Six Reasons Why White People Love Herman Cain

http://lomalinda.patch.com/blog_posts/six-reasons-why-white-people-love-herman-cain-bf0f0c64

Threats of Insurrection, Violence Are Common on the Right

By Clavell Jackson

It is clear to me that there is a large segment of this country which is clinically insane -- and much of this madness is motivated by the election of President Barack Obama. There is even a term for this -- Obama Derangement Syndrome.

There is plenty of evidence of this on FOX News and AM radio, but that pales in comparison to the hard-core lunacy on web sites such as World Net Daily and Big Government. World Net Daily, also known as World Nut Daily, is home to conspiracy theories which warn that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim and also publishes the embarrassing work or real-life ditz and Saturday Live vet Victoria Jackson (no relation). Jackson's drivel is so factually and grammatically incorrect that even a high school paper would hesitate to publish her articles. One of her recent columns accused Obama of being similar to Hitler, because Hitler "had a white mother, had a secret army and hated Jews."

Right-Wing Watch, a web site funded by People for the American Way, tracks inflammatory comments from the Religious Right, a group that has always mixed madness with political intensity. A recent article on Right-Wing Watch about William Gheen of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, an anti-immigration group, said Obama is such a threat to White America that his group no longer accepts him as a legitimate president and was considering "extra-political activities that I can’t really talk about because they’re all illegal and violent." Yes, a political group just threatened a violent insurrection against the U.S. government.

Unfortunately, this is not uncommon. Over the last three years we have seen an increasing tide of disrespect and violent rhetoric coming from political figures and media commentators. Lunatic presidential candidate Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) once said that she suspected Obama of having anti-American views and former Nevada senatorial candidate Sharron Angle suggested angry voters should take up "second amendment remedies" if the polls didn't work.

Is it any wonder that many media sources reported that Obama was getting 30 death threats a day stretching the Secret Service to breaking point. Yes, many people are upset about the recession, but this is more than economically-motivated frustration. This is refusal to accept Obama as the nation's leader. America has been through tough economic times before when Franklin Roosevelt was president, but we didn't see this level of violent rhetoric. FDR did face an attempted coup from a group of oligarchs, including Prescott Bush, who wanted to install a fascist government. You won't find much information about the "Business Plot," in American history books though.

I have to believe that much of this is racial. Although the myopic GOP continues to say that is not, the evidence is in plain sight. FOX News has a long string of racial slights such as accusing Obama of "having hoodlums in the hizzouse," and "chugging forties." Glenn Becks rants were so offensive, FOX finally had to let him go. And there is a long history of racist comments from GOP politicians which include comparing Obama to a monkey, using the phrase "tar baby" and sending cartoons of the White House lawns festooned with watermelons. If you want to see really vile comments check out the commentary section on Foxnews.com. A recent story about Somalia referred to the country as "Niggadishu." Note to the GOP, if you can't see it, that's because you don't want to see it.

Many of the Obama haters will call him a communist, a Muslim, a liberal, even if he is none of those things. Obama has pursued largely moderate positions, to the point of alienating his liberal supporter. But it seems that some white people cannot swallow the idea of a black man in the White House. How dare Obama address the nation, how dare he go on vacation, how dare he take off his jacket in the Oval Office and how dare he fly on Air Force One? Like the other presidents didn't do any of the same things.

This hatred has sunk deep into the core of the political system. We now have an opposition party that will vote against any legislation if it has the hint of making Obama and the Democrats look good. As the recent debt crisis showed, Republicans are willing to crash the economy to achieve their political point.

The future does not look any better. If Obama wins a second term, and I believe he will, the GOP will try to impeach him. Presidential candidate Herman Cain has already said this would be a good idea! It will probably fail and cost the nation a lot of time and money, but as long as it gives the Democrats a black eye, the GOP is happy.

We are only in the Summer of 2012, we have almost a year of political campaigning ahead of us and I am already exhausted. We've got a bumpy ride ahead of us.

Tea Party Monster is Choking its Republican Creator

It's a sign of how awful the mainstream media is when some of the best reporting is found in Rolling Stone. Yes, Rolling Stone, a magazine that is known for covering drug-addled rock stars, broke the story that took down former Afghan commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. And Rolling Stone Matt Taibi has also done some of the most hard-hitting and insightful writing about the mortgage crash and Wall Street's shenanigans.

Taibi also did one of his trade mark acerbic pieces about the Tea Party. Taibi says, "A hall full of elderly white people in Medicare-paid scooters, railing against government spending and imagining themselves revolutionaries as they cheer on the vice-presidential puppet hand-picked by the GOP establishment. If there exists a better snapshot of everything the Tea Party represents, I can't imagine it."

The article features an illustration where a Frankenstein-like monster, representing the Tea Party, is being stitched together by Sen. Mitch McConnell. It's interesting because the Tea Party, which was a creation of the Republican party, is beginning to look like it's eventually going to choke its creator.

The fiscally conservative Tea Party was supposed to have sprung up in opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform legislation. But where were these people when President George W. Bush was waging two unfunded wars, giving tax cuts to billionaires and pushing the Medicare prescription drug benefit? According to figures from the Congressional Budget Office, Dubya increased the deficit by $5 trillion, while Obama has only increased the deficit by $1.4 trillion so far. (In spite of their reputation for fiscal conservatism, Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased the deficit, while President Bill Clinton left a budget surplus.)

