Never forget, never remember

By Capt. Fogg

Good morning Republicans and welcome to another bright new day of washing our sins in Obama. And haven't we been having fun preempting the Democrats from using our martial spirit, thanking every veteran for his service by damning Obama for rescuing the one and only soldier (oops, warrior) who was treasonously disillusioned with our dear war? Another day, another reason to impeach!

And welcome back to our neocons. Awake after their long sleep to remind us how Obama's weakness has, as we predicted, turned our faultless, perfectly arranged, positively inspiring bastion of freedom in Iraq into a flaming hell of Extremist violence. Let's greet their resurrection with a resounding chorus of Bonzai Benghazi, Benghazi as we turn his success in capturing a perpetrator into another outrage and let's waste no time since corroboration that the attack really was a response to an Internet video works against us.

It may be another good time to toss out more chaff, more distraction: immigration, gay marriage, climate change racism and Christian rights to make sure the Libtards exhaust themselves chasing the chum while we triumph where it counts, our weapons gleaming in the bright light of a martial dawn.

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Thoughts on The McConnell Tapes (cont'd)

By Michael J.W. Stickings and Mustang Bobby 

MJWS:

For MB's previous post on this matter, see here.

I would just like to say, in agreement with him, that the real story here, the real scandal, isn't what Progress Kentucky did (which wasn't some elaborate bugging operation) but what McConnell was plotting to do, what he and his staff were preparing to do to destroy Ms. Judd's character, for the sake of his own re-election efforts. Yes, we expect politicians to dig up dirt on their opponents and go negative, but this was far beyond what we generally accept as normal, appropriate (if still sordid) behavior.

As MB wrote: "[T]his crowd seems especially energized about being bullies, and they relish finding things about her that will appeal to the paranoia and the prejudices of the 'low-information' voter." In other words, how characteristically Republican of them.

**********

MB:

A group called Progress Kentucky says they're the ones who made the recordings of Mitch McConnell's re-election team strategizing about how to campaign against Ashley Judd.

A secret recording of a campaign strategy session between U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell and his advisors was taped by leaders of the Progress Kentucky super PAC, says a longtime local Democratic operative.

Mother Jones Magazine released the tape this week. The meeting itself took place on Feb. 2.

Jacob Conway, who is on the executive committee of the Jefferson County Democratic Party, says that day, Shawn Reilly and Curtis Morrison, who founded and volunteered for Progress Kentucky, respectively, bragged to him about how they recorded the meeting.

Apparently the strategy session was held in a room where people walking by could hear what was being said without being in the room itself, so whether or not that qualifies as "eavesdropping" under Kentucky law isn't really clear.

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Thoughts on The McConnell Tapes

By Mustang Bobby 

David Corn at Mother Jones has once again tipped up the rock and caught some Republicans being themselves.

Last fall it was Mitt Romney and the 47% at Boca. This time it is Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and his staff doing opposition research on Ashley Judd if she decided to run against him in 2014. They discuss everything from her views to her history of dealing with depression:

The aide who led the meeting began his presentation with a touch of glee: "I refer to [Judd] as sort of the oppo research situation where there's a haystack of needles, just because truly, there's such a wealth of material." He ran through the obvious: Judd was a prominent supporter of President Barack Obama, Obamacare, abortion rights, gay marriage, and climate change action. He pointed out that she is "anti-coal."

But the McConnell gang explored going far beyond Judd's politics and policy preferences. This included her mental health. The meeting leader noted:

She's clearly, this sounds extreme, but she is emotionally unbalanced. I mean it's been documented. Jesse can go in chapter and verse from her autobiography about, you know, she's suffered some suicidal tendencies. She was hospitalized for 42 days when she had a mental breakdown in the '90s.

There's a lot more, including digging into her views on religion, her patriotism, her living overseas, whether or not she's a resident of Kentucky, and so on.

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Misogynistic Republican smear machine targets Ashley Judd over on-screen nudity and sex

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It's still early, and she's not even announced she's running in the Kentucky Senate race against Mitch McConnell, and of course there's still the Democratic primary to get through even then, but that isn't stopping the Republican smear machine from targeting Ashley Judd with some brutally offensive, and misogynistic, attacks. For example (via ThinkProgress), from one of the very worst of conservative media, The Daily Caller:

We are used to knowing just about everything there is to know about serious political candidates. But will Judd be the first potential senator who has — literally — nothing left to show us? The actress has bared her breasts in several films and has had some raunchy sex scenes in others. According to MrSkin.com, which bills itself as "the largest free nude celebrity movie archive," Judd has flashed just about everything on-screen. It seems like she was particularly liberal with nudity early on in her career... Judd did a lesbian sex scene in 2002's Oscar-nominated "Frida" and has nine other films categorized as "sexy" by Mr. Skin, meaning that there is at least one racy scene in those films.

Yes, that's right, she's shown us her tits and titillated us with some steamy sex scenes, so what more could she possibly offer us? I mean, like, other than a cum-splattered 3-way with Bill Clinton and Ron Jeremy, or whatever other fantasy gets these obsessive chauvinists off.

Anyway... this fucking idiot does some online "research," finds that Judd has done some nude and sex scenes, and then dismisses her as a piece of meat.

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The Twenty-Seven Percent Solution: climate change edition

By Zandar

A new Harris poll shows that in just four years, the number of Americans who believe that humans are causing global climate change has dropped from 71% in 2007 to just 44% now.

Only 44 percent say they "believe the theory" that carbon dioxide emissions are warming the Earth, down from 51 percent in 2009 and 71 percent in 2007, but most movement has been into the "not sure" column.

The online poll of 2,163 adults was conducted June 13 through 20. Harris does not give margin-of-error figures. 

According to the poll itself, 44% believe it exists, 28% do not, and 28% are now not sure. That "doesn't believe humans cause climate change" number has been around that magic 27% for a while now. But nearly all of change in the polls over the years since 1999 has come at the expense of people who used to believe that humanity is responsible for climate change increasingly falling into the "not sure" category.

Enough anti-science propaganda has been deployed against the issue of global climate change that the clear majority of Americans who believed in it has now fallen to a mere plurality, and one that is fading fast. America's energy companies couldn't be happier, either.

