Hypocrites to the Left of Me, Republicrats to the Right

This is awesome. Three years ago, Indiana Republicans enacted draconian voter identification legislation, and now, the Republican state elections chief has been indicted for voter fraud. Priceless.

In case you're wondering how draconian Indiana's voter ID law really is, check this out:

Retired Nuns Barred from Voting in Indiana

Wednesday 7 May 2008
At least 10 retired nuns in South Bend, Indiana, were barred from voting in today's Indiana Democratic primary election because they lacked photo IDs required under a state law that the supreme court upheld last week.


What's more, the voter fraud these laws are supposedly attempting to combat is virtually non-existent, unless, of course, you count Republicans.

The true purpose of these voter ID laws -- which, by the way, are being enacted in around seven states -- is to disenfranchise elderly and poor voters, who traditionally vote Democratic.

Meanwhile, the outgoing (nominally Democratic) Chicago mayor and brother of incoming Obama chief of staff dutifully recites GOP talking points.

The Return of Despair.

When Bush won re-election in 2004, I did serious research into moving to Canada. They have a point system for immigration, and I came up a few points short, according to my calculation. Today, I feel about a million times more despondent than I did then. Any Canadian, Australian or New Zealand women out there who would like to marry an American malcontent who's really a nice guy beneath the gruff exterior? I'm good at cooking, chopping firewood and cunnilingus.

You Tell 'em, Richard. I stu-stu-stutter

Andrew Breitbart's Racist Lizard Brain

From Digby:

"Breitbart had edited the video, of course, and he refuses to release the whole thing, naturally. But that didn't matter in this case any more than it mattered in the ACORN case. It's nothing but a play to America's racist lizard brain."

UPDATE: Monkey Muck sums up my feelings succinctly:

President Obama is a weak kneed, lily livered, scaredy cat. He's the cowardly lion who got taken in by a bunch of right wing nitwits. He tossed a decent and good public servant under the bus to avoid being made fun of by the crying Mormon and the man behind the Acorn non scandal.

And you know I'm right when one of his biggest supporters calls him out for being such a wuss.

I've said it before and unfortunately, I'll have to say it again, GROW A PAIR and stop being afraid of your own fucking shadow Obama. Stop starting from a compromised position and you won't have to give in as much. Stop being such a timid version of Jimmy Carter and start being a lion like FDR.

It's Official

We officially live in a police state now, especially if you're black.

Imagine

Imagine if the Tea Party was Black

by Tim Wise

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin. Read on.

You Tell 'em, Jello...

I stu-stu-stutter.

From the Boston Phoenix:

As you may have heard, conservative attack-radio douchebag Michael Savage went postal again the other day, responding to the news of Ted Kennedy's brain tumor by taking to the airwaves with a rant that once again revealed the vicious, inhuman gutlessness of this country's so-called silent majority -- students of the P. Diddy Institute for Higher Etymology would surely recognize this as a prime bit of bitch-assedness. First he played clips of Ted Kennedy singing, interspersed with (Kennedy in-law) Arnold Schwarzenegger's infamous "It's not a tumor" clip. "The poor guy's been suffering for years, you know?," Savage said of TK. "Unfairly he's been accused of alcoholism, but we see now that it was something much more deep-seated."
Then he did something even more unforgivable: he played Dead Kennedys' "California Uber Alles," compounding the sacrilege by actually singing along. (Click here for the full clip, courtesy of MediaMatters.) A convergence of loony-fringe hatemongering and punk rock shibboleth-busting: is this where it all ends up?
We doubt that anyone would be ignorant enough to think that Savage is anything approximating an actual Jello Biafra fan, nor that anyone would be silly enough to think that Jello Biafra was in any way supportive of Savage. But we wanted to get Jello's thoughts on the matter anyway, so Phoenix Editor Lance Gould raised him on the phone. Here's what Jello had to say:

