Hat tip to Brian at BlueNC for this news — homobigot Vernon Robinson, who tried and failed to unseat Congressman Brad Miller in the 13th District race here in 2006, has picked up something as a consolation prize — the “Willie” award for Worst Political Advertisement, given by progressive thinktank Growth & Justice.

Here’s what Vern actually put on the air to receive the honor; he does the NC GOP proud:

And a snippet the post I did back when that ad was first released (March 2006) is below the fold.
(more…)

This is getting so tired now — lower the discourse, then trot out with a lame apology that doesn’t address the horror of what was said. Faux News contributor Liz Trotta doesn’t even attempt to sound sincere with this bullsh*t mea culpa:

“I am so sorry about what happened yesterday with that lame attempt at humor…I just really fell over myself in making it appear that I wished Barack Obama harm or any other candidate for that matter. I sincerely regret it and apologize to anybody I’ve offended. It’s a very colorful political season, and many of us are making mistakes in saying things we wish we hadn’t said.”

Let’s take a look at what she said that got her into hot water. I don’t see any other candidates mentioned in her assassination joke:

“and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama [after being prompted by the FNC anchor]….well both if we could [laughing]”

Please.

(UPDATE: See Francis’s take here and here. Also read the post over at A Slanted Truth about why these assassination remarks cut deep.)

How on earth do these sick people at Fox News get away with sh*t like this? Here is Liz Trotta, brought on to comment about Hillary Clinton’s ill-conceived remarks, and Trotta not only blurts out “Osama”, but laughs and “corrects” herself, suggesting it would be a good idea to knock both off. My god.

“and now we have what … uh…some are reading as a suggestion that somebody knock off Osama …uh..um..Obama [after being prompted by the FNC anchor]….well both if we could [laughing]”

This is yet another example of filing the edges off of the egregious casual mention of assassination, so that those offended and concerned about such casual talk are eventually the ones perceived with a hangup. It is a caustic and disgusting tactic frequently used by Fox, Limbaugh and the rest. It surfaced a while ago in regards to overt racism in the conservative MSM (see my post Filing the edges off of racism). Watch for more of this crap.

More here.

Hat tip, floozy.

When the United States Supreme Court invalidated all state sodomy laws in the landmark 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling it didn’t take those state laws off the books. Last night in my state, two men, in what appears to be a domestic dispute/sexual assault case that occurred in private, were charged by the police under the North Carolina’s ridiculous “crimes against nature” law (CAN). From the Raleigh N&O:

Raleigh police first charged Nelson Keith Sloan, 40, of Grand Manor Court, who called them to his apartment about dawn, saying he had been attacked.

Police later filed the same charge against Ryan Christopher Flynn, 25, of Glen Currin Drive. They also charged Flynn with simple assault for biting Sloan. And they charged him with communicating threats by telling Sloan he was going to disembowel him and show him his innards.

“This looks like a case of a consensual act that may have gotten out of hand,” said Raleigh police Capt. T.D. Hardy. “The law is still on the books. Our detectives got involved in it last night and decided this was the best thing to do. What the D.A.’s office will do with it, I don’t know.”

Sloan, however, said he was the victim of an assault. “I didn’t allow anything,” he said Saturday after being reached at home by phone. “They knew it and turned it around and arrested me. I have never been so humiliated in all my life. It’s just awful.”

And, in the ultimate outrage - the police did not charge Flynn with sexual assault. As you read, the police captain 1) doesn’t believe a sexual crime occurred; and 2) doesn’t have a problem with arresting the men under this law, when everyone knows a heterosexual couple would never be charged with CAN.

More below the fold.
(more…)

KO was overwrought on Friday, but what he said was spot on. What Hillary Clinton did by invoking Robert F. Kennedy’s late primary win (and, unnecessarily, assassination — for the second time in two months) to bolster her case for staying in the race is beyond the pale.

It became more so after the non-apology (the usual “I’m sorry if I offended anyone,” and it didn’t at all address the context of assassination and Obama). It was more egregious that her comparison in the remarks to Bill’s 1992 race that she claimed wasn’t wrapped up until June, something she has also repeated, wasn’t even true.

While she said that he only wrapped up the nomination in June of that year, he was viewed as having secured it in March, when his last serious opponent dropped out.

FYI: The number of hate groups operating in this country has increased 48% since Bush took office. Taking what Clinton said lightly or as an indication of a moment of fatigue is not an option (for me, anyway).

Between the political dog whistles floated and denied over the course of the primary season by the Clinton campaign, and the overt statements by voters that race is an issue for them, you simply cannot ignore the first black man to be a serious contender for the presidency is a man with a target on his back and words do mean something — particularly coming from a candidate. That Senator Clinton’s campaign doesn’t care to or doesn’t want to admit what she said has an interpretation other than a slight to the Kennedy family is BS. We’re not talking about her believing she wants something horrible to befall her opponent, it’s the lack of discretion and judgment in raising the issue not once, but twice.

Sadly, our country is too sick and too incapable of dealing with the race-based hatred, ignorance and fear that has bubbled up during this primary season, and the reality is that we have a man willing to take the personal risk to run for president in spite of this.

And that is what Keith Olbermann addressed.

The transcript is here.
(more…)

Ah, Rick Santorum, returning from his anti-”Islamofacism” post-Senate efforts to familiar homo-hate territory. He’s back in the news, penning a ridiculous op-ed in the Philly Inquirer, “The Elephant in the Room: A wake-up call on gay marriage after ‘03 alarm went unheeded.”