Best part of that Harris poll? Americans overwhelming believe there are more natural disasters now than just a few years ago, including weather related disasters like tornadoes, hurricanes, and blizzards. They just don't believe that humans have anything to do with causing it, or are increasingly unsure.

In other words, the climate change denialists are winning big time by muddying the waters. And the longer we do nothing out of inertia, the worse it will get.

(Cross-posted at ZVTS.)

Apologies

By Mustang Bobby.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack apologizes to Shirley Sherrod.


Fox News and Andrew Breibart apologize to Shirley Sherrod.


(Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Snookered: Right-wing propaganda and the truth about Shirley Sherrod

By Michael J.W. Stickings

It would seem to be a question of whom to believe, but it really isn't.

Widely discredited right-wing smearmonger Andrew Breitbart posted a video, at his site Big Government, of Shirley Sherrod, the Department of Agriculture rural development director in Georgia, saying that in 1986 she didn't help a farmer because he was white. "Video Proof: The NAACP Awards Racism," rang his headline. In the wake of the NAACP's statement that there racist elements in the Tea Party "movement," Breitbart hit right back.

Fox News picked it up and ran with it, of course, and all hell broke loose.

Sherrod was forced by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to submit her resignation. Sherrod claims that the White House forced her out: "They were not interested in hearing the truth. No one wanted to hear the truth," she said yesterday.

While the White House denied that it had anything to do with the firing, Vilsack defended the move, asserting there is "zero tolerance for discrimination." (Sherrod stands by her claim that the White House was behind the move.)

But what is really going on here?

For his part, Breitbart is claiming that he didn't edit the two-minute video and doesn't have the full video, just edited clips submitted by a source. (This seems unlikely. What is likely is that Breitbart has, and/or has seen, the full clip and is aware of the context of Sherrod's cherry-picked remarks.)

But the NAACP, which had initially criticized Sherrod (and her remarks), is now speaking out in her defence:

The NAACP said in a statement Tuesday that it was "snookered by Fox News" and conservative website publisher Andrew Breitbart.

"Having reviewed the full tape by Shirley Sherrod, who is the woman who was fired by the Department of Agriculture, and most importantly heard the testimony of the white farmers mentioned in this story, we now believe that the organization that edited the documents did so with the intention of deceiving millions of Americans," the statement from NAACP President Benjamin Jealous said.

Jealous later posted on his Twitter account that he "Spoke to Ms. Sherrod earlier today and personally apologized. Plan to meet with her face-to-face the next time I'm in Georgia."

The organization also urged Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to reconsider Sherrod's resignation from her post as the department's director of rural development for Georgia.

According to this, the NAACP has seen the full video while Breitbart has not. And there does indeed appear to be more to the story than Breitbart and his right-wing cheerleaders know (or would care to admit). As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting:

The full, uncut video of a federal agricultural official's NAACP speech purporting racial scheming, told a different story than the barely-three-minute snippet that cost her her job.

Despite admitting in the edited version of the taping that she once withheld help to the couple on the basis of race, Shirley Sherrod was defended Tuesday by the wife of a white Georgia farmer.

Sherrod "kept us out of bankruptcy," said Eloise Spooner, 82, of Iron City in southwest Georgia. Spooner, in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, added she considers Sherrod a "friend for life."

And here's where Breitbart is undone:

Recounting her dealings with the Spooners, Sherrod said she didn't help them as much as she could because of their race.

But a review of the entire 43-minute, 15-second speech -- released Tuesday on the NAACP Web site -- showed that Sherrod was giving a cautionary tale about the evils of racial separation.

"When I made that commitment (at age 17 years old to remain in Georgia and help people), I was making that commitment to black people, and to black people only," Sherrod said nearly 15 minutes into the recording, just seconds before the segment that brought her trouble. "But you know, God will... put things in your path so that you realize that the struggle was really about poor people."

Next, Sherrod would say the words that eventually led to her losing her job.

"[The white farmer] was trying to show me he was superior to me," she said, recalling the day some 24 years ago. "I knew what he was doing, but he had to come to me for help."

Eloise Spooner said as far as she's concerned Sherrod worked tirelessly to help the couple hold onto their land as they faced bankruptcy.

Where exactly is the racism there? Where is the discrimination? Where did Sherrod do anything wrong? Quite to the contrary, she appears to have been a woman of exceptional dedication and determination, and fairness.

And yet a right-wing propagandist uses an edited clip to destroy her and all that she represents, as well as the NAACP's credibility, Fox News and the sheepish conservative blogosphere play right along (wittingly or not), and a member of Obama's Cabinet, with or without pressure from the White House, goes so far as to fire her without any regard for context -- without any regard for the truth?

As appalling Breitbart's propaganda is, it's expected, and predictable. His agenda is transparent. As Steve Benen wrote yesterday (quoted at Think Progress, which has a useful overview post on the story), "The far-right site has the entire video, but only released the part that served the right's purposes. And in this case, the right's purposes are trying to spur racial animosity, taking the remarks of an African-American American official to the NAACP and removing the context, all in the hopes of generating white resentment." We've seen this before with "creative editing" of the ACORN tapes, and we're seeing it again here.

What is even more appalling is what Vilsack did, which is simply indefensible. Like the NAACP, he should rethink his knee-jerk reaction to Breitbart's clip and reinstate Sherrod -- although she may prefer to sue for wrongful dismissal. He has stood steadfastly by the firing, but, in light of what we know now, he has a lot of explaining to do, especially if he doesn't move quickly to reverse his decision. Meanwhile, questions must be asked of the White House. It will deny that it forced Vilsack's hand, but the media need to look into it more closely.

In a broader context, what is troubling here is the whole dynamic of how things unfolded, of how an edited clip by a known right-wing propagandist drove the chain of events, prompting even the NAACP to issue a premature condemnation and essentially directing a cabinet secretary and former governor to act irresponsibly and without any regard for the facts, simply accepting Breitbart's propaganda as truth. As Andrew Sullivan puts it, "[t]he virulence of the far right and the cowardice of the elites is creating a chilled atmosphere." What this whole story shows is not so much how far the right is willing to go, as we have seen all this before in one form or another, but how powerful the right is in terms of driving the media and political narrative. And, no, it doesn't go the other way. Can you imagine a conservative group and a Republican cabinet secretary acting in such a way in response to a video posted at, say, MoveOn.org (not to smear that organization by suggesting it's like Breitbart)? And can you imagine the establishment media reporting on it without really looking into it? Hardly. 

