Inspire Political Discourse

The View: Tea Party Director Claims Insult in Term "Teabagger" & Denies Racism of Tea Party Movement

On The View yesterday, the director of the Tea Party Express, Amy Kremer, claimed that using the term "teabagger" to refer to a member of the Tea Party, was just as bad as using the "N" word.

Really? Really, Ms. Teabagger?

First of all, the term "teabagger" is only really offensive when you consider it's sexual connotation, first used by the Tea Party to slur liberals.

The “N word” on the other hand, has the horror of hundreds of years of the oppression of black people behind it.

Not at ALL the same, lady, not even close.

Secondly, the term "teabagger" was first used by the teabaggers to refer to, themselves at the beginning of their non-grassroots movement.

Moreover, as Jay Nordlinger at National Review admits, the term "teabagger" was introduced to the political lexicon by Tea Party movement leaders:
The first big day for this movement was Tax Day, April 15. And organizers had a gimmick. They asked people to send a tea bag to the Oval Office. One of the exhortations was “Tea Bag the Fools in D.C.” A protester was spotted with a sign saying, “Tea Bag the Liberal Dems Before They Tea Bag You.” So, conservatives started it: started with this terminology.

Ms. Kremer also claimed that the Tea Party was not about racism or Obama’s race. No, not at all. While there are far too many examples pointing to the truth being the complete reverse of her statements, one of my favorites is from Taeggan Goddard [emphasis mine]:

“These people could be anybody. I wouldn't put it past the Democrats to plant somebody there. They're trying to label the tea party, but I've never seen any racial slurs."
-- Dale Robertson, self-proclaimed founder of the Tea Party, quoted by the Washington Times.

The only problem? The Washington Independent caught Robertson at a Tea Party rally last month holding a sign with a racial slur.

FYI, Robertson also runs the website teaparty.org.

The image is from The Washington Independent, and depicts Dale Robertson with a racist sign.

PS Ms. Kremer….your pearls are very obviously cheap imitations, rather like the ideology you espouse.

Arizona Legalizes Racial Profiling, Ctd

Via Bob Cesca @ Huffpost on the Arizona law and neo-slavery:

And now this is the law of the state of Arizona -- arresting people, citizen or not, simply for appearing Hispanic. The ghosts of Green Cottonham, "anti-vagrancy" laws and Black Codes. America has resurrected its predilection for rounding up brown people based on flimsy excuses and good ol' boy lawmaking.

While there's no evidence that the Arizona law will feed the rise of a new underground forced labor market in the United States, it's clear that the various components of neo-slavery are here now. And the optics and civil liberties violations, say nothing of the long-term consequences, are horrible. We're on the brink of rounding up Hispanic people on ridiculous charges while American corporations are actively engaged in the trafficking of illegal immigrant labor.

How soon, I wonder, until we read about Hispanic people -- citizens or otherwise -- being picked up for not having their birth certificates and other "papers" in their back pockets and consequently shipped off on some sort of prison "work release" program to a cabbage farm or meat packing plant?

Palin Lies About Obama's Nuke Comments

Palin, the biggest liar in the GOP, intentionally distorts Obama’s comments on nukes to paint him as someone who hates America. Really ugly.  Via The Plum Line:

In a new Facebook missive, Palin butchered Obama’s quotes at the nuke summit in a strikingly dishonest (even for her) way, tearing them out of context to suggest he’s uncomfortable wielding American power and is hostile towards American exceptionalism: 

“Mr. President, is a strong America a problem? Asked this week about his faltering efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, President Obama did something remarkable. In front of some 47 foreign leaders and hundreds of reporters from all over the world, President Obama said that “whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower.”
Whether we like it or not? Most Americans do like it.”

VIDEO: Interview With Tea Party Racist Moron Carl Paladino

Yesterday, we posted a link to a breaking story about Carl Paladino, the Tea Party gubernatorial candidate in New York.

Today, Paladino was confronted at a Buffalo, NY rally by WNYMedia on camera, and yet Paladino never answers a direct question, just babbles incoherently about how this expose is a “Democrat smear”.

