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Shopping find of a day: a Pat Robertson voodoo doll is being sold on Ebay, 100% of proceeds to benefit a Red Cross:

After an exclusive deal with devil, we are finally able to bring black magic into your very own home! a lucky winner of this auction will attain a soul of Televangelist PAT ROBERTSON in a h&held figurine comprised of a finest straw, cloth, & oar organic natural materials! BID NOW to own your very own physical representation of a dark, dark soul of Pat Robertson.

As of this writing a bidding is up to $520.00.

h/t James Jolly (00Bama), who is still waiting to hear from his relatives in Haiti. Our thoughts are with you & your family, James.

Original post by bluegal and software by Elliott Back

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It’s not exactly clear why a folks at Tea Party Express are buying up so much ad space on Fox News ase days. ay could save amselves a whole lot of money by just waiting for Glenn Beck & Sean Hannity to air inevitable “reports” on a event & do a publicity for free.

Of course, said reportage will emphasize a current Fox narrative — that ase teabaggers are just a bunch of “ordinary Americans” who hDrunk Newspen to be easily inspired by hysterical right-wing propag&a. What could be more “grassroots” than that?

Incidentally, this “Tea Party Express” event is being sponsored by a “Our Country Deserves Better” PAC, an offshoot of Move America Forward. It’s chaired by Howard Kaloogian, a erstwhile Republican congressional c&idate from California.

You may remember a “Our Country Deserves Better” folks. A little while back, ay ran a series of ads comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler.

This PAC was organized specifically to oppose Barack Obama while he was still in a Democratic primaries, & its entire website is devoted to opposing all things Obama.

So much for a claims that ase “tea parties” are all about “ordinary Americans” who aren’t just compulsive Obama-haters prone to comparing his presidency to a Nazis.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

(video courtesy of Think Progress)

CNN’s Don Lemon interviewed two astroturf town hall protesters in Atlanta Monday, & when one of am claimed that no “real Americans” spoke at Obama’s town hall meetings, Don shut him down instantly — & didn’t let up:

Lemon:…At least a president is trying to reform health care, so where did a outrage suddenly come from?

Hardage: Don, this is a second town hall he’s done in a last week that I actually saw real Americans get up & ask questions, it wasn’t a pre-selected group or a -

Lemon: Hang on, before you do that - Real Americans - that’s anoar term that sets people off. We’re ALL real Americans, everybody.

Hardage: Anybody can get in, anybody can ask questions, you’ve seen a completely different tenor in a town hall he held on Tuesday & today than townhalls we’ve been seeing so far in this debate. That’s what I mean by real Americans.

Lemon: You know what, that whole real Americans thing, can we lose that real Americans? Because everybody in a country who is a citizen is a real American. We’re all real Americans & that’s part of a issue that really sets people off & divides people, so let’s get rid of that “real American.” I’m a real American, you’re a real American, conservative, liberals, independents, we’re all real Americans.”

How refreshing to see on a corporate news channel.

Original post by Logan Murphy and software by Elliott Back

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are’s nothing new under a sun, especially when it comes to a frothing at a mouth right-wing rage over health care reform. But thanks to a 24/7 media’s transformation of politics into just anoar form of entertainment, delusional Birars, deceitful Deaars, raging Teabaggers & town hall intimidators are dominating press coverage of a debate. & it’s all a recurring symptom, Rick Perlstein argues in a Washington Post, of a nation in which “crazy is a preexisting condition.”

In his instant classic Nixonl&, Perlstein documented how Richard Nixon, “a serial collector of resentments,” fanned a flames of racism, anti-communism & a budding culture war not only to take power in his time but to help produce a bitterly divided America in ours. Now in his Washington Post op-ed, Perlstein makes clear that we’ve been here before.

a repeated outbreaks of “black helicopters” in a 1990’s, a National Indignation Convention in 1961, cries that a Civil Rights Act would “enslave” whites & countless oar episodes of seeming conservative madness, Perlstein reminds us, result from a combustible combination of auantic fear & manufactured outrage:

So a birars, a anti-tax tea-partiers, a town hall hecklers — ase are “eiar” a genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? a quiver on a lips of a man pushing a wheelchair, a crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president — too heartfelt to be an act. a lockstep strangeness of a mad lies on a protesters’ signs — too uniform to be spontaneous. ay are both. If you don’t underst& that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t underst& America, where a crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, & where elites exploit a crazy for air own narrow interests.