In reality, the Tea Party is a triumph of branding. It was the same GOP repackaged in a new shiny box, kind of like the new coke. The Tea Party, a supposedly grass roots movement, is actually funded by Americans for Prosperity, a group that is headed by former Republican Congressman Dick Armey. It's sponsored by the Koch brothers, some of the wealthiest political backers in the country. The brilliance of the Tea Party is that it managed to get middle-class Americans to get out and march in the sun for policies that benefit billionaires!

But then something unexpected happened, the Tea Party began to get out of control. The Tea Party's popularity let clueless politicians like Christine O'Donnell, who has never won a race in her life, and Sharon Angle, who became famous for running away from the media, and mistaking Latinos for Asians, get a national spotlight. O'Donnell and Angle were so wacky, that voters ended up electing Democrats, even though the mood of the nation was supposed to be turning against them.

But it didn't stop there. The Tea Party movement also swept up politicians like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who bragged about secession while balancing the budget with Obama stimulus money, and the idiotic Rep. Michele Bachmann, who claims she is for small government, even though she has received millions of dollars in federal money, and used to work for the IRS!

Now we have a lot of angry, white people who are pushing for the Tea Party's fascist mantra. The Tea Party is steering the Republican party even further to the right. So what happens when you push a party that is already pro corporation and anti-regulation even farther? You get fascism. As Benito Mussolini said, fascism occurs when the state and corporate interests merge.

Mainstream Republicans are worried. Former White House adviser Karl Rove actually said Tea Party presidential candidates were coming across as too far right. In an interview with Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Dallas Tea Party leader Phillip Dennis called Karl Rove, "a big-spending, big-government moderate!" Now when Karl Rove, the man who was nicknamed "Bush's brain," is called a moderate, the crazy train has left the station.

The thing is politicians like Speaker John Boehner and Karl Rove, are old-time insiders. They know how the system works, and they realize that Republicans can't get elected if they let a bunch of lunatics, who say they want to let the U.S. default on its debt, who don't believe in global warming and who want to turn Medicare into a voucher system, get elected, the Republicans are screwed. Senior citizens vote en masse, and they won't take kindly to politicians who want to eliminate the programs that keep them alive.

And it seems the American public is finally waking up to the fact that by voting in Tea Party politicians, they essentially handed the lunatics the keys to the asylum. Tea Party governors Rick Scott, John Kasich and Scott Walker are already facing revolts at home as voters realize they are trying to cut essential services and go after teachers, cops and firefighters. According to a recent New York Times article, the Tea Party is less popular than Muslims and atheists.

But the genie seems to be out of the bottle. The Tea Party has unleashed a wave of wild-eyed ideologues who are going to drive the Republican party right off the cliff. And right now the Democrats are pulling up a deck chair and grabbing some pop corn.

An Open Letter to African American Herman Cain

Herman Cain

Dear Herman,

You don't know me, and until recently I didn't know you, but because I am a political junkie, I have been forced to learn about you. And boy, where do we start?

Firstly, I have figured out your game. I know you are not really running for president, you are running for a position on FOX News. You see, running for president is a great branding tool, because it raises your profile and the press writes about everything you say and do. No one knew who you were a few months ago, and now you are household name. And after you lose, you can go back to your media career and sell some more books.

There is a long history of no hopers running for president -- talk to Donald Trump. Cybill Shepherd, Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson also said they were running for president at one point, and look where they are now?

But this letter is not about your political views, and it's not about the fact that business skills do not necessarily make a great president. We all remember how well the last "CEO president" turned out. But this is about your apparent self loathing of black people and Africa.

I was particularly disturbed by your recent comment stating, "I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African-American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people."

Herman, this sounds dangerously like self hatred. Malcolm X said, "You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree. You can't hate Africa and not hate yourself." If you are black man living in America, how did you get here? How were the original black Americans brought to America, and where did they come from? And why is a black man trying to deny his link to Africa? I can't imagine that an Irish American would ever deny his cultural ties to his ancestral home.

Herman, I can understand how you may feel that you have nothing in common with Africa. Your view of Africa is probably formed from the America media, which shows nothing but starvation and warfare. But you can't run from your roots. You are the descendant of Africans, and there is no hiding it.

If you ever did a DNA test, you would discover what ethnic group you are descended from. And if you actually visited Africa, you would see people who look just like you. You might actually learn that it looks nothing like the images you see on FOX and CNN.

Herman, in my 40 odd years on the planet, I have learned that you can't run from who you are. You have to embrace it -- both the good parts and bad parts. Let me tell you my story, I come from an African family who also lived in the Diaspora. When I was younger, I was embarrassed by my African name and wanted to be like other Africans in the Diaspora, who had Westernized names.

I even lived in Africa and was turned off by the chaos and poverty I experienced over there. It has been a long journey, but over the years I have learned to embrace my African heritage, I have studied and learned of the contributions African have made to the world civilization. And I have learned that Africa had empires, language, art and religion long before Europeans arrived. I am a black man, my parents come from Africa, and I have an African name. Herman, this is your background too. Running from it would be like trying to run from your shadow.

Yes, there are some cultural differences between Black Americans and Africans, but we have a shared heritage. Maybe we are not brothers, but were definitely cousins.

So do us all a favor and just accept who you are. This is really getting embarrassing. Odabo, brother. (That means goodbye in Yoruba!)

