This Washington Post OpEd summarizes why Liberals are all name calling and no substance. I am surprised to see this from the Washington Post!
The last refuge of a liberal
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, August 27, 2010; A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/26/AR2010082605233_pf.html
Liberalism under siege is an ugly sight indeed. Just yesterday it was all hope and change and returning power to the people. But the people have proved so disappointing. Their recalcitrance has, in only 19 months, turned the predicted 40-year liberal ascendancy (James Carville) into a full retreat. Ah, the people, the little people, the small-town people, the "bitter" people, as Barack Obama in an unguarded moment once memorably called them, clinging "to guns or religion or" -- this part is less remembered -- "antipathy toward people who aren't like them."
That's a polite way of saying: clinging to bigotry. And promiscuous charges of bigotry are precisely how our current rulers and their vast media auxiliary react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.
-- Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.
-- Disgust and alarm with the federal government's unwillingness to curb illegal immigration, as crystallized in the Arizona law? Nativism.
-- Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.
-- Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero? Islamophobia.
Now we know why the country has become "ungovernable," last year's excuse for the Democrats' failure of governance: Who can possibly govern a nation of racist, nativist, homophobic Islamophobes?
Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities -- often lopsided majorities -- oppose President Obama's social-democratic agenda (e.g., the stimulus, Obamacare), support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a mosque near Ground Zero.
What's a liberal to do? Pull out the bigotry charge, the trump that preempts debate and gives no credit to the seriousness and substance of the contrary argument. The most venerable of these trumps is, of course, the race card. When the Tea Party arose, a spontaneous, leaderless and perfectly natural (and traditionally American) reaction to the vast expansion of government intrinsic to the president's proudly proclaimed transformational agenda, the liberal commentariat cast it as a mob of angry white yahoos disguising their antipathy to a black president by cleverly speaking in economic terms.
Then came Arizona and S.B. 1070. It seems impossible for the left to believe that people of good will could hold that: (a) illegal immigration should be illegal, (b) the federal government should not hold border enforcement hostage to comprehensive reform, i.e., amnesty, (c) every country has the right to determine the composition of its immigrant population.
As for Proposition 8, is it so hard to see why people might believe that a single judge overturning the will of 7 million voters is an affront to democracy? And that seeing merit in retaining the structure of the most ancient and fundamental of all social institutions is something other than an alleged hatred of gays -- particularly since the opposite-gender requirement has characterized virtually every society in all the millennia until just a few years ago?
And now the mosque near Ground Zero. The intelligentsia is near unanimous that the only possible grounds for opposition is bigotry toward Muslims. This smug attribution of bigotry to two-thirds of the population hinges on the insistence on a complete lack of connection between Islam and radical Islam, a proposition that dovetails perfectly with the Obama administration's pretense that we are at war with nothing more than "violent extremists" of inscrutable motive and indiscernible belief. Those who reject this as both ridiculous and politically correct (an admitted redundancy) are declared Islamophobes, the ad hominem du jour.
It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms). Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with "antipathy toward people who aren't like them" -- blacks, Hispanics, gays and Muslims -- a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, "just downright mean"?
The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama over-read his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.
8/27/2010
Ah, election season it coming!
And all of the liberal are showing their desperation the closer November gets!
Tea Party Spells KKK, Rights Leader Says
Black Leaders Outraged Over 'Restoring Honor' Rally
One of the comments sums it up well..."NAACP has a vested interest in stirring up "race" issues. It justifies their existence and their jobs. Without the hysteria, they are irrelevant, obsolete, and unnecessary."
Tea Party Spells KKK, Rights Leader Says
Black Leaders Outraged Over 'Restoring Honor' Rally
One of the comments sums it up well..."NAACP has a vested interest in stirring up "race" issues. It justifies their existence and their jobs. Without the hysteria, they are irrelevant, obsolete, and unnecessary."
Tea Party Group Hit With Death Threats
I guess some liberals slept during their sensitivity training class. Who would have thought!
http://politics.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2010/08/25/tea-party-group-hit-with-death-threats
http://politics.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2010/08/25/tea-party-group-hit-with-death-threats
8/24/2010
8/20/2010
AP being their politically correct best....
The associated press, in its infinite politically correct wisdom, does the important thing to change language of the ground zero mosque in NY. Why is it that people do not trust the news, and subscriber numbers are down?
AP Standards Center issues staff advisory on covering New York City mosque
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_081910b.html
Here is some guidance on covering the NYC mosque story, with assists from Chad Roedemeier in the NYC bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington:
1. We should continue to avoid the phrase "ground zero mosque" or "mosque at ground zero" on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” ground zero, or two blocks away.
WE WILL CHANGE OUR SLUG ON THIS STORY LATER TODAY from “BC-Ground Zero Mosque” to “BC-NYC Mosque.”
In short headlines, some ways to refer to the project include:
_ mosque 2 blocks from WTC site
_ Muslim (or Islamic) center near WTC site
_ mosque near ground zero
_ mosque near WTC site
We can refer to the project as a mosque, or as a proposed Islamic center that includes a mosque.
