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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Tag Archives | civil rights

Glenn Beck’s Un-American Slander

By on 29 July 2009

Just imagine what would happen if Obama was a conservative and a liberal let fly with such vitriol.

Watching Beck lean back, so comfortable on that couch. He gives the impression of a man on the rise with nothing to fear or to lose. That on Fox he’s found his place. One has to wonder if there will be any consequences for Beck over his un-American slander of the President of the United States.

MSNBC’s Donnie Deutsch slammed Glenn Beck today, then made an excellent suggestion. Write the advertisers of Beck’s show. Tell them that you don’t appreciate his un-American slander of the President of the United States. His advertisers, in part: General Motors, Campbell Soup, Chrysler, Proctor & Gamble, Pfizer, Kellogg, Walmart, Kraft Foods, Nestle. A diarist over at DailyKos has compiled the email addresses, phone numbers, names of top execs. and a lot more.

This is not a boycott, but a statement to these advertisers that they should advertise on another show. At least that was Deutsch’s point, which I think is a good one. Simply let the advertiser know that this type of heinous vitriol against the President of the United States should not be supported with advertising.

Instead of advertising on Beck’s show, suggest they move to Shep Smith, someone who at least has a brain and some balance.

Nobody is saying everyone has to agree with what the President says or proposes. But anyone saying Pres. Obama is “a racist” is purposely being divisive and even incendiary at a time when rhetoric on the right is getting hotter by the day.

That Beck is also ignoring the great American story of the rise of the first African American to become president, well, that should get Beck shunned by everyone.

To give you an idea of how over the top Glenn Beck is with this slander, Fox News Channel distanced themselves from him, saying Beck was sharing his personal opinion.

As I watched this I also began wondering about Beck himself, who is a Mormon. A church that didn’t recognize African Americans to be fit for the priesthood and many other things in the church until 1978. As my husband is a recovering Mormon, having gone through the trouble to take his name off the roles, I’ve learned a lot about that church (also having bad experiences with a few). Though I have also met wonderful people of the Mormon faith who are anything but racist. However, I obviously still have great objections to their imbedded sexism in keeping women in their place, so to speak; but I feel the same about the Baptist religion, as well as Catholicism, which is why I’m Episcopalian. However, with Beck’s vicious accusation about Obama being “a racist,” it’s obvious he missed a lesson or two about racial tolerance. Missed the moment when his own church walked away from their racism, welcoming African Americans into the temples. The implied bigotry in Glenn Beck’s remark is so alarmingly stark it can lead to only one conclusion. Maybe Glenn Beck is the one who’s actually racist. His Mormon brethren should call him on it.

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Beyond Dr. Tiller

By on 26 July 2009

–updated–

Not only did she fear the protesters, she also worried about whether Dr. Tiller would be gruff and cold, “only in it for the money,” as his critics alleged. It was almost a shock, she said, to instead meet a slightly nerdy doctor who gently explained every step and kept asking, “Are you doing O.K.?” – An Abortion Battle, Fought to the Death

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I don’t write much about this subject. I still can’t figure out why in an age where science has offered up the antidote to abortion, we’re still talking about it. The Morning After Pill combined with birth control should render this discussion closed. In fact, the article today in the New York Times Magazine illustrates why traditional media is failing so spectacularly. Instead of Dr. Tiller’s story, why isn’t the Times focusing on the health care debate and women’s reproductive rights, including abortion?

A group of 20 House Democrats signed a letter sent last Friday to House Democratic leaders stating they “cannot support any health care reform proposal unless it explicitly excludes abortion from the scope of any government-defined or subsidized health insurance plan.” The House health-care bill doesn’t explicitly mention abortion, but the Democrats who signed the letter are a guarantee that it wouldn’t allow the federal funding of abortions or require that private health-insurance plans pay for abortions. – WSJ

But yet, the pro selective life crowd keep on with their 19th century mantra, with zealots among them winning on access and lynch-mob mentality for anyone who dares to provide women the legal health care rights we deserve. The pro selective life crowd hell bent on scuttling women’s civil rights for which women have fought and died over decades and decades. Their theory when applied to health care today is simple, as is their advice to Pres. Obama:

You will infuriate abortion-rights activists. But to be blunt, where are they going to go? – The Week Magazine

The “where are they going to go” theory of women’s civil rights shrouded in the “call their bluff” talking points of putting in language against poor women, so that the majority gets health care, etc. etc. Read the piece, you’ll get the picture.

But even as bad as the piece is, it’s where the New York Times should have gone today. Proving that even this newspaper can’t reject passed events over the importance of covering a critical current event in today’s health care debate.

The pro choice crowd not singularly focused on engaging these anti civil rights activists on the one issue that renders the issue solved: reproductive health care products, including when it comes to health care reform. Some Democrats fighting for health care reform seem to think the Chris Matthews philosophy against abortion access the most moral fight.

The whole debate revolves around civil rights (which should never be predicated on whether you are rich or poor).

Back in May, I did an interview with Women on the Web about whether there is a “pro-life feminist movement.” I can barely write those words without laughing out loud. I explain why fully in the interview below. It seems like a perfect moment to share the importance of women’s civil rights, which includes full reproductive health care access. Today Women on the Web’s lead story is on “The Bathing Suit Chronicles.” Anyway, I tape all my interviews, so I’ve got the back and forth, which I thought I’d share today, because it adds a broader context to The New York Times piece. Though we might have missed some things here and there, the text is as close to verbatim as we could get. I hope it will give everyone something to think about. We’re beyond Tiller today.

_________________________

WOMEN ON THE WEB: … As I told you this is for a piece on the pro-life feminist movement.

TAYLOR: Oh, that’s an oxymoron.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK, well we’ll get into that in a second. First of all you describe yourself as pro-choice, basically. Can I ask you why you . . . you’re pro-choice?

TAYLOR: Well I don’t describe myself as pro-choice, actually.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: How do you describe yourself?

TAYLOR: I’m pro women’s civil rights.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK.

TAYLOR: That’s what I’m for.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And what’s . . .

TAYLOR: Civil rights begins with what we do with our own bodies. If you cannot have . . . if you don’t have control over your own body, there’s . . . there are no civil rights. It doesn’t exist. I mean, I happen to believe that privacy is part of that, but that isn’t the only issue. The issue is my body is nobody else’s but my own. And what I . . . and my decisions that affect my body and my life, whether it’s diet, health or something as monumental as ending a pregnancy or deciding to go forward with a pregnancy, that is ultimately my decision. And this is a civil rights issue.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right. Well a lot of people, certainly like in your ideological camp for people who would define themselves as pro-choice, discuss the fact that, you know, being able to choose what to do with their body is an empowering decision for women. Marjorie Dannfelser, who runs the Susan B. Anthony List, and that’s a group that campaigns for pro-life female candidates, as well as pro-life male candidates, argued to me that . . . …But she said, “Well, you know, people can be empowered to do lots of things. We can be empowered to abuse our children, we can be empowered to starve ourselves, we can be . . .

TAYLOR: Oh, good grief.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: . . . empowered to steal. What do you make of that sort of counter argument from her?

TAYLOR: Well it’s . . . it’s changing the subject. It’s kind of like a non sequitur argument, and I disagree with their whole . . . they’re pro-selective life. They’re not pro-life. A woman in the throes of a difficult choice, especially someone that’s younger, this is . . . this is a life issue for her. And some women can’t afford it, aren’t emotionally prepared. I mean, there’s a million reasons. I’m not going to, you know, delineate people’s choices there. But this is . . . their platform is a pro-selective life, because if they really were pro-life then these individuals that want to curtail a woman’s civil rights would also be for preventing pregnancy, they’d be fore contraception, they’d be for RU-486. We could get into the stem cell debate and what that does for quality of life and pro-life. Their argument is morally bankrupt and most . . . and a lot of these people are also . . . you know, they’re the proponents for torture, they’re the proponents for the death penalty. So their pro-selective life. It’s . . . it’s . . . their argument is morally bankrupt and it . . . it really doesn’t . . . if you follow the through line you just gave, it makes absolutely no sense and I really feel sorry for them because in the 21st Century, if you really want to be an agent for changed, whatever it is, but especially when it comes to the abortion issue, you have to put everything in the mix. You have to want to help young women, you have to want to go beyond abstinence – which doesn’t work. That’s been proven a million times. And you have to not only teach abstinence, but you have to also give them the tools of what happens our emotions and our physical urges smack int . . . you know, run into the wall of a situation that is leading you down a tough road. You have to be prepared and be willing to stop unwanted pregnancies, not just through abstinence but through every means we have – scientific, medical, all of it. You have to bring all of it to bear if we’re going stop the number of abortions, which we actually have the power to do. We can bring this down if everyone would agree. You know, my side – pro civil rights – will agree, OK teach abstinence, but abstinence plus. Their side won’t come to our side. They will make no compromises whatsoever. So we’re not able to curtail the number of abortions. Then if you want to go to what we can do in the world, and AIDS and what is happening with our policy in the gag rule around the world, you know, we have a moral obligation to use every . . . every scientific means at our method, plus the moral means, plus abstinence. The only way to get abortion down is to use them all.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: … Hmm, interesting. I like the pro-selective life argument. I had not heard that but I think it’s, you know, very . . .

