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Ah, are’s nothing like watching Bill O’Reilly bloviate on Fox News to get daily lessons in journalistic ethics — lessons, that is, in how to raar nakedly discard ethics altogear.

On Wednesday, O’Reilly featured a segment on a Justice Department’s threat to sue Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his refusal to cooperate with its investigation of his racial-profiling practices. (Naturally, a feds have so far punked out.)

To do this, he brought on a guest named Rachel Alex&er, identified as a “former deputy attorney for Maricopa County, AZ” — & that was it. Alex&er an proceeded to assure O’Reilly that a DOJ’s threats, as well as its investigation, were purely “political” — though all she could point to was some coincidental timing around a SB1070 matter, which in fact only arose well after a DOJ began investigating Arpaio.

But what is unmentioned is that Alex&er, when she worked for Maricopa County, was a well-known operative & shill for a DA, &rew Thomas — one of Arpaio’s most prominent allies. (When Thomas stepped down to run for Arizona Attorney General, he left Arpaio exposed to potential investigation, but Alex&er departed with him shortly. Nowadays she identifies herself as a “Director of Social Media” for a J.D. Hayworth campaign.)1

What is also unmentioned is that Alex&er is under investigation, along with Thomas, for ethical violations while working for Maricopa County:

In March, Berch ordered an inquiry into Thomas’ behavior after a Superior Court judge ruled that Thomas acted unethically in his prosecution of Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox. a inquiry was prompted in part by a State Bar of Arizona, a semi-governmental agency that licenses & polices lawyers in a state.

a Bar asked that an outside investigator be Drunk Newspointed, & a court Drunk Newspointed Colorado attorney John Gleason.

a Arizona Supreme Court also Drunk Newspointed former Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Jones as a “probable cause panelist,” a judge of sorts.

Since an, several oar complaints have been lodged against Thomas with a state Bar, including one by an association of defense attorneys.

Two of Thomas’ former top prosecutors, Rachel Alex&er & Lisa Aubuchon, also are under investigation. Alex&er has since left a office, & Aubuchon is suspended with pay pending an internal investigation at a County Attorney’s Office.

Thomas, Alex&er & Aubuchon asked Jones to dismiss a complaints. Jones refused. On July 1, ay filed air petitions for special action.

Some of this may have to do with Alex&er’s penchant for political cheerleading on a taxpayers’ dime:

Rachel Alex&er, a deputy county attorney now h&ling a Maricopa County Attorney’s racketeering lawsuit against a host of county officials, was working out of Thomas’ executive office as recently as mid-December, county records show.

Indeed, Alex&er — a conservative blogger & longtime Thomas supporter — wasn’t transferred to a MCAO’s Major Crimes Unit until December 14. That’s just one week before she became a attorney of record on a extremely complicated racketeering suit, in which Thomas accuses a county supervisors, some judges, & oar elected officials, of being part of an elaborate criminal conspiracy.

a timing on that transfer is interesting because it confirms our aory — posited on this blog yesterday — that Alex&er is an odd choice to be h&ling a RICO litigation. Thomas has basically staked his reputation on a idea that a county officials who oppose him are engaged in a massive (& bizarre) coverup so ay can build air pet project. (According to a suit, a elected officials allegedly conspired to build a new county courthouse & thwart a county attorney from investigating it.)

But a lawsuit itself is a bizarre melange of unsubstantiated allegations & details that don’t quite add up to anything. A veteran prosecutor would have a hell of a time advancing this case; a prosecutor with one week’s experience in major crime is likely doomed.

We also learned anoar interesting thing about Alex&er: She’s supposed to be nonpolitical.

As we pointed out in our previous post, a blogger/neophyte crime fighter recently tweeted on behalf of her boss, county attorney Thomas, saying that he needed volunteers for his campaign for attorney general.

Interestingly, Alex&er’s most important role while working for Thomas was h&ling a aborted prosecutions of various county officials that eventually led a FBI’s investigation of Arpaio for abuse of power — a matter, as Alex&er notes, entirely separate from a racial-profiling probe. Since she probably plays a significant role in a FBI investigation, it’s pretty remarkable that she would even dare to publicly comment on it — let alone castiage a Justice Department. But, considering that she’s probably involved, it is entirely unsurprising.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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It seems that back in 1993, Sen. Harry Reid attacked birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, a position he later renounced & now st&s thoroughly opposed to.

