The answer has arrived: “Yes…and that time is now.”

Recently, there has been considerable news coverage of two stories.  Two stories, that actually represent the very same issue:

1 - Attorney General Holder’s announcement that the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks would be tried in a federal court in New York.

2 - The announcement that a prison in Thompson, Illinois might be used to house Guantanamo Bay’s detainees.

Let’s start by taking a look at each of these issues independently:

New York Terror Trial:

One can easily predict the response to BOTH these items from the conservative camp.  Conservative pundits and politicians have made the standard “not-in-my-backyard” argument, asking their viewers and supporters, “Do you really want these terrorists brought to the U.S.?”

• Former New York Mayor Giuliani proclaimed that the wounds in New York are still too fresh for the city to withstand the “psychic pain” of a locally held trial.  News flash, Mr. Giuliani…you can’t one minute tell us how strong New Yorkers are, and then tell us the next minute that they are “too fragile” to endure trials of the terrorists who attacked them.  The former is true: New Yorkers have shown themselves to be remarkably resilient, and there are few psychologists who WOULDN’T agree that a trial would be a further step in the healing process.  When people are attacked, it is of fundamental benefit to be able to “face” their assailants, and to see the assailants brought to justice.  Side note: Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) also opposes the trial, calling it “unprecedented” and “indefensible“…strangely, both Sessions and Guiliani had no problem eight years ago with Zacarias Moussaoui (the so-called 20th hijacker) being tried in the U.S.
• Former Attorney General Ashcroft says that a trial in a civilian court, rather than a military commission, would be too “transparent.”  Too transparent?  Is there such a thing when it comes to the American government and our national ideals?  No.  The absence of transparency brought us unjust investigation methods, unjust arrests, unjust detentions, and unjust treatment of prisoners.  There is only one way to get that particular train back on the tracks, and that is to apply the two hundred year-old, Constitutionally mandated, Due Process of Law.  That means courts…it means evidence…and it means a jury gets to weigh that evidence and determine guilt or innocence.  Period.
• Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said that all we need to do…is to remember what happened in the O.J. Simpson trial and ask ourselves, “Do we really want that to happen again.” Really?  Is this perhaps the most inane thing we have ever heard from Chuck Grassley?  If anything hindered the O.J. trial…it was the fact that he is, to some, a beloved football/movie celebrity.  But Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters?  Does Grassley really think that a jury is going to wrongly acquit them because they are “esteemed celebrities?“
• Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) told Holder that since Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has asked to confess his guilt to a military commission and be executed…that is what we should do.  AG Holder rightly pointed out to Kyl: we aren’t going to do what the TERRORIST wants to do…we are going to follow the American legal process.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOVN3iWu9vM

• Karl Rove, Liz Cheney, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Kristol tried desperately to mobilize an angry mob to appear the day of the hearings, where Eric Holder would be explaining his decision to a Senate committee.  The effect of their scare tactics, utilizing the full force of the airwaves and the internet?  Crickets…

It’s really quite simple:  These men participated in murdering thousands of people in New York.  We have an established process for handling this.  We are very proud of our process for handling this.  The absolute dedication to the application of the Due Process of Law is one thing that is truly American, and encompasses all aspects in our belief in fairness, justice…and the necessity for fairness and justice being decided BY THE PEOPLE.  In the New York federal court…the defendants will appear, and be represented by counsel.  The prosecutor, will represent the PEOPLE.  The jury, will represent the JUDGMENT OF THE PEOPLE.  What’s more…the process itself validates and establishes WHO WE ARE as a people each time it is successfully conducted, and also serves as a point of closure and healing for victims.  Much more so than some shadowy, closed, military tribunal down in Cuba.