Photo by Gage Skidmore

Herman Cain is a Placebo for White Racism

Herman Cain

After watching Tea Party favorite and GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain's new campaign video, I finally came to a realization. I had long wondered what was the attraction was for the only African American Republican presidential candidate. But then I realized that Cain is running as an apologist for white racism. And that is why the Tea Party loves him.

Cain, with his rags to riches story of rising from the son of a chauffeur to a CEO, fits in perfectly with people who want to believe America does not still have issues with race. Republicans can vote for Cain and say, "Well, we aren't racist, we voted for a black man." I guess they have forgotten about all those signs they had at the health care rallies a few years ago, depicting President Barack Obama as everything from a witch doctor to a monkey.

I have several problems with Cain, apart from his apologetic tour. He has no political experience. His only other political campaign was losing a GOP primary in Georgia, and while some may see that as an advantage, it isn't. The last time a non politician was elected to the White House was Dwight Eisenhower, who lead Allied forces in World War II. And if you want to know how well non politicians do in office, just ask California how Arnold Schwarzenegger worked out.

Cain's main selling point is his business experience. But after the Wall Street excesses that nearly crashed the world economy, why do Americans keep screaming for government to be run more like a business? Do they really want government run like Lehman Brothers and Enron?

Corporate chiefs don't have the temperament for the political world, as can be seen in the disastrous reign of Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is fast-gaining a reputation as the worse governor in the country. Scott, a former health care executive who was fired after his company received the largest fine in American history for Medicare fraud, is facing animosity from the left and the right.

Scott has barely been in office six months and Floridians are already talking about a recall. Cain has already flubbed questions about the complex Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so who knows how worse he will do under even more scrutiny?

But the really troubling thing about Cain, is how he is so willing to pander to racial politics. He bandies about phrases like, "leaving the Democratic plantation," and being a "Son of the South."

Cain is appealing to Nascar Dads, which is ironic because many of these people also expressed some of the most virulent hatred towards Obama because he was "Muslim," or "foreign." And at his lowest point Cain, pandered to bigots by bragging that he would not name a Muslim person to his cabinet. (He later tried to backtrack on this.)

Republicans like to say that Cain's popularity shows that the GOP has embraced diversity, but I suspect that if he was made the Republican presidential candidate, he would split the party. Some of the ex Dixiecrats, who were seduced by Nixon's Southern Strategy, would split off and join a party that expressed more radical racial views.

But even if Cain was white, he would still be like Sarah Palin, a joke of a candidate, who has no chance of getting elected. He is just lapping up the media attention in his "I'm Trying to Get Paid" tour." The campaign has done wonders for his name recognition. And if he has to become the latest conservative black minstrel, he seems wiling to pay that price. He has plenty of company alongside Alan Keyes, Juan Williams and Jessie Lee Peterson in FOX News' Brotherhood of Self-Loathing Brothers.

King Hearings Make Muslims The New Racial Bogey Man

As a black person who has lived 40 years on this planet, I’d like to think that we have made racial progress. But then you hear about things like Rep. Peter King’s Congressional hearings on Islamic terrorism.

King’s hearing on home-grown Muslim terrorism kick off Thursday. This McCarthy-like circus is the culmination of about 12-month of rising anti-Muslim hysteria. This has included protests in the streets of New York over Park51, a mosque scheduled to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero, demonstrations against mosque construction in California and Tennessee and frenzied warnings about alleged plans to impose Sharia law in the United States. (It should be noted that Muslims currently account for less than 0.5 percent of the U.S population.)

This Islamophobic propaganda has been disseminated by a host of shrill, racist commentators. People such as Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, who claimed that the NASA sign had hidden Muslim symbols, Pam Geller, a lunatic blogger, who claimed that President Obama was Malcolm X’s son, and Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, who has said we should end Muslim immigration.

And all of these propagandists get an open forum on the neo fascist/neo racist FOX News, which is ironically partially owned by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal who also funded Park51. (Although this has been covered extensively by Think Progress and “The Daily Show,” you won’t find this information on FOX or other right-wing outlets.)

Islamophobia is not just words, it has spurred violent action. In Sacramento, two Sikhs were killed in an attack which police believe was a hate crime, and a video from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) showed Tea Party protestors haranguing Muslims, including children, at a fundraiser in Orange County. Speaking at the event, Villa Park Councilwoman Deborah Pauly said, “As a matter of fact, I know quite a few Marines who would be very happy to help these terrorists to an early meeting in paradise.”

Now King brings this rising Islamophobia to a head with his farcical hearings. King claims that about 80 percent of American mosques harbor radical imams. Ironically, he doesn’t plan to call any senior law enforcement or intelligence officials to testify at the hearings. Maybe, because they would disprove his accusations.

According to an article in Think Progress, more domestic terrorist attacks have come from non-Muslim terrorists, than Muslims terrorists. Writer Zaid Jilani says: “In fact, right-wing extremist and white supremacist attacks plots alone outnumber plots by Muslims, with both groups being involved in 63 terror plots, 18 more plots than Muslim Americans have been involved in.” Jack O’Reilly Jr., mayor of Dearborn, Mich., a city with a 30 percent Arab population, has described King’s accusations as “just not true.”

King himself has a long history with terrorism. His great uncle was a member of the IRA, which was responsible for a series of terrorist bombings of London in the 1970s and 1980s. King was an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and according to the New York Times he said, ““If civilians are killed in an attack on a military installation, it is certainly regrettable, but I will not morally blame the I.R.A. for it.” He was also accused by a Belfast judge of being “an obvious collaborator.”