It may be useful in some stories to note that Muslim prayer services have been held since 2009 in the building that the new project will replace. The proposal is to create a new, larger Islamic community center that would include a mosque, a swimming pool, gym, auditorium and other facilities.
2. Here is a succinct summary of President Obama’s position:
Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center in New York as a matter of religious freedom, though he's also said he won't take a position on whether they should actually build it.
For additional background, you’ll find below a Fact Check on the project that moved yesterday.
Tom
---
Slug: BC-US--Mosque-Fact Check
Byline: CALVIN WOODWARD
Bytitle: Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked.
And that the imam who's being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.
Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.
He's devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He's scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the "Dark Ages." Yet he's also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaida, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.
Many Republicans and some Democrats say the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque should be built elsewhere, where there is no possible association with New York's ground zero. Far more than a local zoning issue, the matter has seized congressional campaigns, put President Barack Obama and his party on the spot — he says Muslims have the right to build the mosque — divided families of the Sept. 11, 2001, victims, caught the attention of Muslims abroad and threatened to blur distinctions between mainstream Islam in the U.S. and its radical elements.
A look at some of the claims and how they compare with the known facts:
___
—"The folks who want to build this mosque — who are really radical Islamists who want to triumphally prove that they can build a mosque right next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists — those folks don't have any interest in reaching out to the community. They're trying to make a case about supremacy." — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential 2012 presidential candidate.
—Some of the Muslim leaders associated with the mosque "are clearly terrorist sympathizers." — Kevin Calvey, a Republican running for Congress in Oklahoma.
—"This radical is a terrible choice to be one of the faces of our country overseas." — Statement by GOP Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Peter King of New York.
THE FACTS:
No one has established a link between the cleric and radicals. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said, "We've identified no law enforcement issues related to the proposed mosque."
Ros-Lehtinen and King were referring to the State Department's plan, predating the mosque debate, to send Rauf on another religious outreach trip to the Middle East as part of his "long-term relationship" with U.S. officials in the Bush and Obama administrations. The State Department said Wednesday it will pay him $3,000 for a trip costing the government $16,000.
Rauf counts former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from the Clinton administration as a friend and appeared at events overseas or meetings in Washington with former President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush adviser Karen Hughes.
He has denounced the terrorist attacks and suicide bombing as anti-Islamic and has criticized Muslim nationalism. But he's made provocative statements about America, too, calling it an "accessory" to the 9/11 attacks and attributing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to the U.S.-led sanctions in the years before the invasion.
In a July 2005 speech at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Center in Adelaide, Australia, Rauf said, according to the center's transcript:
"We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims."
While calling terrorism unjustified, he said the U.S. has supported authoritarian regimes with heinous human rights records and, faced with that, "how else do people get attention?"
In the same address, he spoke of prospects for peace between Palestinians and the Israelis — who he said "have moved beyond Zionism" — and of a love-your-neighbor ethic uniting all religions.
___
—"Mr. President, ground zero is the wrong place for a mosque." — Rick Scott, Republican candidate for Florida governor.
—"Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center." — Gingrich.
—"Just a block or two away from 9/11." — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, another 2012 GOP presidential prospect.
THE FACTS:
No mosque is going up at ground zero. The center would be established at 45-51 Park Place, just over two blocks from the northern edge of the sprawling, 16-acre World Trade Center site. Its location is roughly half a dozen normal lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the North Tower, the nearer of the two destroyed in the attacks.
The center's location, in a former Burlington Coat Factory store, is already used by the cleric for worship, drawing a spillover from the imam's former main place for prayers, the al-Farah mosque. That mosque, at 245 West Broadway, is about a dozen blocks north of the World Trade Center grounds.
Another, the Manhattan Mosque, stands five blocks from the northeast corner of the World Trade Center site.
To be sure, the center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence. The building was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and the center's planners say they want the center to stand as a statement against terrorism.
___
—"There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. ... America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization." — Gingrich.
—"This religion's plan is to destroy our way of life. ... If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians."
— Ron McNeil, a House GOP candidate in the Florida Panhandle, in an exchange reported by The News Herald in Panama City.
THE FACTS:
Such opinions are shared by some Americans, while others are more reluctant to paint the religion with a broad brush and more welcoming of the faith in this country. Bush, himself, while criticized at the time for stirring suspicions about American Muslims, traveled to a Washington mosque less than a week after the attacks to declare that terrorism is "not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace."
In any event, the U.S. armed forces field Muslim troops and make accommodations for them. The Pentagon opened an interfaith chapel in November 2002 close to the area where hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building, killing 184 people.
Muslims gather there for a daily prayer service Monday through Thursday and hold a weekly worship service on Fridays, drawing no complaints. Similar but separate services are provided for other faiths.
Further, this article does a very good job at summarizing the issue, of course this is not necessarily filtered through the horse manure Associated Press.
Arabs distance themselves from Ground Zero Mosque
In addition, this is an excellent blog post on the matter:
Some thoughts about the "Ground Zero Mosque"
It goes to show how stupid mainstream media can be, that they insist to further push a stupid politically correct agenda, despite loss of revenue for their publications. Thank goodness for things like the internet so we have an alternative to their PC horse manure.