Relocation of Gitmo Prisoners to Thompson, Illinois:

Thompson, Illinois has a prison.  An expensive, new…and EMPTY supermax facility.  Built during the boom times…when bust times came, it was not practical to staff the prison, so only the minimum security section is used, and for only a small number of prisoners.  The governor of Illinois loves the idea of the prison’s super-maximum section being used to house detainees from Guantanamo Bay.  The state’s two senators also strongly support the idea.  The citizens of Thompson, a city experiencing very hard economic times, love the 3000 jobs and over a billion dollars that the opening of the super-maximum prison would create.  So what could possibly be the problem?

• Illinois Republican Representative Mark Kirk has been holding press conferences and circulating calls for support…saying that bringing the detainees to Illinois would make Illinois and its landmarks the new number one target for terrorists, specifically the Sears Tower, as it is America’s tallest building.  Kirk also warns that, if the Board of Corrections has authority over these prisoners, they will receive visitors…and he says that people would then have to be afraid of terrorists flying through O’Hare airport to come see their incarcerated friends.  Ummm…Kirk?  The Defense Department would be buying the prison FROM the Board of Corrections…and has already said it would not allow the detainees any visitors.  Try doing a little bit of research first, before diving headlong into scare tactics…
• Illinois Republican Don Manzullo, who is actually SUPPOSED to be representing the good people of Thompson (who, again, want the prison to open), warns that the terrorists will be brought here and then released into the Illinois community.

Editorial boards across the country immediately criticized this use of fearmongering, and set about stating the easy counter-arguments to the GOP representatives’ claims.  One of the best columns, by Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg, makes some of the clearest points:  Here’s his column.  I’ll summarize, thusly: First of all, there are already Al Qaeda terrorists being held in Illinois…27 of them…it hasn’t caused Al Qaeda to “zero in” on Illinois yet, so what’s 200 more?  Secondly, history proves that trying to avoid doing anything to provoke “agents of evil”…doesn’t really work (it’s called “appeasement” and you Republicans claim to be against it).  Third, being home to the tallest building in the U.S., doesn’t really mean anything…when terrorists have shown interest in military bases, trains and subways, shopping malls, government buildings, and a multitude of other targets.  But it turns out, the columnists were not the only people who thought the senseless fearmongering had gone too far;  Some Republicans and conservatives are fed up with it as well:

• A statement was released by the Constitution Project, David Keene, founder of American Conservative Union, Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, and former representative and presidential candidate Bob Barr…saying that the housing of Gitmo detainees in Thompson, Illinois…”makes good sense.“  They didn’t stop there, and went as far as to say, “The scaremongering about these issues should stop…[there is] absolutely no reason to fear that prisoners will escape or be released into their communities.“  You can read the rest of the statement here.
• Illinois Republican Representative Jim Sacia was even more direct, saying that legislators (including his GOP brethren) who oppose the measure to move the detainees to Thompson…are “idiots.”  Sacia said, “My thinking on this is extremely positive.  If we lose this opportunity. All I can think of is we literally are idiots. I mean that sincerely…I understand I’m on different pages of music with others in my party. First of all this should not be a partisan issue in any way. If President Obama brings the detainees on U.S. soil and we sit here with a brand new state-of-the-art, max security prison, sitting vacant for the last eight years, and pass on an opportunity to sell it to the federal government, which we would fill it with 1,500 regular prisoners and 800 detainees, what is the problem? The building was designed to do that.“

So, perhaps that’s “it.”  Perhaps Americans, even conservative Americans, are not willing to accept arguments the consist of nothing more than “If we do [insert action here] the terrorists will kill you.“  Perhaps Americans are no longer willing to set aside Constitutional rights and the guarantee of Due Process…just in the sake of “perceived safety.”  Perhaps Americans think jobs and revenue are more important right now than slippery slope arguments regarding what the terrorists “might” do.  And perhaps…just maybe…because Americans are no longer willing to be scared into supporting GOP positions…the GOP is realizing that they have to make a better argument.  Just perhaps…

Only four categories this week…but lots of links, so let’s get started…

POLITICIANS BEHAVING BADLY:

• We’ve all been witness to the GOP’s recent “enlightenment” regarding the nation’s debt.  For the last eight years, while they held the reins of Congress, the rampant government spending was “absolutely necessary.”  Now: It’s the equivalent of kicking our grandchildren in the teeth.  Or, as Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) recently put it, it’s the equivalent of “waterboarding” them.  Coburn said, “We’re going to waterboard them.  We’re going to flood them with debt.“  Senator Coburn was referring to a program funding the study of political science, which Coburn claims is not necessary…since people can learn all that they need to know about politics from CABLE NEWS.  It’s suddenly quite obvious where HE learned most of what HE knows about it…
• It’s an established fact that Republicans have had some difficulty adjusting to the “internet age“…perhaps best displayed by the fact that most of them don’t seem to realize that if they say something that directly contradicts what they said one year ago, the clip of both statements will be on YouTube before the day is out.  Want to see a slideshow of the “Top Nine Republican Internet Fails?”  Here you go…
• The number one problem with allying oneself with a minority of loud, activist, ignorant, and unreasonable people…is that you suddenly lose the support of the much larger body of normal, moderate, sane folks.  Want to see what happens if you try to win the moderate people back by behaving like a reasonable human being, open to compromise and the good ideas of others?  Watch here as Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) finds out what happens when the lunatics figure out that you are not really one of them:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YP7nCyqMTsE

• Liz Cheney is not quite done fighting her father’s battles…no matter how many times she appears on discussion panels and is identified as having the foreign policy knowledge of a teenager.  Now she has formed the “Keep America Safe” organization, whose mission statement claims to support “an unapologetic approach to fighting terrorism around the world, for victory in the wars this country fights, for democracy and human rights, and for a strong American military that is needed in the dangerous world in which we live.“  Ms. Cheney…first of all, even if we look only at the fact that planes have not crashed into buildings this year, President Obama ALREADY has a better track record than your father had, in terms of keeping the country safe.  Secondly, Obama has succeeded in gaining international allies in the struggle against terrorists…allies that your father helped to alienate.  And third, well, I think the DNC put it best in their response: “Last fall, the American people overwhelmingly rejected a radical foreign policy authored by Dick Cheney that alienated our allies, emboldened our enemies, depleted our resources, distracted our focus and made the nation less secure. The Cheneys lost that debate and their approach was deemed a failure. The Cheneys can continue to focus on securing their sullied legacy if they want to. But, the President will continue to focus on securing the country.“  Exactly.
• Retaining his crown as “King of the Bizarre Analogy,” RNC Chariman Michael Steele said in a recent FOX interview that he feels like…well…health care reform is a “train,” and President Obama is the conductor, and Obama is trying to get all the Republicans to get on board, and Steele sees himself as a “cow on the tracks.“  Ok, sure.
• I mentioned in a previous post, one way that you know that the GOP is focused on simply OPPOSING EVERYTHING is when a number of GOP legislators vote against Senator Franken’s first bill:  a bill protecting rape victims, working for companies with government contracts.  Here’s Jon Stewart, who points out what should be an obvious truth: “If, to protect Halliburton, you have to side against rape victims, you might want to rethink your allegiances.“

• It recently came to light, in part because of the work done by the National Women’s Law Center, that in eight states, insurance companies can and do consider being the victim of spousal abuse a “pre-existing condition” that allows them to deny coverage.  State and Federal representatives from most of the eight states expressed immediate embarrassment and outrage over the situation, and most have already taken steps to remedy the matter. But not Senator Richard Burr (R-N.C.).  When the president of the National Women’s Law Center, Marcia Greenberger, appeared before a Senate committee to discuss the issue, Burr thought it appropriate to repeatedly interrupt and otherwise disrespect her:

Greenberger:  If I could get back to your question about the specific examples: they manifest themselves in many different ways. For example, if a woman ends up in an emergency room with cuts, bruises, broken arms, black eyes, typical injuries that result from domestic violence, we know of instances where women are being denied insurance coverage and neither the insurance company…

Burr: My question…

Greenberger: …doesn’t view that…

Burr: …is specifically about North Carolina…

Greenberger: …and I’m trying to answer that…

Burr: …and the insurance commissioner tells me we haven’t had a case. We haven’t had anybody…

Greenberger: Well, I’m trying to explain. First, I think it’s great that he is now explicitly having a rule, which as our report pointed out, didn’t exist before. So that’s really excellent, because of the way insurance companies deal with this issue in particular. They will often deny the coverage of victims and survivors of domestic violence without saying that that’s the reason…

Burr: …I’m just going by your report…

Greenberger: You asked the question about did we follow up and we did.