It’s questionable why King has launched his quixotic campaign against terrorism. His anti-Islam hearings could be a cynical attempt to boost his profile. And it's seems to be working, because he is all over the media. If you didn't know who he was before, you do now. Maybe King, like pseudo-politicians Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, he is following the format of making outrageous comments to sell more books and book more media appearances. But this sudden outburst of Islamophobia is more calculated. Studies show that anti-Muslim rhetoric spiked in the run up to the mid-term election. This is really about politics and scaring people into voting against their own interests.

The upper-class whites who controls this country don’t care about working-class whites who drive Toyotas and shop at Wal-Mart. The only thing that alligns them with working class whites is racism. And over the last 40 years, the Republican party has mined that fear to get people to vote. For a long time it was blacks, with fears of integration and “welfare mothers in Cadillacs,” then it was fear of gays, who were destroying the traditional family, then it was Latinos threatening American culture with the Spanish language. But all of these minority groups have largely been mainstreamed.

The new ethnic bogey man is Muslims (read Arabs.) The right doesn’t seem to care that not all Arabs are Muslims, and not all Muslims are Arabs. To them it doesn’t matter as long as it gets NASCAR dads and Tea Baggers to forget about their vanishing 401ks, declining home prices, the awful health care system and the cost of two foreign wars. Muslim is the new black.


What do you think of the Rep. Peter King hearings?Market Research

GOP Policies Will Create Feudalistic Society

Christine O'Donnell

We are entering the final leg of one of the craziest and most exhausting political seasons in history. This year the GOP has fielded the most extreme and unhinged candidates in recent memory. With her talk of refusing to pay for maternity care, Nevada senate candidate Sharon Angle, who beat out a woman who wanted people to barter chickens for healthcare, was the kookiest candidate on the block, but then along came Minnesota GOP senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, who dabbled in witchcraft, lied about her college education and also fudged her dad’s history as the official Bozo the Clown.

This would all be amusing, but there is something deadly serious about their message. It is clear from some of their statements that the GOP/Tea Bag candidates want a return to a form of government that seems to look at lot like feudalism. And by that, I mean they want a society where the landed gentry controls everything and the peasants eke out a living as dirt farmers.

More evidence of the GOP’s contempt for the poor can be seen in statements from Alaska GOP senate candidate Joe Miller, who recently called the minimum wage unconstitutional. Linda McMahon, a GOP senatorial candidate in Connecticut, has echoed Miller’s ideas. Miller is also against unemployment insurance, even though his wife used it after she quit her job,

Many of these current GOP candidates want to strip the government down to its most limited functions. They claim that federal and state workers control the government through their powerful unions. (God forbid that unions actually lobby for decent wages and benefits.) GOP candidates would do away with unions, worker rights and labor laws, allowing bosses (the landed gentry) to have all the power.

California GOP candidate Meg Whitman, former CEO of Ebay, wants to do away with about 40,000 state jobs in a bid to streamline government and make it more businesslike. But here is the dirty little secret. That work still needs to be done. Someone needs to arrest criminals, process government paperwork, write tickets or do the other mundane government tasks we take for granted.

And this is where the second part of the GOP’s plan to restore feudalism comes into play. Whitman has said that she plans to make government more efficient by turning these government jobs over to private firms. So what will probably happen is that a firm will take over the government contract for a couple of million, and then farm out the work of 10 people to two contractors. If the contract is worth $20,000 the owner will probably keep half, and split the rest among the contractors, who also don’t get benefits and can be fired at will.

However these contracts will probably end up going to companies with ties to the Whitman campaign or even companies that she owns. She is supposed to be a smart business woman, so I doubt if she would spend $140 million of her own money and not expect some kind of return. This kind of situation has happened before, under the George W. Bush administration which mastered the art of crony capitalism. After the Iraq war. massive no-bid contracts were given out to Halliburton, which was formerly run by Vice President Dick Cheney. Halliburton also has contracts to supply and feed troops, jobs that used to be performed by the military at a lower cost.

If the GOP wins, it won’ t just stop at state contracts. Republicans have their eyes on other government services such as Medicare and Social Security. They may claim they want to make these programs more efficient, but its all about money. The plan to privatize Social Security, which Sharon Angle said she was for then against, has been called the next big heist. Wall Street stole trillions of dollars from working Americans through the Great Mortgage Crash, and now it has social security in it sights.

It will be the same scenario if the GOP gains power, they’ll push through legislation authorizing the privatization of Social Security. People will be encouraged to open private accounts, that means trillions of money for Wall Street, and more potential victims.

Wall Street will play on Americans’ greed, just like they did with the Housing Bubble. Sign up for this complicated savings plan, which you don’t understand, and you might get 50 percent more in your retirement account. What they won’t tell you is that you also might lose your shirt, and your broker gets a commission for every customer he steers towards a certain investment fund. (This has happened before.) Also, your broker is going to charge you monthly fees for watching your money. This has been tried before, under the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile and workers found they ended up getting less money because of broker fees. According to a 1995 article in the New York Times by Larry Rohter: “Even many middle-class (Chilean) workers who contributed regularly are finding that their private accounts - burdened with hidden fees that may have soaked up as much as a third of their original investment - are failing to deliver as much in benefits as they would have received if they had stayed in the old system.”

If history repeats itself, Wall Street will create another bubble that will explode, and the federal government will be forced to bail out the banks -- again. This has happened at least twice before, with the Savings and Loans crisis (total cost $124.6 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office), and the recent Toxic Asset Relief Program (TARP) bailout, which bailed out banks drowning in the mortgage crisis to a tune of up to $700 billion.