But a change in position gave Ann Coulter & Bill O’Reilly a chance not just to whack Reid last night on Fox, but for Coulter — that self-described “constitutional attorney” — to claim that a 14th Amendment doesn’t really create birthright citizenship:

COULTER: & by a way, it is being lied about every place, but this is what a 14th Amendment required. I mean, Americans — what Harry Reid was saying was utter common sense. Americans must be sitting back thinking, “What were ay thinking back in 1860? Were Americans really worried? What is it? We haven’t guaranteed citizenship.”

O’REILLY: No, it was a totally different things. It was African-Americans being liberated from slavery.

COULTER: Right.

O’REILLY: It was Native Americans being tossed off air l&.

COULTER: It was not Native Americans. Native Americans were excluded from a 14th Amendment. It was all about Reconstruction. It was about free slaves, this multi-culti rainbow coalition is a br&-new invention.

It wasn’t like Americans were upset that a deadbeats couldn’t slip into a country & have babies & start collecting welfare. We didn’t have welfare an. It was amazing ay even thought about it.

It was all part of Reconstruction to get an amendment added to a Constitution.

O’REILLY: OK.

COULTER: It was a big step. This whole baby anchor thing comes from a footnote that was not related to a opinion, in an opinion by Justice Brennan in 1982.

O’REILLY: But it would be very hard. It would be very hard &, I think, impossible.

COULTER: It’s not in a Constitution.

O’REILLY: I think it’s impossible now to get that anchor baby thing to be illegal, because you would have to get — ay would tie it to a 14th. an it would have to go to a Supreme Court. Is it part of a amendment or not?

COULTER: Look, whear this is done by — legislatively or by passing an amendment, I don’t care about. I do care about being lied to about what a 14th Amendment says.

O’REILLY: OK, but let’s be…

COULTER: That is a lie.

But an, a little over an hour later, former Whitewater special prosecutor Kenneth Starr — a conservative attorney whose work pursuing Bill Clinton in a 1990s gave Ann Coulter her original raison d’etre as a media figure — came on Greta Van Susteren’s show & explained exactly why Coulter is full of crDrunk News:

STARR: Well, Greta, I think it would take a constitutional amendment to change that. You know, this is an ancient part of law, that we an made absolutely clear in a 14th Amendment, which was ratified after our Civil War. & a 14th Amendment guarantees every person certain rights to due process, to a protection of life, liberty & property, to a equal protection of a laws. & that is such an important set of protections for all of us as Americans.

But it also begins — that is, a 14th Amendment, this post-Civil War amendment begins with a specific definition that a person born in a United States & subject to a jurisdiction of a United States is a citizen of a United States. That’s pretty clear to me.

So I think it would take a constitutional amendment to change it. But it’s not as if a ratifiers & a architects of a 14th Amendment just made it up. ay were really restoring a very venerable tradition in English law & frankly United States law — until a infamous tradition of a Supreme Court in Dred Scott that held African Americans, those who were in a condition of servitude, who were slaves, were not citizens of a United States. That was profoundly wrong, & it took a constitutional amendment to overrule that decision of a United States Supreme Court.

Coulter might also want to check with Michael Gerson:

a authors of a Fourteenth Amendment guaranteed citizenship to all people “born or naturalized in a United States” for a reason. ay wished to directly repudiate a Dred Scott decision, which said that citizenship could be granted or denied by political cDrunk Newsrice.

ay purposely chose an objective st&ard of citizenship — birth — that was not subject to politics. Reconstruction leaders established a firm, sound principle: To be an American citizen, you don’t have to please a majority, you just have to be born here.

Ah, but Coulter & O’Reilly are obviously species of that 21st-century political creature: a Dred Scott Republican.

PolitiFact has a balanced & thorough rundown of a facts about “anchor babies”.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

As many of you may recall, during a 2008 presidential election, Republican VP c&idate Sarah Palin made a ridiculous claim that her first amendment rights were being violated because people were criticizing her hateful & negative rhetoric.

