Do not have anything in your mouth when you click play. (Marginally SFW)
Black people brunch Hard, son: (5:15)
Category: Bigotry
Is Fox News a Terrorist Command Center?
National treasure Jon Stewart wants to know:
A Few More People on the Right Side of 51 Park
And they are Democrats.
Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is slamming conservative opposition to the Muslim community center project near Ground Zero in New York City — the city where he formerly resided for many years — calling the attacks against it “one of the most disgraceful things that I’ve heard.”
And Congressman Charlie Rangel:
Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) came out in support of the proposed Cordoba House Islamic community center two blocks from Ground Zero yesterday, saying that he’s “kind of proud that they’re sticking to their guns and saying this is where they would want to worship.”
Also, lesser plaudits to Nancy Pelosi, who suggested that the anti-Islamic Center movement might be AstroTurf, though she walked it back a bit later in the day.
I Wish that I Lived In Pennsylvania Right Now
I want to vote for Joe Sestak, candidate for Senate,who just did his commonwealth proud:
Sestak chimed in, “As you know, I haven’t taken very good direction yet from party leadership. All that said, I strongly believe in the constitutional right of religious freedom and in the separation of church and state applying equally to everyone. Those are rights that I defended for 31 years in that fine U.S. Navy. This is an issue for New York to resolve as long as it respects those constitutional rights. … Let’s also step back and say, ‘Let’s stop playing politics with religion.’ “
When someone asked about the sensitivities of the Sept. 11 families, Sestak said, “Do I respect those sensitivities? Oh yeah. When I walked out of that Pentagon, 30 people who I knew never walked out of that building. My 9/11 is that Pentagon. Am I sensitive to their desires? Sure I am. But I also upheld the Constitution for 31 years. I lived with men and women of all religons and you know what? They’re all equal, and I believe that is what’s most omportant in this.”
Maybe I’ll write him in in 2012.
I’m not feeling to hopey changey about Dr. Dean today.
Well F%$# Me.
Pat Buchanan taking the moral high ground
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?
Ted Olson says that Obama is Right
Howard Dean calls for the Islamic center to move
First, Pat Buchanan seizes the moral high ground, 7 words I never expected to say, when he takes Newt Gingrich to task for inappropriate Nazi references:
How do you get more attention than Sarah Palin, who’s very good at this, is to go two steps further. I mean, I think bringing the Nazis into the argument is always absurd in American politics because there is no valid comparison there. And secondly, you know, you bring that in and that’s all we start talking about.
Meanwhile, Ted Olson, Republican hatchet man, and survivor of a 911 victim, his 1st wife was on one of the planes, has said that Barack Obama was right to say that this is a matter of fundamental rights and values.
And while we are on the the matter of people taking counter-intuitive positions on this, we have Howard Dean calling for the Islamic center to move.
I’m not sure what brought on this uncharacteristic outburst of cowardice, but Dr. Dean is the individual here to whom the “wanker” tag implies.
We live in a world that resembles what The Onion would write, if they were on Bizarro World, and they dropped acid.
Deep Thought
H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS.
The Daily Show is the Best Journalism on TV Today*
Seriously, the fact that Jon Stewart has so much material to work with makes me despair for the future of the Republic.
This sh%$ is not rocket science, and the idea that the press is not to call bullsh%$ over transparent bullsh%$ is not a mark of professionalism, it is a mark of cowardice, hypocrisy, and laziness.
In any case, on to the vid.
*Yes, my Geek Goddess, Rachel Maddow, is a close second.
What Keith Said
Keith Olbermann’s special comment on the bigotry and cowardice behind the campaign technique masquerading as outrage on the Islamic center in Lower Manhattan:
He had his groove back today.
Big Surprise, Harry Reid Chooses Cowardice Over American Values
He’s called for the Lower Manhattan Islamic center to move:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has now spoken out on the Muslim community center in New York — saying that while the organizers are free to construct the project, it should be moved somewhere else.
“The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else,” said a statement from Reid spokesman Jim Manley. “If the Republicans are being sincere, they would help us pass this long overdue bill to help the first responders whose health and livelihoods have been devastated because of their bravery on 911, rather than continuing to block this much-needed legislation.”
If he weren’t running against Sharron Angle, I’d be rooting for the Republican.
Of course, he is running against Sharron Angle, so I am merely ambivalent.
Of course, it’s so transparently craven that it probably hurt him more, but cowardice when it is both self-destructive and stupid appears to be a basic Democratic Party value.
Contemptible Craven Cowardice
Rachel Maddow lets him have it over his cowardice on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
I may be too hard on Barack Obama about this. It might not be cowardice. Maybe he just hates gays, and that’s why he won’t even issue a stop loss order to end the witch hunts.
Obama, Rahm, and the Democratic establishment had better be praying that the Republicans get even crazier over the next 2½ months, because the f%$#ing couch is feeling pretty f^%$ing good under a lot of people’s asses right now.