Bigot! Hate-monger! Homophobe!

Those were just a few of the terms hurled my way in 2003 when I said that the Supreme Court’s Texas sodomy decision opened the door to the redefinition of marriage.

When I wasn’t ducking the epithets, I was being laughed at, mocked, and given the crazy-uncle-at-the-holidays treatment by the media. Or I was being told I should resign from my leadership post by some Senate colleagues.

Five years later, do I regret sounding the alarm about marriage? No.

I’m just saddened that time has proved right those of us who worried about the future of marriage as the union of husband and wife, deeply rooted not only in our traditions, our faiths, but in the facts of human nature: as Pope Benedict said, “The cradle of life and love,” connecting mothers and fathers to their children.

(Cue epithets: Bigot! Hate-monger! Homophobe!)

The latest distressing news came last week in California. The state Supreme Court there ruled, 4-3, that same-sex couples can marry.

In doing so, four judges rejected a statute that passed in a referendum with 61 percent of the vote that defined marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

And look, he’s worried that the elimination of discrimination will make all of the heterosupremacists look back at the good old days when homos were on the run.

Let me go out on another limb here and make another crazy prediction. Within 10 years, clergy will be sued or indicted for preaching on certain Bible passages dealing with homosexuality and churches, and church-related organizations will lose government contracts and even their tax-exempt status.

The California judges also ruled, for the first time in American legal history, that sexual orientation is just like race.

The California court just declared that those of us who see marriage as the union of husband and wife are the legal equivalent of racists. And openly racist groups and individuals can be denied government benefits because of their views, including professional licenses (attorney, physicians, psychiatrists, marriage counselors), accredited schools, and tax-exempt status for charities.

Have fun with the rest.

(UPDATE: Now that he’s going to be the GOP’s nominee, John McCain finally “discovered” how radioactive Rod Parsley is and repudiated him as well. There will definitely be a fundie eruption over this one.)

Today John McCain finally gave the boot to batsh*t fundie Pastor John Hagee of the 17,000-member Cornerstone Church in Texas after audio was released of the televangelist saying that Hitler had been sent by God to help Jews reach the Promised Land via the Holocaust. This was nothing new, however, so one wonders what rock the Arizona senator and his staff have been hiding under:

[I]n his 2006 book “Jerusalem Countdown”, Hagee proposed the theory that “anti-Semitism, and thus the Holocaust, was the fault of Jews themselves — the result of an age old divine curse incurred by the ancient Hebrews through worshiping idols and passed, down the ages, to all Jews now alive.” He also wrote that “Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews.”

Of course it would be interesting to know why this particular insanity crossed the line for McCain, since he had previously refused to reject the endorsement of Armegeddon proponent Hagee, who has condemned Catholics, gays, women, blacks and more from the pulpit and on video.

We’ve been blogging about the juicy-mouthed Patriot Pastor for a long time now. Apparently this influential nutbag has finally caught fire on the blogs.

More below the fold.
(more…)

You’re doing it wrong.

Here’s an example of really poor editorial judgment. The Roswell (GA) Beacon, a weekly free paper, featured the image at left on its cover. The article in the edition was actually relevant — about the increasing threats against Barack Obama from white supremacists in the state. (AJC):

“We knew we were on the provocative edge,” Altork said. “But it’s a very fair piece, a smart piece.”

The article was pitched and reported by veteran freelance journalist Alan Sverdlik, who said he was curious how law enforcement agencies were handling the increased number of threats lodged against Obama by white supremacist groups, some of whom are based around north Fulton. Sverdlik said Tuesday he had not seen the cover and had no input in its development.

The Beacon’s publisher said the art “projected the story,” one which he believes serves a valuable public interest: “We’re hoping federal law enforcement takes notice.” So far, however, the content inside has been obscured by the furor over its illustration.

“Their slogan is ‘responsibly provocative,’” wrote Miami teacher Rian Fike. “This is irresponsibly inflammatory.” And poorly timed, though The Beacon can’t be held accountable on that front. The article’s publication coincided with an ill-advised quip by former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee after a loud noise interrupted his speech to the National Rifle Association.

“That was Barack Obama,” Huckabee said. “He just tripped off a chair. He’s getting ready to speak and somebody aimed a gun at him and he — he dove for the floor.”

…”That was a bad break for us,” Altork said.

Blender Jeremy from Cobb (GA) gets the hat tip for this one. The only other places you can find the Beacon’s article is on neo-Nazi sites, and I’m obviously not going to link to them. You can now find the article at the Beacon site (a search pulled up a 404 error earlier). I’m sure those hate groups snatched up copies of the issue to put on their walls. Read a snippet of the article below the fold.
(more…)

I seem to be blogging about Oregon a lot lately, but I try to choose the stories which have interest to everyone. (I missed the Obama rally, though, embarrassingly enough. Augustlet got to run the bases at the Triple-A baseball game, so I don’t regret the choice.)

But speaking of youth sports, holy shit.

Jaime Nared is nearly 6-1 and blessed with Michael Jordan-style skills. In games, the 12-year-old can more than hold her own against the boys — dropping three-pointers and sometimes scoring 30 points or more.

And there, according to her coach, lies the problem.

She’s so good, Michael Abraham said, she makes the boys look like scrubs. So she’s been told she can no longer play on boys teams at The Hoop, a private Beaverton basketball facility that runs a league in which Abraham’s teams compete.