AP Standards Center issues staff advisory on covering New York City mosque
http://www.ap.org/pages/about/pressreleases/pr_081910b.html
Here is some guidance on covering the NYC mosque story, with assists from Chad Roedemeier in the NYC bureau and Terry Hunt in Washington:
1. We should continue to avoid the phrase "ground zero mosque" or "mosque at ground zero" on all platforms. (We’ve very rarely used this wording, except in slugs, though we sometimes see other news sources using the term.) The site of the proposed Islamic center and mosque is not at ground zero, but two blocks away in a busy commercial area. We should continue to say it’s “near” ground zero, or two blocks away.
WE WILL CHANGE OUR SLUG ON THIS STORY LATER TODAY from “BC-Ground Zero Mosque” to “BC-NYC Mosque.”
In short headlines, some ways to refer to the project include:
_ mosque 2 blocks from WTC site
_ Muslim (or Islamic) center near WTC site
_ mosque near ground zero
_ mosque near WTC site
We can refer to the project as a mosque, or as a proposed Islamic center that includes a mosque.
It may be useful in some stories to note that Muslim prayer services have been held since 2009 in the building that the new project will replace. The proposal is to create a new, larger Islamic community center that would include a mosque, a swimming pool, gym, auditorium and other facilities.
2. Here is a succinct summary of President Obama’s position:
Obama has said he believes Muslims have the right to build an Islamic center in New York as a matter of religious freedom, though he's also said he won't take a position on whether they should actually build it.
For additional background, you’ll find below a Fact Check on the project that moved yesterday.
Tom
---
Slug: BC-US--Mosque-Fact Check
Byline: CALVIN WOODWARD
Bytitle: Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — A New York imam and his proposed mosque near ground zero are being demonized by political candidates — mostly Republicans — despite the fact that Islam is already very much a part of the World Trade Center neighborhood. And that Muslims pray inside the Pentagon, too, less than 80 feet from where terrorists attacked.
And that the imam who's being branded an extremist has been valued by both Republican and Democratic administrations as a moderate face of the faith.
Even so, the project stirs complicated emotions, and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is a complex figure who defies easy categorization in the American Muslim world.
He's devoted much of his career to working closely with Christians, Jews and secular leaders to advance interfaith understanding. He's scolded his own religion for being in some ways in the "Dark Ages." Yet he's also accused the U.S. of spilling more innocent blood than al-Qaida, the terrorist network that turned the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon and four hijacked airplanes to apocalyptic rubble.
Many Republicans and some Democrats say the proposed $100 million Islamic cultural center and mosque should be built elsewhere, where there is no possible association with New York's ground zero. Far more than a local zoning issue, the matter has seized congressional campaigns, put President Barack Obama and his party on the spot — he says Muslims have the right to build the mosque — divided families of the Sept. 11, 2001, victims, caught the attention of Muslims abroad and threatened to blur distinctions between mainstream Islam in the U.S. and its radical elements.
A look at some of the claims and how they compare with the known facts:
___
—"The folks who want to build this mosque — who are really radical Islamists who want to triumphally prove that they can build a mosque right next to a place where 3,000 Americans were killed by radical Islamists — those folks don't have any interest in reaching out to the community. They're trying to make a case about supremacy." — Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a potential 2012 presidential candidate.
—Some of the Muslim leaders associated with the mosque "are clearly terrorist sympathizers." — Kevin Calvey, a Republican running for Congress in Oklahoma.
—"This radical is a terrible choice to be one of the faces of our country overseas." — Statement by GOP Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Peter King of New York.
THE FACTS:
No one has established a link between the cleric and radicals. New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne said, "We've identified no law enforcement issues related to the proposed mosque."
Ros-Lehtinen and King were referring to the State Department's plan, predating the mosque debate, to send Rauf on another religious outreach trip to the Middle East as part of his "long-term relationship" with U.S. officials in the Bush and Obama administrations. The State Department said Wednesday it will pay him $3,000 for a trip costing the government $16,000.
Rauf counts former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright from the Clinton administration as a friend and appeared at events overseas or meetings in Washington with former President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Bush adviser Karen Hughes.
He has denounced the terrorist attacks and suicide bombing as anti-Islamic and has criticized Muslim nationalism. But he's made provocative statements about America, too, calling it an "accessory" to the 9/11 attacks and attributing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children to the U.S.-led sanctions in the years before the invasion.
In a July 2005 speech at the Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Center in Adelaide, Australia, Rauf said, according to the center's transcript:
"We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al-Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims."
While calling terrorism unjustified, he said the U.S. has supported authoritarian regimes with heinous human rights records and, faced with that, "how else do people get attention?"
In the same address, he spoke of prospects for peace between Palestinians and the Israelis — who he said "have moved beyond Zionism" — and of a love-your-neighbor ethic uniting all religions.
___
—"Mr. President, ground zero is the wrong place for a mosque." — Rick Scott, Republican candidate for Florida governor.
—"Nazis don't have the right to put up a sign next to the Holocaust Museum in Washington. We would never accept the Japanese putting up a site next to Pearl Harbor. There's no reason for us to accept a mosque next to the World Trade Center." — Gingrich.
