:200%;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">This is accomplished via legal support to an industry known as Shariah-compliant finance (SCF). It was invented in the mid-20th century by Brotherhood operatives as a means of facilitating and underwriting the penetration of Shariah into Western societies by mainlining it into their capitalist bloodstreams. . . .<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:0in;margin-right:.5in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:.5in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">As a new ad by the Center for Security Policy asks, </span><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">“If </span></b><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/elena-kagan/"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Kagan</span></span></b></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> tolerates promoting the injustice of Shariah law on the campus of </span></b><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/harvard-university/"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Harvard</span></span></b></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, what kind of injustice will she tolerate in America during a lifetime on the </span></b><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/supreme-court/"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">Supreme Court</span></span></b></a><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">?”<o:p></o:p></span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">(Emphasis in original ThinkProgress post.)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">What kind of injustices, indeed?!</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Get me my smelling salts.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Of course, </span><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/2010/07/20/kagan-turban-again/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;">as ThinkProgress explains</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">, neither Kagan nor Harvard’s Islamic Finance Project made any effort to promote an “Islamist” agenda here or elsewhere – only to work with Islamic countries and financial institutions to modernize the </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">their</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> financial sector while still respecting the Islamic tradition that forbids charging interest on loans.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">No burqas, no beheadings, no stonings. Just some creative finance in the Middle East.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">But, hey, who cares about the facts when you can tie a liberal Jewish Supreme Court nominee to every right-winger’s favorite monster-in-the-closet: </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Shariah law!</span></i><span style="font-style:normal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">So, ex-Gov. Palin, what do you think? You’re all about the religious freedom and the worship-y thing and the gettin’ down on yer knees and thankin’ the Good Lord the Framers read their Bibles and loved Baby Jesus and Israel and such.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">So, do you think it’s okay to insinuate –</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">without, as those pesky lawyers say, a shred of evidence – that Elena Kagan is some sort of covert agent who, despite her Jewish faith, is secretly working to convert America to Islam? Or would you refudiate that sort of dog-whistle smear campaign?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;">Just askin’! Also.</span><i><o:p></o:p></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:200%"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"> <!--StartFragment--> </span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:arial;"><p class="MsoNormal"><b>UPDATE:</b><span style="font-weight:normal"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wonder if the ex-Gov. can answer this question: Why do you suppose the <i>Washington Times</i></span> chose to picture Elena Kaga in a turban? After all, if she’s a Shariah-lovin’ woman, shouldn’t she be wearing a <i>burqa</i><span style="font-style:normal">? I mean, a turban’s what a </span><i>man</i><span style="font-style:normal"> would wear, right? </span><i>Waitaminute!</i><span style="font-style:normal"> You don’t think the </span><i>Washington Times</i><span style="font-style:normal"> is trying to say something about Kagan’s sexuality, do you? C’mon, Sarah. You’ve got a lot of refudiatin’ to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <!--EndFragment--> </span><p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-8988480914785580222010-07-20T09:56:00.000-07:002010-07-20T10:04:23.478-07:00Will @sarapalinusa "refudiate" AZ for creating hostile environment for Hispanics?Sarah Palin supports this law, but if she cares at all about human rights and tolerance she would "refudiate" the draconian immigration law in Arizona which is having a negative impact on everyone. Refudiate this Sarah!<br /><br />From <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/hating-hispanics-arizona-ignited-firestorm-decade-simmering-tension/story?id=11179708"><span style="font-style: italic;">ABC NEWS</span></a>:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br />Hating Hispanics: Has Arizona Ignited Firestorm After Decade of Simmering Tension?</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Activists Say Immigation Law Has Given Rest of Country Free License to Discriminate Against Hispanics</span><br /><br />By SARAH NETTER<br />July 19, 2010<br /><br />Jumped by three men wielding chains and bats, Adolfo pleaded with his attackers to consider his <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRCPtdiQe5t0QUdaDR4xXlzG9WVw_bzsiggQKOvRAFHr5UCCydolZgF6-Cp4CIKU1ocporUlkXC8lT6t-dQUcbdy6-_bQ3AigKFahFXkItpdQGuUm3u65WsGWiCR9JqXzijtS77wOsVI/s1600/ap_SB1070_100719_mn.jpg"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFRCPtdiQe5t0QUdaDR4xXlzG9WVw_bzsiggQKOvRAFHr5UCCydolZgF6-Cp4CIKU1ocporUlkXC8lT6t-dQUcbdy6-_bQ3AigKFahFXkItpdQGuUm3u65WsGWiCR9JqXzijtS77wOsVI/s200/ap_SB1070_100719_mn.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5496035175689502786" border="0" /></a>family.