Let me just say here that the sports-radio reaction - one of the most accurate bellwethers in the history of opinion - locally has been overwhelmingly supportive of young Ms. Nared. Usually you can find a few devil’s-advocate types who spout some sexist party-line nonsense, but in this case the Hoop doesn’t have a supporter as far as the eye can see.

“If I’d known about it, I wouldn’t have put any of my teams in the league. Besides, she’s been playing on this team since second grade, and she plays on our team when we travel around the region. There’s never been any problem in any event, not one word of complaint.”

Neal Franzer, The Hoop’s director of operations, said Thursday that parents were “adamant” that their complaints have nothing to do with Jaime’s skills.

“They said the problem was the boys were playing differently against her because she was a girl,” he said. “They’d been taught to not push a girl, so they weren’t fouling her hard, and the focus had shifted from playing basketball to noticing a girl was on the floor with them.”

Let me make sure I have this straight. This is basketball and the trouble is the boys don’t want to push her? I might almost understand this argument if she were a wrestler - as a former wrestler myself, I’d like to point out that there’s nowhere in a wrestling singlet for a 12-year-old boy to hide an embarrassing erection - understand the argument, but not support it. But basketball?

Basketball’s a c0ntact sport, fine. But a boy who’s too delicate to whack a girl hard on the arm the way he might a boy - a 6′1″ girl who could probably wipe the floor with him if she were so inclined - that’s not “good breeding”, that’s a dangerous lack of self-preservation skills.

Besides, it’s clear that the real problem is the boys, comparatively, suck at basketball and are sore losers.

“I think the boys on a specific team don’t like me,” she said. “It doesn’t seem fair.”

Jaime’s mom, Reiko Williams, said the issue boiled over after a particular game.

“She scored 30 points,” said Williams, who garnered national attention for her daughter’s predicament Thursday after taking the story to the media. “I remember one play. She stole the ball, dribbled up court and made a behind-the-back pass to a teammate. He missed the lay-in, and she grabbed the rebound and put it in. I think it was just too much for some of those parents.

“The next day, she came home and said they wouldn’t let her play with the boys anymore.”

I’ll tell you one thing. If a girl in a situation like this says “I think the boys on a specific team don’t like me” you can take that directly to the bank. And anyone who thinks there’s some room for ambiguity there has never been on the floor in a Jr. High sport, or in the stands, or at a PTA meeting, or at the park. And as the parent of a t-ball player who is routinely outhit by a girl who’s got three inches on him* I am even more familiar with the dynamic at play here (memo to other teams’ coaches: it’s FUCKING T-BALL.)

The Hoop’s protestations of “we’re just enforcing the policy” are the utterest hogwash. New management or not, the proof is incontrovertible:

He said the boys on his team enjoyed playing with Jaime — among a handful of girls to play on his boys teams over the years — because she helped them improve.

“If she were 4-feet-9 and no good, we wouldn’t be having this discussion,” Abraham said. “To appease a small minority of parents, in this day and age, is stupid. This is a decision that really targets her. She’s a well-adjusted kid who happens to be great.

* And on whom he’s got the good taste to have a little bit of a crush.

This is beyond absurd. We’ve already got the police Taser-happy, now we have guards and citizens settling disputes (that would be settled in the past with a civil conversation) by pulling out the shock devices on one another. In this case, a guard claimed the co-owner of a Boulder restaurant had parked his van on property it didn’t belong on and was placing a boot on the vehicle, and then …

Harvey Epstein, co-owner of Mamacitas restaurant on The Hill, was arrested Saturday night after he got into an altercation with two officers from Colorado Security Services, one of whom had booted a company vehicle for being illegally parked in the alley behind his Mexican restaurant.

Epstein said the van was on his property and should never have been booted. When he tried to cut the device off with bolt cutters after the guard refused to remove it, the situation escalated.

“(The guard) pointed a stun gun at my mother’s face and I immediately responded with my personal Taser,” Epstein said Sunday evening, within an hour of being released from Boulder County Jail. “And we shot each other at the same moment.”

Epstein, 36, said one of the guards jumped on his back after the Taser duel and pressed the barrel of his pistol against the back of Epstein’s head.’

If you read the entire article, there are differing versions of the event, so it’s hard to tell who is at fault, but incidents like these are sure to escalate and increase in frequency in the new Taser Wild West.

In more positive Taser news, the stun-gun manufacturer is seeing a slump in sales due to tight police department budgets thanks to the Bush Economy. So sad:

Taser International Inc., the world’s largest stun-gun maker, may get a jolt as the U.S. economic slowdown drains tax revenue from police forces that supply more than two-thirds of its revenue.

Six of Taser’s 10 biggest investors that reported stakes in March 31 regulatory filings, including Veredus Asset Management LLC and Emerald Advisers Inc., said they sold shares. Taser has lost 48 percent this year and short interest, a gauge of bets against the stock, averaged 18 percent higher in the first four months of 2008 than in the past three years.

…Taser is a defendant in 37 lawsuits alleging wrongful death or personal injury and has won dismissals in 69 others, according to a May 12 regulatory filing.

…While two-thirds of U.S. police departments own at least one Taser, only a third of officers carry them, estimates Minneapolis-based analyst Steven Dyer of Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC. The figures show that some departments can’t afford more, he said.

…”Their customers are municipalities,'’ Dyer said. When cities have to scrape for money to finance schools and repair roads, “Tasers become a lot more discretionary.'’

Hat tip, Sue.