This isn't about "a new front... in the ongoing war between the left and right over which side is at fault for stoking persistent forces of racism in politics," as The Washington Post has proclaimed, it's about the right attacking its opponents with blatantly dishonest smears and both the media and government cowering in fear and doing the right's bidding. How is the left at fault here? The NAACP criticized the Tea Party "movement" for having racist elements in its ranks, but it was only expressing the obvious truth that there are in fact racist elements there. It didn't make anything up. It didn't concoct evidence. If anything, it was exposing racism, not stoking it. Contrast that to what Breitbart has done, spewing propaganda based on manufactured evidence to feed racial/racist resentment. There's no equivalency here. 

Sherrod is the victim here and deserves to be compensated. The blame rests with Breitbart, but accountability must ultimately be demanded of the highest reaches of the government. The whole appalling saga has exposed so much of what is deeply wrong with the way America works.

Nursery Rhyme Capitalism

By Distributorcap

Today on guess where -- Fox News -- Rep. Mike Pence (R - Indiana) became the latest in a series of cold-blooded, vultures who said that extending the Bush tax cuts [for the rich, white benefactors of the GOP] was a good thing, despite the effect they will have on the growing deficit. In fact, Pence said, foregoing that $678 billion in revenue would actually help the economy:

"The reality is that as you study -- when President Kennedy cut marginal tax rates, when Ronald Reagan cut marginal tax rates, when President Bush imposed those tax cuts, they actually generated economic growth, they expand the economy, they expand tax revenue," Pence said. "The point is we've got to get this economy moving again and we can't go back to the tax-and-spend policies of the Democrats or the tax-cut-and-spend policies of the prior administration." 

To Pence, cutting taxes for the rich and continuing to spend (on endless wars) is OK. Talk about spin (and bad math). This is just another way of professing the GOP love for trickle-down-your pants economics without mentioning the debunked and income-redistribution-to-the-wealthy tax plan of Reagan and Bush.

Of course before Pence even got to the campaign talking point of tax cuts, he began with the now now ingrained Rovian/Luntz meme that those poor unemployed people are just lazy bums sitting on their fat asses all day watching General Hospital, drinking beer and refusing to flip burgers at the local grease pit. Since they are just a bunch of good-for-nothings, they will just have to continue to wait for the $400 unemployment checks - because, according to Pence, we just cannot afford to help them. The GOP, who really do feel for those lazy, leaching bums, just cannot in good faith authorize or vote for the $33 billion it will cost to extend unemployment insurance without offsetting comparable spending cuts. [but don't touch wars or ask for tax increases!]

Sing a song of Mike Pence,
A pocket full of sighs.
Four and twenty tax cuts,
Baked in some lies.

When the lies were broadcast,
The House became a race;
Isn't this a dainty dish,
To set before our base?

The base is in their counting house,
Counting out their cash;
The whacks are with the teabags,
Toting guns to bash.

The Moose was in her garden,
Hanging $150,000 worth of clothes;
When down came an oil soaked pelican
And pecked off her nose.

Check this out for a great mashup on Pence by Bluegal

What will it take for America to realize that

1. Trickle down economics - aka tax cuts for Pence's rich Republican benefactors - simply do NOT work, all they do is put more money in the hands of the people who already control 95% of the money. Most people making under $100K or even $200K barely see a nickel of these tax cuts.
2. The Republicans - including Mike Pence - are primarily the ones that got us into this mess to begin with by pushing for unfunded and unnecessary wars and deregulating everything they could get their grubby hands on.

A few words about Trickle-Down-Your-Pants economics. On paper it sounds so great. Give more money to the smart (and rich) and they will invest it - in businesses, in companies and in research and development. But hold on - that is not what actually happened. The money ended up with the rich alright, but instead of investing it back in the economy and American society (which they started labeling "income redistribution") - they invested it with each other. 30 years of Reagan "trickle up" wealth redistribution just allowed the rich to gather more personal assets (like homes, cars, jewelry, hedge funds) instead of building plants, fostering energy independence, repairing infrastructure and a whole slew of other things that could have been accomplished on behalf of the US as a whole. And since billions in excess income proved to be not enough, the beneficiaries of trickle down Republican tax cuts created new (and ultimately way too risky) ways to make even more money. The new uber-class kept tossing the money wads back and forth to each other, somehow making obscene profits and purposely keeping those bucks out of reach from the proletariat, descamisados and regular Americans. While they had their fun, the middle class became a bunch of welfare queens driving Yugos.

The Congressional Budget Office stated that the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts disproportionately benefited the wealthiest households. The tax cuts boosted the income of the top 1% of households (with average incomes over $1 million) by 10%. Compare this to a 2.3% increase for middle-income families with average incomes of $57,000 and a 1.6% increase for the bottom 20% of families, with average incomes of less than $17,000. (Here comes the lame argument about how the rich already pay a disproportionate amount of taxes, they control a disproportionate amount of the assets of this country).

Think about this - the unregulated "financiers" on Wall Street played cat-and-mouse with pension funds, insurance pools and securitized mortgages. 30 years of binge chugging finally led to an economic meltdown. Bush and company then bailed them out (as he walked out the door). The rest of the country - including the idiots who voted Republican because of a bunch of slogans like "we think government is too big" or "we will insure your right to own a gun" ended up losing their jobs, their homes and their life savings and watched as un- (and under-) employment drove towards depression levels. Two scant years later, the criminals who took us down this road are making more money than ever and those without jobs can't even get a $425 unemployment insurance check from Mike Pence.

This is Nursery Rhyme Capitalism at its best. The few who caused some of the greatest losses ever are rewarded the most, while those who actually produce real things of value, are punished the most severely.

The continued argument about deficit reduction just proves what an abomination Pence and his pals are. He and Kyl (who went on this rant last week) think debt just fine for to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthiest in the country, but debt for those who have been thrown into an economic tailspin due to the misbehavior of the wealthiest - well that is just too much red ink for the budget to handle.