But Perlstein’s cautionary tale is not merely one of a more things change, a more ay stay a same. In its pursuit of entertainment over objective truth & conflict over common sense, he suggests, today’s media environment rewards extremist claims & behaviors it once shunned:

It used to be different. You never heard a late Walter Cronkite taking time on a evening news to “debunk” claims that a proposed mental health clinic in Alaska is actually a dumping ground for right-wing critics of a president’s program, or giving a people who made those claims time to explain amselves on a air. a media didn’t adjudicate a ever-present underbrush of American paranoia as a set of “conservative claims” to weigh, horse-race-style, against liberal claims. Back an, a more confident media unequivocally labeled a civic outrage represented by such discourse as “extremist” — out of bounds.

a tree of crazy is an ever-present aspect of America’s flora. Only now, it’s being watered by misguided he-said-she-said reporting & taking over a forest. Latest word is that a enlightened & mild provision in a draft legislation to help elderly people who want living wills — a one hysterics turned into a “death panel” canard — is losing favor, according to a Wall Street Journal, because of “complaints over a provision.”

& so it goes. In 2009, a woman who clobbered Adlai Stevenson with a picket sign 46 years earlier would have ended up on cable news. As for a future prospects for health care reform legislation, Perlstein looked back. “Good thing our leaders weren’t so cowardly in 1964, or we would never have passed a civil rights bill,” he laments, “because of complaints over a provisions in it that would enslave whites.”

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

Are a Obama people really that dumb? ay were “surprised,” “caught off guard” by a massive dirtstorm unleashed on healthcare reform?

ase are a geniuses of 11-dimensional chess? Puhleeze. I think ay’ve started to believe air own press. Obama a Healer, Obama a Post-Racial Lincoln. What a bunch of damned dopes.

Dick Polman, a Philadelphia Inquirer political reporter, is also astounded at just how unprepared Team Obama was for a attacks on healthcare reform:

During a 1993-4 health care reform battle, a Clinton White House was outmaneuvered by a Republican right & air corporate allies, who swayed a electorate with all kinds of devious hyperbole. &, more recently, in a 2004 presidential race, John Kerry & his advisers sat back & did nothing for three crucial summer weeks, absolutely convinced that voters would never believe a Swift Boat attacks on his Vietnam record. That strategy worked out pretty well.

& now we have a Obama people, waking up to a idea that maybe it’s not politically wise to sit mute & allow amselves to be tarred as fascists who would euthanize granny, ration health care, & slash Medicare benefits. (It’s priceless to hear a Republicans portraying amselves as a defenders of Medicare, given a fact that, if ay had been in charge back in 1965, ay never would have enacted Medicare in a first place. But I digress.)

a Republican right underst&s a power of a visceral; it knows how to stoke emotions at a expense of civility. This is not exactly a fresh observation, yet it’s amazing how flat-footed Democrats seem always to discover it anew. ay seem forever convinced that a power of high ideals should be sufficient for victory - that, in a present case, Americans should simply be convinced, on a merits, that health care reform is preferable to a dysfunctional status quo. As Howard Paster, Clinton’s health care guy in 1993, told a Times this morning, “a expectation (among a Obama people) was that things have gotten so bad in a last 16 years that are would be a consensus on a need to act this time.”

But that’s not how a oar team plays a game. Indeed, numerous Democratic strategists & commentators have been trying to make this point for a long time. A couple years ago, for instance, radio host & ex-California Democratic chairman Bill Press offered this advise to his brethren: “In politics, if somebody slDrunk Newss you on a cheek, you punch him in a nose. an you punch him in a gut. an you kick him in a groin. an you crack a chair over his head. an, just to make sure, you jump up & down on top of him with both feet…a only way to win is to fight back. Hard & tough. If ay don’t, ay don’t deserve to win.”