The Republican stupid - it burns. From Kathleen Parker’s column at the WaPo:

Well, at least they didn’t kiss.

I was bracing myself for the lip lock Wednesday when John Edwards endorsed Barack Obama.

Don’t look at me. David “Mudcat” Saunders, Edwards’s former rural adviser, came up with the idea, saying Obama should kiss Edwards on the lips “to kill this 41-point loss,” referring to Hillary Clinton’s landslide victory in the West Virginia primary.

Instead, the two men exchanged a manly air-hug to commemorate the moment when Edwards threw Clinton under the upholstered sofa on his grandmama’s front porch.

Holy smoke, is the “Breck Girl” reference to the former NC senator going to make comeback? I leave it to Brad at Sadly, No to break this sh*t down.

It’s tough to list all the things that make this column so mind-crushingly stupid, but let’s give it a shot:

• Parker begins the column by calling Edwards and Obama fags.

• Then, not having the courage to stand by this novel and poignant insight, she claims that it wasn’t her idea to call them fags, but was instead the idea of one of Edwards’ advisers. But hey, they’re still gay homo fruits who like to take it up the homobutt.

• Next, she pulls out the oldest trick in the Wingnut Punditry Bible: she lectures us about what Real Americans think! Never mind that she’s spent her entire working life on the Wingnut Welfare circuit - she’s got her hand on the pulse of The People, baby!

• And what do Real Americans think, you ask? Why, they’re apparently super-duper happy about the state of the country! Even though, like, 85% of them are dissatisfied with the direction of the country. And even though Bush’s approval rating stands at a sterling 28%. And even though the Republicans just lost a goddamn seat in freaking Mississippi.

How come I don’t hear about this loving - ahem - male bonding:

This is extremely bizarre. A Staten Island high school has banned girls from the prom if they don’t have a male date. It’s a girls-only school, which probably means that proms generally have a huge number of girls and not that many guys. Maybe the principle is pitying the boys at the prom, feeling they shouldn’t be outnumbered. There’s other speculations.

“That makes sense only because it probably controls the chaos,” Valente said. “You know you’re there with somebody, you’re less likely to go crazy.”

So, there’s a grave danger of high levels of squealing and circle dancing. I say, good practice for the weddings the principle presumably wants them to have in the future.

(more…)

I don’t care how hilarious rapist / murderer-releasing, Christian Reconstructionist- supported, Man-On-Dog wannabe, former Arkansas governor, and Baptist minister-without-a-theology-degree Mike Huckabee thinks he is, this isn’t funny. We’ve already seen the yahoo vote unapologetic about the fact that they’d never vote for a black man — and plenty of them have an NRA card.

During a speech before the National Rifle Association convention Friday afternoon in Louisville, Kentucky, former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — who has endorsed presumptive GOP nominee John McCain — joked that an unexpected offstage noise was Democrat Barack Obama looking to avoid a gunman.

“That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he’s getting ready to speak,” said the former Arkansas governor, to audience laughter. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor.”

After all, look at what a Freeper posted yesterday in response to the marriage equality ruling in California. These folks are sick.

38 posted on Thursday, May 15, 2008 1:37:53 PM by Lancey Howard

Related:
* Noose found at Secret Service training center
* Dallas: weapons screening halted at Obama rally
* Other posts on the security breach

I’m really starting to wonder whether this level of stupidity and batsh*ttery by the Right — as they watch their political fortunes swirl the bowl because of Bush’s legacy — has completely untethered them from reality. Take a look at this unbelievable nonsense by Bill O’Reilly, who went on a tirade about the fact that Markos Moulitsas (Kos of Daily Kos) has a Newsweek column, and that O’Reilly was embarrassed that Markos ran a clip of the Faux News blowhard going ape on camera during his old Inside Edition days.

What’s even more entertaining is the bile O’Reilly’s fans unleashed into Markos’ mailbox — out comes the violent schooyard faggotry taunts from the intellectual giants. A sampling is below the fold.
(more…)

Autumn and I have been passing on right-wing reaction yesterday’s historic Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality in California, but I wanted to reserve a post for this unique reaction from fundie Mike Heath of the Christian Civic League of Maine.

He’s basically cried uncle in terms of protecting the word “marriage,” and wants to get back to basics, which sounds a lot like extermination, if you ask me. Homos have been compared to all sorts of things, but I don’t think I’ve been referred to as a weed polluting a lawn. Via email from Blender Herb, who’s on the CCLM mailing list:

Some people are suggesting that California’s ridiculous Supreme Court decision on “marriage” yesterday is reason to renew Maine’s push for a constitutional amendment. Those people are dead wrong.

While I support any real efforts to amend the Federal Constitution to protect marriage, I don’t support a Maine constitutional amendment at this time. Anyone who has been paying attention to this issue in Maine for the past two decades knows that the entire Maine political establishment is in “love” with “gay” special interests.

The fight is over if we are going to protect the word marriage only. Most recommendations I hear for constitutional amendments will protect only the word marriage, and allow for civil unions and domestic partnerships. A cursory reading of the Massachusetts and California court decisions will reveal the folly of this approach.

We must attack this problem at its root. If you want to get rid of a weed you don’t pull off the leaves. You destroy the root. The root idea of so-called same sex marriage is special rights for citizens on the basis of sexual wrongdoing. That is where the fight must be engaged.

Our only hope in the short term is the people. If everyone will get behind the League’s referendum we can begin the process of righting the ship of state more quickly.

I call on all people of good will to support our referendum today. It is the loving thing to do. Let’s support marriage and equality. We can’t afford to wait.