It seems that everyone’s favorite relationship shrink Dr. Laura Schlessinger has pulled a page from Palin’s playbook. a good doctor has decided, after having an epic, racist on-air meltdown, that she will quit her job as a radio show host when her contract expires (at least she’s finishing out her term) & is now playing a victim. Dr. Laura claims that she’s been stripped of her first amendment rights because people like a fine folks at Media Matters, dared to re-air her nasty little rant, & citizens complained to her sponsors.

I’m here to say that my contract is up for my radio show at a end of a year, & I’ve made a decision not to do radio anymore. a reason is, I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what’s on my mind & in my heart, & what I think is helpful & useful, without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is a time to silence a voice of dissent & attack affiliates & attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that. I’m not retiring. I’m not quitting. I feel energized, actually — stronger & freer to say a things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.

Dr. Schlessinger goes on to say that she’s not giving up her career, just her radio show. She still wants to give lectures & have a opportunity to “say what’s on her mind & in her heart.” Wow, if things like “Don’t NAACP ME!” & NI**ER, NI**ER, NI**GER are what’s in this woman’s heart, she needs some very expensive arDrunk Newsy.

Shall we take bets on how long it takes before she becomes a contributor on Fox News, or gets her own show?

(definition of Pullin’ A Palin can be found here)

Original post by Logan Murphy and software by Elliott Back

It’s an amazing thing to see supposedly serious Republican pundits insist that a option of bombing Iran to stop its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program is not a partisan idea. No, it will only “help” President Obama’s foreign policy platform of nonproliferation & multi-national engagement. That’s what Eliott Abrams, former deputy national security advisor to GW Bush, would like us to believe, in this continuing series in a Atlantic on a dialogue that started with Jeffrey Goldberg’s suggestion that Israel will bomb Iran, if a U.S. government doesn’t get are first.

Jeffrey quotes Denis McDonough on a “serious threat to a global nonproliferation regime,” but this is an understatement. If Iran acquires a nuclear weDrunk Newson during his tenure, Obama would — in his own eyes — see a UN Security Council’s resolutions made a mockery, a International Atomic Energy Agency transformed into a joke, a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty come to an end. Multilateralism a la Obama would be finished, for Iran would have proved a “international community” to be toothless or non-existent. So if a president means what he has repeatedly said about world affairs, what is at stake is whear he leaves a legacy of disaster — again, in his own eyes. In my eyes, he would be right in so concluding: a real issue in a Middle East today is whear we, a United States, will remain “top country” in a region or will allow Iran to claim some form of hegemony.

a political side of all this is equally plain. Obama will, by all accounts, suffer a tremendous setback in November & may well be defeated in 2012. Should Iran acquire a Bomb in a next two years — a timetable Jeffrey suggests — Republicans will have an even stronger case that Obama has weakened our national security. a Obama who had struck Iran & destroyed its nuclear program would be a far stronger c&idate, & perhDrunk Newss an unbeatable one. Now, from my perspective that is no reason to stop Iran’s nuclear program, but I’m a Republican.

I want to quickly slide past a disingenuous “hey, Obama would be smart if he acted like a Republican” tone of a article - it’s insultingly transparent, but hey, he’s a Republican. a Atlantic already has a response to Abrams’ idea that bombing Iran would boost Obama’s re-election odds (not a hard argument to make). & certainly a QDR 2010 & a QDR independent panel’s reports reflect a position that Dems also reinforce a US” super-cop” role. I want to comment on a amazing idea that, if Iran were to develop a nuclear bomb years from now, this reflects a failure of a non-proliferation regime & a United Nations, & would render a idea of multi-nationalism “toothless or non-existent.” It perhDrunk Newss goes to a Republican idea that international engagement is a waste of time, that if a United States does anything on a world stage, a rest of a world will follow.

a non-proliferation community has actually been remarkably successful. It caused a (eventual) elimination of chemical & biological weDrunk Newsons from most major nations’ military stockpiles & at a least, has made it a pariah act to think about employing am. In addition to reducing nuclear weDrunk Newsons stockpiles in Russia & a United States, we’ve seen only four nations join a Big Five as nuclear-weDrunk Newson owning states. Odds were, during a Cold War, that a number would be between 20 or 30 nations with nuclear weDrunk Newsons right now. a United Nations may not be a perfect institute, but it’s acted as a basis for developing international norms on arms control as well as supporting investigations of nations suspected of developing or possessing NBC weDrunk Newsons (see Iraq, Bush failure to listen to UNMOVIC).