I Love General J. C. Christian*
He has come up with Burn the Confederate Flag Day, to be held on September 12:
Burn The Confederate Flag Day
Burn the Confederate Flag Day is a protest against the right’s exploitation of racial prejudice for political gain. We urge you to burn the Confederate flag, a long-time symbol of racial hatred, on Sept 12, the date when the racially-divisive Tea Party holds its annual hate fest.
Brilliant.
*In a 110% purely heterosexual kind of way, of course, as the General would say.
Normally I Don’t Comment on Local Rulings of Local Landmarks Preservation Commission
Only this time, it was the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission ruling that the location for the Islamic center and mosque in lower Manhattan is not historically significant, allowing for construction to proceed.
This puts them on a higher moral plane than Abraham Foxman’s ADL, but considering his recent history, the geriatric leader of the ADL does not set a particularly high bar.
But This Isn’t The Onion
The Republicans are now looking at repealing the 14th amendment, in effect repealing the Dredd Scott decision, which in addition to making slavery eternal, also declared that freed slaves were not US citizens.
<Facepalm>
Damn, Another Store to Boycott
They claim that they made the donations because that Emmer is “Business Friendly.”
It ain’t friendly to my business, which I will take elsewhere until they make an abject groveling apology.
What a Repulsive Capitulation to the Forces of Bigotry and Evil
The Anti-Defamation League has, over the past few years, attempted to forge ties with the Christian Right, because they are perceived as “Pro-Israel.”
It should be noted that the fundamentalist Christian definition of supporting Israel means that they want Jews to be around to die horribly and painfully during the Armageddon that follows the rapture, which is a different definition of being “Pro-Israel” than I was previously aware of.
Well the latest big of demagoguery coming from our Christo-Fascist friends is their Jihad against an Islamic center being built in lower Manhattan, largely because they think that this is an act of bigotry that can play well for them politically.
In response, to these contemptible proclamations from Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and the rest of the merry band of bigots, the ADL has come out against the complex with a bizarre statement saying that the people screaming are bigots, but that the screaming has upset 911 victims, and that any construction should therefore be stopped.
The ADL has affirmatively allied itself with the philosophical descendants of the bigoted thugs who lynched Leo Frank, which, ironically enough, was the event that led to the creation of the ADL in the first place.
US Congress Passes Bill to Reduce Crack Cocaine Disparity
This is good news. The 100:1 sentencing disparity was fueled by 12 part hysteria, and about 8 parts by a desire by Ronald Reagan and His Evil Minions™ to use incarceration as a way to suppress the black vote.
Stewart On L’Affaire Sherrod
I get this stuff delayed, no TV here, just my lapotop, but Jon Stewart has the team in the history of Television.*
*With the exception, of course, of when the late Patrick McGoohan was writing and directing The Prisoner by himself.†
†Yes, I know. He assembled a talented team around him. I’m just making a funny.
People Who Should Have Been Drowned at Birth
Jeffrey Lord, writing, rather unsurprisingly, for The American Spectator, who claims that the lynching of her relative, Bobby Hall, because they beat him to death instead of hanging him.
So, according to the “white cracker inbred former Reagan White House political director” morons out there, it’s only a lynching if it involves rope.
At least ⅓ of lynchings did not involve hangings. They involved burning, shooting, and (Yes, Virginia) beating, among other methods.
Needless to say, as a result of his contemptible and brain dead rants, he is sure to be invited onto the Sunday political talk shows.
And Now the Truth Comes Out
And the Obama administration is now falling all over itself to apologize to Shirley Sherrod.
Not panicking in the first place, and getting the facts right would have been better, but I think that what happened is that they realize that they are now looking like a bunch of bed-wetting cowards.
The problem is not that they are looking like a bunch of bed-wetting cowards, it is that they are a bunch of bed-wetting cowards.
Not only is it bad policy, but it is bad politics, because, as Josh Marshall notes in his “Bitch slap theory of electoral politics, because it makes the voters think that, “Someone who can’t or won’t defend themselves certainly isn’t someone you can depend upon to defend you.”
I’m waiting for the the response from Stewart, Letterman, and Leno.
OK, This is Jim Crow Bigotry in Israel
No other way to explain this.
An Arab man in Israel, Sabbar Kashur, hooked with a unnamed Jewish woman in Israel, and told her that he was Jewish in a successful attempt get into her pants.
When she discovered that he had lied to her about his religion, she filed rape charges, and today, he was convicted of rape by deception and sentenced to 30 months in prison.
Men lie to get into women’s pants:
- I’ll respect you in the morning.
- I’ve never been married.
- I’m a stockbroker.
- This car is a loaner, my Porsche is in the shop.
- It’s just heat rash.
Certainly, I do not think that what Kashur did is right, but it is clearly not criminal either.
I cannot see any reason behind the fact that the Israeli prosecutors and the Israeli judiciary pursued this as a criminal matter beyond bigotry.