Via Think Progress:

Q: Do you condemn the stuff that was forwarded in those e-mails?
PALADINO: I don’t know. I don’t know what e-mails you’re referring to specifically. I wouldn’t even know half of them if I saw them.
Q: Let’s take a look at some of them. … Is that appropriate for somebody who’s running for governor to forward to other people? It’s a very simple question.
PALADINO: Is it appropriate for the Democrats to want to smear — Q: Carl, I’m not asking about the Democrats.
PALADINO: They can hear the rumblings, okay, of something happening.
Q: What does this have to do with the Democrats?
PALADINO: Everything.

Kudos to WNYMedia.net for exposing this creep.

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Carl Paladino is a Tea Party Racist Moron

A tea party candidate for governor in New York named Carl Paladino has been forwarding around emails showing obviously racist images and jokes about the president.

Hint. There's a pimp costume, and a video of African natives dancing -- labeled "Obama Inauguration Rehearsal." [......]

I’m just waiting trepidatiously for the entire wingnut tea party to march on Washington in their pointy white hats, and declare civil war, version 2.0, using misspelled signage.

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DRUDGE BYTES, or CRAZY WINGNUTS RANT

Yeah, I recognize an oxymoron when I type it, but sometimes, only an oxymoron will do.

Today's Drudge bytes are just more of the same old attempt to delegitimize this President, and have no basis in reality.

GINGRICH: Obama 'most radical president ever'...

LIMBAUGH: Obama 'inflicting untold damage on this great country'...

PALIN: Obama's Nuke Stance Like Kid Who Says 'Punch Me in Face'...

LIZ CHENEY: Obama Putting America on 'Path to Decline'...

HANNITY: Obama 'Is a Socialist'...

SAVAGE: 'Obama The Destroyer'...

An excellent response to the seditious racists via Bob Cesca:

Okay, let's look at the numbers since radical, socialist, damaging President Obama was inaugurated.

---The Dow? Up from 7,000 to 11,000.

---Jobs? 700,000 losses a month to 160,000 jobs created.

---Recovery/Stimulus Act? Added 1.8 million jobs.

---GDP (economic growth)? -6 percent to +6 percent. (Technically, the recession is over.)

---Housing prices? Up 20%.

OH HOLY SHIT! What a nightmare! IEEEEEEEEEEEE! Impeach!

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Sarah Palin: The Ugly American

Will the Republicans Attempt to Impeach President Obama? Yes.

From Bob Cesca, on the Huffington Post:

If the Republicans ever manage to retake Congress, they will absolutely try to impeach President Obama. And it'll be based upon a supremely ridiculous charge such as, say, the president refusing to nourish our crops with a sports drink instead of water.

Okay, so maybe the Idiocracy example is over-the-top, but if we follow the current trajectory of far-right attacks to their logical yet insane conclusion, it makes sense in a very eerie way. Have you seen the television commercials solemnly defending our right to poison our kids with "juice drinks and soda?" There you go.

I've been following the Republican descent into the realms of the bizarre for some time now, and it wasn't until the "czars" thing broke that I became convinced that if they retook Congress the Republicans might try to impeach the president. The grounds for both the impeachment and the language used to sell it will likely be fabricated by either Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

I mean, 100 Republican members of Congress have signed onto Rep. Jack Kingston's cartoonish czar bill. 100 House Republicans out of 177 have attached their names to a bill that was essentially invented as a television bit by Glenn Beck without any regard for the fact that "czar" is a nickname invented by the press, and that every president -- all of them! -- has employed policy and political advisers within their administrations. But it functions as an effective Beck attack because he knows his audience isn't bright enough to distinguish "czars" from "communists." By the way, not to be out-crazied by his House colleagues, Senator Ensign introduced an amendment to the Finance Committee health care reform bill called "Transparency in Czars." This might as well be "Transparency in Hobbits" because it's just that ludicrous.

Nevertheless, there's a growing conventional wisdom in the press alleging that both sides of the political spectrum are equally guilty of wackaloon attacks and conspiracy theories.