And Mike’s apparently found yet another version of The Homosexual Agenda. See his discovery below the fold.
(more…)

UPDATE 2: Happy Happy Joy Joy! Here is The Peter:

How Will California Homosexual Couples Consummate their Counterfeit ‘Marriages’?

JUDICIAL ACTIVISM AT ITS WORST: This will always be immoral. California’s highest court has created a “fundamental” marriage right out of behavior - homosexuality - that is fundamentally wrong and destructive. At left is a homosexual male kissing scene as it appeared on the CBS soap “As the World Turns.” Everywhere Americans turn - TV, media, schools, in corporations and the courts - this unhealthy and immoral behavior is being promoted

(UPDATE: Bam Bam Barber of Concerned Women weighs in below the fold.)

Ah, before we get to the Freepi, how about this delicious reaction from the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, who believes civil rights should be determined at the ballot box.

It’s outrageous that the court has overturned not only the historic definition of marriage, but the clear will of the people of California, as expressed in Proposition 22. said FRC President Tony Perkins. The California Supreme Court assumed the powers of a legislative body by imposing same-sex marriage. However, in 2000, the people of California spoke loudly and clearly on the value of marriage when 61 percent of voters approved Proposition 22.

The California Supreme Court has taken a jackhammer to the democratic process, and the right of the people to affect change in public policy. Four judges discarded the votes of 4,618,673 Californians who approved the states Defense of Marriage Act. Voters understand that children should not be deprived of a mother or a father, added Perkins.

I can’t wait for the flying spittle from Focus on the Anus, Bam Bam of Concerned Women for America and The Peter. Right now, take a look at the swamps of Freeperland as they wail, and in one case seems to be calling for violence (big surprise).

It’s below the fold.
(more…)

Oh my. Just watch. This administration cannot end soon enough. Oh my. Just watch. This administration cannot end soon enough. Olbermann shows a pic of Dear Leader playing golf two months after he claimed he stopped playing “in solidarity” with grieving families who lost loved ones in his Iraq nightmare. That was bad enough, but his sacrifice wasn’t even his own idea, so his handlers even saw this as some sort of noble gesture to spin — it’s an administration of completely morally and ethically bankrupt people, and KO had enough.

Part 1:

A snippet:

Finally tonight, as promised, a Special Comment on two topics a lot of us had foolishly thought, had naively hoped, we would not again have to address… and a third topic nobody thought a president would ever seriously mention in public unless perhaps he’d just been hit in the head with something and was not in full possession of his faculties - how he expressed his “empathy” to the families of the dead in Iraq - by giving up golf.

The President has resorted anew to the sleaziest fear-mongering and mass manipulation of an administration - of a public life - dedicated to realizing the lowest of our expectations.

Part 2:

Full transcript is below the fold.
(more…)

(UPDATE: The GOP is in a panic over the legacy of this administration and its effect on November elections. See below the fold.)

We all know Dear Leader has no shame, but here’s yet another example of his terror alert leash jerking and fearmongering, intimating that electing a Democrat will lead to disaster if the U.S. withdraws from Iraq.

President Bush warned in an interview Tuesday that the Democratic presidential candidates’ plans to withdraw abruptly from Iraq could “eventually lead to another attack on the United States” and would “embolden” terrorists.

In a White House interview with Politico and Yahoo News — a president’s first for an online audience — Bush said his doomsday scenario for a premature withdrawal “of course is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States.”

I hate to break it to his highness, but he f*cked up the whole region with his Big Military Adventure. It’s hard to imagine anyone screwing over both this country and Iraq any more than he has.

In the interview, he also shows how he prays away any guilt at sending young Americans to perish fighting military battles based on his bad judgment and Darth’s dark hand. God’s comfort is all these families need, not an apology from the man sitting in the Oval Office.

His Christian faith has increased in office, since “part of the faith walk is to understand your weaknesses and is to constantly try to embetter yourself and get closer to the Lord, and that’s a daily occurrence.”

“Obviously, there’s been some tough moments in here,” he said. “When you know that somebody lost their loved one as a result of a decision that I made, that’s a tough moment. If you’re a faithful person, you try to empathize with the suffering that that person is going through. On the other hand, there is a knowledge that the good Lord can comfort during these moments of grief. And that’s what I ask for in my prayer.”

And what can only be described as the public ramblings of a sociopath, our president said he shows his solidarity with families who have lost loved ones in his military misadventure by...not going out on the links anymore. I’m not sh*tting you.

See the video below the fold.
(more…)

Jeebus! It must be Americans for Truth Against Homosexuality’s fundraising quarter as we’ve hit the jackpot again, along with Box Turtle Bulletin. It’s completely over the top batsh*t insane beauteous:

The Left knows hate

In their continuing effort to steal the legacy of the real civil rights movement, homosexual activists and their allies posit an analogy between racism and “homophobia” — their smear term of choice to denigrate traditionalists. It is a deeply flawed comparison: what does unchangeable skin color and ethnicity have to do with aberrant, immoral and changeable sexual behavior?

…Moreover, the homosexualists are in the uncomfortable position of making actual descendants of slaves — like Pastor Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church and ex-lesbian Janet Boynes… — the target of their opprobrium. Men and women of color (like Crystal Dixon, a Black woman who recently was suspended from the University of Toledo after publicly making points similar to these) are mere “religious anti-gay bigots,” according to the homo-fundamentalists’ warped formulations.