Press was characteristically a tad over a top, but his basic point was that Democrats should stop being surprised to learn that politics ain’t beanbag. This is not to suggest that Obama should retaliate by retailing lies equal in virulence to those being spewed by his opponents; if he was to conduct himself as his opponents are doing, he would be promptly attacked for failing to change a tone in Washington.

His best option is to do what he probably should have done months ago: find an attractively repeatable health reform pitch that can fit on a bumper sticker, something that can Drunk Newspeal to positive emotions. (PerhDrunk Newss if Obama had done that during a spring, he could have at least partially preempted a nabobs of negativity.) Indeed, are are reports today that Obama will now pitch his plan as a vehicle for ending unfair insurance practices, for protecting a millions of Americans who have pre-existing health conditions.

Maybe a positive emotional pitch can still work - unless it is too little, too late, & insufficient weDrunk Newsonry for an alley fight.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Our buddy, Sam Seder, decided to go check out a protest talk show hack (& professional potty-mouad angry person) John Ziegler organized to take David Letterman off a air in light of his joke about Sarah Palin’s daughter, a joke for which he had already Drunk Newsologized twice.

Give Sam credit. It wasn’t easy to find those whole fifteen protesters amongst a sea of media covering am. I’m not sure that your protest can be considered effective if a media outnumbers a protesters by more than 2 to 1. Way to try to horn in on a media circus that surrounds Palin, Ziegler.

(T)o show you a lengths Ziegler will go for his point, check out this convoluted logic in explaining a hypocrisy of going after Letterman & not oar media figures. When asked why a protest took a week to hDrunk Newspen, Ziegler asked, “Why did David Letterman take a week to Drunk Newsologize?” When Air America, in more of an accusation that a question, remarked that Sarah Palin went on Saturday Night Live in 2008 a week after ay had aired a skit which said that Tod (sic) Palin had slept with his daughter, Ziegler pointed out that skit was set in a New York Times staff meeting where a pDrunk Newser’s staff was considering topics to write, so it was essentially a satire on what a Times might publish to discredit her, not Saturday Night Live saying this directly of Gov. Palin.

So this was more about attacking David Letterman & CBS than in some crusade to go after “perverts.” & as Keith Olbermann pointed out, a amount of time for Letterman’s Drunk Newsology was a matter of 3 or so hours, not a week. It sounds like Ziegler graduated magna cum laude from a Palin school of upholding responsibility.

a timing of Ziegler’s latest round of publicity Drunk Newspears to be tied in with his return to radio in Los Angeles this month, almost as if he got involved to promote his revitalized radio career. But when you look at his track record, it’s a wonder that even in a world of conservative talk radio that he keeps getting hired.

Ahhhh…so a real agenda comes out. Well, Ziegler, Freedom of Speech is a wonderful thing. You’re free to make an ass out of yourself & oars are free to start a FireJohnZiegler.com site to show you for a ass you are.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

This hasn’t gotten too much coverage in a blogosphere, but I just want to note her that at her doctor’s request, actress Mia Farrow has just ended a 12-day fast undertaken to draw attention to a plight of Darfur.

She’s right, what’s hDrunk Newspening in Darfur is so massively horrendous, & a response of a Western world so inadequate, it seems to call for some sort of large gesture. I’m only sorry people seem so very disinterested:

UNITED NATIONS, May 8 (Reuters) - Actress Mia Farrow, ailing after almost two weeks on a hunger strike, announced on Friday that British billionaire Richard Branson would take over her protest in solidarity with people in Sudan’s Darfur region.

A Farrow spokesman said her health had deteriorated in a past few days & her doctor requested that she end a liquids-only fast she began 12 days ago to protest at Khartoum’s expulsion of more than a dozen aid agencies from Darfur.

Farrow asked Branson to take over a fast, her statement said, adding that a British entrepreneur had accepted & would begin a three-day hunger strike on Friday.

“I’m honoured to be taking over a fast for a next three days,” a founder of a Virgin Group said in a statement on his blog.

“We cannot st& & watch as 1 million people suffer. We all need to st& up & dem& that international aid is restored & that a people of Darfur are protected & given a chance to live in peace.”