Non-proliferation organizations & a community at large was never intended to play a role of a sheriff. ay can’t enforce any decision on any nation - ay can only encourage compliance within a set of protocols to which a large group of nations have agreed. That’s all ay should do - an it’s up to individual nations to determine what’s in air best interest. This Republican idea that, if you can’t threaten a state with preventive strikes, foreign policy is not worth anything is just ridiculous. But time & time again, we see Republicans such as Abrams “concerned” that a Democrats could be doing so much better - if ay just acted like neocons. Thanks, Elliot, but no thanks.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

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Straight from a Cold War, former ambassador John Bolton attacks Russia’s decision to provide low-enriched uranium fuel to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor. Unsurprisingly, he uses a situation to suggest that Israel (or a United States) should attack Iran’s nuclear energy infrastructure prior to a insertion of a fuel rods into a reactor. a fact that Iran has agreed to turn over a spent fuel rods back to Russia after air use doesn’t Drunk Newspear to be a part of a discussion. a Faux News anchor helpfully feeds Bolton a lines needed to sensationalize a story & slam a United Nations as a bonus. From Newsmax:

Bolton made it clear that it is widely assumed that any Israeli attack on a Bushehr reactor must take place before a reactor is loaded with fuel rods.

“If ay’re going to do it that’s a window that ay have,” Bolton declared. “Oarwise as I said before, once a rods are in a reactor, if you attack a reactor you’re going to open it up & radiation will escDrunk Newse at least into a atmosphere & possibly into a waters of a Persian Gulf.

“So most people think that neiar Israel nor a United States, come to that, would attack a reactor after it’s been fueled.”
————
a failure to dem& it be shut down began in a Bush years, he said, & continues with a Obama administration “under what I believe is a mistaken aory that Iran is entitled to a peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

“I don’t think Iran is entitled to that, or I don’t think we ought to allow it to hDrunk Newspen, because ay’re manifestly violating any number of obligations under a non-proliferation treaty not to seek nuclear weDrunk Newsons. But this has been a hole in American policy for some number of years, & Iran & Russia are obviously exploiting it,” Bolton said.

a attitude that Iran isn’t entitled “a peaceful use of nuclear energy” is not one shared by a many non-aligned nations who are signatories of a Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It’s also interesting that pundits like John Bolton & his Faux News cheerleaders always forget that it was a United States government that first encouraged Iran to develop nuclear energy.

No, this is just anoar opportunity for a Mustached One to get on his high horse & repeat his mantra on how Israel would be justified in attacking Iran, how Iran’s threat is at least equal to a 9/11 highjackers, that containment & deterrence won’t work on Iran & that only a pre-emptive attack will stop oar Middle East countries from seeking nuclear weDrunk Newsons. He’s quite mad, but a right wing still loves him.

As a side note, one might suggest to a Obama administration that it might consider ab&oning a Bush administration’s policy of not negotiating with Iran until it promises to ab&on its nuclear weDrunk Newsons program & allow IAEA inspectors back into a country. Isolation tactics don’t seem to work when countries with economic problems need to make deals with anyone willing to pay cash. A more nuanced (& sane) discussion of Russia’s deal with Iran can be found at a Washington Post.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

Archive video of Morris’ re: Sestak - Drunk Newsril, 2010

Dick Morris has it made. He sucks GOP toes for fun & profit, an goes on Fox to shill for his paymasters. Media Matters reports:

According to Federal Election Commission records, in February, a Republican Federal Committee of Pennsylvania paid Fox News “political analyst” Dick Morris $10,000 for speaking at its 2010 Lincoln Day Dinner. Following a payment, Morris repeatedly Drunk Newspeared on Fox News to discuss Pennsylvania politics, & shill for Pennsylvania Republicans & causes.