TAYLOR: You know, it’s absolutely what it is. It’s . . . and too many people . . . that’s why I reject wholly being put in the pro-choice. It’s far larger than that, and they get pro-life. Their sloganeering makes them sound like their on a higher plane. But when you dissect it down, and even the argument you gave me, if you dissect it down it’s creepy what their saying – that you can inspire people to be . . . I mean, that’s their argument? This . . . I’m not just . . . it’s not just about being pro-choice. I think women have a tremendous responsibility, especially in the modern era. There is no excuse for an “unwanted pregnancy.” There’s no excuse for it, with the scientific methods we have, the medicine we have, planned parenthood. And I’m not a . . . you know, I’m not a member of any of these groups, but there’s just no excuse for it. We have the means for . . . for every, single young woman – and young man, by the way. It’s not just about women, it’s men too. We have the means to stop “unwanted pregnancies.” There’s no excuse for it. And the pro-selective life community won’t engage on all these methods. And that’s why we’re still having this ridiculous argument. We should just go about . . . we should be in the solution phase, period. I mean, it’s the 21st Century. We should . . . none of these other things are valid. They are old. They are out-worn. It is putting us on a hamster wheel of this argument that gets us nowhere. And I’ve seen what this does when someone is faced with these things, when they have parents that . . . that, you know, don’t allow . . . don’t allow their own daughter’s civil rights to be acknowledged. This is a problem, and we can’t just close our eyes and say, “Oh, we’d love this all to be abstinence and every . . .” I mean, who wouldn’t love that to work? But it just doesn’t. You know, it’s just not practical. It’s just not practical. And we are . . . we all are guilty if we don’t fight for every tool we have to be on board. This is a very serious issue. This is very serious and it deserves . . . it deserves solutions, not just a rolling debate that leads us back to the 20th Century, to things that have already been solved by science.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And my next question is a simple enough question, but of course the answer can be quite complicated. What . . . how do you define a feminist?

TAYLOR: Boy, well I’ll start by saying that for a long time the Conservatives have said that the feminist era is over, and that is because they look through a very myopic lens, and they think that feminism is just about the United States, and just about what women in the United States have. I cover foreign policy. That is my main thing, especially since I moved to DC. It has always been my passion and I look at it through a really wide lens, covering Afghan women, covering what is done to women in honor killings. Being a feminist is about . . . and you don’t have to be female to be feminist. Being a feminist is insuring that every woman has the God given civil rights that we were born with, to be totally free to envision her life as she wants without restriction, except obviously by law and certain things of that nature; not the law of a country, but the law of . . . the Golden Rule law, let’s say. And I think as long there is one woman being stoned to death in some country, if young girls are having acid poured on them because they want to go to school, it is every woman’s duty to fight for that woman to be free to make those choices to educate herself or educate children. And I . . . and this does not involve getting in the midst of religious differences. It has nothing to do with what clothing some woman wears, whether she wants to wear a (abaya or hajib). That is a choice of her religion that is none of our business. But it is the world’s business that women’s rights are human rights, and a feminist fights for those rights whether they’re in the United States of in Kenya – wherever it is. That is the goal, is to spread the importance of women’s rights as human rights, as Hillary Clinton so eloquently said back in China in the ‘90s as First Lady. This is very critical because we are learning, and we have learned, that the more women have a say in a nation the more stable their government. That is in our interest as Americans, and that’s in our interest as we go forward to try to have relationships with countries, to stabilize the world we live in.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Going over . . . I mean, doing my work for this piece I’ve encountered to many different definitions of feminist. There is the free-market feminist, the pro-life feminist, feminist feminist, progressive feminist… … I mean, you have a very . . . I’m not going to say strict, but you have a very definite definition of what a feminist can and should be. So you . . . do you not believe in a spectrum of feminism?

TAYLOR: What do you mean by a spectrum of feminism?

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Well, you know, some people argue you can be a feminist and pro-life, you can be a feminist and pro-choice, you can be . . .

TAYLOR: No, I don’t. No. Absolutely not. I don’t believe in that.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: OK.

TAYLOR: I absolutely don’t believe that. You know, femin . . . no, I don’t. It’s a civil rights issue. It’s what I just explained. No, I don’t. I don’t think you can dissect it. I think they want to dissect it because that makes it easier and the responsibilities less onerous. You know, the responsibilities that we have to fellow people on our plant, it makes it easier. And they can also say, “Well, in this small section I really am a feminist. But if I go out of this section I’m not.” You know, that . . . that doesn’t wash. Whether progressive or conservative, you know, I could care less, when we’re talking about getting something done around the world – helping women . . . The Clinton Global Foundation and how they help keep down AIDS, they make deals to get drugs to communities to help, women, their children, stop the AIDS virus. I mean, this is all our job as feminists… . . . . . …You know, we each have tribes, but we can all agree that quality of life is imperative, especially with women… whether you’re Israeli Palestinian… Israeli Arab women there do not . . . are not able to work. I mean that is our job. There is no . . . there is no subset. You either are involved in dragging this world forward to a place of more enlightenment, peace and civil rights for everyone, or you’re not. Period.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: You know what’s interesting, Taylor, is that I’ve been approaching all sorts of people for this story, but Planned Parenthood and Feminist Majority declined to comment.

TAYLOR: Huh?

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Isn’t that weird? I thought it was weird.

TAYLOR: Well, I . . . I’ve got to be honest, as I said before I don’t belong to any of those groups.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right.

TAYLOR: And so . . . and there’s a reason… You know, there’s a reason. I just . . . I push away from the group think stuff and it’s what gets me in trouble all the time.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Well, I mean, I have the same thing with organizations like Human Rights Campaign.

TAYLOR: Yeah. . . . . . Well it’s another . . . it’s another form of tribalism. And I don’t want to get down into smaller tribes. I want to be part of a big tribe.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Right. Right.

TAYLOR: Because big tribes can make better change.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: I think so, too. Another argument that has come up from the so-called pro-life feminists is the idea that the ability to have a child, that maternity is an essential part of a woman’s being. What do you make of that, that it’s like a woman’s duty to have a child almost?

TAYLOR: That’s propaganda placed on someone else because you want to control them. Its guilt, it’s marketing, it’s making it laudatory without . . . without considering the personal woman’s own life. Again, pro-selective life, the life they want you to lead has nothing to do with her civil rights and her willingness to find her own soul’s journey. Each person is not in it for . . . as much as I want to move the collective forward, each of us is not in this world to simply be part of a collective. Through our own soul journey we find answers and our own bliss, which leads us to a higher place that makes us more valuable in that group that can push forward and make change. But the first thing you’ve got to do is go through your own soul journey. And they want to cut that off and make it . . . make women feel a duty to do something other than they’re being called to do. It’s coercion.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: And my final question for you, and I . . . I mean I pretty much know how you’re going to answer this, but I need to ask. Is it anti-feminist to fight Roe vs. Wade?