And this is who America wants to run Congress again.

Loonies, Moonies and Republicans - oh my!

By Capt. Fogg

I remember reading Arthur Koestler's Darkness at Noon many years ago. It's about an old Soviet apparatchik fallen from grace and thrown into one of Stalin's prisons to await some miserable and sordid fate in the Lublyanka cellars. It came to mind because there's a mention in it of group photos of the Old Guard, the early, idealistic, committed Communists out to make a better world and how one by one, the official photos on the office wall were replaced by newer ones with certain people missing, certain others added.

It was long before digital photography and before it made it so easy for unscrupulous, devious, dishonest, America hating, indecent propagandists to produce photos of John Kerry and Jane Fonda, for instance, or Barack Obama saluting improperly -- and do it far better than old Ivan in the back room could with a razor and some glue. It is far too easy for the kind of trolls who work for right wing rags owned by foreign born lunatics like the Washington Times to produce photos of Elena Kagan in a black Turban so as to insinuate perhaps, and without any sense of journalistic integrity, that she's a terrorist supporter as well as a probably homosexual cross dresser and part of an "ominous plot" to insinuate Sharia Law into this country.

It's far too easy for an American public so insanely desperate, so grossly, childishly irresponsible that they will get into bed with the Moonies just to have one more idiotic piece of dung to fling at the opposition. It's so easy for a public who never reads to miss the parallels between what they do and what the people they claim to hate did. It's so easy for an infantile America to dismiss someone for having Communist cooties because they simply haven't the brains to do much more and certainly can't be expected to discuss her actual qualifications and record.

It's so hard for a person who likes to see people get their just desserts when those people are the country he so wishes to be proud of.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Jesus needs jets

By Capt. Fogg

Coming soon, to an in-box near you:

"The Department of Defense denied a request for a military flyover at the 2009 'God and Country' rally. Obama denied a military flyover at the annual "God and Country" rally in Idaho, where new military recruits were inducted and all military were honored. This is the first time in 42 years that there has not been a military flyover in formation, and organizers were stunned that Obama refused to allow this. . . . . it was because of the event's "Christian nature." This is beyond unbelievable action by the Commander in Chief and President, and Americans need to know about it!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yes, stunning - they were stunned, I tell you -- stunningly unaware that in November of 2001 the Department of Defense under George W. Bush decided to prohibit the Military's support of events that

"provide a selective benefit to any individual, group or organization, including events with religious themes."

Yes, America's memory is short and in only a year, the deeds of Bush can be attributed to his successor with impunity - and with outrage. Whether or not the event "honors the military" or was in previous years primarily for that purpose, it's organizers stated purpose for 2009 was that

"Our mission is primarily about spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ."

According to Snopes.com, the Treasure Valley God & Country Festival; "unabashedly a Christian event" has four steps to witnessing about Jesus Christ (i.e., bless people, fellowship with them, meet their needs, present the Truth), and say of the rally's program of events: "At the end of the evening, we move to step four, presenting the Truth. Each year, we ensure that the message of the Gospel is presented, and information is provided for those who have heard and want to know more about Jesus Christ."

That's all well and good, but not when it's done with taxpayer money; not when it requires the US government to spend a great deal of money proselytizing for any religious group, using the prestige of the US military to raise money for churches and doubly so in times when the public wants to justify every unnecessary expenditure. In a nation of churchgoers, government financing of revival meetings is more than just unnecessary, it's illegal.

Of course lying to the public to make it seem like the President "disrespects the troops" because of a decision made in accordance with the US constitution, almost a decade ago and under the previous and Republican administration , is in fact necessary to people who write these electronic cruise missiles. Necessary because they have nothing to offer but lies and no hope of being relevant without stirring up anti-American hysteria. Necessary because they need power the way a vampire needs blood and they'll do or say anything to get it including ripping the throat out of America. They need hysterical people and what better way to get them into the fold but to insinuate that Obama hates their religion?

To a rational person the unprecedented tsunami of false witness from the radical right would wash away any pretense to being Christian or to be of any other reputable religion for that matter, but that's where the hysterical irrationality, the gullibility and yes, the intellectual laziness of America comes in and any chance for a free and prosperous future goes out.

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

You have the right to remain silent

By Capt. Fogg

Why is it that when Republicans only become creative when they run out of factual support? Lies, distortions, evasions, calumnies, falsehoods, fabrications, disinformation, distortions, propaganda, tall tales and slander; defamation, deceit, prevarications and mendacity: all kinds of colors in the "conservative" crayon box.

One lie I've heard far too much of from the Fox-poisoned Right, is how that lily-livered, limp-wristed, far-left Liberal and soft-on-crime Obama all but let Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab off the hook with his damned un-American insistence on justice and due process because he, having been read his Miranda Rights, immediately "clammed up." As is almost invariably true, the facts say otherwise.

The administration's timeline just released shows that the would-be murderer was removed to a hospital shortly after being arrested. There, he apparently began spilling the beans like a bratty one year old in a high chair until his medical condition deteriorated sharply - undoubtedly from having his genitals nearly burned off. The Miranda litany was recited only 9 hours after capture and after his condition was stabilized by four hours of surgery and questioning resumed but without response. How can you tell when the Republicans are lying? You don't need to, they always are.

Why is it that when Republicans only become creative when they run out of factual support? Sometimes they're so hard up for things to use to undermine our government, they just make them up from scratch or expand some minute and irrelevant mote into a universe of slime. If you haven't seen the latest chapter of Teleprompter Wars in your in-box yet, I'm sure you soon will. It's the one showing the President using two teleprompters to address a group of small children under the rubric of:

"Apparently there is no venue too small to require multiple teleprompters. I saw these pictures and first thought they were photo shopped, but it ends up they are actual pictures from Obama talking to an elementary school classroom. And they made fun of Bush's communication skills."