—"Just a block or two away from 9/11." — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, another 2012 GOP presidential prospect.
THE FACTS:
No mosque is going up at ground zero. The center would be established at 45-51 Park Place, just over two blocks from the northern edge of the sprawling, 16-acre World Trade Center site. Its location is roughly half a dozen normal lower Manhattan blocks from the site of the North Tower, the nearer of the two destroyed in the attacks.
The center's location, in a former Burlington Coat Factory store, is already used by the cleric for worship, drawing a spillover from the imam's former main place for prayers, the al-Farah mosque. That mosque, at 245 West Broadway, is about a dozen blocks north of the World Trade Center grounds.
Another, the Manhattan Mosque, stands five blocks from the northeast corner of the World Trade Center site.
To be sure, the center's association with 9/11 is intentional and its location is no geographic coincidence. The building was damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and the center's planners say they want the center to stand as a statement against terrorism.
___
—"There should be no mosque near ground zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. ... America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization." — Gingrich.
—"This religion's plan is to destroy our way of life. ... If we have to let them build it, make them build it nine stories underground, so we can walk above it as citizens and Christians."
— Ron McNeil, a House GOP candidate in the Florida Panhandle, in an exchange reported by The News Herald in Panama City.
THE FACTS:
Such opinions are shared by some Americans, while others are more reluctant to paint the religion with a broad brush and more welcoming of the faith in this country. Bush, himself, while criticized at the time for stirring suspicions about American Muslims, traveled to a Washington mosque less than a week after the attacks to declare that terrorism is "not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace."
In any event, the U.S. armed forces field Muslim troops and make accommodations for them. The Pentagon opened an interfaith chapel in November 2002 close to the area where hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the building, killing 184 people.
Muslims gather there for a daily prayer service Monday through Thursday and hold a weekly worship service on Fridays, drawing no complaints. Similar but separate services are provided for other faiths.
Further, this article does a very good job at summarizing the issue, of course this is not necessarily filtered through the horse manure Associated Press.
Arabs distance themselves from Ground Zero Mosque
In addition, this is an excellent blog post on the matter:
Some thoughts about the "Ground Zero Mosque"
It goes to show how stupid mainstream media can be, that they insist to further push a stupid politically correct agenda, despite loss of revenue for their publications. Thank goodness for things like the internet so we have an alternative to their PC horse manure.
8/10/2010
2008 Campaign again! Blame Bush!
Apparently he's trying to skip over the President part?
UPDATE 1-Obama attacks Bush policies in Bush's home state
UPDATE 1-Obama attacks Bush policies in Bush's home state
8/06/2010
LOL Chevy Volt...the result of Government Motors
Here's lefty criticism on a turkey...
If you believe the woman in the video, then stop reading this. Some further detail on this turkey car is located here 2011 Chevy Volt: Our Savior or a Joke? and The Chevy Volt is a Joke
So if I were to but an electric car for around $40K that gets a lousy 40 miles on it’s charge, after the 40 mile charge is up the internal combustion engine kicks in which requires premium (AKA most expensive) fuel to operate at peak MPG efficiency?
In addition, to offset the high price there is a $7,500 tax credit included. That is still roughly $10-12K above the cost of existing hybrids.
It doesn’t make sense. But factor in this:
-How much of the increased cost goes to supporting the UAW contractual obligations? Since GM didn't file for bankruptcy and got bailed out, aren't they still bound to the same loser UAW contracts that's been sucking them dry for decades?
-Being from a failing company propped up by Obama’s UAW (I mean GM) bailout.
-GM’s CEO being appointed by Obama.
-GM seems like it's going to lose money instead of make money in selling Volts, all while being subsidized.
Now it kind of makes sense. This is the result of what we get if you put a community organizer in charge of managing a business. It's more government pushing their green tech agenda rather than building a successful competitor in the market. Overall, it is done very inefficiently and costly to the consumer.
This is just another example of a Obama getting voted into office based on hype. When results are expected, all we get is a bunch of bull sh*t, as expressed by the woman in the video. If you criticize inefficient government at work, you are un-American. Of course jobs were saved due to the UAW bailout, but it makes for an even more inefficient money pit because government is involved. Government does not produce, it consumes.
7/29/2010
Here is everything wrong with journalism
And you wonder why magazines like Time and Newsweek are reporting subscription losses. In addition, newspapers are not doing so well. People are tired of hearing the point of view of liberal reporters. This listserv does a good job about revealing how they think.
Liberal journalists suggest government censor Fox News
By Jonathan Strong - The Daily Caller 12:01 AM 07/21/2010
If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.
But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio (update: Spitz was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), that isn’t what you’d do at all.
In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.
In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”
Spitz’s hatred for Limbaugh seems intemperate, even imbalanced. On Journolist, where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it barely raised an eyebrow.
In the summer of 2009, agitated citizens from across the country flocked to town hall meetings to berate lawmakers who had declared support for President Obama’s health care bill. For most people, the protests seemed like an exercise in participatory democracy, rowdy as some of them became.
On Journolist, the question was whether the protestors were garden-variety fascists or actual Nazis.