Granted there might be one or two very fringe exceptions but this is otherwise a false equivalency written by the establishment media as part of their self-conscious effort to seem balanced. The distinction is that any "fringe" attacks from the left during the Bush years weren't mainstreamed and legitimized the way the wingnut attacks are today, even though the fringe attacks from the left turned out to be mostly accurate.

Continue reading http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-impeachment-of-presid_b_297330.html

Bush Wanted to Get Rid of the First Amendment Right to Freedom of the Press

:: In one of the secret Bush memos released by the DOJ yesterday, we learned exactly how far Bush was willing to go.
Freedom of the press, guaranteed under the First Amendment, necessary for a Democracy to exist, was nothing to Bush. From Newsweek:

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the Justice Department secretly gave the green light for the U.S. military to attack apartment buildings and office complexes inside the United States, deploy high-tech surveillance against U.S. citizens and potentially suspend First Amendment freedom-of-the-press rights in order to combat the terror threat, according to a memo released Monday.had been asked to

Many of the actions discussed in the Oct. 23, 2001, memo to then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's chief lawyer, William Haynes, were never actually taken.

But the memo from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel—along with others made public for the first time Monday—illustrates with new details the extraordinary post-9/11 powers asserted by Bush administration lawyers. Those assertions ultimately led to such controversial policies as allowing the waterboarding of terror suspects and permitting warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens—steps that remain the subject of ongoing investigations by Congress and the Justice Department. The memo was co-written by John Yoo, at the time a deputy attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel. Yoo, now a professor at the Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, has emerged as one of the central figures in those ongoing investigations.

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Rush Limbaugh: the Real Leader of the GOP

Update: Obama Photo Linked to Cartoon

If you haven't yet read it, click here to read the story about the cartoon published by The New York Post today. The cartoon, seen below, has become a major controversy, not only nationally, but internationally. Thanks to the right-wing owned Post (Rupert Murdoch), America is looking like a less than decent place to live. A place where the 44th president is in fact, depicted as a very dead and rabid chimpanzee.
On the Huffington Post, Sam Stein reports that in the actual newspaper today, the cartoon page was preceded by a page with an image of President Obama signing the stimulus bill, as seen below.

In the page preceding a New York Post cartoon that depicts drafters of the stimulus legislation as a gun-downed chimpanzee, the paper published a large photo of Barack Obama signing that very piece of legislation.

And according to The New York Times, a newsroom employee at the Post reported a major backlash via telephone. The employee also indicated that many Post staff members were themselves upset.

A newsroom employee at The Post, who spoke on condition of anonymity because employees were not permitted to comment on the matter, said its newsroom received many calls of complaints on Wednesday morning after the publication of the cartoon. “Every line was lit up for several hours,” the employee said. “The phones on the city desk have never rung like that before.”

On my earlier story, Lyn (see below for more info on Lyn) left a comment as to her opinion. It is a comment, the content of which, has been echoed across the net today by many other right wingers. And it is a load of unadulterated crap. Bolding is mine, comment is Lyn's:

NO it does not imply violence against any elected official. It's just a cartoon.
Mr. Delonas has free speech rights. His cartoon makes a critical assessment of the frenzied politics that gave us the Obama stimulus/fraud package.
There is no racism in this cartoon. Get over it people. It's a cartoon.

Oh please, darlin', let's just briefly examine the 'parody' parallel. According to the  NY Post Editor in Chief,  "It was a clear parody of..."

So, a chimp on Xanax, in an unprovoked attack, almost kills a woman and has to be shot and killed by police  = legislators and/or the President writing the stimulus legislation.

Yeah! I get it! That's a REAL KNEE-SLAPPER! I bet the woman who had her face ripped off by the chimp might have a thing or two to say about that!

And hey, that doesn't even address the issue of how black Americans have traditionally been portrayed as apes or ape-like in political cartoons for too damn many years. This sort of transparent racist ugliness is just another disgusting addition to a series dating back to the days of slavery in America.