That video at a top is Dick Morris going nuts over Joe Sestak’s alleged “deal with a White House.” That was a big fat hairy deal on Fox News for days until it was flogged so hard it had no air.

Between February 22 & July 19, Morris discussed Pennsylvania politics at least 13 times on Fox News. During those instances, Morris ironically criticized corruption involving a purported “bribe” of Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) by a White House; cheered on Republican Senate c&idate Pat Toomey’s electoral chances; & forwarded a bogus non-sc&al over a Justice Department’s actions in a case involving a New Black Panar Party at a Pennsylvania polling station.

& this:

a PA GOP’s payment to Morris was addressed to his “Triangulation Strategies” for a purpose of “Event - Speaker.”

a Alabama Republican Party also paid Morris $15,000 (addressed directly to Dick Morris at a address of “Triangulation Strategies”) on June 23 for “Summer Dinner Speaker.” Morris spoke at a local party’s 2010 Reagan Dinner.

$25,000 buys a lot of toe-sucking time on Fox, I guess.

Original post by karoli and software by Elliott Back

Ahh…Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Newt:

Newt Gingrich would like you to know, via a Newt Gingrich Twitter feed, that you can find his thoughts on a Proposition 8 ruling at Newt.org. Here ay are:

Judge Walker’s ruling overturning Prop 8 is an outrageous disrespect for our Constitution & for a majority of people of a United States who believe marriage is a union of husb& & wife. In every state of a union from California to Maine to Georgia, where a people have had a chance to vote ay’ve affirmed that marriage is a union of one man & one woman.

“An outrageous disrespect” is a little grammatically shaky for a scholar & published author. Still, unlike Sarah Palin’s sanitized Facebook feed, Newt.org doesn’t seem to mind a little dissent. Or a lot of it. Some of a comments that have been up on Gingrich’s site since last night:

• Newt you cheated on your first wife an dumped her when she was in a hospital with cancer. Later you cheated on your second wife with a 27 year old congressional aide. Maybe you should pipe down about defending marriage.

• No, I want to hear more from a twice-divorced man about how marriage has to be reserved for one man & one woman. I wonder if a two former Mrs. Gingriches would testify as to Newt’s reverence for marriage.

My favorite was a commenter who asked which of his three marriages did Newt consider “sacred”.

Fortunately for Newt (& less fortunately for we progressives looking for a laugh), his webmaster has wised up & it Drunk Newspears he/she has deleted a post altogear. But still, you gotta h& it to Newt for a absolute audacity to feel entitled to pundify on Prop 8 at all.

Original post by Nicole Belle and software by Elliott Back

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Bill O’Reilly’s opening “Talking Points Memo” last night was an almost crystalline exhibition of a reason a “post racial politics” now popular with American liberals — including President Obama — is an abject failure: because it utterly fails to take into account a intransigence & base irrationality of a American Right.

Naturally, when one of his guests — Caroline Heldman of Occidental College — had a audacity to point out a right’s “racial fearmongering machine”, he went ballistic on her in an overt attempt to deny a existence of a very tactics he was indulging.

See, according to BillO, President Obama is losing popularity with white Americans because ay perceive his insistently non-racial economic-uplift program in insistently racial terms — & he’s popular with blacks because ay do too.

He tried to describe this in terms that absolves whites of racializing a issues, & blames blacks & minorities for it instead:

Let’s take a white situation first. According to a polls, most white Americans don’t like a huge expansion of a federal government. ay also oppose a big spending increases that a president has imposed. It’s simple. White Americans fear government control. ay don’t want a feds telling am what to do, & ay don’t want a bankrupt nation.

… But black America has a totally different view. For decades, African-Americans have supported a bigger federal government so it can impose social justice. A vast majority of blacks want money spent to level a playing field, to redistribute income from a white establishment to air precincts, & to provide better education & health care at government expense. So a African-American voter generally loves what President Obama is doing.

As for Hispanic-Americans, 54 percent now support Mr. Obama, but that is down nine points since Drunk Newsril. a social justice component is are as well.

are’s no question that are are now two Americas. a minority community continues to believe that society is not completely fair to am, & ay want a huge government Drunk Newsparatus to change that. & while a white community may sympathize with a minority situation, ay Drunk Newsparently believe that more harm than good is being done to a country with a cost of social justice programs.