<br /><br />Hating Hispanics: Has Arizona Ignited Firestorm After Decade of Simmering Tension?<br />Activists say Arizona's controversial immigration law has given the rest of country free license to discriminate against Hispanics.<br /><br />"They started calling me a stupid Mexican and threatening me," the 25-year-old Staten Island, N.Y., resident said. "I tried to ignore them but they kept saying, 'You stupid Mexican, we're going to kill you.'"<br /><br />It was an attack, he said, that changed everything about his life in America.<br /><br />"I always felt safe in this country," he said in Spanish. "I feel very alone now."<br /><br />Adolfo, whose last name is being withheld by ABC News.com at his request, is not alone.<br /><br />The country's changing demographics and ongoing struggle with immigration policy have stirred anti-Hispanic sentiment, said activists who reported anecdotal evidence that Arizona's controversial immigration law has contributed to a fresh round of discrimination.<br />-snip-Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-61162728657594793522010-07-19T15:04:00.000-07:002010-07-19T15:06:58.753-07:00Sarah Palin mangles the facts... again<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" height="385" width="480"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YPJFFKsicvo&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YPJFFKsicvo&hl=en_US&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />Seems Former Half-GovMangles McFactless doesn't know much 'bout geography-- or anything else-- <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2010/07/19/2094030/palin-erroneously-calls-kodiak.html">but for now, geography:</a><br /><blockquote><strong>Sarah Palin incorrectly calls Alaska's Kodiak Island the largest island in America</strong> in a Facebook post endorsing a Senate candidate in New Hampshire.</blockquote><br />The Big Island of Hawaii is bigger. By 440 square miles. Seems Mangles forgot to use her hand notes.<br /><br />She also deviated from reality when she said Republican candidate Kelly Ayotte "won" a Supreme Court case. Not so much. SCOTUS sent the case back to lower court.<br /><br />The law that Ayotte defended was repealed.<br /><br />I'm sure McFactless will "<a href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/07/tuh-weet-refudiating-sarah-palin/">refudiate</a>" all of this.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://whatdahell.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/sarah_palin_is_an_idiot_t_shirt-p2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter" title="palin idiot" src="http://whatdahell.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/sarah_palin_is_an_idiot_t_shirt-p2.jpg" alt="" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>GottaLaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04142109320878981629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-10837867346475953292010-07-19T11:10:00.000-07:002010-07-19T11:53:18.957-07:00Kidding Aside, Sarah, Here’s Your Chance to “Refudiate” Right Wing Violence<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">So, it’s been quite a weekend for those whom Sister Sarah likes to call “Tea Party Americans.”<span style=""> </span>Shortly after the half-term ex-governor asked President Obama to “refudiate” the NAACP for its resolution condemning racist elements in the Tea Party, the Tea Party was, uh, <i>forced to expel Tea Party Express Leader Mark Williams for posting a racist, supposedly satirical “letter” to Abraham Lincoln on behalf of “Colored People.”</i><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style=""> </span>Nothing says “refudiation” like proving the NAACP right, I suppose.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">But kidding aside, since we’re on the subject of “refudiation,” my good friend <a href="http://www.oliverwillis.com/">Oliver Willis</a> posted <a href="http://www.oliverwillis.com/2010/07/18/tea-party-terrorism-oakland-shootout-suspect-was-angry-at-left-wing-politicians/">this rather disturbing bit</a> over at his blog:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><object height="193" width="300"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nj6s7D1dMBc&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Nj6s7D1dMBc&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="193" width="300"></embed></object></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family:LucidaGrande;"><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/18/BAG71EG92P.DTL&tsp=1#ixzz0u5cXGhJj"><span style=";font-family:";" >Link</span></a></span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt;">A 45-year-old parolee, described by his mother as angry at left-wing politicians, opened fire on California Highway Patrol officers on an Oakland freeway early Sunday and was hit by return fire while wearing body armor, authorities said.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt;"> <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 1in 0.0001pt;">Byron Williams of Groveland (Tuolumne County) was taken to the emergency room at Highland Hospital, where he was in stable condition. Police did not describe his injuries. Two officers suffered minor cuts from flying glass.<o:p></o:p></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style=""> </span>Here’s hoping that Ms. Palin finds it in her heart to “refudiate” crazy right wingers who shoot at cops.<o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-78897430347517025702010-07-19T10:29:00.000-07:002010-07-19T11:56:52.049-07:00"Refudiating" Sarah Palin<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://whatdahell.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/sarah_palin_is_an_idiot_t_shirt-p2.jpg"><img style="width: 269px; height: 269px;" class="aligncenter" title="palin is an idiot" src="http://whatdahell.