TAYLOR: Roe vs. Wade is . . . is settled law. I’m going to come back to it. This is a civil rights issue. And if you’re against women’s civil rights, you’re on the wrong side. Anything that impedes a woman’s civil rights is wrong, it is antithetical to everything that I know, even about my own Christian faith. It’s . . . it’s cutting off freedom and it’s cutting off your own soul journey. Part of the tough choices we make in life, the tough decisions, what we create on our own . . . by our own mistakes, is the challenges that make us better people. And all this is part of a civil rights journey that makes you who you are and hopefully you learn from them and get better. And it’s all down to civil rights. Anyone who fights against a person’s civil rights – women, man, gay, lesbian, whatever you want to call it – anyone who stands up against a person’s civil rights is on the wrong side.

WOMEN ON THE WEB: Alright. Well you have been very informative . . .

TAYLOR: Well thanks for this. I appreciate the opportunity. I really do.

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Belly Up to the Presidential Bar

By on 25 July 2009
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Via The Root, a statement from Henry Louis Gates, Jr.:

“… I told the President that my principal regret was that all of the attention paid to his deeply supportive remarks during his press conference had distracted attention from his health care initiative. I am pleased that he, too, is eager to use my experience as a teaching moment, and if meeting Sgt. [James] Crowley for a beer with the President will further that end, then I would be happy to oblige. …

This is how it’s done.

Meanwhile, over in crazy town, some conservatives refuse to take Sgt. Crowley’s example.

Exhibit A starts the hunting of Mr. Gates: “A Gatesgate At Henry Gates’ “Bogus” Charity?”

Tom Maguire over at Just One Minute doesn’t get that an apology doesn’t have to contain “I’m sorry” to actually be an apology.

Small minds.

Jack Dunphy, “an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department,” writes over at NRO that “L’Affaire Gates” is really about martyrdom.

Patterico sums up the racism from the right: Racism is simply a form of stereotyping.

Of course, none of this would be complete without Mr. Limbaugh weighing in. Because Obama is black he’s got “a chip on his shoulder.” You know, because for the power wing of the Republican Party, “angry black man” is the mantra.

No amount of toasting or comity will ever calm the rabble.

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Obama Steps In and Up

By on 24 July 2009

The President called and connected with Professor Gates at 3:15 this afternoon. They had a positive discussion during which the President told Gates about his call with Sgt. Crowley and statement to the media. The President also invited Gates to join him with Sgt. Crowley at the White House in the near future. – from the White House

And he even invited both Sgt. Crowley and Professor Gates to have a beer with him at the White House. Smooth and classy. Though my favorite anecdote was Obama intervening for Sgt. Crowley, who asked the President if he knew how to get the press of his lawn. It was priceless.

With the issue escalating and the Sunday shows approaching, Pres. Obama made the smart play to get the next word before the weekend, but to also make very sure he got back in control of the situation.

The first step was admitting and taking ownership that he’d contributed to the “ratcheting” up of the whole sorry mess, also saying it was a “teachable moment.” The entire exchange is below:

Obama: If you got to do a job, do it yourself. (Laughter.)

I wanted to address you guys directly because over the last day and a half obviously there’s been all sorts of controversy around the incident that happened in Cambridge with Professor Gates and the police department there.

I actually just had a conversation with Sergeant Jim Crowley, the officer involved. And I have to tell you that as I said yesterday, my impression of him was that he was a outstanding police officer and a good man, and that was confirmed in the phone conversation — and I told him that.

And because this has been ratcheting up — and I obviously helped to contribute ratcheting it up — I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically — and I could have calibrated those words differently. And I told this to Sergeant Crowley.

I continue to believe, based on what I have heard, that there was an overreaction in pulling Professor Gates out of his home to the station. I also continue to believe, based on what I heard, that Professor Gates probably overreacted as well. My sense is you’ve got two good people in a circumstance in which neither of them were able to resolve the incident in the way that it should have been resolved and the way they would have liked it to be resolved.

The fact that it has garnered so much attention I think is a testimony to the fact that these are issues that are still very sensitive here in America. So to the extent that my choice of words didn’t illuminate, but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think that was unfortunate.

What I’d like to do then I make sure that everybody steps back for a moment, recognizes that these are two decent people, not extrapolate too much from the facts — but as I said at the press conference, be mindful of the fact that because of our history, because of the difficulties of the past, you know, African Americans are sensitive to these issues. And even when you’ve got a police officer who has a fine track record on racial sensitivity, interactions between police officers and the African American community can sometimes be fraught with misunderstanding.

My hope is, is that as a consequence of this event this ends up being what’s called a “teachable moment,” where all of us instead of pumping up the volume spend a little more time listening to each other and try to focus on how we can generally improve relations between police officers and minority communities, and that instead of flinging accusations we can all be a little more reflective in terms of what we can do to contribute to more unity. Lord knows we need it right now — because over the last two days as we’ve discussed this issue, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care. (Laughter.)

I will not use this time to spend more words on health care, although I can’t guarantee that that will be true next week. I just wanted to emphasize that — one last point I guess I would make. There are some who say that as President I shouldn’t have stepped into this at all because it’s a local issue. I have to tell you that that part of it I disagree with. The fact that this has become such a big issue I think is indicative of the fact that race is still a troubling aspect of our society. Whether I were black or white, I think that me commenting on this and hopefully contributing to constructive — as opposed to negative — understandings about the issue, is part of my portfolio.

So at the end of the conversation there was a discussion about — my conversation with Sergeant Crowley, there was discussion about he and I and Professor Gates having a beer here in the White House. We don’t know if that’s scheduled yet — (laughter) — but we may put that together.

He also did say he wanted to find out if there was a way of getting the press off his lawn. (Laughter.) I informed him that I can’t get the press off my lawn. (Laughter.) He pointed out that my lawn is bigger than his lawn. (Laughter.) But if anybody has any connections to the Boston press, as well as national press, Sergeant Crowley would be happy for you to stop trampling his grass.

All right. Thank you, guys.

You don’t always have to say “I’m sorry” or “I apologize” to express you’re sorry for something you said or did. Well, maybe you do in a relationship or marriage, but not in a political position when obvious expression of regret (a non apology apology) will do.

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Time for Obama To ‘Take the Temperature Down’

By on 24 July 2009

“This is incendiary. Race in this country is, is powerfully incendiary. And I suppose I thought that both sides of this would take a step back. Not listen to the news cycle. Not base future comments on the last news cycle. And make a determination that race is such a powerful–let me finish the thought–is such a powerful factor in this country that it would be better take a step back and try to figure out a way to mend this, not deepen it. … Take down the temperature on this.” – Tony Harris, CNN

Here Ye! Here Ye!

As the Gates – Crowley story escalates. Pick your side.

Now’s your chance, people. Line ‘em up.

Liberals have their police brutality rap down. Even though every single individual emphatically commenting on the Gates arrest is basing their opinion on assumptions from an event from the past. History is a powerful tool, but if we’re going to try to live up to a post-racial America, we’d better up our game a lot higher than what most liberals are doing right now.

Conservatives are using Sgt. Crowley as a battering ram against Obama, hoping to rev up their base against the President, getting a twofer if it ricochets on health care, which is now a secondary story. Trying to also tie it to the Ricci – Sotomayor back and forth to construct a larger narrative.

Meanwhile, people like myself are just trying to get to the actual facts of this incident, which no one knows completely. While being lectured to by people who think they know all because of something they witnessed, know from the past, believe to be true about cops. Not helpful.

One thing is for sure.

You’d think the police gathered for the press conference to support Sgt. Crowley would get that having ALL WHITE OFFICERS stand up, without a single person of color to speak, would present, at the very least, an image issue. It didn’t even make a dent, as I tweeted during the press conference.

Watching it through triple screens in my office, the cable media coverage was interesting to view. Again, via Twitter: … Fox News has a camera trained on Crowley; + split screen Crowley-Gates. CNN & MSNBC did not. Obama slammed.

Tony Harris of CNN was rendered speechless after the press conference. “… I don’t know why I was at the impression that by the end of this news conference we would be resolving this. I don’t know why I thought that… It looks like we may be more entrench with this… But I tell you what, it just feels like… that the divide got wider and wider and wider…”

Don Lemon “knew there would be some fall out.” The police feel it’s been very “one-sided,” with the coverage all about Gates, with the police story not being told. It is now.