“You know, at the risk of violating Godwin’s law, is anyone starting to see parallels here between the teabaggers and their tactics and the rise of the Brownshirts?” asked Bloomberg’s Ryan Donmoyer. “Esp. Now that it’s getting violent? Reminds me of the Beer Hall fracases of the 1920s.”
Richard Yeselson, a researcher for an organized labor group who also writes for liberal magazines, agreed. “They want a deficit driven militarist/heterosexist/herrenvolk state,” Yeselson wrote. “This is core of the Bush/Cheney base transmorgrified into an even more explicitly racialized/anti-cosmopolitan constituency. Why? Um, because the president is a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama. But it’s all the same old nuts in the same old bins with some new labels: the gun nuts, the anti tax nuts, the religious nuts, the homophobes, the anti-feminists, the anti-abortion lunatics, the racist/confederate crackpots, the anti-immigration whackos (who feel Bush betrayed them) the pathological government haters (which subsumes some of the othercategories, like the gun nuts and the anti-tax nuts).”
“I’m not saying these guys are capital F-fascists,” added blogger Lindsay Beyerstein, “but they don’t want limited government. Their desired end looks more like a corporate state than a rugged individualist paradise. The rank and file wants a state that will reach into the intimate of citizens when it comes to sex, reproductive freedom, censorship, and rampant incarceration in the name of law and order.”
On Journolist, there was rarely such thing as an honorable political disagreement between the left and right, though there were many disagreements on the left. In the view of many who’ve posted to the list-serv, conservatives aren’t simply wrong, they are evil. And while journalists are trained never to presume motive, Journolist members tend to assume that the other side is acting out of the darkest and most dishonorable motives.
When the writer Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article about immigration for National Review, for example, blogger Ed Kilgore didn’t even bother to grapple with Hanson’s arguments. Instead Kilgore dismissed Hanson’s piece out of hand as “the kind of Old White Guy cultural reaction that is at the heart of the Tea Party Movement. It’s very close in spirit to the classic 1970s racist tome, The Camp of the Saints, where White Guys struggle to make up their minds whether to go out and murder brown people or just give up.”
The very existence of Fox News, meanwhile, sends Journolisters into paroxysms of rage. When Howell Raines charged that the network had a conservative bias, the members of Journolist discussed whether the federal government should shut the channel down.
“I am genuinely scared” of Fox, wrote Guardian columnist Daniel Davies, because it “shows you that a genuinely shameless and unethical media organization *cannot* be controlled by any form of peer pressure or self-regulation, and nor can it be successfully cold-shouldered or ostracized. In order to have even a semblance of control, you need a tough legal framework.” Davies, a Brit, frequently argued the United States needed stricter libel laws.
“I agree,” said Michael Scherer of Time Magazine. Roger “Ailes understands that his job is to build a tribal identity, not a news organization. You can’t hurt Fox by saying it gets it wrong, if Ailes just uses the criticism to deepen the tribal identity.”
Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”
And so a debate ensued. Time’s Scherer, who had seemed to express support for increased regulation of Fox, suddenly appeared to have qualms: “Do you really want the political parties/white house picking which media operations are news operations and which are a less respectable hybrid of news and political advocacy?”
But Zasloff stuck to his position. “I think that they are doing that anyway; they leak to whom they want to for political purposes,” he wrote. “If this means that some White House reporters don’t get a press pass for the press secretary’s daily briefing and that this means that they actually have to, you know, do some reporting and analysis instead of repeating press releases, then I’ll take that risk.”
Scherer seemed alarmed. “So we would have press briefings in which only media organizations that are deemed by the briefer to be acceptable are invited to attend?”
John Judis, a senior editor at the New Republic, came down on Zasloff’s side, the side of censorship. “Pre-Fox,” he wrote, “I’d say Scherer’s questions made sense as a question of principle. Now it is only tactical.”
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/liberal-journalists-suggest-government-shut-down-fox-news/print/#ixzz0v63xInGq
Liberal journalists suggest government censor Fox News
By Jonathan Strong - The Daily Caller 12:01 AM 07/21/2010
If you were in the presence of a man having a heart attack, how would you respond? As he clutched his chest in desperation and pain, would you call 911? Would you try to save him from dying? Of course you would.
But if that man was Rush Limbaugh, and you were Sarah Spitz, a producer for National Public Radio (update: Spitz was a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW for the show Left, Right & Center), that isn’t what you’d do at all.
In a post to the list-serv Journolist, an online meeting place for liberal journalists, Spitz wrote that she would “Laugh loudly like a maniac and watch his eyes bug out” as Limbaugh writhed in torment.
In boasting that she would gleefully watch a man die in front of her eyes, Spitz seemed to shock even herself. “I never knew I had this much hate in me,” she wrote. “But he deserves it.”
Spitz’s hatred for Limbaugh seems intemperate, even imbalanced. On Journolist, where conservatives are regarded not as opponents but as enemies, it barely raised an eyebrow.
In the summer of 2009, agitated citizens from across the country flocked to town hall meetings to berate lawmakers who had declared support for President Obama’s health care bill. For most people, the protests seemed like an exercise in participatory democracy, rowdy as some of them became.