Burr: Well, I found more information in my one call to North Carolina than I think your report did.

• Again? Representative Bill Otto (R-Kansas) has obviously not been paying attention.  First he puts a video on YouTube titled “Redneck Rap” where he raps (and badly) his various criticisms of President Obama, and about eating opossum, which he calls “the other dark meat.“  This obviously drew allegations of racism (at a minimum it is childish, insensitive, and inane), and eventually the clip was removed from the site.  And now…Otto says he’s going to repost the video, because it was his adult daughters who took the video down, and also because he fears that “People are going to think that this was done by people to shut me up.  I’m getting hate e-mails from Maryland to California, but, hey, that’s part of the game.“  Mr. Otto:  It’s not a game, it’s civil service and YOU are an elected official, jackass.  Next time, listen to your daughters…and try to learn from the lessons of other, like the OTHER Kansas legislator who just recently got in a heap of trouble for saying that the GOP is looking for a “great white hope” to defeat Obama.

THE MEDIA -- PUNDITS, HACKS, AND OTHER INVETERATE LIARS:

• Want the “short version” of the merry war between the White House and FOX News?  Here goes…

WHITE HOUSE: FOX News serves as the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.

BILL O’REILLY: Nuh uh…

MEDIA MATTERS: Umm…it’s pretty obvious, guys…

GLENN BECK: The administration is like the Nazis…and we’re the Jews!

NEW STUDY: Not only is it true, but we found something interesting:  Most of the anti-Obama forces aren’t particularly racist…the only thing they have in common is they all watch FOX News, and because of this…they believe some pretty outlandish sh-t.

• It’s fun picking on CNN’s inability to both perform research and report news.  It’s especially fun…if you’re Jon Stewart of The Daily Show:

• Remember the rather bizarre reactions from some members of the media when Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?  Well, Rachel Maddow thinks it can all be explained by “Obama Derangement Syndrome:“

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMJuEOaF84o

THE HEALTH CARE CARNIVAL OF DESPAIR:

• By now you’ve heard that the Senate Finance Committee managed to pass the “Baucus Bill.“  You also heard that Republican Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) voted along with the Democrats to send the bill on.  And recently, it may have come to your attention that another Maine Republican, Senator Susan Collins, may also lend her support for the bill.  Well, MoveOn.org, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the AFL-CIO, and the Communications Workers of America would like to remind you:  it’s a CRAPPY bill, that would make a mountain of money for the insurance companies, would change little in the way they do business, and would NOT serve to get all of America’s uninsured the health care coverage that they need.  In fact…any OTHER House and Senate version might just be a better choice.
• Thank you, Captain Obvious: The most ridiculously unnecessary headline in health care reform news comes courtesy of The Washington Post:  “Health Insurers Emerge as Obama’s Top Foe in Reform Effort.” That’s right….”emerging“…as if it weren’t always the case.
• Think only our elected officials are in the pocket of the health insurance industry…but our stalwart media will be there to keep us informed of the truth regarding the health care debate.  Maybe not. CNN contributor, Alex Castellanos…has been revealed to be connected at the hip with America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the monolithic insurance lobby currently (and ferociously) campaigning to kill reform legislation.
• You don’t generally hear about “progressive faith groups,” but the American Values Network aims to change that.  They are currently releasing ads…emphasizing the moral and religious arguments supporting heath care reform.  It’s not a difficult argument to make, and represents one of the best examples of “fighting fire with fire” that we have seen in a long time.
• Is it obvious that former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has a new book out?  Not only has he been making the usual talk show rounds, but he also managed to inject a little sanity into the health care debate.  Of right-wing assertions that the Obama plan represents “socialized medicine” and warrants comparisons to Britain, Canada, and France, Frist said on C-SPAN, “What the Obama administration is doing is not socialized medicine.  Socialized medicine is where the government owns the hospitals, owns the doctors, and decides how people get paid.“  Yes…thank you…finally…is everybody listening?