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/sarah_palin_is_an_idiot_t_shirt-p2.jpg" alt="" /></a><br /></div><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cross-posted at </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/">The Political Carnival</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">. To see my entire post, please go </span><a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/07/tuh-weet-refudiating-sarah-palin/">here</a><span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/07/how-much-stupid-can-governor-dumbass.html">Palingates has a series of tweets </a>you absolutely must read, but I'll give you a few samples<br /><br />It all started with the Refudiator herself, Former Half-Gov Illiterata McLackBrain. She decided today would be a swell day to get on the Twitter Machine and confirm her utter stupidity.<br /><br />Let's take a peek at her first in a run of doltish tweets:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tweet-palin-refudiate.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15946" title="tweet palin refudiate" src="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tweet-palin-refudiate.jpg" alt="" height="220" width="461" /></a><br /></div><br />Interestingly, even Illiterata realized how Bush-like she sounded and deleted the original tweet. But not before <a href="http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/36769_Sarah_Palin_Calls_on_Peaceful_Muslims_to_Refudiate_Their_Own_Religion">Little Green Footballs</a> grabbed that screen shot.<br /><br />And we thought Boy Georgie was a moron.<br /><br /><a href="http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/18863040998">Nonetheless, McLackBrain couldn't suppress her urge </a>to come up with what she must have thought was the ultimate comeback:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tweet-palin-refudiate2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-15947" title="tweet palin refudiate2" src="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tweet-palin-refudiate2.jpg" alt="" height="303" width="468" /></a><br /><br />"Got to" drop my jaw upon reading how Illiterata just compared herself to one of the most mindless men alive, one of the most intelligent, and ... ... <em>Shakespeare</em> forgodsake!<br /><br />And finally, one more excerpt, but again, you'll miss out on all the fun if you don't follow the Palingates link to the whole run.<br /><br />To see the rest of this post, including Twitter responses from Keith Olbermann, go <a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/07/tuh-weet-refudiating-sarah-palin/">here</a>.GottaLaffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04142109320878981629noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-48194225063832041222010-07-19T04:09:00.000-07:002010-07-19T04:16:18.588-07:00Don't forget @sarahpalinusa used "refudiate" on FOX NEWS last weekWhile her tweet about how she wants Muslims to "refudiate" the idea of a mosque at Ground Zero is getting attention we should remind you guys that both <a href="http://blog.windycitywatch.com/2010/07/sarah-palin-calls-obama-half-white-or.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Windy City Watch</span></a> and <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/07/video-sarah-palin-calls-obama-half-white-or-half-black-wants-him-to-refudiate-naacp/">The Political Carnival</a> first caught her using her made up word last week during an interview with FOX NEWS' Sean Hannity, when she also referred to President Obama as "half white or half Black."<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><object width="300" height="193"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xRU1pjqQpP0&hl=en_US&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xRU1pjqQpP0&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="300" height="193"></embed></object><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-84015799340359418902010-07-19T03:43:00.000-07:002010-07-19T03:48:33.382-07:00According to @mudflats @sarapalinusa has now sent a racist tweet, she needs to "refudiate" herself . . .. . .we knew that would happen.<br /><br />From<a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.themudflats.net/2010/07/18/refudiating-palins-racist-tweet/"> The Mudflats</a>: <span style="font-weight: bold;">“Refudiating” Palin’s Racist Tweet<br /><br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnNOI9g1bXeu98e14nXe4NtO6XuDroHRG0FjqOg_fgP4kHFjoT8hOQprE60QJ9r42jd_W43C063NFUeC9vhWk1Rmm-db9288mGJlmBlYko2_w-P-8OO86mo_84mg6u0z8SI9Mvj7XSog/s1600/ZZ54329F50.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 149px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnNOI9g1bXeu98e14nXe4NtO6XuDroHRG0FjqOg_fgP4kHFjoT8hOQprE60QJ9r42jd_W43C063NFUeC9vhWk1Rmm-db9288mGJlmBlYko2_w-P-8OO86mo_84mg6u0z8SI9Mvj7XSog/s320/ZZ54329F50.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495567268760511202" border="0" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6611430559523325476.post-35057488896576027872010-07-18T20:49:00.001-07:002010-07-18T20:57:39.789-07:00Sarah Palin needs to "refudiate" FOX NEWS for the "New Black Panther" crap!Since Sarah Palin wants to start "refudiating" she can start with her good friends at FOX NEWS.<br /><br />From the good folks at <a href="http://mediamatters.org/research/201007160038"><span style="font-style: italic;">Media Matters</span></a>:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fox News has hyped phony New Black Panthers scandal at least 95 times</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Fox devoted more than 8 hours of airtime to discussion of New Black Panthers</span><br />July 16, 2010 5:26 pm ET — 50 Comments<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/home/598/foxnbp.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 447px; height: 185px;" src="http://cloudfront.mediamatters.org/static/images/home/598/foxnbp.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Six Fox News shows have discussed the phony New Black Panthers scandal during a total of 95 segments since Megyn Kelly's June 30 interview hyping the unsubstantiated allegations of right-wing activist J. Christian Adams. In all, these Fox shows have devoted more than eight hours of airtime to discussing the New Black Panthers.<br />-snip-<br /><br />Let's not forget this gem of journalistic malfeasance from Megyn Kelly:<br /><object width="275" height="179"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/tZ93liKuj_4&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/tZ93liKuj_4&hl=en_US&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="275" height="179"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0