This form of crony capitalism will create a new generation of robber barons (feudal lords) whose wealth is based on their proximity to the government. If you want to see how this ends, look at Russia which is now controlled by a few oligarchs who became fabulously wealthy after the fall of Communism. During this time, a handful of men became overnight billionaires because they were able to cut shady deals with their political friends.

One of the most controversial oligarchs is Roman Abramovich, a 43-year-old, worth about $11 billion and the 50th richest person in the world. Abramovich made his fortune after he bought Russia’s oil and gas company on the cheap during the post-communist Yeltsin era and resold it for a huge fortune, during the rush to privatization. (There’s that word again.). In Russia he is a controversial figure because he is seen to have defrauded the people, but in Britain he is a somewhat popular figure because of he is the benefactor of Chelsea Football Club.

If GOP politicians get elected they will enact polices that will create hundreds of Abramovichs. You have been warned.

Beck Rally Confirms Maher’s Claims About Dumb Americans

Political humorist Bill Maher often gets in trouble for calling Americans stupid. But after watching about 90,000 people show up to a rally thrown by entertainer/cult leader Glenn Beck can there be any further discussion?

Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally simply revealed that Americans are willing to follow a charismatic leader even if he has a wacky agenda. After all, televangelists who hawk the widely discredited prosperity gospel also have huge followings, and Beck’s credibility is on par with the men who beg for money on TBN and professional wrestlers.

The rally itself was a strange event, which moved away from a political fest, (Tea Baggers were told to leave their hate signs at home) and turned into a quasi-religious revival. And this too is strange because Beck is a Mormon, and follows a faith that many Evangelicals don’t even recognize as mainstream Christianity.

Marsha White, writing on the conservative web site RenewAmerica, said, “Mostly he (Beck) uses Christian terminology, which is misleading. It would seem that Beck is a Christian. But how can that be? Mormons deny the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. Mormon beliefs do not line up with Scripture yet they insist on calling themselves Christian when they clearly are not.”

If the curious religious nature of the event is surprising. It is nothing compared to the political comments of the attendees:

• According to Talking Points Memo, Carolyn Cassaberry of Newport News, Va, who attended the rally, said that she was not sure if President Barack Obama is a Muslim and needed more documentation.

• Many attendees were happy at the religious tones of the rally, but they had no idea Beck is a Mormon.

• The Velvet Revolution website interviewed a Black Tea Bagger from New Jersey who felt that something needed to be done about the health care system, but believed the “free market” was the answer, even though countries like France, Germany and Canada have much more efficient government-run health care systems.

• Other rally attendees supported Tea Party supporter Ted Nugent’s idea of “putting a bullet in illegal immigrants.”

• But the best quote comes from an AP story that interviewed Ricky Thomas, a father from Chesapeake Beach, Md., who said he wanted the government to stay out of people’s lives. Thomas is a SWAT officer who makes his living kicking down doors and arresting people, who may or may not be guilty. He also draws a nice government pension and has employer-provided health care. So if Thomas hates the government so much why doesn’t he quit his job and give up those tax-payer provided benefits?

But this is the level of discourse we expect from people who gather all their information from FOX News, a station that runs race-baiting stories round the clock and tells its viewers that Obama is a Marxist-Muslim terrorist who wants to destroy America.

And why should we expert accuracy or intellectual honesty from a rally organized by a man who says he wants to reclaim civil rights, but thinks the president is a racist? Beck also later said that he did not agree with the economic goals of the Civil Rights movement.

In a rambling interview with Chris Wallace on “FOX News Sunday,” Beck also called Obama’s faith a “perversion of Christianity” (even though many Christians do not identify with Beck’s faith). He also criticized people on the left for using racial politics, even though he works for a network that has spent the entire summer running what MSNBC host Rachel Maddow calls “scare white people stories,” such as the false Shirely Sherrod story and the fake New Black Panther story.

It pains me to write about Beck, who has said that his primary goal is making money and doesn’t care about the political system, but when almost 90,000 show up to follow the rantings of a clueless man, something has to be said. Beck is a showman who thrives on attention, negative or positive, but liberal writers have to at least point out his lies and hope someone is paying attention.

During his interview with Wallace, Beck did drop a few nuggets of honesty into his sea of lies. He said that even though his followers wear Palin-Beck T-shirts, he could never get elected president. And that is something we can agree on.

Angle Distances Herself from Her Own Comments

I hope Nevada voters come to their senses and reelect Sen. Harry Reid, because the other option is downright frightening. State Sen. Sharron Angle is challenging Reid for the U.S. senate seat, but her views are so extreme, that even she is trying to distance herself for her own views.

Her latest stunt is trying to sue the Reid campaign for publishing comments from her old web site. Angle has a new web site, which has been scrubbed of her old controversial views such as privatizing Medicare and opposing abortion under any circumstance.

Angle's new web site is part of her rebranding campaign, which has meant largely avoiding the media. However the Reid campaign has published her old comments at a web site called Sharronsundergroundbunker.com.