On Journolist, the question was whether the protestors were garden-variety fascists or actual Nazis.
“You know, at the risk of violating Godwin’s law, is anyone starting to see parallels here between the teabaggers and their tactics and the rise of the Brownshirts?” asked Bloomberg’s Ryan Donmoyer. “Esp. Now that it’s getting violent? Reminds me of the Beer Hall fracases of the 1920s.”
Richard Yeselson, a researcher for an organized labor group who also writes for liberal magazines, agreed. “They want a deficit driven militarist/heterosexist/herrenvolk state,” Yeselson wrote. “This is core of the Bush/Cheney base transmorgrified into an even more explicitly racialized/anti-cosmopolitan constituency. Why? Um, because the president is a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama. But it’s all the same old nuts in the same old bins with some new labels: the gun nuts, the anti tax nuts, the religious nuts, the homophobes, the anti-feminists, the anti-abortion lunatics, the racist/confederate crackpots, the anti-immigration whackos (who feel Bush betrayed them) the pathological government haters (which subsumes some of the othercategories, like the gun nuts and the anti-tax nuts).”
“I’m not saying these guys are capital F-fascists,” added blogger Lindsay Beyerstein, “but they don’t want limited government. Their desired end looks more like a corporate state than a rugged individualist paradise. The rank and file wants a state that will reach into the intimate of citizens when it comes to sex, reproductive freedom, censorship, and rampant incarceration in the name of law and order.”
On Journolist, there was rarely such thing as an honorable political disagreement between the left and right, though there were many disagreements on the left. In the view of many who’ve posted to the list-serv, conservatives aren’t simply wrong, they are evil. And while journalists are trained never to presume motive, Journolist members tend to assume that the other side is acting out of the darkest and most dishonorable motives.
When the writer Victor Davis Hanson wrote an article about immigration for National Review, for example, blogger Ed Kilgore didn’t even bother to grapple with Hanson’s arguments. Instead Kilgore dismissed Hanson’s piece out of hand as “the kind of Old White Guy cultural reaction that is at the heart of the Tea Party Movement. It’s very close in spirit to the classic 1970s racist tome, The Camp of the Saints, where White Guys struggle to make up their minds whether to go out and murder brown people or just give up.”
The very existence of Fox News, meanwhile, sends Journolisters into paroxysms of rage. When Howell Raines charged that the network had a conservative bias, the members of Journolist discussed whether the federal government should shut the channel down.
“I am genuinely scared” of Fox, wrote Guardian columnist Daniel Davies, because it “shows you that a genuinely shameless and unethical media organization *cannot* be controlled by any form of peer pressure or self-regulation, and nor can it be successfully cold-shouldered or ostracized. In order to have even a semblance of control, you need a tough legal framework.” Davies, a Brit, frequently argued the United States needed stricter libel laws.
“I agree,” said Michael Scherer of Time Magazine. Roger “Ailes understands that his job is to build a tribal identity, not a news organization. You can’t hurt Fox by saying it gets it wrong, if Ailes just uses the criticism to deepen the tribal identity.”
Jonathan Zasloff, a law professor at UCLA, suggested that the federal government simply yank Fox off the air. “I hate to open this can of worms,” he wrote, “but is there any reason why the FCC couldn’t simply pull their broadcasting permit once it expires?”
And so a debate ensued. Time’s Scherer, who had seemed to express support for increased regulation of Fox, suddenly appeared to have qualms: “Do you really want the political parties/white house picking which media operations are news operations and which are a less respectable hybrid of news and political advocacy?”
But Zasloff stuck to his position. “I think that they are doing that anyway; they leak to whom they want to for political purposes,” he wrote. “If this means that some White House reporters don’t get a press pass for the press secretary’s daily briefing and that this means that they actually have to, you know, do some reporting and analysis instead of repeating press releases, then I’ll take that risk.”
Scherer seemed alarmed. “So we would have press briefings in which only media organizations that are deemed by the briefer to be acceptable are invited to attend?”
John Judis, a senior editor at the New Republic, came down on Zasloff’s side, the side of censorship. “Pre-Fox,” he wrote, “I’d say Scherer’s questions made sense as a question of principle. Now it is only tactical.”
http://dailycaller.com/2010/07/21/liberal-journalists-suggest-government-shut-down-fox-news/print/#ixzz0v63xInGq
7/28/2010
Exellence in government....NJ Gov. Chris Christie
We need more people like this. His honesty is sorely needed!
Hollywood comes out to boycott Arizona
Rage Against the Machine, Michael Moore Lead Arizona Boycott
Oh no! Hollywood idiot liberals are boycotting Arizona because of the illegal immigration law! Here is the result of how the boycott is going...
Arizona Hotels Thriving Despite Boycotts Over Immigration Law
Just goes to show you how effective Hollywood idiot liberals are! In regards to Michael Moore, it's safe to assume the state's donut supply is available to all still.
Oh no! Hollywood idiot liberals are boycotting Arizona because of the illegal immigration law! Here is the result of how the boycott is going...