I predicted this the moment Obama said “stupidly.” He started it. He’s the only person who can end it. Take the temperature down, as CNN’s Tony Harris said. The police have asked for an apology. It’s the big man move for Obama.

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Cop Story, Day Two

By on 24 July 2009

–updated–

Cambridge police brass and lawyers are weighing making the tapes public, which could include the 911 call reporting a break-in at Gates’ home and radio transmissions by the cop who busted him July 16 for disorderly conduct. – Boston Herald

Before we get into this, I want to say I’ve lived in the middle of the race issue long before my high school was chosen as one of the busing experiments, where kids from Normandy High were brought in. Let’s just say it was ugly. I had a knife pulled on me on the first day. No one’s fault, really, the situation sucked. Missouri is a state that was once a hot bed for the Klan, so race there was always a serious issue. Because of these tensions, we all learned really early to never talk back to cops. Not ever. Blacks definitely had it worse on that score, no surprise. But in Missouri, you just didn’t give lip to the police, even if you were lily white like me.

Now, if I’m Professor Gates in my own home, being questioned by the cops, my initial response would have been fury. You bet.

“I have to say I am surprised by the controversy surrounding my statement, because I think it was a pretty straightforward commentary that you probably don’t need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who’s in his own home,” Obama said. – ABC News

But it wouldn’t have taken long before my Missouri rules would have kicked in to calm me down. Hey, but I’m white, a chick and that’s a whole different story. There is no way I can relate to what Prof. Gates was feeling, no matter how many times I’ve talked to African Americans, including friends of mine over the years, hearing about their humiliating and sometimes dangerous run ins with cops. This is a reality no one should doubt.

Now read this piece over at Salon, which will add another dimension. It was originally posted on TWiB, entitled: Notes from a Phantom Negro: “Skip Gates:Please Sit Down”.

… Which brings me to Skip Gates. He isn’t outraged because he feels he was the victim of racial profiling by the police (that dubious honor goes to his foolish neighbor) [in fact, the woman who called the police is not a neighbor, but works nearby]. He’s outraged because he was the victim of class profiling. He didn’t resent being identified as black; he resented being identified as that kind of black, the kind of black that can be hassled and pushed around by simpleton cops. How dare you hassle me? I’m Skip Gates: Harvard professor!

Skip has fallen victim to the Ivy League Effect. Check out his articles — you can definitely go to the Root — the Web site he is editor in chief of — if you want to see a repository for the whole masturbatory display. He all but says, “Do I look like that type of (black) person? I was wearing a blazer and a polo shirt!” Gates is Ivy League pissed with a dash of black anger. Not the other way around. Is this to say the police weren’t in the wrong? Hardly. As a person who is familiar with the Cambridge/Boston P.D., I can say that the prospect of some procedural malfeasance on their part is entirely believable, if not an abject certainty.

But I’m also sure the good doctor was talking some shit. The Ivy League Effect, when it’s potent, wouldn’t allow otherwise. It made Gates forget that, no matter what, even when you’re right, you don’t talk shit to the police. And that’s not a matter of manhood or pride; it’s a question of survival. …

This story isn’t going away.

For one thing, right wing radio has no intention of dropping it, which doesn’t faze people who don’t follow talk radio. However, it’s activism central for conservatives and they’re on fire over it. After studying them since the inception of the medium, let me just say that’s never a good thing for our side, especially when a Democratic president has inserted himself in the middle of the drama they’re railing about. Hannity took the time to read the police report of the Gates arrest over the air yesterday.

For another, Sgt. Crowley is now on the record. As you’ll see in the video, he states, “I didn’t vote for him,” speaking about Obama. In many of the news reports posted this part of his interview is left out. The other issue regarding Crowley is we also learn he teaches a course entitled “Racial Profiling.”

On another front, Steve Killion, of the Cambridge Police Patrol Officer’s Association, blasted Obama last night.

Stephen Killion told the Huffington Post that he was shocked when he heard the president make the remarks during Wednesday night’s press conference.

“That was totally inappropriate. I am disgraced that he is our commander-in-chief. He smeared the good reputation of the hard-working men and women of the Cambridge Police Department. It was wrong to do. It was disgraceful.”

Killion goes on to drop a salient nugget, that they have audio tapes of the arrest, which he contends corroborates Sgt. Crowley’s account of the event.

Maybe this is why earlier yesterday the lawyer for Sgt. Crowley told the Boston Globe that Obama would end up regretting his statement at the press conference.

“He conceded that he didn’t have all the facts, and indeed he didn’t,” Alan J. McDonald, the lawyer for the Cambridge Police Superior Officers Association, said of the president. “I suspect that when the full picture comes out, he will regret the remarks he made.”

In a moment of irony, Pres. Obama on “Nightline” last night said with a chuckle that “issues like this get elevated” and it doesn’t make much sense.

Buckle up, folks, this could get bumpy.

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Obama’s Cambridge Police Quote Ricochets

By on 23 July 2009

–updated–

As predicted, the topic exploding today is Pres. Obama’s statement about his friend Skip Gates and that the Cambridge police acted “stupidly.” It’s the last thing Obama wanted. From Ben Smith:

After spending most of an hour patiently reiterating his arguments for changing the health insurance system, President Barack Obama turned his press conference sharply toward an iconic moment in American race relations: The arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. earlier this week by the Cambridge Police.

Gates was arrested for allegedly disorderly conduct — a charge that was quickly dropped — after a confrontation with a police officer inside his own home. Though some facts of the case are still in dispute, Obama showed little doubt about who had been wronged.

Lynn Sweet was the reporter who asked the question of the night, which turned out to be way afield of health care, boring in on race and police profiling. Obama took it on directly, but as with much of last night, if he’d been on his game he’d never have gone as far as he did. There are many ways to say what Obama did without giving a headline to his haters. To add text, Obama could have just stuck with fact and truth, which wouldn’t distract:

“There’s a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately. That’s just a fact.”

Paul Krugman is irritated at Howard Fineman, because he was unimpressed with Obama last night, though I didn’t know anyone still cared about Fineman’s opinion. Then Krugman pulls out one of Fineman’s typical beauties about George W. Bush, proving that even Nobel Prize winners can get seduced by a non sequitur.

UPDATE II: Dear Gibby, if you’re explaining yesterday, you’re losing today. On cue, a clarification on Gates:

The president does not regret anything he said last night about the Cambridge situation, said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, emphasizing that Obama did not say that the police were stupid. The president said they acted “stupidly” in arresting Gates, a noted black scholar, attempting to enter his own home in Cambridge.

“Let me be clear,” Gibbs said. “He was not calling the officer stupid, okay? He was denoting that . . . at a certain point the situation got far out of hand, and I think all sides understand that.”

UPDATE: James Crowley, Policeman Who Arrested Gates, Won’t Apologize.

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Obama – Congressional – CIA War Breaks Out

By on 09 July 2009

In a June 26 letter to Mr. Panetta discussing his testimony, Democrats said that the agency had “misled members” of Congress for eight years about the classified matters, which the letter did not disclose. “This is similar to other deceptions of which we are aware from other recent periods,” said the letter, made public late Wednesday by Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, one of the signers. – Democrats Say C.I.A. Deceived Congress for Years

You really have to go back to Panetta’s May 15th statement to CIA employees to understand what’s unraveling right now. It begins:

There is a long tradition in Washington of making political hay out of our business. It predates my service with this great institution, and it will be around long after I’m gone.

CQ reported this week that House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Reyes wrote to Rep. Hoekstra (the Republican leader on the Committee) that the CIA indeed “affirmatively lied to” Congress during briefing sessions.

“These notifications have led me to conclude this committee has been misled, has not been provided full and complete notifications, and (in at least one occasion) was affirmatively lied to,” Reyes wrote.

The letter pictured above requests CIA Director Panetta to “publicly correct” his May 15th statement, given his subsequent June 26th letter. He has declined.

Speaker Pelosi has been in a running battle over intelligence briefings for months, with her critics believing this is all about providing her cover.

As for the Intelligence Authorization Bill, President Obama has issued his first veto warning if the bill includes an expansion of congressional participants in classified briefings that goes beyond the “Gang of Eight,” to include entire members of the intelligence committees.