I haven't read the details yet, but I'm aware of what Michael Savage did. Obviously he took my song way the hell out of context and did it deliberately. But the bigger issue is Savage himself and how the hell he gets away with stuff like saying this, and saying that people with AIDS should be put in concentration camps. And then when people protest at the station, he calls on his own listeners to come down and beat them up.
It scares the shit out of me that the most popular radio talk-show hosts are all foaming-at-the-mouth, ultra-bigoted blabbermongers whom only North Korea or the Nazis could love.
But like it or not, Savage is the third-most popular radio-talk show host in this country behind Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Nobody from the other side is represented or promoted well enough by the big right-wing-owned radio networks to compete. That's one of the ways they mindfuck the country into being so dumb they vote for people like George Bush, Mitt Romney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The real issue here is why aren't the big candidates calling for media reform? Once upon a time there was a law on the books called the Fairness Doctrine, and it said that if somebody like Savage or Limbaugh or that skull woman Ann Coulter said something completely fucked up and dishonest on the air, somebody else was allowed to come on the air and reply to them without being told to shut up every 15 seconds by a power clown like Bill O'Reilly. That law was on the books for 50 years but was allowed to expire in the late '80s when a Democratic-controlled congress failed to override President Reagan's veto of the law.
The damage was further compounded when your friend and mine Bill Clinton rammed through the Telecommunications Act of 1996, further deregulating how many radio stations and media outlets one corporation can own and what they can do with them and they greenlighted their long-held agenda to throw public interest out the window. And the volume and impact of the Rush Limbaughs and Michael Savages multiplied exponentially with nobody on the other side being allowed to reply. In large areas of rural and small town America, this is the only radio anyone is exposed to. That's the problem. We need to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. John Kerry had a golden opportunity to fire back at the Swift Boat liars and use that as a platform to rally the public to demand media reform. But true to form, he was too chickenshit to do it.

2007 Can Kiss My Ass

Today is the last day of what almost everyone I talk to agrees was a shitty year. Congressional Democrats flopped like a third rate palooka, while Republicans continued their spectacular display of hypocrisy. Stoopid words were added to the English Language while stoopider ones were removed. Some good music got released; also, some shitty music. And some good musicians did some stoopid things, while some old musicians reclaimed their thrones for good or ill. The housing market took a dive, along with the rest of the economy, but don’t worry, folks, it’s still not a recession. (Whew!) Well, as Randy Newman observed, “The end of an empire is messy at best, and this one’s ending like all the rest.”

Happy New Year.

Rewriting Reagan's Racist Southern Strategy

From E&P:

New Shot Fired in 'NYT' Op-Ed 'War' Over Reagan and Racism

By Greg Mitchell Published: November 18, 2007 9:50 AM ET

NEW YORK The battleground had been silent for a few days, but conflict resumed today with another shot fired on The New York Times' Op-Ed page -- over the unlikely subject of a 27-year-old statement by Ronald Reagan in a Mississippi town named Neshoba.

Lou Cannon, the longtime Washington Post reporter and Reagan biographer, appears today, defending the former president, and taking the side of columnist David Brooks against his colleagues Paul Krugman and Bob Herbert, who have been squabbling about it for days-- with no names being mentioned, of course. Cannon doesn't refer to any of them either, but merely explains why he is there by writing, "One myth that is enjoying a revival in a year when Republican presidential candidates are comparing themselves to Ronald Reagan, their iconic hero, is the notion that Mr. Reagan defeated President Jimmy Carter in 1980 by a coded appeal to white-supremacist voters."

He adds: "The mythology of Neshoba is wrong in two distinct ways. First, Ronald Reagan was not a racist. Second, his Neshoba speech was not an effective symbolic appeal to white voters. Instead, it was a political misstep that cost him support." But Krugman, in a kind of pre-emptive strike, had declared on his blog earlier this week that online critics who had attacked him for allegedly accusing Reagan of racism, were being willfully misleading. He denied suggesting that Reagan was a racist -- but that doesn't mean he did not "deliberately" appeal to racists in that famous 1980 quote. And others will surely now challenge Cannon's charge that the statement did not win Reagan any votes.