Arizona Hotels Thriving Despite Boycotts Over Immigration Law
Just goes to show you how effective Hollywood idiot liberals are! In regards to Michael Moore, it's safe to assume the state's donut supply is available to all still.
Arizona immigration law...home grown protests
"hundreds of Los Angeles union members and activists are planning a bus caravan to Phoenix on Thursday" Let's see, union idiots are sent from another state to protest a law that was voted on, and supported by a majority of people in another state. That is so...useful! I am saddened that these people rushing to Arizona to protest cannot see their futility and stupidity.
L.A. union members, activists to caravan to Arizona to protest immigration law
More than 550 people representing 32 unions plan to travel in 11 buses for a rally at the state Capitol and a vigil with local groups on the day the law is set to take effect.
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times
July 28, 2010
As a judge weighs whether to halt Arizona's controversial immigration law, hundreds of Los Angeles union members and activists are planning a bus caravan to Phoenix on Thursday — the day the law is set to take effect.
More than 550 people plan to ride on 11 buses to Arizona to stage a protest and launch a partnership with Arizona groups to boost voter registration. During the one-day trip, sponsored by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, participants will meet with Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, march to the state Capitol and hold a vigil. The participants represent 32 unions.
SB 1070, signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer in April and supported by a majority of Arizona residents, makes it a state crime to lack immigration documents and requires police to determine the immigration status of people they lawfully stop and subsequently suspect are in the country illegally.
"As Californians and Angelenos, we want to see how we can help not only defeat this specific law but also to help the Latino community be more active in the political process," said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the labor federation. "Hopefully it will motivate some to go out and register to vote."
That is what happened in 1994 after California voters passed Proposition 187, which sought to restrict services from illegal immigrants before being struck down by the courts. More than one million California Latinos became citizens and voter registration spiked. Already, several groups in Arizona are registering voters and trying to increase Latino voter participation in an effort to shift the political landscape and stop any more anti-illegal immigrant laws from passing.
The caravan is just one of many activities planned Thursday. Immigration activists have declared it a "national day of action," with events planned in several cities to protest implementation of the Arizona law. They include a march across the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, a vigil outside a detention center in Georgia and a unity event in Chicago featuring faith, community and political leaders, along with 200 children. Chicago leaders also plan to deliver 2,000 letters to Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts asking him to move the baseball team's spring training from Arizona to Florida.
The Obama administration filed a challenge to the law and argued in court last week that the federal government has the ultimate authority to implement immigration law and policy. The same day, immigrant rights groups argued that the law would lead to racial profiling and harassment of Latinos. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton did not say whether she would stop the law or when she would issue a ruling.
Meanwhile, Arizona is gearing up for Thursday, with officers receiving training and Phoenix officials planning for demonstrations. There also will be protests throughout California, including in Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Redlands.
Some who signed up for Thursday's bus caravan said they felt compelled to go to Arizona to show their opposition to the law and their support for immigrants.
"I look at things in a historical context," said Carlos Leon, 47, a detention officer with the Los Angeles County Probation Department who decided that he needed to speak up for the oppressed.
Leon said he believes the law is unjust and will result in people being questioned about their status based on their looks.
Even though his family has been in the United States for generations, Leon said he is still subjected to stereotypes. If the law goes into effect, he said he believes it will lead to more stereotyping and more fear among Latinos.
Rob Robbins, 71, a home care worker in Long Beach, said he grew up black in segregated Alabama in the 1940s and '50s and sees parallels between the racism of that time and now.
"Anytime I see signs of that coming alive in our country, it rises my indignation," he said. "SB 1070 basically says you are guilty because of how you look. That, to me, is not American."
Robbins said having so many illegal immigrants in the United States is a problem, but Arizona's law isn't the solution.
"We have borders in this country for a purpose," he said. "That is where the problem is, and that is where the problem should be dealt with."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0728-arizona-activists-20100728,0,5491368,print.story
L.A. union members, activists to caravan to Arizona to protest immigration law
More than 550 people representing 32 unions plan to travel in 11 buses for a rally at the state Capitol and a vigil with local groups on the day the law is set to take effect.
By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times
July 28, 2010
As a judge weighs whether to halt Arizona's controversial immigration law, hundreds of Los Angeles union members and activists are planning a bus caravan to Phoenix on Thursday — the day the law is set to take effect.
More than 550 people plan to ride on 11 buses to Arizona to stage a protest and launch a partnership with Arizona groups to boost voter registration. During the one-day trip, sponsored by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, participants will meet with Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, march to the state Capitol and hold a vigil. The participants represent 32 unions.
SB 1070, signed into law by Gov. Jan Brewer in April and supported by a majority of Arizona residents, makes it a state crime to lack immigration documents and requires police to determine the immigration status of people they lawfully stop and subsequently suspect are in the country illegally.
"As Californians and Angelenos, we want to see how we can help not only defeat this specific law but also to help the Latino community be more active in the political process," said Maria Elena Durazo, executive secretary-treasurer of the labor federation. "Hopefully it will motivate some to go out and register to vote."