Well, no you didn't, the picture of the kids in the classroom and the President at a subsequent news conference in a different room do not show him using a teleprompter to address them and of course you know that. He was giving a speech to reporters who would be willing to use any misplaced word to attack him. One thing alone is true -- they did make fun of Bush's "skills" -- even school children[s]

You know that he writes well, speaks well and is very much more able to communicate than his babbling, blathering predecessor and that looks bad for you -- and so you butter it over with lies and serve it up to your dogs for breakfast with no sense of shame at all.

What do they hope to accomplish with such clumsy calumnies? Why are Republicans so desperate to believe anything that will make their visceral hatred of Democracy and uppity people of African descent seem to be less than the demented evil that it is? Why are they willing to sacrifice our country on some pagan altar of some bellicose god of war and conquest? Why do we sit by and let them do it?

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Unholy and Anti-American Trifecta

By Capt. Fogg

The latest proof that "Obama is tearing apart the fabric of America" as Sean "Insanity" Hannity recently observed, hit my in-box with a time stamp only minutes ahead of Urban Legends refutation of the e-mail claiming that our president was the first to hit the "unholy and Anti-American Trifecta." It's claimed he failed to show up at the Army Navy game, or to attend any Christmas religious observance, and stayed on vacation following a terrorist attack.

He must be doing rather well if this is the smelliest crock they can come up with -- and of course and as usual, it is indeed a crock. George W. Bush, the president most often described during his term as the right hand of Jesus missed 5 out of 8 of them. Woodrow Wilson didn't attend a Christmas church service in 1914, nor did Herbert Hoover in 1929, nor Lyndon Johnson in 1968. It would take some research, but I'm willing to bet this isn't unique or uncommon. Presidents haven't always been expected to be examples of public religiosity after all and Christmas was opulently celebrated at the White House this year, even if Fox took pains not to notice.

As to staying on vacation after a failed terrorist attack in which nobody but the attacker was hurt, the claim would require that he had ignored it and had spent the day on the beach, which of course isn't true. The President travels with his flying White House and a large staff, briefings were held, he ordered beefed up security and passenger screenings and ordered a review of the terrorist watch list and made statements to the public.

This being the 21st century, being in Honolulu or being in Washington DC has little bearing on the effectiveness of the president. Certainly jumping on AF 1 and heading as fast and far away from DC, as the previous president did after an actual and successful attack doesn't make the current President look all that bad, nor does the fact that the Republican broke all records for vacation time.

Please do remember, far milder criticism of Bush resulted in cries of treason from the same people who insist that the country is being destroyed and make up lies to prove it. He's here, he's President, he's black. Get the hell over it and stop trying to sabotage my country.


(Cross posted from Human voices)

Dick B.S. Cheney and the Republican attacks on President Obama

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So I return from my brief hiatus from blogging this evening, and what's the first thing I see when I scan the news? More of the same old bullshit from Dick Cheney:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney accused President Barack Obama on Tuesday of "trying to pretend we are not at war" with terrorists, pointing to the White House response to the attempted sky bombing as reflecting a pattern that includes banishing the term "war on terror" and attempting to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

"[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe," Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. "Why doesn't he want to admit we're at war? It doesn't fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn't fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency -- social transformation -- the restructuring of American society."

Some things never change.

Last time I checked, President Obama knows full well "we're at war." Why else would he have called, against the objections of many of his most ardent supporters, for an escalation of the Afghan War -- a surge, that is -- much like the one Dick 'n' Dubya launched, much too late, the war having been a failure, in Iraq?

Last time I checked, President Obama is hardly a pacifist.

But you get it, don't you? When Democrats criticized Bush, as some did even early on after 9/11 and certainly once the Iraq War got underway, they were being unpatriotic and even treasonous. But Republicans, oh, they can criticize Obama relentlessly, brandishing hypocrisy without a trace of irony. Why do they get to attack the Commander-in-Chief during a time of war while demonizing Democrats for doing far less? Because that's just the double standard they live by, and because Democrats, alas, don't always call them on it -- and admirably, I would add, don't take cheap, flag-waving shots like Republicans do.

But it's not just that Cheney et al. are criticizing, or rather viciously attacking, Obama in the hopes of scoring a political point or two, it's that they're just plain wrong. Here's Steve Benen with his usual dose of sanity:

Let's review a few pesky details. First, it was Cheney's administration that released some of the alleged terrorists who plotted the attack into an "art therapy rehabilitation program" in Saudi Arabia, only to see them become terrorist leaders in Yemen. It was also Cheney's administration that gave Abdulmutallab a visa to enter the United States in the first place.

Second, let's compare some "low-key responses." President Obama addressed a failed terrorist attack three days after it occurred. Eight years ago, when a terrorist tried to blow up an airplane under nearly identical circumstances, then-President Bush waited six days before making brief, cursory public remarks. Five days after the attempted terrorist attack, then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused substantive comment altogether, telling reporters, "That's a matter that's in the hands of the law enforcement people." A White House spokesperson would only say at the time that officials were "continuing to monitor events."

Democrats, at the time, didn't launch an assault against the Bush administration, and we didn't see Al Gore condemning the White House. It simply didn't occur to Democrats in 2001 to use the attempted mass murder of hundreds of Americans to undermine the presidency.

Eight years later, Dick Cheney believes his principal responsibility is to destroy President Obama -- the man Americans chose to clean up the messes Cheney left as a parting gift after eight years of abject failure.

Very well put, I must say, and this is what we must do: counter Republican lies with the truth, and to do so as forcefully as we can.

As for Obama, what should he have done, and what should he be doing now? Should he be down at Reagan or Dulles personally checking the undergarments of passengers? Should he be freaking out on national TV, ratcheting up the public panic level the way Dick 'n' Dubya did with the help of Tom Ridge's colour-coded terror alerts?

Or should he not rather be dealing with what is a top national security priority away from the partisan glare, away from the cameras, away from sniping bullshitters like Dick Cheney?

What is needed now is leadership, and that's precisely what Obama is providing.

Through the looking glass

By Capt. Fogg

No offense intended to the Buddhists out there, but the middle path is often the road to hell. While I'm as apt to ask why we can't all just get along as any other exhausted and beat up person, I'm not about to attempt it with the people who tell me that it's OK to launch into hysterical fugues of hyperbole about leading Democrats and things they never said or did, but insist that reacting to it in any way but submissive whimpering is nastiness or name-calling and a justification for further libel, slander, bigotry and threats.