MISCELLANY:

• In Lakeville, Massachusetts, someone carved a swastika and the word “Obama” into a golf course green.  The course manager believes that someone used either a cleated golf shoe or some other tool to perform the vandalism.  Strange…one would certainly think that America’s golfers have had some extra time to get used to the idea of having a very popular, half African-American leader.
• NEW HERO: Dylan Ratigan hosts the “Morning Meeting” show on MSNBC, and lately has shown to be a tough, bright host…who knows how to play hardball.  In a recent interview with Tom Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ratigan responded to Donohue’s attempts to claim that free, unfettered enterprise has the solutions to all problems by saying, “unless the government and people like you that lobby to the exemptions that allow banks to [speculate with taxpayer money] get out of the way, we will never have fair play again in this country and we’ll have job creation by virtue of taxpayer theft, which is ultimately destructive, and I would argue, treasonous to this country.“  When Donohue complained that, in essence, it’s harder to spread economic propaganda when the host asks hard questions, Ratigan responded, “Yes, it is.  Especially when you talk nonsense.“
• Oh no they didn’t: The White House decided to take a play out of the “Sarah Palin Media Strategy” book, when confronted with the mounting criticism in the blogosphere regarding the administration’s failure to achieve civil rights goals for gay citizens.  NBC White House Correspondent John Harwood reported, “For a sign of how seriously the White House does or doesn’t take this opposition, one adviser told me today those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult.“  Caaaarefullll.  Remember the role bloggers played getting Obama into the White House?  UPDATE: The White House would like to disavow those comments…never happened…nothing to see here.

Now what could we possibly add to all that?  As CNN would say, we’ll “leave it there” for now…and see you back here on Monday.

Well…if you are one of those people who is just not quite disgusted enough by the current state of affairs, here are some very recent news items to help you along:

1 -- ENOUGH HYPOCRISY TO GO AROUND: Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee discussed Senator Rockefeller’s amendment to add a public option to the bill.  While it was nearly a foregone conclusion that the amendment would not pass (in fact, four Democrats voted against it)…the discussion leading up to the vote was shameful.  Senator Grassley (R-IA) showed his usual disdain for factual information, citing studies from the conservatively biased Heritage Foundation, as well as a study by the Lewin Group…which is WHOLLY owned by a large health insurance company (it is worth note that he disregards all of the credible studies, including the one done by the Congressional Budget Office).  He joined the chorus of GOP lawmakers who openly admitted that their argument, that the public option would lead to a government takeover of health insurance…was a “slippery slope.”  Of course, this shows (once again) that these politicians don’t know that a “slippery slope” is a type of LOGICAL FALLACY…an indefensible argument, not supported by reason.  And they are openly admitting this.  The second part of their argument is that “government run programs are bad“….but then when confronted with their hypocrisy regarding the government-run Medicare program, they don’t want any of its costs cut, and they say that Medicare is different because Medicare is POPULAR.  Then, they have the nerve to boisterously object to Representative Alan Grayson’s statement on  Tuesday that the GOP health care plan suggests “don’t get sick“…and if you do, “die quickly.“  This, while just last week, Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA) suggested to a constituent that her sick family member (who had no insurance and needed surgery) sell everything she own, so she will be poor enough to get on a government program…and then seek charity.  So why are the GOP making such empty and ridiculous arguments?  Why are the Democrats even too spineless to conform to their own principles?  Simple…they are all bought and paid for:

2 -- THE “OBAMA YOUTH” FAUX CONSPIRACY: The latest fake outrage?  A group of school children are on tape singing a song about helping their country and President Obama…for African-American History Month…and the lyrics were sent home to parents ahead of time and nobody objected.  So how does FOX News and the rest of the right-wing media respond?  Of course…they decry it as the worst kind of indoctrination, and go as far as to vehemently claim that this never happened (and never would have happened) under the Bush administration.  Except…it did.  There is a clip circulating of Bush with children…praising him for his handling of the Katrina disaster.  That’s right: it’s kids praising Bush…and over one of his biggest, most thorough SCREW-UPS of his presidency.  Here’s the coverage from Countdown with Keith Olbermann (contains all the clips):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LkE8AuIPkY

3 -- DEMONIZING YOUR ENEMY 101: Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ) speaking to a right-wing conference at the inanely titled “How To Take Back America” conference, told the assembled crowd: “Obama’s first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers’ money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries.  Now, I got to tell you, if a president will do that, there’s almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn’t be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can’t do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.“  Frank says that OBAMA does insane things?  What about a sitting congressman referring to the President and Commander in Chief of his country as “an enemy of humanity?“  How is THAT reasonable or sane?  At the same conference, considerable time was also given to the threat of the “gay agenda,” the “fascist agenda,” and the “communist agenda,” making it a veritable cornucopia of issues best categorized as “things to scare uneducated rubes, entrenched bigots, and homophobes.”

4 -- SCAREMONGERING FOR DUMMIES: Meanwhile, the sick comedy team of Liz and Dick Cheney, would still like to tell you that Obama is making you less safe, that he is going to put terrorists in your neighborhood, and that he is going to let the terrorists kill you.  Even the generals are calling this “nonsense” and “scaremongering.”  Retired General David Maddox, former Army commander-in-chief for Europe, said:  “Some of the fear issues that are being raised in this are really unfortunate. It gets people excited about things they shouldn’t be excited about and impedes doing what is critical to this country. Get that damn symbol off the table.  We take a setback every time somebody, whether it’s the vice president or his daughter comes out and says the things that they say…We have to get out there again and just keep pounding.”

5 -- POLITICS MINUS ETHICS: Remember hearing about the census worker found dead in Kentucky?  Hanging from a tree, bound and gagged, with the word “FED” written on his chest?  No doubt murdered as the result of the litany of “Census Conspiracy Theories” being peddled by Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and others of the right-wing fringe?  Well the local authorities…still haven’t ruled out suicide or accidental death.  Now, Kentucky officials may not be the brightest on the planet…but I’m certain that even they don’t think this happened “accidentally,” or that the substitute teacher/cancer survivor/census worker did it to HIMSELF.  No…they are mere petty politicians…who don’t want to admit that the chickens are coming home to roost…that the violent, inflammatory hate speech emitting out of the GOP and the right-wing media has finally claimed its first, and most obvious victim.  The man’s son calls it “shameful“…but it is even worse than that.

6 -- MORE CHICKENS COMING HOME TO ROOST: What is all the outrage and incendiary language producing?  Besides dead census workers?  Incidents like this:  Facebook, the social networking site, has had to disable the “polling” function because someone posted a poll asking if the president “should be killed.“  It’s a simple-to-understand social phenomenon, that has occurred at other times in history (for those willing to learn from history):  violent language, talk of killing political enemies, proclaiming the end of America, labeling opponents as the enemies of humanity, calling for armed insurrection…it invariably leads to public, violent ideation, threats, and eventually…actions.  The Secret Service is investigating because, once again, threats against the president (even if made in jest) are ILLEGAL.

7 -- YES, SADLY, MORE CHICKENS: Need other examples of where this is headed?  Newsmax’s columnist John Perry wrote a piece this week…OPENLY CALLING for an armed uprising against the government.  Perry wrote: “Imagine a bloodless coup to restore and defend the Constitution through an interim administration that would do the serious business of governing and defending the nation. Skilled, military-trained, nation-builders would replace accountability-challenged, radical-left commissars.“  Newsmax would later pull the article…and at the same time attempted to lamely justify the piece saying that the author was only “describing” the scenario…not “advocating” it.  This semantic word-play should only serve as further cause for our disgust…and I would, as I did in the previous item, remind readers that “free speech” is not without constraints, and inciting armed insurrection against the government is CLEARLY illegal.