The bottom line is that Panetta evidently told congressional leaders on June 26th, however obliquely and without pointing a direct finger at George Tenet or the Bush-Cheney administration, that Congress had indeed been misled. But if you read Panettas May 15th statement, that it is “not our policy or practice to mislead Congress, That is against our laws and our values…” The difference between what was done during the tenure of another director and under a different Administration, doesn’t negate CIA policy and practice, according to Panetta. He also states in that statement that leaders were “briefed truthfully” on Abu Zubaydah. This directly refutes Speaker Pelosi, but doesn’t go any further to include other briefings referenced in the June 26th letter, which Reyes and others are insisting Panetta make official.

As for briefing a larger number of congressional people on sensitive covert and national security actions, Obama is right to keep control of who is briefed and how many. I still don’t understand why a provision isn’t written in that members who are briefed can be permitted through statute to seek official legal counsel that has a further channel to find remedy, if what they’re hearing in those briefings alarms them.

The reality is that Panetta has to protect the integrity of the Agency. If he sells out, so to speak, a prior director or employees for following orders, how much trust will he have with his people?

Another reality is that Obama can’t allow sensitive national security information to be in the hands of a wide group of congressional representatives, especially in the partisan atmosphere of Capitol Hill, where not everyone is a grown up and partisan politics takes precedence.

But making clear what Bush-Cheney allowed the CIA to do with briefings to Congress, which is mislead them directly or by omission, is important and goes well beyond any cover people are saying it offers Pelosi. It sets the record straight on what we already know happened through Cheney’s bullying of Agency analysts. It’s been reported, congressional Democrats simply now want it made official.

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Patrick Murphy Takes on DADT

By on 08 July 2009

–bumped–

From The Hill:

Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.) has taken up the mantle as the chief opponent of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” in Congress, and he’s confident the policy banning gays from serving openly in the military will get its first full committee hearing in a decade and a half this session.

Murphy, a second-term Democrat, will be lead sponsor of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act, which would repeal “Don’t ask, don’t tell” — a policy first passed by Congress and signed into law under President Bill Clinton.

“It’s our job,” Murphy said of a repeal. “This was an act of Congress in 1993 and it will take an act of Congress” to reverse it.

Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is evidently promising Murphy the bill will get a full hearing this year.

Let me hear a hu-rah!

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Coverage of A Cultural Icon

By on 07 July 2009

“I just want to say, ever since the day I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. I just want to say I love him so much.” – Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, at the end of her father’s memorial

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It’s tough when the boss says you have to cover a world event when you don’t have a clue what you’re talking about or the sensibilities to even feign wonder that you don’t, letting those who do opine instead. At least CNN puts up a pretense that what they’re covering is news, that it matters to millions. Dylan Ratigan of MSNBC joining the Peter King – Bill O’Reilly tone deaf contingent, as the elite look down on the cultural phenomenon that was Michael Jackson, making fools of themselves in trying to make sense of what’s unfolding. Contessa Brewer trying to get a word of reporting in here and there amidst Ratigan’s embarrassing blathering. For TV cable coverage, it’s ugly out there.

“…I recognize that’s a lot of conjecture and speculation on my part. … That’s not news. That’s not toxicology. That’s me sitting here looking at circumstances and saying, You tell me how it is if you look at all the factors. Am I crazy to be thinking this?” – Dylan Ratigan, MSNBC’s “Morning Meeting”

Hey, but if you want disrespect and disgust, and Ratigan, King and O’Reilly aren’t enough for you, Lisa De Moraes is your girl.

Plenty of venom cued up just for MJ’s memorial.

Ratigan’s guest commentators today illustrating their inner imbecile as they try to equate any part of their life to Jackson’s. That stratospheric talent has no comparisons, except if you want to lump in Elvis, though he had the good fortune to live and die before non stop cable and new media broke loose.

But you’ve really got to wonder what King thought his comments were offering. Why Bill O’Reilly’s media criticism is even relevant, as he does yet another impression of Mr. Wilson telling those kids to turn down that radio. O’Reilly and King just two more ignorant cultural commentators who think that attacking a dead man they judge unworthy will somehow add to the public discourse. It’s amazing the venom of “Christians” targeting people they hate, showing no humility at all for the accomplishments they themselves could never reach, because in their own lives the purpose is only to judge others and offer pious pronouncements on cultural phenomenons they levy as unworthy.

The intense media coverage of Michael Jackson is warranted, but many of the people opining proving they are woefully inadequate to the moment. They are exhibits of a cultural divide and insensitivity just as wide as between what happened during the ’08 primary season’s “bittergate.” If you’re not in that crew you are simply on the outside looking in. You’ll live, as everyone else takes a moment to stop and note the passing, but more importantly, the talent of the man who spent a short time on this planet.

The world headlines will continue.

The bedlam being unleashed in China will remain; Iranian fissures ever present; health care reform splintering in all directions noticed.

We can handle the pause for this person.

So let the stuffy sniveling be secondary, taking a few hours on a few days, which culminates today, to celebrate the uplifting nature of art, of culture, and what music and performances from this man meant. Like him or not, Michael Jackson was a quintessential export of these United States. A product of America.

Besides, celebrating art matters; today it’s MJ’s rendition of it.

Jackson’s passing is noteworthy, because what he created is part of what helps us through what life delivers.

I can’t imagine the Vietnam War without the music; the soundtrack of our battles.

Music marks the passing of our life, our stages from young to old, our victories, defeats, escorting us along.

Play a certain piece of music and you can be immediately transported. That feeling returns.

MTV made music video take a spot next to what only could be heard and felt, with Michael Jackson shattering the barriers in that world.

So, if nothing else, today is a moment to step outside the cerebral nature of being human and think for one moment of something beyond what the average person can create.

We all know how Michael’s story ended. Horribly. …and he’s paid for what his choices wrought.

Believe me, this creative stuff isn’t easy; the dedication to perfection of art by someone like Jackson is enough to kill you even without the drugs.

Few escape the pitfalls of performance, especially started as a child, which twists a person’s character because of flights of perfection and drive that pushes you toward better expression. Yes, it sometimes ends in mania.

And there’s always the taskmaster somewhere in the story, whether you’re Sally, John or Michael. For Jackson, it was his father. A man who beat him, “threw him up against walls,” according to his son, and terrified him.

Many artists, including myself, have teachers of varying insanity we remember and hear whenever we decide to step up on the stage to make magic. They never leave you. That tyrant who screamed how bad a performance was, if only for your own good so you’d rise again to higher heights. The instructor with the harsh glance that made you shrivel when you found out they saw that missed mark. Terrifying judgments that leave deep scars.

But when the lights are on and the miracles happen, all that disappears and you wouldn’t change a moment for kindness.

One can only imagine what it meant to be Michael, talented, driven crazy by a parent, as well as his own ambition and, yes, genius. Don’t think for a moment Jackson would trade any of it. It’s the price for fame, as they say.

Michael Jackson is yet another troubled artist who struggled to keep on the even side of normal and failed.

Quite apart from the life, there’s the gift that’s being celebrated by many people around the world, but particularly the artistic community, led by black artists. Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Usher, Lionel Richie, Jennifer Hudson, John Mayer, as well as Martin Luther King III, Magic Johnson, Kobe Bryant and many more.

Oh, for one moment of grace and acknowledgment, because you don’t have to understand what it’s about to pay your respects to what’s unfolding.

I bet you didn’t know Jackson graciously returned Little Richard’s music to him even though it was worth several million to Michael if he’d kept it.

That’s only one story King and O’Reilly don’t want told, Ratigan remaining clueless while just trying to fill two hours. But it’s not surprising that these upper crust white guys don’t get it. They’re too busy competing with Jackson, the coverage, the celebrity of it, trying to sound relevant juxtaposed against a creative genius they cannot understand, because they don’t create.

Michael Jackson’s life has been delivered to his God, who will judge him as he lived. That’s not our place. A little humility is in order, though you won’t find it in the coverage.

It’s simply time to celebrate and enjoy the concert amidst the media circus, which is where Michael Jackson lived his whole life.

Breaking news will have to wait.