I'm disgusted enough to dream about my own gun-toting tea party when citing established facts or exposing blatant lies of the previous administration are described as being just as bad as the furious lies about death panels, birth certificates and Presidential Marxism. Citing massive evidence for global warming is just as bad as comparing Democrats to Communists. Detailed studies showing that certain economic policies produce recessions, that markets self-regulate only within certain limits is just as bad as incitement to murder the President's family, as accusing him of murdering his grandmother and planning to murder yours. It seems to escape a great number of trolls that calling a thief a thief is not the same as accusing an honest man of stealing. Truth matters, facts matter and nothing but weeds grow in the space between facts and lies.

Is retaliation really the equivalent of unprovoked aggression, is self-defense? I don't think so. Is there a reasonable middle ground in an unreasonable attack against reason? I don't think so. Where after all can a middle ground exist between lies and truth; between insane accusations of Marxism or Fascism or extending Medicare being just like Pol Pot or Leon Trotsky? And where does the accusation of being the most, far-left radical Liberal ever to sit in the Senate intersect with the actual Obama who so far seems far too conservative for the people who voted for change?

Are we really the "party of hate" for "picking on" poor Rush for engaging in unprovoked and dishonest slander or trying to defend against him? Is there really any relationship between the label Liberal and the attempt to identify it with irrational hate, beyond the wish of an unscrupulous aggressor to distract us from discussing truth and responsibility?

No, the shadow world, the bizarre country between whatever the truth is and the worn out, beat up used car the Republican apologists are trying to sell is down some rabbit hole somewhere. Some twilight zone where all the terrible things we said about Nixon were untrue and just political, but none the less Obama, by beginning to denounce some of the lies told about him is "building an enemies list" just like Nixon. Nixon wasn't a bad guy they say; it was all political, but Obama is a bad guy for being like him -- even when he isn't. I told you this was a strange land.

Old Nixonian Lamar Alexander suggests that the administration might, like Nixon adviser and Watergate felon Chuck Colson, be planning to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." So what advice is Lamar giving here? Obama should, he suggests, stop blaming the banks, should stop chastising the insurance companies, stop taking advice from advisers Congress hasn't approved ( remember when Bush asserted his right to do so and our non-right to know who they were or what they said?) and stop "calling out" members of congress who disagree with his policies. That's like "street brawling." Calling a lie a lie? That's the equivalent of Nixon's plan to use the IRS to "go after the Jews." That's just like burglary, Arson and obstruction of Justice!

Not.

Curiouser and curiouser, this path between truth and fiction and somewhere Lewis Carroll is watching this through a looking glass.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

J'accuse!

By Capt. Fogg


Fox lies and America pays the price. Sean Hannity's latest witch hunt against anything good and decent has found yet another victim in Kevin Jennings. The Obama administration employee whom Czar Hannity, mad with power, calls a "safe schools Czar," has been accused of ignoring or not reporting the sexual abuse of a minor. Of course not only is Jennings not the absolute monarch of anyplace, he's only Assistant Deputy Secretary at the Department of Education for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools (OSDFS) and more importantly, the story isn't true.

Hannity lies and one more piece of justice dies. Of course Fox sometimes quietly retracts a story after the damage has been done -- as they have with the story insisting that Jennings one ignored a report of sexual relations between a minor student and an older man, but such lies have momentum and the mad dogs of the GOP are issuing demands that he be fired for promoting a "radical gay agenda" they would like you to believe includes the exploitation of children by gay teachers.

Fifty-three House Republicans have written President Barack Obama calling on him to fire Jennings. Jennings isn't a Czar of any kind and the gay "child" in question was above the age of consent, but Jennings is also gay and Jennings has spent a lot of time trying to make schools safer for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Such things infuriate bigots and witch hunting religious idiots and Retro-Republican trolls and Fox is happy to fan the flames regardless of who burns as long as those ratings stay high.

The disgusting, shit-eating cockroaches calling themselves the Family Research Council (FRC) launched the “Stop Kevin Jennings” campaign this week, warning that he is a

“radical homosexual activist” who has “worked tirelessly to bring the homosexual agenda into our nation’s classrooms.”

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/16/kevin-jennings-should-res_n_323547.html

None of these people care that the story was a lie or that the accusation is a lie. Even if Fox were to give serious time recanting it ( and ten thousand other lies) it wouldn't matter. The excuse to persecute heretics, to stomp all over freedom and justice is too valuable to let go. More foetid slime to fling at Democrats is far more valuable than truth or justice.

If a lie is as good as the truth, if preventing the abuse and promoting the safety of gay students is radical activism and if truth and justice for all is to be despised as the "Gay Agenda" then maybe it is time to stand up and say "Long live the Radical Gay Agenda!" Maybe it is time for those decent citizens to say we've had enough of the hate-stinking madmen with hate-foam on their lips and the lying enemies of freedom who whip them into a religious frenzy.

Is it any wonder the Republicans oppose hate crime legislation so vehemently? The persecution of Kevin Jennings is a hate crime and the lies of Fox are hate crimes and the Republican Party is the party of hate mongering, small mindedness, injustice and persecution of liberty. It's long past time to tell those values voters their values are evil and their deeds are evil and certainly at odds with anything this country claims it stands for. We get tens of thousands of armed idiots in the streets protesting a tax increase that's actually a decrease, but why is it that we sit by and let a good man be ruined and say nothing? Why is it that we keep watching Fox and giggling and never speak up? Is it because we're no better?

(Cross posted from Human Voices)

Spinning and smearing: The New York Times and the right-wing assault on Sonia Sotomayor

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Liberal media? Yeah, right. Those of us who actually are liberals know just what a joke that is. Here's another example of a major supposedly "liberal" media outlet regurgitating right-wing spin and enabling the Republican Smear Machine:

It's The New York Times on Sonia Sotomayor.

Friday: "Sotomayor's Focus on Race Issues May Be Hurdle," by David D. Kirkpatrick.