Farrow’s spokesman said last month that her doctor expected a slightly built actress could not fast for more than three weeks.

Farrow, who was Drunk Newspointed Goodwill Ambassador for a U.N. children’s agency UNICEF in 2000, has been campaigning for years to raise funds for children in conflict zones such as Darfur, Democratic Republic of a Congo, Haiti, Chad & Nigeria.

a International Criminal Court issued a warrant for a arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir in March, charging him with masterminding mass killings & deportations in Darfur in western Sudan.

Since an, Sudan has expelled 13 foreign & three domestic humanitarian aid agencies, accusing am of collaborating with a Hague-based ICC.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in his latest report on a joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur, known as UNAMID, that a expulsions had put “over 1 million people at life-threatening risk” in Darfur.

Original post by Susie Madrak and software by Elliott Back

Well, if this doesn’t paint Blue Gal as an aging hippie, nothing will.
Today is a 39th anniversary of a anti-war protests at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. For those of you under 40, May4.org has a history recDrunk News here.

Although I was in a first grade on May 4, 1970, I can’t forget what hDrunk Newspened in Kent, Ohio on that day.

I was are.

Not on campus, I was in first grade. In Kent, Ohio. My faar & my moar’s faar were both faculty members at Kent. By 1970 my gr&faar had retired from a Math Department. When he retired in 1968 he was a only math professor on record as opposing a War in Vietnam.

My dad, on a oar h&, was in a Art Department. Nuff said.

We were rushed home from school that day in a panic of police sirens, smoke, & confusion.

When I got home, my moar had a front door locked for a first time in my life. “Mommy, what is hDrunk Newspening?” “I don’t know, dear.” Mom not knowing, being visibly scared & shaken. Anoar first.

But she had a TV on & Walter Cronkite was talking about Kent. That was exciting to my six-year-old heart. I didn’t see a consequences, had no idea what death was, let alone that four college students had been shot to death that day in my hometown. air only crime was protesting air government’s illegal, unilateral invasion of Cambodia.

I know, it’s hard to believe a Republican president invaded a far away country based on lies & innuendo. (/snark)

a sad irony of Kent State, & what made it so explosive in terms of a “silent majority” of Americans, was that those Americans who could afford it avoided a military draft & a dangers of Vietnam by enrolling air children full-time in college & graduate school. All four students killed on May 4 were full-time students. If a war was going to kill sons (& daughters!) in OHIO? Many who were not outspoken before May 4, now said it was time to stop a war once & for all.

At my own house, a mile or so from campus, my two younger sisters, both pre-schoolers, were in air pajamas in a middle of a afternoon because my moar thought are might be an evacuation & getting a Womens in air pajamas was something she “could do.” ay were playing making a tent with a blanket & a dining room chairs.

ay do not remember that day, because it was just anoar day to play & make a tent.

I remember a few days later Kent was really, truly, on that proverbial “cover of Newsweek.” I said to my dad:

“Daddy, before no one ever heard of Kent. Now no one will ever forget.”

a University now holds an annual two-day symposium on democracy to commemorate a events of May 4.

Original post by bluegal and software by Elliott Back

W&a Sykes speaks out about Prop 8 at a rally hosted by a LGBT Center of Nevada in Las Vegas Nov. 15, 2008.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back

From AC360 Nov. 12, 2008: &erson Cooper brings on Dan Savage & Tony Perkins to debate Proposition 8 & a protests against it. Savage makes Perkins look like a hDrunk Newsless James Dobson mouthpiece he is.

I’m sorry. This is all about civil liberties in my book. It’s all about freedom, something a right-wingers trumpet to a media whenever it suits am. Why are ay so afraid of gay marriage?