“I grew up on his music. Still have all his stuff on my iPod. I think that his brilliance as a performer also was paired with a tragic and, in many ways, sad personal life. But I’m glad to see that he is being remembered primarily for the great job that he brought to a lot of people through his extraordinary gifts as an entertainer.” - President Barack Obama

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Right Wing Hate Marches On

By on 06 July 2009
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Next target, Judge Sotomayor, compliments of Randall Terry.

See Right Wing Watch for the full plan, but here’s an excerpt:

“We must stop permitting this hypocrisy, cowardice, and treachery in our midst. Pro-life voters are calling on pro-life Senators to filibuster Sotomayor.

“A Senator cannot say, ‘I want to overturn Roe,’ and then vote to confirm a Supreme Court Judge that will uphold Roe. A vote to confirm Sotomayor is a vote to uphold Roe.

“Many senators use pro-life rhetoric to seduce us; they get our money, our volunteer labor, and our votes. But once an election is over, they discard us like an embarrassing mistress. They say that they want to overturn Roe, but they do little or nothing to protect the innocent. Whether they are ‘pro-life’ Republicans like John McCain (AZ) and Sam Brownback (KS), or pro-life Democrats like Ben Nelson (NE) or Robert Casey (PA), we have been lied to again and again.

“Whether they ‘have the votes’ to sustain a filibuster or not, they need to fight to stop her, for the sake of the babies who will die under her judicial reign.

Filibuster Sotomayor Tour… (read on)

The “Filibuster Sotomayor Tour” was first announced via “Christian News Wire”. Forever dumbing down the meaning of “Christian” to something closer to raving lunatic, one event at a time.

This post has been bumped.

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Sotomayor in Line with Supreme Dissenters

By on 29 June 2009
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Today, the Supreme Court ruled that precedent no longer matters. An illustration of how important Obama’s court appointments will turn out to be.

Cue the right-wing freakathon! Rush led the way today by reiterating his talking point that Sotomayor is a “racist.”

Via AP:

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge. New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities. …

Reality is that in her Court of Appeals decision she used precedent, which ended up in a unanimous decision, because other judges on the court agreed with her.

Text of today’s ruling is here.

However, James Joyner uses the opportunity to say that Justice Ginsberg’s dissent is “absurd.”

The usual suspects go full tilt unhinged. Thinkers they are not.

Glenn Greenwald outs the Supreme slim majority on this one:

3. For all the chatter about “judicial activism” and that dreadful Roberts metaphor of “a neutral umpire calling balls and strikes,” it is so striking how frequently conservative judges invalidate policies which conservatives dislike as a political matter. Here we have the conservative wing of the Court declaring illegal the employment decisions of local government officials, who used a political approach — diversity — which conservatives dislike on policy grounds. So often, the outcomes of the allegedly neutral conservative judges are completely consistent with (and aggressively advance) the political preferences of conservatives (Bush v. Gore being only the most obvious example). Indeed, few things are rarer than conservatives Justices invalidating policies that conservatives like politically, or upholding policies they despise — the true test for whether one applies to law independently of political and outcome preferences.

A new poll on the issue finds Americans agreeing across the political spectrum. The recession and unemployment fears, as well as the general unease with the economic situation today is a silent partner in these opinions. Just a guess.

“Not surprisingly, most Republicans think that the firefighters were victims of discrimination, but a majority of Democrats join in that view,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Fifty-seven percent of Democrats say the white firefighters were discriminated against. Two-thirds of Independents and three-quarters of Republicans agree.”

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News Around the World

By on 28 June 2009

–updated–

An eerie stillness has settled over this normally frenetic city. … “People are depressed, and they feel they have been lied to, robbed of their rights and now are being insulted,” said Nassim, a 56-year-old hairdresser. “It is not just a lie; it’s a huge one. And it doesn’t end.” – In Tehran, a Mood of Melancholy Descends

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Iran remains in limbo, with people facing a regime that offers no out, no way forward, only more walking into the past. As the regime crushes all dissent, they’ve created much bigger problems for themselves than citizen protests, as the Guardian lays out:

The power struggle inside Iran appears to be moving from the streets into the heart of the regime itself this weekend amid reports that Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani is plotting to undermine the power of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Rafsanjani’s manoeuvres against Khamenei come as tensions between the speaker of the parliament, Ali Larijani, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also appeared to be coming to a head.

One very disturbing development is that @persiankiwi has gone silent. Her/his tweets have been instrumental in this fight. Sullivan notices it as well. Nico Pitney has much more.

Another potentially history changing story comes from the Middle East in the voices of the women. It’s inspiring, but more importantly, it’s a potential crack in the dynamics, a new way forward if it’s supported and protected. Obviously, that’s a big if.

… “This is our time, women’s time,” said Khoulod Al Fahed, a Saudi businesswoman and blogger. “It is the time for women to speak up and demand the rights that have been stolen from us in the name of religion and culture.”

Middle Eastern women have long played active roles in the struggle for democracy and human rights. In recent months, women have won small yet unprecedented victories. In Kuwait, four female lawmakers were elected to parliament last month, the first time women have won seats in the nation’s legislature. In Egypt, election law was recently changed to give women a quota of 64 parliamentary seats. Palestinian women have launched protests to free prisoners held by Israel, while Egyptian women have organized labor and pro-democracy strikes in recent years.

Iran’s making the thugocracies sweat:

Out of fear that history might repeat itself, the authoritarian governments of China, Cuba and Burma have been selectively censoring the news this month of Iranian crowds braving government militias on the streets of Tehran to demand democratic reforms.

Between 1988 and 1990, amid a lesser global economic slump, pro-democracy protests that appeared to inspire and energize one another broke out in Eastern Europe, Burma, China and elsewhere. Not all evolved into full-fledged revolutions, but communist regimes fell in a broad swath of countries, and the global balance of power shifted.

Jose Maria Aznar weighs in very critically on Obama regarding Iran.

Delayed public displays of indignation may be good for internal political consumption. But the consequences of Western inaction have already materialized. Watching videos of innocent Iranians being brutalized, it’s hard to defend silence.

In Afghanistan, a new U.S. policy on opium.

At home, the climate bill inches forward, with a push from Pres. Obama, as well as this from Al Gore:

The American Clean Energy Security (ACES) Act is one of the most important pieces of legislation Congress will ever pass. This comprehensive legislation will make meaningful reductions in global warming pollution, spur investment in clean energy technology, create jobs and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

The next step is passage of this legislation by the Senate to help restore America’s leadership in the world and begin, at long last, to put in place a truly global solution to the climate crisis.

We are at an extraordinary moment, with an historic opportunity to confront one of the world’s most serious challenges. Our actions now will be remembered by this generation and all those to follow – in our own nation and others around the world.

CQ Politics has the party vote breakdown. Rep. Boehner was reduced to ineloquence.

Included in the news unfolding around the world is the drama of Michael Jackson’s death, which continues to play out. The doctor, who has retained counsel, which is prudent in a case like this, is getting some scrutiny.

With Jackson’s death Thursday at age 50, investigators have turned their attention to a new figure in his life, cardiologist Conrad Murray of Las Vegas, whom Jackson called his personal physician. Murray was in Jackson’s rented mansion at the time he collapsed from an apparent heart attack.

People can argue with each other about what news isn’t getting covered, but the truth is that many people care more about this story than anything else. The magnitude of MJ’s passing has rippled across the world, shocking many who just didn’t get what he meant to so many, but also the impact of his stratospheric talent, which is bringing a flood of sales to the Jackson estate.

In honor of Stonewall, Frank Rich has written a piece that I’ll let you judge for yourself. Rich long ago lost me.

UPDATE: Military coup in Honduras.

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Obama’s Michael Jackson Friday Detainee Dump

By on 26 June 2009

–updated–

Calculating that the world is riveted on all things Michael Jackson, which is true, Pres. Obama evidently is hoping this leak will slide underneath the media mat this late on a Friday. The Washington Post and ProPublica report:

The Obama administration, fearing a battle with Congress that could stall plans to close Guantanamo, has drafted an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely, according to three senior government officials with knowledge of White House deliberations.

Such an order would embrace claims by former president George W. Bush that certain people can be detained without trial for long periods under the laws of war. Obama advisers are concerned that bypassing Congress could place the president on weaker footing before the courts and anger key supporters, the officials said.