-- The article claims, without substantiation, that Sotomayor has "championed the importance of considering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicial selection at almost every stage of her career." The first person quoted is Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas. The second person quoted is another conservative, Gary Marx. For "balance," the article goes back to the '90s and quotes Lani Guanier, a controversial Clinton nominee back then (she withdrew) and a woman whose credibility was shattered by the Republican Smear Machine. And she is brought out to defend Sotomayor? (It's not that she can't defend Sotomayor, or that she isn't qualified, it's that her very presence in this article is loaded.)

-- The article is also grossly misleading. Sotomayor has talked extensively about her experiences, and about her identity as an Hispanic woman, but she isn't all about affirmative action and racial quotas, as the article suggests. If her nomination has brought "affirmative action and other race-conscious remedies for patterns of inequality" back into the news, it isn't because she has done so but because her opponents on the right are smearing her as an affirmative action case who has only been successful throughout her career because of her sex and race. (Her opponents are also claiming that she's just plain stupid, and hence thoroughly unqualified for the job. Who are the racists here?) And yet, as a recent study by SCOTUSblog's Tom Goldstein suggests, Sotomayor has not used her time on the bench to advance judicial remedies for discrimination. Goldstein concludes: "[I]t seems absurd to say that Judge Sotomayor allows race to infect her decisionmaking." And so what if she once said that "our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging." How is that not true? How is that not true even for white male judges? (The implication is that white male judges are somehow immune from relying on their own experiences, that they, and only they, are able to transcend who they are and judge from a position of perfect neutrality. This, of course, is incredibly stupid.)

Saturday: "Court Choice Brings Issue of 'Identity' Back Out," by Peter Baker.

-- The article claims, also without substantiation, that "identity politics is back with a vengeance." To the extent that it is, it is Sotomayor's opponents who are responsible, not Sotomayor -- and certainly not Obama, though the article opening paragraphs suggest that he is to blame for failing to "usher in a new post-racial age," which, apparently, he was supposed to do (a gross oversimplification -- Obama spoke maturely and responsibly about race during the campaign, but it's not like he promised that he could overcome and heal America's racial divides, or that that was even possible without enormous individual and societal effort). (Obama is essentially faulted for opting for a "selection process [that] was geared from the beginning toward finding a female or minority candidate, or both." Apparently, he should have loaded up with white men. Apparently, any non-male, non-white nominee would have met with similar criticism.)

-- Once again, the article provides a platform for, and gives prominence to, Sotomayor's opponents. The first person quoted is Abigail Thernstrom, "a leading conservative scholar on race relations," who blames Obama for not "pick[ing] a post-racial candidate." What does that even mean? Are Roberts and Alito post-racial judges? If so, how? Because they're white men who espouse the right's preferred judicial fundamentalism? (The fact is, the right would have been critical of any Obama nominee. It's just ridiculous that some of them are now pushing the mirage of post-racialism and using it to bash Obama. Do they really believe in post-racialism? No. They say that they support perfect non-discrimination, but what they really promote is the interests of the privileged white male.

-- Yes, the article quotes Obama advisor David Axelrod, but what he offers is a generic line about what Obama means for America. The article goes on to quote yet another conservative, William Burck, deputy counsel under George W. Bush, before highlighting, as the other article does, Sotomayor's taken-out-of-context line about how her experiences, anyone's experiences, matter. Long before then, though, the thrust of the article is crystal clear.

These two articles aren't explicitly pro- or anti-Sotomayor (and their authors, as well as the newspaper itself, may claim they're both balanced), but, in granting primacy and prominence to her opponents, as well as to some of the key lines of attack from the smear campaign against her, they essentially, inadvertently or not, take a firm position against her. (An editorial position on her nomination is expected, but news coverage should be unbiased, and not tilted against Sotomayor, even as overcompensation.)

The New York Times should be ashamed of itself.

Clueless Republicans

By Michael J.W. Stickings

HuffPo: "GOP Hispanic Strategists Stunned, Outraged By Sotomayor Attacks."

Umm... they do know they're Republicans, right? They do know what party they belong to? I realize the anti-Sotomayor smear campaign has been ugly, but how could they not have seen it coming?

Citizens United against democracy

by Capt. Fogg

Some days it doesn't feel like it's worth getting up. I was hoping to sleep late this morning, but I was awakened at 8:01 by the phone and being too groggy to check the caller ID which would have told me it wasn't anything I should answer, I picked up.

Of course it was yet another seditious Republican hate group calling itself Citizens United trying once again to vilify the president by conducting a "brief poll" which of course consisted of a minute's hysterical rant by David Bossie ( who brags about having investigated the Clinton Administration and has written vituperative and not too factual books on Al Gore and John Kerry) about how Obama is destroying America and heaps praise on Limbaugh and Fox News. A fulsomely perky female voice returned and asked me which is more damaging for America:

1. Obama's massive tax and spending increases,
2. or his inexperienced, naive and weak foreign policy agenda?

Well, I won't mention my reaction to the cheerful little twit . I was not my usual kind self, and there were questionable expletives amongst my lecture about forced choice questions and dishonest polls and dishonest politicians attacking Democracy, I must say, but I'm sure she had me down as choosing one of the above despite my tirade about Bossie being a seditious enemy of all I hold dear.

Like everything else about the Republican sleaze machine, it's based on deception anyway and their "polls" have no actual validity. Of course I wasn't my usual kind self to the folks representing Newt Gingrich or his "poll" of leading questions last week either. Fake polls seem to be the way to get us, exhausted by the 18 months of hysterical telephone opinion shouting, to participate. Everyone wants his opinion heard: not everyone is smart enough to realize he's being used.

Newt, surprisingly, is no friend of Bossie. According to the Washington Post, when he was fired from his job as an investigator working for Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1998, Speaker Gingrich said to Burton of Bossie's behavior:

"I'm embarrassed for you, I'm embarrassed for myself, and I'm embarrassed for the [House Republican] conference at the circus that went on at your committee."

Indeed, even George H. W. Bush said of Bossie:

"We will do whatever we can to stop any filthy campaign tactics"

and W, himself no stranger to sleazy campaign tactics and not known for his sense of shame, asked his supporters not to support him as well.