That is what happened in 1994 after California voters passed Proposition 187, which sought to restrict services from illegal immigrants before being struck down by the courts. More than one million California Latinos became citizens and voter registration spiked. Already, several groups in Arizona are registering voters and trying to increase Latino voter participation in an effort to shift the political landscape and stop any more anti-illegal immigrant laws from passing.
The caravan is just one of many activities planned Thursday. Immigration activists have declared it a "national day of action," with events planned in several cities to protest implementation of the Arizona law. They include a march across the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, a vigil outside a detention center in Georgia and a unity event in Chicago featuring faith, community and political leaders, along with 200 children. Chicago leaders also plan to deliver 2,000 letters to Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts asking him to move the baseball team's spring training from Arizona to Florida.
The Obama administration filed a challenge to the law and argued in court last week that the federal government has the ultimate authority to implement immigration law and policy. The same day, immigrant rights groups argued that the law would lead to racial profiling and harassment of Latinos. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton did not say whether she would stop the law or when she would issue a ruling.
Meanwhile, Arizona is gearing up for Thursday, with officers receiving training and Phoenix officials planning for demonstrations. There also will be protests throughout California, including in Los Angeles, Bakersfield and Redlands.
Some who signed up for Thursday's bus caravan said they felt compelled to go to Arizona to show their opposition to the law and their support for immigrants.
"I look at things in a historical context," said Carlos Leon, 47, a detention officer with the Los Angeles County Probation Department who decided that he needed to speak up for the oppressed.
Leon said he believes the law is unjust and will result in people being questioned about their status based on their looks.
Even though his family has been in the United States for generations, Leon said he is still subjected to stereotypes. If the law goes into effect, he said he believes it will lead to more stereotyping and more fear among Latinos.
Rob Robbins, 71, a home care worker in Long Beach, said he grew up black in segregated Alabama in the 1940s and '50s and sees parallels between the racism of that time and now.
"Anytime I see signs of that coming alive in our country, it rises my indignation," he said. "SB 1070 basically says you are guilty because of how you look. That, to me, is not American."
Robbins said having so many illegal immigrants in the United States is a problem, but Arizona's law isn't the solution.
"We have borders in this country for a purpose," he said. "That is where the problem is, and that is where the problem should be dealt with."
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-0728-arizona-activists-20100728,0,5491368,print.story
7/25/2010
Reid to Netroots: "We're Going To Have a Public Option"
Completely delusional...
LAS VEGAS -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeking to console liberal activists who were disappointed by the final version of the national health care law, assured them that there would eventually be a public option.
"We're going to have a public option," Reid said. "It's just a question of when."
Reid's general comments reflected the same overall message to progressives that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered earlier today. It essentially boils down to: We've done a lot of stuff, but we still have a lot of unfinished business, so campaign for us again.
During a question and answer session, Reid also argued against "fear tactics of those who say Social Security is going broke. It's not."
This is part of a strategy I described earlier this week, with Democrats renewing the spectre of Social Security cuts to use as an issue to use against Republicans.
"Social Security is the most successful social program in the history of the world," he said.
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/07/24/reid-to-netroots-were-going-to
LAS VEGAS -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeking to console liberal activists who were disappointed by the final version of the national health care law, assured them that there would eventually be a public option.
"We're going to have a public option," Reid said. "It's just a question of when."
Reid's general comments reflected the same overall message to progressives that President Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered earlier today. It essentially boils down to: We've done a lot of stuff, but we still have a lot of unfinished business, so campaign for us again.
During a question and answer session, Reid also argued against "fear tactics of those who say Social Security is going broke. It's not."
This is part of a strategy I described earlier this week, with Democrats renewing the spectre of Social Security cuts to use as an issue to use against Republicans.
"Social Security is the most successful social program in the history of the world," he said.
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/07/24/reid-to-netroots-were-going-to
7/20/2010
7/18/2010
Govt. nationalization of 401K
Disturbing stuff, seeing how government handling of Social Security is a joke. 401K and Roth IRAs (to name a few) are the direct result of a hedge against the broken Social Security system...and now big government socialists was to nationalize that. This is something to keep in mind as a basis for Obama's big government financial industry schemes.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 1
Part 2
7/16/2010
Town Hall meeting in CA...Dem reply to the DOJ Black Panther issue
CA Democrat Brad Sherman is "simply not aware of that case." Further, in this interview the discussion is fairly interesting. Kirsten Powers, and NY Post columnist who stuck up for the DOJ, had a pretty weak stance. Apparently Megyn Kelly is not to be messed with!
7/12/2010
Oh no! Those racist tea party elements!
If anyone with a brain does their research, a few with those stupid signs Michelle Obama is yapping about are Lyndon LaRouche supporters. Lyndon LaRouche is similar to a cult leader with a rabid (and stupid) following.
Michelle Obama Rouses NAACP Before Vote Condemning 'Racist' Elements of Tea Party
While the progressive Marx loving dopes in the white house associate the Tea Party movement as racists, the DOJ, Administration, and Obama loving press corps are surprisingly silent silent on this...
It all started with this...
I am sure his mother is so proud! I wonder if you can hire Samir Shabaz to rant at parties and what not, he'd be much more entertaining than a clown or a pony!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)