Furthermore, and most importantly, the depiction of violence perpetrated on a rabid chimpanzee equated with either the President or with our legislators, is completely sick and inappropriate, and has not got a damn thing to do with free speech! Remember "incitement to violence"? 

Keith Olbermann Takes on Cheney on Fear Mongering

A Democracy Requires That We All Become Aware and Involved, or We Risk Losing it

My reasons for writing this post are solely to encourage you, and to arm you. I am compelled to do so not only by the events of the past eight years, but by what has been revealed in Keith Olbermann's interview with former National Security Agency analyst, Russell Tice.

My intent is simple: that you and your family, if you have not been focusing your attention on national politics, as indeed, I myself did not until last August, are able to become aware of and absorb the events that occurred in this country under the auspices of the Bush administration.

The events which sent the United States barreling towards becoming a Fascist Republic, and signified the end of our Democratic Republic. Indeed, in the 200+ year history of our nation, such a situation had never been allowed to occur, and yet it did, on our watch. We must guard our freedom well to prevent any possibility of a recurrence, because we love our children and our country. And guarding it requires awareness and action.

But..... it's over, you say. President Bush and Vice President Cheney are no longer in power. In part, certainly. However, in order to safeguard our freedom for future generations, we must all be aware of, and pass on what happened to this country to cause it to conform with the ideals of a fascist republic, and give up our constitutional rights to a group of men who sought power that was not their's under the tenets of our constitution.

This is so important, that this era of our history will forever become a part of all unbiased teachings about our constitution, the history of our republic, and so on. We as a country, came just this close to becoming what the constitution was supposed to have prevented.

It occurred because a group of men, led by President George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove, sought an inordinate amount of power in order to personally benefit from the wielding of that power. Their methods included the intent to instill so much fear in the American people that we would willingly accept restrictions upon our liberty, the revocation of the tenets of our constitution, and they were indeed highly successful. They benefited personally on a scale never before seen, and we have been left with the nation's coffers empty, the monies handed over to Halliburton, Blackwater, and others, a resulting economic crisis of a magnitude not yet reached, a global financial crisis that may take years to recover from, two wars, one of them completely unnecessary and immoral, and our reputation in shreds all over the world. 

videos after the jump

VIDEO - Keith Olbermann: Cheney Confesses to War Crimes

Leaders of the Anti-Civil Rights "Yes on Prop 8" Group "Command" the California Court to Nullify 18,000 Marriages

In a lawsuit filed by the leaders of the anti-civil rights group responsible for Prop 8, and representing the evangelicals, the Mormons, and all those well-meaning demented religious fanatics who think that they must have the ability to regulate the lives of us all, have "commanded", yes, the language used was "COMMANDED" the California courts to "bow" to the will of the people, and nullify 18,000 marriages.

From Dr. Jeffrey Feldman at the Huffington Post:

“The idea that civil rights can be stripped by a simple majority plebescite is not just unethical, but actually violates the principles on which our system of government is based.  First off, it is unconstitutional to pass laws that deprive citizens of rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution (e.g., equal protection), a basic point the Prop 8 folks do not seem to get.  Second, the purpose of the judiciary is to uphold the Constitution as form of systemic balance to the other two branches of government--not to bow down to them.

The language of the 'Yes To 8' brief suggests that group see itself in a moral struggle not just to strip gay people of rights, but to mobilize public against the California judiciary.

Time will tell which effort will hold the day.  However, I suspect there are few judges in California (or anywhere else) who respond well when lawyers 'command' them to 'bow' down.  Come to think of it, nobody responds well.  And when you think about it, that really is the point of this whole Prop 8 nonsense, is it not?   Try to strip American citizens of their equal rights, and when that does not work:  raise a bloody stink about the supposed despotic decline of the United States judicial system.”

Meanwhile, California attorney general, and former governor, Jerry Brown, has filed a lawsuit claiming that Prop 8 is in violation of the civil rights of "a classification of people". Hey, we told you that in November! Below, quoting myself from my original article.