And speaking of Jackson’s passing, the White House press corp passed up yet another opportunity to do their jobs. Seriously, if news is the news, then why would the entire press corp sit muzzled when there’s a chance to ask the President of the United States about the passing of arguably the biggest pop icon in U.S. history? Even Reagan acknowledged MJ. But today’s traditional press evidently thinks that asking Obama about a pop culture earthquake is beneath them even if it absolutely is news. So instead, we hear what Obama thought through his press secretary, because the mainstream media was waiting for a written statement from Obama. Hearing MTV tonight quote Gibbs saying what Obama thought, instead of hearing from the President himself about Jackson, was ridiculous. I’m sure Chancellor Merkel would have withstood it if the press asked the President about his feelings on Jackson, especially given his global stature. Want to bet a few German citizens feel the same way?

Besides, in what news agency editorial office is the passing of the man who changed pop culture forever not news, especially given the Elvis type doctors’ care that lingers over his death? Never mind that Obama grew up during the Jackson era and is, you know, African American, too.

So, Mr. President, yes we’re looking at Jackson’s life and celebrating his genius, but just in case you thought we weren’t paying attention, we most definitely are.

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Clarence Thomas Vindicates Anita Hill

By on 26 June 2009

The ghost of Anita Hill’s testimony hovers over Thomas’s appalling judgment in the strip search case that should put all doubt about his mental acuity to rest. He also left no doubt why compassion and diversity is important on the court, especially when it comes to cases dealing with women, particularly young women.

Andrew Cohen:

Alone among his colleagues on the Supreme Court, he declared Thursday in dissent in Safford v. Redding that an “abusive” and “humiliating” strip search of a middle school student for prescription Ibuprofen was actually a constitutional exercise by school officials who not only deserved immunity from liability but praise for their zealous dedication to student safety.

Less concerned about a forced and unnecessary intrusion into a young girl’s pants and bra than he was about judicial intrusion into school safety policies, Thomas declared that the odious search was legal because administrators could have found what they were looking for.

Sotomayor won’t make it even on the court, but she will bring some sanity, which is clearly lacking from Thomas.

The lone woman currently on the Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, called the search “abusive” and “humiliating” and cited other relevant facts to argue why school officials should not have been afforded immunity from the lawsuit that Redding’s folks brought. “Any reasonable search for the pills would have ended when inspection of Redding’s backpack and jacket pockets yielded nothing,” Justice Ginsburg wrote, and, “to make matters worse, [the school official] did not release Redding, to return to class or to go home, after the search. Instead, he made her sit on a chair outside his office for over two hours. At no point did he attempt to call her parent. Abuse of authority of that order should not be shielded by official immunity.”

It is not shocking to me that Clarence Thomas didn’t find the groping of a young girl exceptional or that he didn’t think she had rights over the school. If you believed Anita Hill, the rest simply follows.

And it’s important to remember that the one person most responsible for Thomas being on the court is Joe Biden, and I say this as one of his advocates, though based solely on his foreign policy acumen. Because if you view Biden’s part in the hearings again the political reality stacked up against Hill is impossible to ignore.

Clarence Thomas in a way vindicated Anita Hill in his lone dissent in Safford v. Redding. He also proved why Obama’s criteria for compassion and life experience, especially from a woman’s perspective, is need on the Court.

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Bill O’Reilly’s Guilt

By on 21 June 2009

“I’m reporting a fact. If they had gotten behind me, babies would be alive today.” – Bill O’Reilly

“They” in the quote above refers to conservative commentators. O’Reilly said this in a back and forth with Laura Ingraham on “The Factor” Thursday. As he turned his ire towards conservatives, which even took Ingraham a bit by surprise, pushing her to ask whether Bill was going to start blaming conservatives for hate speech too. The quote above was his response, turning into an accusation that if you don’t back Bill’s play on “Dr. Tiller the baby killer,” you’re killing fetuses, too.

That phrase the revolving caption on O’Reilly’s crusade against “Dr. Tiller the baby killer,” producing rants that reduced the cable barker to the category where Eric Rudolph and Scott Roeder, Army of God soldier and alleged murderer of Tiller, reside. As O’Reilly took the part of leader in order to summon his moral minions to take action. Then he’s shocked at the results?

I’ve been thinking a lot about O’Reilly’s wild rants lately where Tiller is concerned, ever since he went off on Joan Walsh on his show. Watching that spectacle, as Bill turned red, wagging his finger, spitting “stop talking!” in lieu of cutting off Joan’s microphone. Subsequent to that cable battle, O’Reilly has been on a rampage, not able to let Dr. Tiller’s murder go or turn away from the criticism coming his way. He’s been on the defensive since the accusations targeting him started. O’Reilly’s become so undone on the subject that he’s taken to referring to Tiller’s practice as “casual executions of late-term, viable fetuses” and “destroying human life for trival reasons.” Ratcheting up his rhetoric to coerce people to support him, because the charge that he incited rage against Tiller is sticking.

O’Reilly’s vigilante coverage of “Dr. Tiller the Baby Killer,” a phrase O’Reilly proudly used, had one purpose and that was to stop Tiller at any cost. He just didn’t think the bill would land in his lap. With blame now being pointed at O’Reilly, not even his conservative pals will offer him cover, which has led Bill to broaden his attacks.

“The View’s” host Joy Behar is his latest target because she found his coverage inciting, with Walters stating she wishes Bill hadn’t used that term. This so upset Mr. O’Reilly, because he “respects Ms. Walters,” he said Thursday, that he called her to ask how he should have referred to Dr. Tiller. I don’t have the exact quote, but Walters said something to the affect that Tiller was a doctor who performed late-term abortions. Upon repeating what Walters said to him, O’Reilly went off again, saying it doesn’t describe what the late Tiller did, as he continued his crusade against anyone thinking Dr. Tiller not only was performing legal medical procedures, but that some of the women who have asked for his help consider him a “hero.” Joan Walsh said that as well, which began the clock on Fox’s chief Catholic’s unwinding.

Shouting at Joan, “YOU have blood on your hands,” after Bill had been charged with just that, it was if he was trying to throw it off of himself and onto JOan. The accusation that he’d helped cause Tiller’s murder hitting a nerve inside.

Lost in all of this is women; the few who need late term abortions. In this argument we get all twisted around these days, because preventing abortions is all of our main goal. Never mind that the Catholic Church is one of the worst offenders in keeping prevention from being as successful as it could be, especially in the hospitals they own and maintain, which don’t provide full women’s health care. Beyond that, ask any woman in the throes of a desperate decision about abortion and most will tell you, at the core, it comes down to a choice between the fetus and the woman’s own life; sometimes that choice being more grave than others as in life and death cases, but still a choice between the woman and the fetus. Any women who chooses her own life over that of the fetus inside knows the bottom line on any abortion. All rights are the woman’s, with the fetus dependent on the choice of the woman, whose basic human rights depend on having sovereignty over her own body. We get caught up in saying this, but we shouldn’t.

It’s the question O’Reilly wants to hang around our necks as his rhetorical contortions continue in an effort to get him out of what he helped create through his “Dr. Tiller the baby killer” campaign. It depends on how you ask the question: Do fetuses have any protection at all or should they have any protections at all? All rights belong to the woman carrying the fetus.

The issue then reverts back to preventing pregnancy, where the Catholic church and other faiths become guilty in not being on board with this campaign. O’Reilly and anyone else not supporting full prevention through public funding would be a “baby killer” under Bill’s theory. But he can’t go there in his limited mind, because that would mean he’d have to take responsibility for public policy that prevents pregnancy when he’d rather squeal “Tiller the baby killer,” which is much easier than actually doing something about the situation of “unwanted” pregnancy. As for late-term abortions, there are plenty of laws on the books across the country limiting the procedures, with the number of women needing them miniscule in the scheme of things, so Bill’s crusade against Tiller was a bit of moral madness in the end.

But the real absurdity is that while O’Reilly posits that he’s not talking about Roe v. Wade or the life of the mother, but only Tiller’s “casual executions of late-term, viable fetuses” and “destroying human life for trival reasons,” no one has yet called him on this fallacious charge. As if a doctor and woman casually enter in to this type of procedure? There is no evidence, except among the unhinged fringe like O’Reilly, that this is true, which should render O’Reilly’s crusade moot.