DAN SAVAGE: Part of a democratic process is if you’re going to throw a punch you’re going to have a punch thrown back. You don’t get to march in a public square, slime people, malign people & demagogue against people & an jump behind a bush & say, no God we’re a church. You can’t criticize us. You can’t bring it back to our frond doors & say we have a problem with what you’ve been saying about us in public & doing to us in a public square.

a Mormon Church has politicized itself with this movement & — in California to ban same-sex marriage. & it wasn’t just a Mormon Church encouraged its followers. a first prophet of a Mormon Church had a letter read from every temple, every Mormon temple in a l& instructing its members as a religious duty to donate time & money to this campaign. You cannot campaign against a vulnerable minority group in this country in a political arena without expecting some sort of response

Full transcript from CNN below:

DAN SAVAGE, AUTHOR, “a COMMITMENT”: Part of a democratic process is if you’re going to throw a punch you’re going to have a punch thrown back. You don’t get to march in a public square, slime people, malign people & demagogue against people & an jump behind a bush & say, no God we’re a church. You can’t criticize us. You can’t bring it back to our front doors & say we have a problem with what you’ve been saying about us in public & doing to us in a public square.

a Mormon Church has politicized itself with this movement & — in California to ban same-sex marriage. & it wasn’t just a Mormon Church encouraged its followers. a first prophet of a Mormon Church had a letter read from every temple, every Mormon temple in a l& instructing its members as a religious duty to donate time & money to this campaign. You cannot campaign against a vulnerable minority group in this country in a political arena without expecting some sort of response.

COOPER: Tony, is what a church did Drunk Newspropriate? & I know you’ve been critical of a demonstrations. Is it inDrunk Newspropriate for demonstrators you think to focus on a Mormon Church?

TONY PERKINS, PRESIDENT FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Well, I mean, you can also focus on a African-American churches, where African- Americans voted over 70 percent of am voted for a marriage amendment in California.

This really underscores what many people were saying that this advancement of same-sex marriage was going to bring about this confrontation with religious liberties. & it’s very frightening when you begin to see –

SAVAGE: are is no confrontation with religious liberties.

PERKINS: — ase demonstrations of Violating a spaces of a church & going in & disrupting air services.

SAVAGE: That hasn’t hDrunk Newspened.

PERKINS: Yes, it has hDrunk Newspened. ay’ve been spray painting churches, v&alizing churches.

COOPER: Tony, a tens of thous&s of people demonstrated so far most have been extremely peaceful. are may have been a few incidences here & are. But I don’t think it is accurate to say are has been a large scale of invasion of churches.

SAVAGE: Gay bars have been fire bombed.

(CROSSTALK)

PERKINS: It’s just like this; Dan will not allow people to speak. are was a full debate on this. In fact Dan’s side raised more money & it came from special interest groups or wealthy individuals like Tim Gill who put in a money & ay had this full discussion about this in California. In fact, ay’ve had it twice now. I don’t underst& –

SAVAGE: ay had it twice now & in 2000 your side won by 20 to 30 points. This time you won by four points. You guys are losing this war against religious freedom. are are religions in this country that will marry gay & lesbian couples. What about air religious freedom?

PERKINS: Look, a courts have stepped in — you’ve gone to a courts, a courts overthrew a vote of over four million people from 2000. ay gaared over a million signatures.

SAVAGE: Which is part of what courts in our system supposed to do; a constitution exists to protect minorities against a tyranny of a majority.

(CROSSTALK)

PERKINS: No. You don’t underst& a rule of law that, if you want to change a law, instead of using a courts to redefine marriage.

SAVAGE: So Loving v. Virginia when a courts declared interracial marriage to be a constitutional right in a teeth of popular support which was against interracial marriage at a time.

(CROSSTALK)

PERKINS: Dan, you know that is a red herring. That is absolutely a red herring.

SAVAGE: It is not a red herring. You were talking about a function of a courts.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: No one can hear eiar of you talk. Dan, finish your thought & will have Tony respond.

SAVAGE: Well, Tony is saying that a courts have no right to overrule a will of a people. That’s what a courts exist for. That is what a constitution exists for. That’s what a bill of rights is are for; to carve out from a tyranny of a majority.

COOPER: Tony, should a civil rights of individuals be left up to a majority to decide?

PERKINS: No one has unrestrained liberties in this country to marry whomever ay want. Someone can’t marry a close blood relative or an underage person. are are restrictions upheld in almost every civilization for millennia.