Being lectured on intolerance by anti-Christian bigots like Tim Kincaid and Barney Frank — or run-of-the-mill leftist hate sites like Daily Kos — is like the USA being scolded for human rights violations by North Korea. If you think I jest, check out the hate-filled comments and vile anti-Christian insults that flow liberally on lesbian Pam Spaulding’s blog (try doing a search on “Jeebus” — a substitute for “Jesus” that secular snobs use to mock Christians).

Pam’s and Tim’s sites are further proof that nobody hates like the Left. And few on the Left hate like the homosexual activists (with radical pro-abortion-on-demand feminists a close second).

Past endorsements:

A “vicious anti-Christian lesbian activist.”
(Concerned Women for America’s radio show [9:15], 1/25/07)

“A nutty lesbian blogger.”
(MassResistance radio show [16:25], 2/3/07)

Related:
* Pam’s House Blend’s Peter LaBarbera files
* This I believe

Hat tip, Eva.

Am I behind the curve because I’ve never heard of one of these before?

A consumer report contains information about your personal and credit characteristics, character, general reputation, and lifestyle.

And how does the reporting agency get that information? By that most American of methods:

[I]nterviews with an applicant’s or employee’s friends, neighbors, and associates

I’m not crazy, right? This is a frighteningly invasive technique when it comes to employment, right?

Help me understand this batsh*ttery, please. From the great Sunshine State town of Land O’ Lakes…

Substitute teacher Jim Piculas does a 30-second magic trick where a toothpick disappears then reappears.

But after performing it in front of a classroom at Rushe Middle School in Land O’ Lakes, Piculas said his job did a disappearing act of its own.

“I get a call the middle of the day from the supervisor of substitute teachers. He says, ‘Jim, we have a huge issue. You can’t take any more assignments. You need to come in right away,’” he said.

When Piculas went in, he learned his little magic trick cast a spell that went much farther than he’d hoped.

“I said, ‘Well Pat, can you explain this to me?’ ‘You’ve been accused of wizardry,’ [he said]. Wizardry?” he asked.

Tampa Bay’s 10 talked to the assistant superintendent with the Pasco County School District who said it wasn’t just the wizardry and that Piculas had other performance issues, including “not following lesson plans” and allowing students to play on unapproved computers.

Piculas said he knew nothing about the accusations.

“That… I think was embellished after the fact to try to cover what initially what they were saying to me,” he said.

Hat tip to reader Beth, who said “I assume this is the result of some fundies and their anti-harry-potter obsession?”

Washington University students and faculty are in an uproar over the decision to award anti-gay, anti-feminist Eagle Forum fossil Phyllis Schlafly an honorary doctorate at its May 16 commencement ceremony. A Facebook group created to protest the move has over a thousand members.

Mary Ann Dzuback, the director of the women and gender studies department at Washington University agreed, said it was “grossly inappropriate” for the university to honor Schlafly with a degree.

“She’s spent her entire career speaking against women in the workforce and for them remaining in the home,” Dzuback said of Schlafly, who rose to prominence during the successful campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

…The university issued a statement Sunday defending its decision, saying it — like many other universities — chooses to honor those “who have become a part of the broad public discourse on vital issues of the times.” The statement cited other controversial figures, such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson, whom the school has honored.

Steve Ralls of PFLAG National:

PFLAG and our St. Louis chapter are proud to join those on the ground in Missouri and call on school officials to do the right thing and, as executive director Jody Huckaby said today, “find a more suitable person to applaud.”

Steve also points out some of Mother Schlafly’s winning cultural touchstones:

On California’s SB-77, to protect GLBT students: The legislation “represent[s] a repudiation of 2,000 years of Christian moral teaching on human sexuality, marriage, and the family. The result is that California’s schools are now promoting behaviors and lifestyles that are physically and spiritually dangerous for children.”

On the idea of any protections for GLBT youth: “The bottom line is, don’t count on the courts to protect public school students from being subjected to the promotion of homosexuality.”

On sexual harassment laws: “Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women.”

Yeah. I think they could locate someone who isn’t terminally frozen in the dark ages.

Out. Of. Control. Dateline Kamloops, British Columbia - Three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers apparently couldn’t subdue an elderly patient. The sadistic sickness continues. BTW, you can see pics of the man’s stun gun burns at the CBC site.

Frank Lasser, 82, appeared fragile Thursday when he showed the stun gun marks on his body and talked about the ordeal he went through Saturday.

“They [police] should have known I had bypass surgery,” Lasser told CBC News.

Lasser has had heart surgery and needs to carry an apparatus to supply oxygen at all times. He was in the Royal Inland Hospital Saturday due to pneumonia but has since been released.

RCMP said nurses called police after Lasser became delirious and pulled a knife out of his pocket.

Lasser told CBC News that he sometimes become delusional when he can’t breathe properly. He said he couldn’t explain why he refused to let go of the knife even after the Mounties arrived.

“I was laying on the bed by then and the corporal came in, or the sergeant, I forget which it was, and said to the guys, ‘OK, get him because we got more important work to do on the street tonight,’” Lasser said.

The article also refers to the Taser as “the conducted energy weapon.”

Hat tip, Shane.

The Blend Taser files.

Last night in another thread, I commented again about how poorly Hillary Clinton has been served by her hired campaign guns. Of course, the senator has stuck her foot in her mouth on her own as well, but nothing compares to this. From a new USA Today interview, she manages to top any dog-whistle race-baiting that her husband put out on the campaign trail with this naked appeal.