“This being the case, Prop 8 is not a matter of legitimate policy. It is a law which revokes the federally guaranteed civil rights of a classification of people, and is thus unconstitutional, and would not hold up to a review by the Supreme Court.”

And Brown, as quoted in the LA Times:

“Proposition 8 must be invalidated because the amendment process cannot be used to extinguish fundamental constitutional rights without compelling justification.”

And indeed, both Brown and I are right. My question is, when he wins his lawsuit, how enraged will these prop 8 purveyors be? Ah, ever helpful, I have some suggestions for the inimitable purveyors of hate. Got any of your own? Tell me in a comment.

ACORN a Republican Set-Up?

Don’t Be Fooled: Republican Charges Against ACORN Are Bogus - AFL-CIO Blog

Magicians often talk about how they use diversion to trick audiences—keep them focused on something on the side while the real action they don’t want you to see is going on somewhere else. That’s what John McCain and the Republican Party are up to with their latest charges against the grassroots group ACORN.

Here are the facts:

• ACORN and Project Vote registered 1.3 million poor people, persons of color and young people, groups that generally vote for Democrats. To register this number of new voters, the groups hired 13,000 canvassers who went door to door in their neighborhoods. The Republicans especially don’t want these groups to vote in large numbers and are doing everything they can to suppress what could be a huge vote for the Democrats.
• ACORN has a tight system of checking voter registration forms. Staff call people

Read full article.

Michelle Obama Turns the Other Cheek

►Michelle Obama Dismisses Criticisms - The New York Times

Michelle Obama is turning the other cheek to the sharp attacks on her husband, Senator Barack Obama, from Senator John McCain, his wife, Cindy, and his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin.

In two televised interviews Wednesday night, Mrs. Obama expressed nothing but kindness toward the Republican ticket. She even offered praise for Ms. Palin, saying she provided “an excellent example” of how women can juggle work and family.

Continue reading here.

Give Sarah Palin the Boot

►Sarah Palin Engendering Racial Hatred, Encouraging the Insanity on the Campaign Trail. She needs to go. Now.

Sarah Palin's recent attacks on Obama are without any real basis in fact, and Palin's supporters demean her, as Palin demeans all Americans. Encouraging, rather than condemning her supporters who yell horrific things such as " kill him" , "he is a traitor", "treason", "terrorist", and other things of that nature in reference to the Democratic nominee for President of the United States, Barack Obama, is beyond stupid, beyond politics, and bordering on insanity. Palin herself calls him "the best friend of a terrorist", a claim totally without basis in fact, and the Republican party has already acknowledged this. This woman needs to go. Quickly. Away.

Palin needs to recuse herself from this election and allow McCain to select another running mate, hopefully someone with intelligence,

Continue reading here.

AIG Throws $440k Party After Bailout at Taxpayer Expense

►AIG throws $440,000 party after bailout

WASHINGTON – Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. (AIG) spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company’s meltdown.

AIG sent its executives to the coastal St. Regis resort south of Los Angeles even as the company tapped into an $85-billion loan from the government it needed to stave off bankruptcy. The resort tab included $23,380 worth of spa treatments for AIG employees, according to invoices the resort turned over to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The retreat didn’t include anyone from the financial products division that nearly drove AIG under, but lawmakers still were enraged over thousands of dollars spent on outing for executives of AIG’s main US life insurance subsidiary.

Continue reading here.

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Palin Distorts the Truth, and Slams Obama

►Palin, on Offensive, Attacks Obama’s Ties to ’60s Radical - The New York Times

Gov. Sarah Palin seized on a report about Barack Obama’s relationship with a former 1960s radical to accuse him of “palling around with terrorists.” Continue reading here.

►Palin: Obama Is ‘Palling Around With Terrorists’  - The New York Times

In remarks at a Colorado airport hangar today, Gov. Sarah Palin tore into Senator Barack Obama with a twist that she ripped right from the headlines of this very newspaper.

Without apparently mentioning the name of William C. Ayers, a professor in Chicago who is a former member of the radical Weathermen, Ms. Palin said, according to a pool report from her appearance: Continue reading here.