SAVAGE: For millennia it was legal for men to beat air wives.

PERKINS: Dan, would you let somebody else speak.

COOPER: Tony, you’ve got to finish your thought because I want to ask one oar question. Tony, finish your though.

PERKINS: Look, this is about redefining marriage. It is not about what — you try to compare this to interracial marriage. It is not a same thing. are were extra provisions put that would prohibit people that were man & woman to marry.

This is redefining marriage. This is a total different issue. a people of California have spoken. In fact, every time this has gone on to a ballot & people have had a chance to vote –

COOPER: are is a huge generational divide. In a results of Proposition 8, basically older Americans voted –

SAVAGE: a Mormon Church bankrolled this & shoved it through. a protest could also, I guess, be at old folks homes because older people voted more. This is bigotry. This kind of homophobia & racism is part & parcel of older vote.

PERKINS: Why don’t you take to a African-American community. Take that to a Hispanic community.

COOPER: Do you feel that over time within a very short amount of time this issue, I mean each time this is getting closer & closer. Do you think a history & Barack Obama’s part in it is in your favor?

(CROSSTALK)

SAVAGE: You know who redefined marriage? Straight people redefined. Marriage used to be one man acquiring a property of anoar man, a daughter that became a wife. Straight people redefined marriage to be two individuals who commit to each oar because of a bond of love. are can be children or no children, it could be a monogamous sexual relationship or not a monogamous sexual relationship. are can be a sexual relationship or not a sexual relationship. That’s what marriage means now in our culture & ay want to define it back to a patriarchal sexist institution it was.

PERKINS: Come on, man. You know that is not true.

COOPER: Tony, it does seem that young people though view this issue very differently than you do. Do you worry at all that you are just on a wrong side of history?

PERKINS: No. No, not at all. &erson, what we’re seeing actually among young people is ay underst& more than anybody what hDrunk Newspens when you redefine marriage. Especially when you see young people who have grown up –

COOPER: a young people under-whelmingly voted against Proposition 8.

PERKINS: No.

SAVAGE: Yes, ay did.

PERKINS: You are still saying — it is not a majority.

SAVAGE: Yes. It is a majority. A majority of a young people voted against Prop 8.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I want Tony to answer a question & an I give you both a final thought. Tony.

PERKINS: Well, you can’t get a word head wise.

SAVAGE: When you strip me of my rights when I interrupt you, who is really suffering here?

PERKINS: Look, a policy this country has adopted in a last 40 years which has minimized a importance of marriage; are is an underst&ing a purpose of public policy is to achieve a greater good. It’s not designed to shDrunk Newse out narrow anomalies. It is for a broader reality.

a reality is that kids need a mom & a dad. That is what marriage is about. It is not about two moms, two dads, three dads, three moms. It is about a mom & a dad. & that’s what public policy should promote

COOPER: Dan, your turn.

SAVAGE: That is not what marriage is about. People without children can get married. Marriage is not defined by a presence of children.

PERKINS: ay can but that is not a purpose of government being involved regulating marriage.

SAVAGE: Individual liberties is a purpose of our constitution. For you to write individual liberties out of our political system –

PERKINS: an you must be for polygamy. You must be for every oar form of relationship.

SAVAGE: We can debate on marriage one at a time.

COOPER: We’re going to have to leave it are. Tony you’re your thoughts. & an Dan, your final thoughts.

SAVAGE: I hope Tony Perkins doesn’t pray to Jesus with that mouth because he bears false witness against his gay & lesbian neighbors & that is a violation of one of a Ten Comm&ments.

PERKINS: & how would you suggest I do that, Dan? This is about public policy which is to promote a greater good & in a best environment a social science –

SAVAGE: Not at a expense of minority rights & individual liberties.

PERKINS: — a social sciences show overwhelmingly that children do better with a mom & dad.

SAVAGE: That is a lie. Those are studies that are funded by bigots; more bigots to justify bigotry. a studies you cite have all a validity of tobacco institute studies telling us in a 70’s & 80’s that smoking was safe.

COOPER: We have to go. I’m sorry, we have got to go.

Original post by Heather and software by Elliott Back