“I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on,” she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article “that found how Sen. Obama’s support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.”

“There’s a pattern emerging here,” she said.

Wow. Just. Wow. That didn’t blow by without comment, even in the article.

Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, said Clinton’s comment was a “poorly worded” variation on the way analysts have been “slicing and dicing the vote in racial terms.”

Is that another variation on “misspoke”?

You see the problem and beauty of Senator Clinton’s statement is that it boldly embraces the undiscussed fear in this Reagan Democrat demographic, the people who do consider race a major factor — concern that white privilege is being threatened, that somehow Barack Obama as president would exact retribution against “hard working white Americans” for past or present institutionalized racism. You know, like this candid Kentucky voter:

I’ve talked to people-a woman who was chair of county elections last year, she said she wouldn’t vote for a black man.” Patrick said he wouldn’t vote for Obama either.

Why not?

“Race. I really don’t want an African-American as President. Race.”

What about race?

“I thought about it. I think he would put too many minorities in positions over the white race. That’s my opinion.”

The frame is specific — that’s why Clinton referred to hard working white Americans. What happened to “blue collar Americans?” Oh wait, there are a lot of hard working black and brown blue collar/working class Americans, and many of them they voted for Obama, so she had to slice that demo down to the bottom line. Dog whistles no more.

I want to believe that it wasn’t a purposeful slip of the tongue because it’s too painful to contemplate that the black vote is now perceived as a “problem” because it skews to Obama, and because there are more white voters who have a problem with him based on his race, we have to nail that demo.

Remember, the black vote has been the most reliable Democratic vote, not the Reagan Democrats. Black voters don’t turn out for Obama solely because he is black. I’ve blogged before about this bizarre train of thought — if the affinity vote is so powerful we would have seen a bum rush for Alan Keyes. What Clinton is saying is not inaccurate (polls slice and dice this way), but its use here is inappropriate and inflammatory. It’s because the last core demo left for her to appeal to is resistant to Obama for reasons that have little to do with policy differences, or 3 AM readiness. She’s brought the microtarget out into the light and it’s one many of us don’t want to face talking about, with a different name — scared white people.

She is naming her remaining trump card, and considering our country’s pitiful history of not frankly dealing with or discussing race — aside from painful, fumbling defensive fits and starts — we’re left to deal with the fallout of a “poorly worded” statement, lacking a sufficiently stocked toolbox to deal with the ramifications of courting a vote with implicit and explicit biases.

The question never explored is why are these people scared more about a black president (regardless of political viewpoint) than the prospect of a McCain presidency and four more years of failed economic policies that have left this very demographic high and dry? What do we want to do about this as Americans? Apparently nothing, that’s a third rail topic and there’s an election to win.

Naming it means acknowledging problems we haven’t dealt with, and exploding the myth of a post-racial America. Barack Obama may be the first post-racial candidate because of his personal heritage, but the United States of America is nowhere near “post-racial” when it comes to politics.

So does the clock at left stop? I didn’t receive a response from Sen. Dole’s pitiful Constituent Services Letter Generator^TM. No autopen-signed missive to help me pretend that I heard from my senator.

What I did receive this afternoon was a fax from Communications Director Hogan Gidley of the Elizabeth Dole campaign regarding the petition that I delivered last Friday on behalf of 1265 readers of Firedoglake, Pam’s House Blend, and BlueNC. The petition requested that the North Carolina senator ask Linda Daves of the NC Republican party to stop running the color-aroused anti-Obama ad called “Extreme,” which tries to draw some sort of connection between Dem gubernatorial candidates Bev Perdue and Richard Moore (both endorsed Obama) and Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

What was Dole’s response? I have no idea, since the response is from Mr. Gidley, there’s no way for me to know whether my senator actually read the petition. The letter I received is an exercise in predictable spin; it doesn’t address the NCGOP’s ad or her party’s involvement and endorsement of playing to people’s biases. Gidley:

Thank you very much for delivering the petition. As Senator Dole’s campaign spokesman, I would like to take the opportunity to respond. The political advertisement that you reference has nothing to do with Senator Dole’s campaign, nor does she plan on refereeing third party political advertisements.

So state parties can run amok. I guess it’s hands-off for Liddy.

What the Dole campaign laughably calls for, in letter to NCDP party chair Jerry Meek from Dole consultant Mark Stephens (the second page of the document), is for the NC Democratic Party not to run any advertising against Dole, to tell her Dem opponent to refrain from anti-Dole ads, and to tell the national party not to run third party ads against her! Oh, this is rich!

Stephens to Meek:

the Dole campaign extends an offer to enter into a written agreement with the North Carolina Democratic Party, your national counterpart committees in Washington, as well as the eventual Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate to disallow political party advertising in North Carolina. This will prevent the circumstances that you have described from happening in the contest for U.S. Senate.

Alrighty then. So if they cannot use traditional bottom-feeding ads, they propose no one runs any ads, even comparison of record ads, which do inform voters. Take their ball and go home. Well we know the GOP cannot run on its failed ideas, and Elizabeth Dole has a miserable Bush rubber-stamp record, so it’s no surprise that we received a non-starter response like this.
(more…)

*
That’s right: Gordon Smith, 2-term Senator, fake maverick, is running on a platform of change.