But such is the fever of Obama Derangement Syndrome that this turd has again floated to the surface of the cesspool and who knows, perhaps will emerge from your telephone while you're trying to catch up on your sleep or eat your dinner or watch TV of an evening. But why wait?

If you have time on your hands today, try calling 866-635-8661 and ask Citizens United about their opinion of people who try to undermine our government "in time of war" or perhaps throw any of their other nauseous accusations back at them. Tell 'em Fogg sent ya. Tell them you're taking a poll.

Cross posted from Human Voices

And so the vicious right-wing smear campaign against Sotomayor is in full swing

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The invaluable Media Matters is right: "Conservatives react to historic Supreme Court nominee by smearing Sotomayor as 'racist,' 'bigot'."

It's Dear Leader Rush (spewing venom with every last ounce of his being); it's Glenn Beck (full, as usual, of mind-boggling glennbeckery); it's John Yoo (taking time off from defending torture to torture the truth about Sotomayor); it's Mark Levin (one of the more reprehensible voices in right-wing talk radio, which is saying something); it's Ramesh Ponnuru (a somewhat smarter conservative than the norm, but hardly immune from conservative nonsense); it's Newt Gingrich (who, like Limbaugh and others, is playing the racist card, calling Sotomayor herself a racist, presumably for being Hispanic); it's Tom Tancredo (in his usual nativist mode; he probably thinks Sotomayor should be detained and deported); it's Karl Rove (asserting without any evidence whatsoever that Sotomayor is "not necessarily" smart); and it's so many more (like National Review's Mark Krikorian (complaining, in true nativist fashion, about the Spanish pronunciation of her name).

As I put it yesterday, the opponents of Sotomayor's nomination are going with a kitchen sink approach here, vomiting up any and every smear it can make up and hoping something sticks. (And why wouldn't something stick, what with an all-too-eager media establishment making sure these lies get equal time and lapping up all the right-wing smears it can get its hands on with enthusiastic glee (if there's a "liberal media," as conservatives claim, it's only liberal to the extent that it liberally fertilizes the "news" with conservative manure).

Let me go back to Newt for a moment. The media love him (why else would they give him such an extraordinary amount of airtime?). And, with Limbaugh, he's leading the charge against Sotomayor. Consider what has led him to call her a racist:

• In a 2001 speech, Sotomayor said this to a Hispanic group in Berkeley: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
  
• In response, Newt tweeted this: "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman.' new racism is no better than old racism."

How is this racism? What Sotomayor was saying was that her experiences matter, that they contribute to a fuller appreciation and understanding of what might come before her as a judge. As Greg Sargent explains (via Sullivan): "Read in context, it's clear that Sotomayor was merely saying that it’s inevitable that a judge's personal race-based and gender-based experiences will impact judging, particularly in race and sex discrimination cases." (The White House has already "hit back" at Newt.)

It's too much to expect right-wing partisans like Newt and Rush to take context into account, and so it comes as no surprise that their smears depend heavily on taking everything out of context. And there will certainly be more of this to come.

Thankfully, though, it seems that Republicans in Congress -- those who have their political survival to consider, who must answer to the American people, and who must at least be somewhat responsible -- likely will not go all-out against Sotomayor. (That is, Senate Republicans won't -- and they're the ones that matter. The generally more extremist House Republicans likely agree with Rush and Newt and the rest of the smearers.) As Politico is reporting, "the GOP plans no scorched-earth opposition to her confirmation as a Supreme Court justice." Which is good and promising news, if true.

Ultimately, it looks like the smear campaign will prove ineffectual and fizzle out. Sotomayor is a smart, qualified nominee -- she's no Harriet Miers (another line of attack against her) -- and there just isn't a reasonable case to be made against her.

But conservatives will continue to try -- and will continue to take things out of context, to make things up, and to hurl the kitchen sink at her. As long as she and her supporters stand firm, which they (we) are, there shouldn't be much problem repelling the right's ugly smear campaign and guiding her towards a relatively easy (and deserved) confirmation.

Female justice

By Carol Gee


President Barack Obama, according to The Washington Post, made the "riskiest choice on his list who embodies his criteria." Deciding the night before he announced is pick, he chose Judge Sonia Sotomayor from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit in New York, to be his first nominee to the SCOTUS. In my opinion he made a magnificent nomination who will be confirmed within the reasonable time line he has proposed to the Senate. And many Republicans have already set a predictable howl about the possibility of Judge Sotomayor replacing Justice David Souter on the Supreme Court.

GOP knee-jerk reactions -- David Corn wonders if Sonia Sotomayor will split the right by musing, "With his new Supreme Court pick, Obama gives GOPers a choice: Tick off social conservatives or alienate Hispanic voters." Corn's post quotes, among other right wing sources, Wendy Long, of the "Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative outfit." Long has been all over the tube in recent hours spouting her hateful rhetoric about the President's nominee. At Firedoglake, bloggers took a look at Republicans such as Orin Hatch, already spoiling for a fight about this, even though he has already voted to confirm her to two previous judicial appointments. Eli ventured:

a verbatim transcript of the GOP's deliberations on whether or not to aggressively attack Sotomayor and risk (further) alienating Hispanics and women:

letusthinkaboutitforasecondyes.

Empathy misunderstood by some -- Another of our favorite Republican reactionaries, Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), worries that Sotomayor may allow'undue influence from her own personal race, gender,' " Think Progress reports. Rush Limbaugh, naturally, wants her to fail. John Yoo snarkily writes that "empathy triumphs over excellence." Other Republicans have mistakenly pointed to how many times Sotomayor has been reversed by the Supreme Court conservative wing. But not all Conservatives/Republicans have lost their heads.

Maintaining perspective -- But conservative Andrew Sullivan questioned Tom Tancredo's description of Sotomayor as "a racist." And conservative writer Mark Halperin of Time Magazine, states unequivocally that Sotomayor will have "smooth sailing," and is "headed to easy confirmation." Daily Kos' David Waldman posts about what the Senate vote might look like. My perspective at this exciting time is that Sonia Sotomayor is the best qualified person by experience the President could choose, and perhaps even the best pick to rebalance the this group of too many white male Supreme Court justices. And the Republicans will not defeat her, no matter what they say or what they try.

(Cross-posted at Making Good Mondays.)