8 -- PRIORITIES, SHMIORITIES: What does Michael Steele, chairmen of the Republican National Committee, think of the rhetoric, and the threats and violence it’s spawning?  Steele says in response to calls to tone down the level of discourse: “Where do these nut jobs come from? Come on, stop this…To make those equations, examples and put that out there that way, to me is just crazy and yeah, I’m sorry, but if you’re going to approach this discussion, approach it from a rational position.  [They're] saying, because you disagree with the president on policy, that all of the sudden we’re going to make this leap into, you know, assassinations and all this other stuff. I mean, at the height of all this stuff on Bush and people complaining and protesting, and jumping up and down, you didn’t have this kind of conversation.“  See what he did there?  It’s how the conservatives are responding to ALL criticism.  When it was suggested that SOME of the people adamantly protesting the president MIGHT be harboring racist sentiments, the right-wing responded, “They’re saying that ALL people who criticize the president are racists!“  And now, that many are saying that the current level of unreasonable, inciting language by SOME could POSSIBLY lead to violence, the right-wing responds, “They’re saying all people who criticize the president are going to cause an assassination!“  It’s a childish, pat response to an argument…that they are going to lose.  It’s worth noting that the cause that Steele DOES think is worth fighting…is denouncing Obama for taking ONE DAY to travel to Copenhagen to try to get the Olympics to be held in Chicago.  That’s right…Steele, thinks it’s important to attack the president for trying to bring the Olympics (with all the business and prestige that accompanies the event) to an American city.  Not health care…not the increasingly violent tone of American political discourse…not Afghanistan…the OLYMPICS.

9 -- JUST ASK BRISTOL: Teens know that “abstinence programs” are a joke.  Studies show that the government, under the Bush administration, spent MOUNTAINS of our money funding these programs…to NO EFFECT.  Even Texas…the number one recipient of “abstinence program” funds, is now changing their program to a more comprehensive sex education program…because under “abstinence” their teen birth rate stayed the third highest in the nation and they have the highest percentage of teen mothers giving birth more than once. So…it makes ZERO sense that the Senate just approved restoring the $50 million a year of federal funding to “abstinence-only programs.“  That is…it makes zero sense until I tell you it was the Senate Finance Committee led by Max Baucus, the same committee to produce the only health care reform bill out of five currently in Congress that has neither a public option, nor true reform…and that would net billions more in profits for the health care industry.  Suddenly, it all becomes clear how this happened…

10 - AY, DIOS MIO! The Republican Party has failed miserably despite its attempts since the election to attract minority voters.  Its latest efforts related to Hispanic Heritage Month, won’t help very much.  It’s bad enough that the party’s leaders regularly spout anti-immigrant, xenophobic, anti-Hispanic propaganda…but when their press release (in Spanish) to the Hispanic community is literally FILLED with spelling, grammatical, and translation errors, well, it certainly doesn’t make them look very “in touch” with the Hispanic people.  I mean seriously…if they had even had ONE Spanish-speaking person JUST LOOK AT the release…they could have avoided this.  The ad they put out…was in some ways even more insulting, since they failed to deem any prominent non-conservative Hispanics worthy of mention.  You would think they would at least have give some time to Sonia Sotomayor…yeesh.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQzTuJdJNlQ

I read pieces like these and my first thought is, “I wonder if they are ashamed…I wonder if they are embarrassed,” and then I realize that since the behavior of our elected officials, our media, and our fellow citizens reflects on me…that I am embarrassed.  We all should be, because it is only by our permission that people such as these are given power, are given a voice.  And until we revoke the power and the pulpit from those who we do not wish to represent us…it is we who are equally at fault.