There’s a relatively obscure (at least in the US) musical from the 1990s called The Fix, and as I recovered from the early-morning shock of hearing this bullshit, I recalled a song called I See the Future, in which empty-suit Cal gives his first speech while running for city council:

I see the future,
I see a day when we are one
I see tomorrow
I see us striving for the sun
I see us working toward the promise
and answering the call
I see the future
I see the future
and I see it in the faces of the young

Of course, just like in real life the vacuous media and bored public eat it up.
———
* Transcript of the offending passage: Jeff Merkley, Steve Novick: More of the same, when it’s time for change.

I can’t believe I’m writing about even more Taser horrors so soon. Stop the f*cking madness. I just can’t take it any more. Via African American Political Pundit:

As reported by many News Outlets and USA: Amnesty International Nine months after Emily Delafield, 56, died after being tased by police, her family has few answers about the events that led to her death. “This has been a very tragic and sad situation,” nephew Ryan Delafield said… Ryan Delafield says he is his aunt’s personal representative. In the weeks after her death he needed a death certificate for matters of her estate. “May, June, July… it was three months before we got the death certificate,” Delafield said.

The officers have been cleared in the case - big surprise. From First Coast News (which has audio recordings from the 911 call).

Delafield, a schizophrenic, sounds calm at first on the audio tape. Police say when they got to her, she was armed with two knives and a hammer. Police say the wheelchair-bound woman was threatening to hurt herself and others.

Delafield is heard on the tape saying, “You better get back.” Police debated what to do and then used their tasers. In the audio recording, you can hear Delafield screaming.

“My aunt was basically tortured like an animal or something,” Delafield’s nephew, Ryan Delafield, told First Coast News months ago.

Let’s just wind the clock back before the advent of Tasers. Certainly the officers would have been able to subdue this woman without resorting to quasi-lethal methods. And when these officers drew out the devices, they applied the Tasing with gusto. Read in disbelief below the fold.
(more…)

Any other country at any other time, and there’d be nothing complex about this:

Democrat Barack Obama took a hit yesterday when rival Hillary Rodham Clinton put up an Indiana TV ad highlighting his opposition to a summer-long suspension of the gas tax. Today he fought back with an ad that says the suspension would save consumers maybe $25 and wouldn’t bring down prices…

I’m here to tell you the truth. We could suspend the gas tax for 6 months, but that’s not going to bring down gas prices long-term. You’re gonna save about 25, 30 dollars…or half a tank of gas. That’s typical of how Washington works. There’s a problem, everybody’s upset about gas prices – let’s find some short-term, quick-fix, that we can say we did something even though, even though we’re not really doing anything.

Democratic support of the gas tax repeal is kind of typical: “We scoffed at Bush in 2000 for offering everyone ‘only’ a $300 refund, but we’re willing to smear each other over $30.” Democrats: Like Republicans, but 1/10th.

And of course, we wouldn’t even get that $30; the Tax Policy Center says prices would rebound almost “immediately.”

“Unless the goal is to temporarily boost profits for petroleum refineries and foreign producers, the proposal makes no sense,” says Len Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center.

And at least Hillary wants to replace the money with taxes on the oil companies, as unlikely as that notion is. McCain, as far as I know, offers no such compensation. Either way, as Matthew Yglesias notes, this kind of “[policy] gimmickry” is harmful to America:

But when national leaders act as if they believe current fuel costs are a passing phenomenon to be weathered with short-term measures, then at least some voters are going to believe them and make bad personal and political decisions that we can ill afford. A lot of electoral gambits are nonsense without being actually harmful, but McCain and Clinton are making problems worse just with their rhetoric.

(Don’t get me wrong, I’d like to see, say, truck drivers offered a repeal and consumers offered a boost in gas tax, but the average voter who doesn’t drive for a living would have to be crazy to make a gas tax suspension some sort of make-it-or-break-it issue.

The average American voter.

Would have to be…crazy.

Ah, shit.)

Oh, my. Oh, my. Oh. my. god. Where do you even begin in this fact-free screed from South Carolinian Nancy Morgan, news editor of RightBias.com?

Personally, I cringe when I see two guys swapping spit. Or when half naked transsexuals flaunt their sexuality in public places. I always wonder what they’re celebrating. A lifestyle that takes 20 years off your life? A dangerous, deadly and costly way of life that effectively undermines traditional families? The fact that gays and lesbians experience twice the partner abuse of straight couples? No, they’re celebrating their empowerment, leaving all other Americans to pay the social and financial costs involved. After all, they’ve got rights.

I’ve got rights, too. I have the right to pick my nose in public and wave it in someone else’s face (unless they’re gay or black - then it would be a hate crime). Good manners and a decent upbringing keep me from exercising this right. I also have the right to object when someone shoves their personal sexual habits in my face and demand that I not only tolerate it, but endorse it. That’s just plain rude. Hey, I’m still trying to figure out why weenie waggers are arrested while half nude trans-sexuals sporting fake organs have the right to wave them in public.

Gays are portrayed as victims of an unfeeling society. As such, they have been granted special rights not available to other Americans. The right not to be offended, the right to automatic respect, and the right to offend any person or group that dares to object. Imagine the outcry if Christians were granted these same rights.

The gurus of political correctness have decided that anyone who is not in agreement with the increasingly blatant homosexual agenda is a homophobe. Color me homophobic. I not only disagree with flaunting ones privates in public, I also disagree with exposing this behavior to children and telling them its their right, if not their duty, to put their sexuality above all other considerations.

What do you make of the unhinged obsession with half-naked transsexuals and wagging naughty bits in public? I haven’t noticed any transgender weenie wagging in my state. Is there something more egregious going on when you cross the state line into SC?