I am not an expert on media law, but I don't think you can sue someone for publishing comments which are true. Also, even if you take a down a web site it still lives on on the Internet. Apparently Angle doesn't seem to realize that.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/angle-sends-cease-and-desist-to-reid-for-reposting-her-own-website.php?ref=tn

Meet FOX News' latest contributor - Ted Nugent

Sometimes it seems as if FOX News does not even attempt to be a legitimate news organization -- which it isn't. At times they seem to grab anyone off the street to talk about politics. Ray Stevens, author of the of culturally sensitive "Ahab the Arab," was called on "The O'Reilly Factor" to talk about political correctness. And now America's favorite neo-fascist Sean Hannity, has called on barely sane rocker Ted Nugent to bash the Obama administration.

Nugent accuses President Barack Obama of spitting on the flag, the Bill of Rights and the 10 Commandments. Nugent has also advocated executing Obama and Hillary Clinton . By the way wasn't it the Bush adminstration who decided to arrest American citizens and hold them indefinetly without trial?

The only thing he didn't accuse Obama of is raping an apple pie. Nugent's rant is highly ironic since he has multiple marriages behind him, a kid out of wedlock, and also dodged the draft. According to an interview with the British Independent newspaper Nugent literally crapped his pants to get out of going to Vietnam, Nugent's views are so far the right, he would fit perfectly in Nazi Germany. His solution to the Iraq war? "Nagasaki" them! And this is who FOX chooses to give political opinion?

FOX must believe that it's viewers are thick-headed enough to actually believe Nugent's B.S. I am not sure if he does, or if he is following the Glenn Beck method of saying mindless crap to sell books. Sorry Ted, if you ever want to be taken seriously, you're going to have to do better than that. Some of us actually read and check the facts, unlike most FOX News viewers.

Alvin Greene's 'Phantom' Campaign Leaves Many Unanswered Questions

The media loves a good story, even if it's not true. The story of Alvin Greene, the South Carolina phantom, who won the Democratic senatorial primary in South Carolina, is a great media story -- even if there are several holes in the plot.

In case you have not been following this story, Greene, an unemployed former service man who lives with his parents, managed to win the Democratic primary (garnering more than 100,000 votes,) without doing any campaigning, advertising or media. He had zero money to work with, but somehow managed to come up with the $10,000 filing fee.

Greene has no political experience and the only jobs skills he has are from 13 years in the military. He is also facing a felony charge for showing an underage college student pornography.

Some people are billing this as "Mr. Greene goes to Washington," but this story smells worse than three-day old fish. There is no way you can get elected by sitting on your ass and not spending any money. If it was that easy, hundreds of other people would have done it and billionaires like Meg Whitman wouldn't have spend $80 million to win the California gubernatorial primary.

There have been several theories about how Greene pulled this feat off. South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn is calling Greene a plant who is being secretly directed by hidden powers. The motive is to give incumbent, Sen. Jim DeMint, a pushover opponent. Clyburn is calling for an investigation into alleged election fraud. Additionally, the voting machines used in South Carolina are made by Diebold, the same firm that made the voting machines that turned out mysterious results in Ohio in 2004. The Ohio voter scandal resulted in an unresolved lawsuit and Mike Connell, a GOP operative who was scheduled to testify in the case, died in a mysterious plane crash. Diebold machine provide electronic voting, with no verifiable paper trail. The company is owned by a major Republican campaign donor.

Hiring a simple African American as a ringer is not new in South Carolina. According to an article in the Washington Post, Republican operative Rod Shealy was convicted for hiring a black fisherman to run against his sister in her campaign for lieutenant governor. Shealy's goal was to stimulate white voters.

This story has many troubling elements:

• How did an unemployed man come up with $10,000?
• How did Greene win election without campaigning?
• Why did Greene tally more votes than there were voters in certain districts?

And Greene himself is an oddity. He claims to be a college graduate, but can barely string together a coherent sentence. His interviews make Sarah Palin sound like a genius. When asked about his platform, he repeats a series of cliches, like "more jobs" and "better justice,"but offers no concrete solutions or ideas. Some South Carolina politicians have suggested that Greene is a mentally challenged patsy who is being used. Other voters have suggested that Greene won because his name sounded black. His opponent Vic Rawl, a judge and former state legislator, is white.

There are too many unanswered questions here. These are questions which should have been answered by the South Carolina media, who only seemed to start investigating Greene after he won. Unfortunately, this is what happens when the media has been reduced to a shoe-string operation who don't have the time to do investigative stories. The South Carolina Democratic party also has egg on its face for letting things get to this stage. And the GOP, well all we have right now is accusations, although DeMint stands to benefit from running against a straw candidate.

This scandal may blow up in the GOP's face if they are implicated. A Global Grind columunist says that if it turns out that Greene is a Republican plant, many black voters will stick a fork in the GOP and say they are done.

Vampire Republican Thinks Obama is A Muslim, Favors Executing Illegals

If you thought the Tea Baggers were crazy, here is a Republican who makes them look sane. Jonathon "The Impaler" Shockey is seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, which is not that strange, apart from the fact that he is a practising vampire.

Shockey is a perennial candidate who has unsuccessfully run for congress in Florida, New Jersey and Florida. Shockey is separated from the mother of his three kids, and has ran afoul of the law for his relations with teenage girls. He likes his "vampire brides" under 19.

Shockey also believes Obama is a Muslim and is in favor of impaling illegal immigrants and criminalizing abortion. The scary thing about Shockey is not that he is a vampire, who actually drinks blood, but how close his views are to mainstream Republicans!

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/politics/2450/your_hatred_will_make_me_famous:_making_sense_of_a_republican_vampire

Conservative Columnist Says Palin is Just A Reality TV Star

David Brooks

Here is news for all you Sarah Palin fans. You are delusion. Palin will never run for national office and she is about as likely to be elected president as Sponge Bob Square Pants.