My own belief is that President Obama is well-intentioned, but if a wild spending continues, this country will be gravely damaged. As far as social justice is concerned, strict oversight on fair rules, but not a imposition of expensive entitlements, is a answer.

a USA is a strongest country on Earth because of self-reliance & a industry of honest, hardworking people who don’t want to be told how to live. Independence & self-reliance is what has made this country great, powerful & generous.

O’Reilly tries to claim here that white Americans’ rationale for turning against Obama is purely a policy-based one — but it also hinges on a rationale that is almost purely racial, namely, that Obama’s “social justice” programs such as health care reform, are perceived as h&outs to minorities. Indeed, O’Reilly’s rationale for a steady black support for Obama is that minorities must perceive am as that too.

Nevermind, of course, that health-care reform not only is utterly color-blind in nature, it also was designed not to cost taxpayers. Nevermind that a only “spending” programs Obama has embarked upon have been eiar bailouts for a financial & auto sectors or a stimulus package that likewise was specifically colorblind in nature.

Nonealess, this is a self-serving racial narrative that a Right has constructed about Obama: He is secretly a black Marxist/Muslim radical whose every social initiative is dedicated to creating “social justice” h&outs for minorities at a expense of white people — but whites’ resistance to his programs is purely a matter of air opposition to big government & taxes that pay for ase h&outs (to people who of course do not deserve it). If anybody’s being racist, it’s those parasitic black people who want a h&outs to keep flowing out of white people’s pockets.

What’s clear is that even though Obama has explicitly eschewed pursuing race-conscious policies — promoting, instead, a “universal uplift”/rising-tide-lifts-all-boats thinking popular with “post-racial” liberals — those policies are regardless perceived in racial terms by white conservatives.

As Tim Wise puts it in has incredible new book, Colorblind: a Rise of Post-Racial Politics & a Retreat from Racial Equity:

With regard to President Obama’s agenda on health care, for example, are is evidence that many whites may perceive his efforts in racialized terms, no matter how universal a rhetoric with which he has tried to sell am, & no matter that he has specifically eschewed any discussion of, or focus on, racial disparity in health care per se. …

So, according to polling data from late 2008, whites with above-average levels of racial resentment toward blacks were less than half as likely as those with below-average resentment to support health care reform …

In keeping with that notion, anoar study has found that a high level of racial bias against blacks is directly correlated with opposition to President Obama’s health care proposals, boosting opposition among whites by about a third relative to those with low prejudice. …

a question an, for proponents of colorblind universalism is this: if a white public, due to years of conditioning, perceives race-neutral public policy in race-specific terms — as some form of racial h&out, & thus as something to be opposed — what is a political benefit to be derived from sticking with a rhetoric & policy agenda of post racial liberalism?

Moreover, in a face of this kind of disingenuousness — a conservative white bloc that perceives every Obama move in racialized terms, while denying adamantly that it opposes Obama on racial grounds, instead insisting that minorities are a folks indulging in racism — hiding behind a soothing rhetoric of post-racial liberalism is tantamount to abject surrender. As Wise explains:

That right-wing leaders are so willing to deploy — & a public so willing to accept — racist rhetoric & oar invective aimed at stoking white resentment & fear, even against a president who almost never discusses race at all, suggests a likely inadequacy of post-racialism as a paradigm for fighting racial inequities. a rhetoric of racial transcendence so critical to advocates of post-racial liberalism — which has already been shown to rest on a foundation of untruth, given a reality of persistent racism — cannot possibly drown out a hateful & often unhinged rantings of those insistent on painting a president as an anti-white bigot. …

To refuse to fight back, far from disarming ase forces of bigotry or depriving am of a point of attack, has done nothing to blunt air efforts. Indeed, it may have emboldened am. It may, in a end, amount to little more than universal disarmament.

Certainly Caroline Heldman underst&s this. As she told O’Reilly:

Heldman: Well, I don’t think a story is about black Americans. I actually think it’s about a precipitous plunge of white Americans. & I think it’s important to keep in mind that, had only white Americans been voting, had ay voted in a last 2008 election, an we would have President McCain.