To review: Krugman kicked it off with a Sept. 27 column on the Republicans’ continuing problems in attracting minority voters. “Republican politicians ... understand quite well that the G.O.P.’s national success since the 1970s owes everything to the partisan switch of Southern whites,” he declared. “Since the days of Gerald Ford, just about every Republican presidential campaign has included some symbolic gesture of approval for good old-fashioned racism.”

Then came this kicker, as Krugman charged that GOP godfather, Ronald Reagan, who “began his political career by campaigning against California’s Fair Housing Act, started his 1980 campaign with a speech supporting states’ rights delivered just outside Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered.”

Brooks took awhile, but fired back on Nov. 9, opening his column: “Today, I’m going to write about a slur. It’s a distortion that’s been around for a while, but has spread like a weed over the past few months. It was concocted for partisan reasons: to flatter the prejudices of one side, to demonize the other and to simplify a complicated reality into a political nursery tale. “The distortion concerns a speech Ronald Reagan gave during the 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., which is where three civil rights workers had been murdered 16 years earlier. An increasing number of left-wing commentators assert that Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign with a states’ rights speech in Philadelphia to send a signal to white racists that he was on their side. The speech is taken as proof that the Republican majority was built on racism.“The truth,” Brook explained, “is more complicated.” He claimed that Reagan had actually attempted to court black votes right after the 1980 convention. Brooks then offered as an excuse for the Mississippi trip: the Reagan campaign “was famously disorganized,” and he was forced to go when locals promised he would be there. When he got there he gave a “short and cheerful” speech: “The use of the phrase ‘states’ rights’ didn’t spark any reaction in the crowd, but it led the coverage in The Times and The Post the next day.”

Brooks concluded: “You can look back on this history in many ways. It’s callous, at least, to use the phrase ‘states’ rights’ in any context in Philadelphia. Reagan could have done something wonderful if he’d mentioned civil rights at the fair. He didn’t. ...“Still, the agitprop version of this week — that Reagan opened his campaign with an appeal to racism — is a distortion.”

Then he smashed Krugman: “But still the slur spreads. It’s spread by people who, before making one of the most heinous charges imaginable, couldn’t even take 10 minutes to look at the evidence. It posits that there was a master conspiracy to play on the alleged Klan-like prejudices of American voters, when there is no evidence of that conspiracy. And, of course, in a partisan age there are always people eager to believe this stuff.”

Krugman, no fool, knew Brooks was referring to him and hit back with a post on his www.nytimes.com Web page: “So there’s a campaign on to exonerate Ronald Reagan from the charge that he deliberately made use of Nixon’s Southern strategy. When he went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1980, the town where the civil rights workers had been murdered, and declared that 'I believe in states’ rights,' he didn’t mean to signal support for white racists. It was all just an innocent mistake.

“Indeed, you do really have to feel sorry for Reagan. He just kept making those innocent mistakes.”

He then recalled other Reagan “race-baiting” whoppers and added: “Similarly, when Reagan declared in 1980 that the Voting Rights Act had been ‘humiliating to the South,’ he didn’t mean to signal sympathy with segregationists. It was all an innocent mistake.

“In 1982, when Reagan intervened on the side of Bob Jones University, which was on the verge of losing its tax-exempt status because of its ban on interracial dating, he had no idea that the issue was so racially charged. It was all an innocent mistake.

“And the next year, when Reagan fired three members of the Civil Rights Commission, it wasn’t intended as a gesture of support to Southern whites. It was all an innocent mistake.

“Poor Reagan. He just kept on making those innocent mistakes, again and again and again.”

Oh, then there was the fact that “Reagan opposed making Martin Luther King Day a national holiday.”