This should be glaringly obvious to anyone who has sat through her shallow, rambling, grammar-free speeches. But there is more news to imply that Palin has no interest and no chance of becoming president. News reports this week show that Palin raked in $12 million after she resigned as Alaska governor. Another report detailed her extravagant travel requests which include bendable straws, limos and private jets.

But here is the coup de grace from New York Times columnist David Brooks. Brooks, a conservative, dismisses Palin as nothing more than a Reality TV star and urges people to focus on real politicians. In a recent discussion with Times' columnist Gail Collins, Brooks said, "She is a half-term former governor with a TV show. She is not going to be the leader of any party and doesn’t seem to be inclined in that direction."

Brooks argues that Palin functions as a Rorschach test for both sides, left and right, to project their views on. To Republicans, she is a gun-toting, pin-up gal who espouses traditional family values (even though her daughter had a child out of wedlock.) To Democrats, she is an ignorant, shallow Christian fundamentalist. But either way, we won't ever have to worry about Palin presidency.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/who-will-lead-the-republican-party/?ref=opinion

Beck made $32M in 09, Doesn't Care About Political Process

Here is a depressing thought. While millions of Americans are struggling with mounting bills and long-term unemployment, self-described "entertainer" Glenn Beck made $32 million in 2009.

His earnings come from speaking engagements, books sales, his radio show and TV show. I guess being a right-wing loony, and selling crap to gullible Americans is a lucrative business. (Further proof that Americans are not too bright.) It has made people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter millionaires.

In an interview on Bill Maher's "Real Time," Keith Olbermann once said that most right-wing propagandists simply do it for the money. And if you need further proof of that consider this quote from Beck. In an interview with Forbes magazine he says, "I could give a flying crap about the political process. We're an entertainment company."

These people don't care about the issues, and they definitely don't care about the middle class and blue-collar Americans, they lionize. Rush Limbaugh can afford the best health care in the world, and so he doesn't care if average Americans are dying by the thousands because they can't get decent health coverage.

Limbaugh, a thrice-divorced, ex-junkie, whore monger, makes his living selling "traditional values" to blue-collar Americans. Coulter who makes racist jokes about Middle Easterners, was pictured with African American Jimmie Walker, who later proclaimed how much he loved her. And Beck, who equates social justice with socialism, is a member of the Mormon Church, who regularly set aside money for the poor and underprivileged. These people don't even believe in the very crap they are selling!

Beck says that he is a "regular guy." Hard to believe that when you have two bodyguards and are pulling down $32 million a year. So now Americans know these guys are just saying whatever they have to do to sell books and ads -- stop buying their products!

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0426/entertainment-fox-news-simon-schuster-glenn-beck-inc.html

Time, Not Socialism, Is the Tea Party's Worst Enemy

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Tea Bagger Hate Has Always Been in Plain View

Latest racial attacks are not surprising

Are people surprised that Tea Baggers directed spittle and insults at Democratic legislators? News reports say that Rep. John Lewis, a veteran of the Civil Rights movement, was called the n-word and Rep. Barney Frank was called a faggot. In another incident, Rep. Emanuel Carver was spat on.

It is only the natural progression of tension that have been building for the last 12 months. We saw this during the Town Hall rallies when flabby, ageing Americans almost came to blows over health care. Were those red-faced protesters at the Town Hall rallies actually happy with America's profit-driven health care system, which rewards executives for denying sick people treatment? Actually, many of those protesters were directed by PR companies and lobbyists, who were bankrolled by health insurance companies.

Tea Baggers, who seem to be mainly frustrated middle-aged white people have been whipped into a rage by AM radio and FOX News, the great miscommunicator. Before that there were books written by propagandist such as Ann Coulter which advocated the execution for liberals. FOX News also runs the nightly rantings of the deranged Glenn Beck, as he warns about plots to take away guns, ban fishing and destroy the government -- all the time offering no credible evidence

Tea Baggers are upset at the state of the economy, the shrinking middle class and the fact that neither of the parities seems to speak for them. The GOP, under President George W. Bush, enacted policies that left America awash in red ink. These findings are backed by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Writing in the Huffington Post Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) said, "The Bush tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations have led to the largest concentration of wealth since the Great Depression. His devastating and unnecessary war in Iraq was done without evidence linking the country to those who attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001. And the Medicare prescription drug act that Bush signed into law intentionally prohibited Medicare from negotiating prescription drug prices, costing us billions every year. Each of these programs was not paid for and exacerbated the deficit problems our country already faced."

The real problem is the lack of diversity in the American political system. Both parties tend to favor the corporate agenda, because they take money from the same companies. The Tea Party wants a more libertarian and fiscally responsible GOP, but that would never happen because they would never get elected. Liberals are unhappy at President Obama's agenda, because they think it's too centrist.

The GOP has struggled to maintain the votes of middle class and blue-collar Americans by sprinkling in wedge issues such as gay marriage, abortion and race. And that is where the Tea Bagger anger comes from. Yeah, the economy is in a mess, so it must be the fault of the black guy who has only been in charges for less than two years, forget about eight years of GOP policies. If the mortgage industry crashed it must because of bad loans given to blacks and Mexicans, not shady financing by Wall Street bankers. And the black guy int the White House only got their because of affirmative action and isn't a "real American."