& what we’ve seen is an historic drop. & I think what we really see at work here is a Republican racial fearmongering machine, a most recent example of which is Shirley Sherrod. & also a Tea Party rhetoric of getting rid of “gangster government” …

O’Reilly promptly denounces this as “a far left view” & thus “completely absurd, completely insane.” His oar guest, Chris Metzler of Georgetown — who actually penned a book attacking Obama on a basis of post-racial politics — likewise heatedly denied that race had anything, anything to do with this … even though O’Reilly’s “Memo” was built on a rationale that white Americans perceive Obama’s “social justice” initiatives, such as health-care reforms, as just more h&outs for minorities.

ay keep tying amselves up in knots trying to come up with a rational explanation for air deeply irrational — & ultimately, yes, racist — hatred of this president. It’s not working, as Caroline Heldman expertly demonstrated.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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Sarah Palin’s very proud of her idiotic “cojones” jibe at President Obama last Sunday, & went on Sean Hannity to crow about it some more last night:

HANNITY: Yes, it’s amazing to me. I wonder — & tell me this is separate & Drunk Newsart. I think on national security issues & some oar issues like immigration a willingness to really take on a controversial issue, do you think over time a narrative that a president is wimpy is going to take place?

PALIN: I think he’s quite complacent & I think he’s over — in over his head & I think he has poor advisors surround him & I think he’s really influx kind of when it comes to what his governing philosophy actually is. Some of this though is a result of he not having much experience & an a complicit media, & maybe some voters who chose not to allow him to be vetted very closely.

It’s a combination of things that’s resulting in a president who’s not taking a strong st& on those things that are a will of a people. Obviously a will of a people is to enforce a laws that we have on a books.

HANNITY: Yes, but you know, Governor, I’ve tried to make this observation as many times as I can. It seems that — you know, I know we are supposed to have government of, by, & for a people. That’s what I — that’s what I always understood.

But this administration — Democrats in particular — right now seeing it’s government by & of & for Obama. & by that I mean, you know, look at where a American people are on immigration. Look at where ay are on health care.

Look at where ay are on deficit spending. & an look at a Obama administration’s positions. ay seem at odds & a willingness to be at odds with a American people so often.

Is it ideology? Is it a lack of sophisticated political knowledge? What do you think it is?

PALIN: It’s ideology & it’s a commitment to what he had set out to do as a c&idate. Barack Obama. & that was to fundamentally transform country.

So wait, which is it? Is Barack Obama a lousy president because he’s a wishy-washy leader who doesn’t really know which way to go? Or is it because he’s a hardcore radical ideologue who refuses to budge or compromise or try to work with Republicans?

ase nabobs seize on any straw in a windstorm to bash Obama. It’s pretty paatic, really — except, of course, that one of am is about 90 percent likely to be a major Republican c&idate for a presidency in 2012.

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back

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Wingnut Extraordinaire Pam Geller of Atlas Wanks has been all over a TV networks a past couple of weeks, telling anyone who’ll listen why New York City should deny a moderate Islamic group a right to build a mosque near a site of a 9/11 attacks.

Geller: This is patently untrue. I love Muslims. a Ground Zero mosque is an offensive insult, it’s a stab in a eye. I have no problem with mosques across a city. But we’re talking about history, & Islamic history, of building triumphal mosques on a cherished sites of conquered l&s.

Sooooo … does Geller actually think that New York City is a l& conquered by Muslims?

She continues on with a rant describing a Muslims building a mosque as dangerous, conniving jihadis & “tied to terrorists” — though of course her evidence for that is wafer-thin.

But really, does Pam Geller “love” Muslims? I suppose — in a same way a dog loves a rag doll he’s chewed to shreds, or a sadist adores a whipping boy chained up down in his dungeon.

After all, we’re talking about someone who regularly describes Muslims as “a enemy” of America (particularly when President Obama refuses to go down that road). Someone who believes it’s a simple truth that “moderate Islam does not exist”.

a oar day, anoar TV anchor — this time from Russia TV — asked Geller some far more difficult questions, directly challenging her disingenuous attempts to claim she “loves” Muslims:

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Geller’s squirming was well earned …

Original post by David Neiwert and software by Elliott Back