No word of reply from Brooks, so far, but now Bob Herbert pushed the envelope with an angry column on Wednesday which started, “Let’s set the record straight on Ronald Reagan’s campaign kickoff in 1980.”

He charged: “Reagan was the first presidential candidate ever to appear at the fair, and he knew exactly what he was doing when he told that crowd, ‘I believe in states’ rights.’

“Reagan apologists have every right to be ashamed of that appearance by their hero, but they have no right to change the meaning of it, which was unmistakable. Commentators have been trying of late to put this appearance by Reagan into a racially benign context.

“That won’t wash. Reagan may have been blessed with a Hollywood smile and an avuncular delivery, but he was elbow deep in the same old race-baiting Southern strategy of Goldwater and Nixon.

“Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair. Whites and blacks, Democrats and Republicans — they all knew. The news media knew. The race haters and the people appalled by racial hatred knew. And Reagan knew. ...

“Throughout his career, Reagan was wrong, insensitive and mean-spirited on civil rights and other issues important to black people. There is no way for the scribes of today to clean up that dismal record. ...

“Ronald Reagan was an absolute master at the use of symbolism. It was one of the primary keys to his political success.

“The suggestion that the Gipper didn’t know exactly what message he was telegraphing in Neshoba County in 1980 is woefully wrong-headed. Wishful thinking would be the kindest way to characterize it.”

Brooks has been silent since then, but now Cannon has responded in his Op-Ed, which recalls Reagan's civil rights record, leaving out the negatives listed above. He does admit in passing that "Mr. Reagan was understandably anathema in the black community not because of his personal views but because of his consistent opposition to federal civil rights legislation, most notably the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965."

Like Brooks, he attributes the Neshoba "blunder" to poor staff work, even though this candidate was far from a political neophyte, having served two terms as governor of California and run for president previously.One expects Krugman and/or Herbert will keep this flame burning for at least another few days.

*Greg Mitchell's new blog:http://gregmitchellwriter.blogspot.com/
Greg MItchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor. A collection of his columns on Iraq and the media will be pubished in March.

UPDATE: Krugman fires the latest salvo here. [H/T: Wege]

Come On, People

NBC Meet the Press Netcast

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

From the Star Tribune:

It's easy to tell if Ann Coulter is defaming someone: Her lips are moving.
By Nick Coleman, Star Tribune
Last update: October 13, 2007 – 4:14 PM
It's easy to tell if Ann Coulter is defaming someone: Her lips are moving.
Coulter was on a cable TV show Thursday, saying that Christians (apparently, she includes herself among their number) are "perfected" Jews, and that America would be better if we were all Christians.
I suggest that the public affairs office at the University of St. Thomas immediately issue a new press release: "St. Thomas Bans Ann Coulter; Unexplained Computer Glitch Led to Mistaken Banning of Most Reverend Desmond Tutu."
Here's what a St. Thomas flak could say: "Ann Coulter is a foul-mouthed font of hate speech and bigotry. We have no idea how on Earth we accidentally confused her with a Nobel Peace Prize Winner and Man of God who presided over the truth and reconciliation process in South Africa. But there will be a thorough check of our hardware and software systems before we ban anyone else."
Computer error is the only possible explanation for the decision to ban Tutu from St. Thomas after having permitted the Coultergeist to speak on campus just two years ago.
I was present for Coulter's mud-slinging, during which she called Democrats traitors, suggested they should be executed, mocked Muslims, praised right-wing demagogue Sen. Joseph McCarthy (oblivious to the fact she was speaking on a campus that launched the career of liberal antiwar Sen. Eugene McCarthy) and threatened dissenting students with ejection, sending a bouncer into the balcony to shut up the few who dared to jeer.
Coulter's performance led the president of St. Thomas, the Rev. Dennis Dease, to condemn "hateful speech" that "goes against" college principles and "contributes to the growing dark side of our culture -- a disrespect for persons and their sincerely held beliefs."
Yes. The same Dennis Dease who uninvited Tutu, then reversed himself. The invitation has been re-extended now, but the damage has been done.
To be fair to Dease and his university, we should remember that St. Thomas has a long and proud history of openness. When Jews were not welcome at many private schools and anti-Semitism was openly preached in Minnesota, St. Thomas supported Jewish educators. In those days, Catholics and Jews both were discriminated against, and it is natural and good that St. Thomas is still on guard.
St. Thomas, like most other colleges, is a center of debate in many struggles, and it is no surprise that it might be stampeded into banning Tutu. No surprise. Just disappointment.
Tutu's criticisms of Israel seem no different than criticisms from former President Jimmy Carter and many Jews, both in Israel and in the United States. But Tutu can speak for himself, and if he has said things that appear to be anti-Semitic, he can be asked to explain himself, or to apologize. At least with Tutu, the Anglican cleric who has praised the contributions Jews made to the fight against apartheid that helped free his country from racial government, you can expect to hear thoughtful answers.
With Ann Coulter, you can expect only head slaps.
She was paid $50,000 by a right-wing foundation to spew hatred on Minnesota campuses in 2005, including at St. Thomas, and she took the money and ran. No apologies offered. Now, with her latest foul remarks on CNBC, she at least has provided St. Thomas with a little bit of help.
By making it clear what real anti-Semitism looks like.
Criticizing Israel does not make you anti-Semitic. And supporting Israel doesn't mean you are not anti-Semitic.
Maybe you only want to "perfect" Jews by converting all of them to Christianity.
I still like what the head of St. Olaf College said after Coulter dumped her garbage here.
What a college wants, said St. Olaf's president, Christopher Thomforde, is "an intersection between faithfulness and respect, along with intelligent critique and analysis. The issues are highly complicated, and to just sort of incite people is not helpful."
By that Lutheran standard, there is no comparison between Desmond Tutu and Ann Coulter. Knowing which to invite, and which to shun, should be easy:
One is a philosopher. The other is a fool.

93% Ain't Bad, Is It? Well, Is It?

You Are 93% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man). You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

George Bush Don't Like Black People

Uncle Sam Goddamn

Introducing BigotLand

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Like I Said...

I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating: AMERICANS ARE DUMB. About four years ago, I was having dinner with some co-workers at a nice restaurant in Mexico City. The Americans at a nearby table thought it was the absolute height of hilarity to talk like Cheech Marin every time the waiter showed up. In pathetic, broken Spanish, I attempted to apologize to the waiter for my countrymen's embarrassing behavior. In excellent English, the waiter told me there was no need to apologize - he could tell I was embarrassed and that was apology enough.
There is something terribly, terribly wrong with a society in which willfully ignorant dunderheads rise to the top while thoughtful, compassionate citizens struggle to make ends meet. But as Bertrand Russel observed, "the trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

Unclear on the Concept

Like True Democrats, True Christians spend most of their time struggling with the morons within their own ranks. Here is a good example, courtesy of Blue Gal. Doesn't the Bible say something about bearing false witness? I think it does. I think it also warns against false prophets who seek to "deceive the very elect." Or something like that.

The first syllable of 'Christian' is 'Christ.' Christ is Jesus, right? So, if one wants to be a Christian, all one needs to do is follow Jesus' advice, yes? Let's see...What did Jesus say about fags? Nothing. Well, what did he say about abortion? Zip. Well, what about premarital sex? Nada. Well, what the hell DID he say? He said this:

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And this:

“He who rules his spirit has won a greater victory than the taking of a city.”

And this:

“Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone.”

And this:

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men."

And this:

"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons (and daughters) of God."

And this:

"For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me..."

And this:

"Love one another."

How can so many so-called Christians embrace an ideology that is obviously diametrically opposed to the wishes of their religion's namesake? Oh, the irony!