When you have people like Sean Hannity, Beck and Rush Limbaugh throwing around racial epithets, it's not surprising that we have signs like "Monkey See, Monkey Do," "Obama's an illegal alien," and much worse at Tea Party rallies. The atmosphere around these rallies has been widely reported by the media, in spite of the fervent denials of members of the Tea Party.

If they actually studied the issues and watched real news stations, other than FOX News, Tea Baggers would figure out that the Democrats' policies are actually more in line with helping working people. According to an article by Tom Dickinson in Rolling Stone, "A recent poll found that only two percent of Tea Partyers are aware that the president enacted the largest middle-class tax cut in history. A staggering 44 percent, by contrast, believe that Obama has increased their taxes — and only 16 percent blame the current economic catastrophe on Bush, who ran up record deficits by slashing taxes for the wealthy."

Tea Party members are mad because they have been screwed over by the Republican party. They are just not bright enough to figure out where to direct their anger, and spit.

Ron Paul Denies Responsibility for Racist Comments in His Newsletter

Rep. Ron Paul is an oddity. He is a libertarian-leaning Republican, who voted against the Iraq War, opposes the Patriot Act and has called for an auditing of the Federal Reserve. He is also in favor of withdrawing from the United Nations and reducing drug sentencing. And although he won the CPAC poll, he has absolutely no chance of winning the Republican nomination in 2012.

Paul has been dogged by accusations of racist comments he made in his newsletter back in the 1980s and 1990s. (His son, Rand, also discovered he had a white supremacist working on his campaign team.) Some of the comments in Paul's newsletter include advising people to buy guns to protect themselves against blacks, accusing blacks of thinking car jacking is hip and saying that inner city blacks are taught to hate whites.

Paul claims that he was the publisher of the newsletter but did not keep track of who was writing for the publication or what they were writing about it. As a journalist, I have learned that if your name is on top of a publication, you bear responsibility for it. Also, CEOs of corporations are held responsible for the products their companies put out.

His excuses in this CNN interview simply do not add up. You don't get to say, "I didn't know" and walk away. And this wasn't one comment, there were several. It seems obvious that this was a smear campaign designed to upset Paul as he was gaining popularity, but it leaves some nagging doubts about Paul's motivations. But the question is where do we, and Ron Paul, go from here? I think Paul's political future lies with a third party, which would only draw away Republican voters.

poll by twiigs.com

Americans Don't Seem To Realize That Obama is Succeeding

I have said it before, and I will say it again FOX News is propaganda. They are not in the news business, they are in the truth creation business. FOX News' goal is to keep people ignorant of the truth, and keep them believing the Republican version of reality. And in that world, the Democrats are responsible for the deficit, Obama wants to ruin the country and there were no terrorist attacks under George W. Bush.

Don't believe the hype. FOX News operates under one of the classic principles of propaganda. That is repeat the lie over and over again, until people believe it's true. Unfortunately, it seems to be working, as many Americans frustrated with the slow economy are threatening to vote out the party in power. But here are some facts. And remember, I am a poor blogger who is not being supported by any commercial interests. I have no corporate master's telling me what to write about, or what not to write about.

• The Stimulus Worked. Contrary to what some sections of the media are reporting, the economy is turning around slowly and the Stimulus plan actually worked. Some economists like Paul Krugman say the Stimulus Bill, which totalled around $800 billion, was not extensive enough. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Stimulus created 2.1 million jobs. Without the Stimulus unemployment would have been about 11 percent. Economists from the National Association of Business Economics predict the economy will grow by 3.1 percent this year. Some economists have claimed that without government intervention we would have been looking at 30 percent unemployment. And you can only imagine the type of anarchy that would have been unleashed with statistics like that!
• Obama is successfully waging the war in Afghanistan. Former VP Dick Cheney may get on TV every Sunday to complain about the war in Afghanistan, but the experts on the ground have a different view. Obama has successfully refocused the military's energies on Afghanistan and the man who was behind 9-11. A Daily Beast article lays out the successes against Al-Queda by pointing out how they are now resorting to sending confused men with bombs in their pants to the attack the U.S. Less than 10 years ago, they managed to coordinate a four-pronged attack, that knocked down the Twin Towers and damaged the Pentagon. Some Bush officials have actually complained that Obama is killing too many terrorists!
  
• Prosecuting terrorists in court and not torturing them works. Before we thought that most terrorists were wild-eyed fanatics who wouldn't talk even if their feet were literally held to the fire. The truth is a little different. American interrogators have gotten terrorists to talk by using tried and true techniques like negotiating and exploiting family ties. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian underwear bomber, is alleged to be cooperating with authorities after his family was flown to the United States. American resident Najibulah Zazi, a terrorist who was captured attempting to bomb the New York subway system, has also proved to be a wealth of information, after cutting deals with prosecutors to avoid prosecuting his parents.

So Obama is turning around the economy and successfully killing and prosecuting terrorists. Now if he could only get health care fixed ... Of course the Republicans are pretty much voting down all of Obama's legislation, even the Jobs bill, which would help put Americans back to work. Okla. Sen. Tom Coburn said that Republican like gridlock, because it prevents anything from getting done. And Rush Limbaugh, the unofficial leader of the GOP, has said that he wants Obama to fail. These are the same people who applauded when Chicago didn't get the Olympics. So voters please remember this when November comes around and when you are looking at your empty 401k. The GOP has shown you where they stand, now it's up to you to show them where you stand.