The real issue for O’Reilly now is his guilt. Being accused of inciting the murder of Tiller, while conservatives let him twist in the wind, which brings a new accusation from O’Reilly that they, too, are “baby killers,” though he changes the language for his friends to the friendlier “babies would be alive today.” Unfortunately for Bill, this does not absolve him of his complicity in the murder of Dr. Tiller.

Judging from his behavior after Tiller’s murder, the guilt, when the accusations started flying in his direction, seems to have hit O’Reilly like a Catholic nun rapping him across the head with a ruler.

So the ending for Bill O’Reilly in this saga is not a happy one. He can’t face what he helped incite so he yells at anyone, conservatives who aren’t there for him, hosts of “The View,” Joan Walsh and anyone who won’t stand up for him. Clearly in pain, though it’s impossible to care for someone so filled with hate, because he caused the contagion of events to be unleashed that has swung back to land on his own doorstep. Now Bill’s forced to live with the horrific reality now manifest that he’s the one that made his wish come true.

All that’s left now is Bill O’Reilly choking on his own guilt.

Because deep inside O’Reilly knows what he wanted to happen to Dr. Tiller. What he didn’t expect is that everybody else knows it too.

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Hiatt Sacks Froomkin

By on 18 June 2009

Calderon over at Politico has the story. Here’s Froomkin’s response:

“I was told that it had been determined that my White House Watch blog wasn’t ‘working’ anymore,” said Froomkin. “Personally, I thought it was still working very well, and based on reader feedback, a lot of readers thought so, too. I also felt White House Watch was a great fit with The Washington Post brand, and what its readers reasonably expect from the Post online. As I’ve written elsewhere, (http://www.niemanlab.org/category/themes/danfroomkin) I think that the future success of our business depends on journalists enthusiastically pursuing accountability and calling it like they see it. That’s what I tried to do every day. Now I guess I’ll have to try to do it someplace else.”

Moral of this story? Doesn’t pay to push too hard on torture at the Washington Post. …and watch out when it comes to wingnuts. Hiatt doesn’t like that either, so tip toe gently around them. One of Froomkin’s latest and greatest. Krauthammer never knew what hit him. With Froomkin gone, now he can just settle back and blow.

Froomkin’s very recent “consolation prize for Gays” proved that among the media, Obama wasn’t all that. “White House Watch” meant something. No sacred cows there.

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‘Morning Joe’ Gets It Wrong on Hate Speech

By on 12 June 2009

–updated–

I was extremely glad to see that Keith Olbermann had someone on to talk about the Holocaust Museum tragedy who wasn’t taking the moment to make a convoluted political statement about Israel and the Middle East, as Jack Levin did the night before. Here’s what Levin said:

“But let me also point out that it’s not just the extreme right that we find this type of anti-semitism. There’s also a new anti-semitism that comes from the left, from progressives, who blame Jews from all over the world, even those who have never been to Israel, never been to the Middle East, support a Palestinian state, but they still get blamed for all of Israeli policies that they don’t like. So we’ve got anti-semitism coming from both sides of the political spectrum. …”

Um… No, we don’t.

Unfortunately, the Scarborough crew this morning tried to take a bi-partisan line, saying both the left and the right are trying to make hay out of the situation. This is when trying to be “fair” comes off as mutilating the facts.

As for hate mail, I assure you though Scarborough sees more volume, I’ve had more years in the hate mail circuit than any of them on “Morning Joe.” Conflating your average hate mail with the right-wing vitriol that spews out on radio is blatantly dishonest. But that’s what they did today. Watching Joe Scarborough squirm as he tried to criticize Rush Limbaugh was a classic.

Though he’s not my “shield,” as Scarborough deemed Krugman today, saying he was the equivalent of right wing extremists, Paul Krugman, makes note of what I’ve been talking about for over 15 years, something Scarborough is a neophyte to experiencing. No doubt, people like James W. von Brunn are responsible for their actions, but inciting them as right-wing talk does every day is something that must be said.

Contrary to what Scarborough and Willie Geist tried to do today, there is absolutely no liberal, left or progressive equal to a white-supremicist, racist, anti-semite who blames Jews and still uses the “n” word as having any roots in the Democratic side of the political dial. None. Geist trying to be even handed does a disservice to a history of right-wing fanatacism, the type that led to the assassination of Dr. Tiller, which Scarborough never even bothered to discuss in depth, and only adds to this country’s ignorance. Now, I watch Scarborough every day and like the show, but they’ve really gone off the truth rails recently, becoming just another apologist, by ignoring these issues, for the right wing hate crew that spews forth every day.

Another example to illustrate what the right spews forth comes from Andrew Breitbart, who unleashed a profanity laced barrage because he couldn’t take the truth about von Brunn, as the right tries to run away from their responsibility in inciting violence.

Now Krugman:

And then there’s Rush Limbaugh. His rants today aren’t very different from his rants in 1993. But he occupies a different position in the scheme of things. Remember, during the Bush years Mr. Limbaugh became very much a political insider. Indeed, according to a recent Gallup survey, 10 percent of Republicans now consider him the “main person who speaks for the Republican Party today,” putting him in a three-way tie with Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich. So when Mr. Limbaugh peddles conspiracy theories — suggesting, for example, that fears over swine flu were being hyped “to get people to respond to government orders” — that’s a case of the conservative media establishment joining hands with the lunatic fringe.

It’s not surprising, then, that politicians are doing the same thing. The R.N.C. says that “the Democratic Party is dedicated to restructuring American society along socialist ideals.” And when Jon Voight, the actor, told the audience at a Republican fund-raiser this week that the president is a “false prophet” and that “we and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, thanked him, saying that he “really enjoyed” the remarks.

Eugene Robinson, who said on “Countdown” last night that he recently got a hate message sent his way, which no one should doubt, talks about the right wing haters today, too.

For days, some conservative commentators tried mightily to paint the memo as an underhanded attempt by the Obama administration to smear its honorable critics by equating “right-wing” with “terrorism.” It made no difference to these loudmouths that the number of hate groups around the country has increased by more than 50 percent since 2000, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. It didn’t matter that the memo was backed up by solid intelligence and analysis. For these infotainers, the point isn’t to illuminate a subject with light but to blast it with heat.

And it wasn’t just the Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world who pretended to be outraged. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele accused the administration of trying “to segment out Americans who dissent from this administration, to segment out conservatives in this country who have a different philosophy or view from this administration, and labeling them as terrorists.” Steele seems to have decided that telling the truth isn’t nearly as important as the high-temperature exercise known as “firing up the base.”

The thing is, though, that words have consequences. …

This isn’t a bi-partisan thing. It’s a right-wing problem that becomes everyone’s issue when “lone wolf” assassins take hate speech as a battle cry.

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Is This A Joke?

By on 11 June 2009

Don Surber has written a post that defies rational thought. It’s actually entitled “Why the left ridicules women,” in which he opens with the following nonsense:

Too many American liberals cannot handle a strong, good-looking, intelligent, independent woman who disagrees with them — and so they make the crude, cruel and sexist remarks…

What women are his examples? In the order Mr. Surber chose himself through his pictorial: Katharine Harris, Carrie Prejean, Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, and Michele Bachmann.

Where’s the laugh track when you need it?

Katharine Harris couldn’t even get the Republican Party behind her, even after she threw the 2000 election. Pres. Bush ignored her, even though she helped put him in office. That’s how Republicans treat women.

Carrie Prejean finally got fired because she wouldn’t commit to her contractual obligations as Miss California. As a former Miss America Pageant contestant, I can tell you that they’re serious about these types of things, though the Miss USA is that other pageant.

Sarah Palin is a governor who when tapped to be on a national ticket had some fantasy that Vladimir Putin was someone she was supposed to watch. That she didn’t know what Bush’s policy of preemption was all about is another issue. Most liberals around my neck of the woods in 2008, which was a major stop for Clinton supporters, were insulted that Mrs. Palin didn’t have the chops for the job. That she was basically put on the ticket to save John McCain.

As for Michelle Malkin, well, Google her.

But it’s when you get to Michele Bachmann that you’ve really got to wonder if Surber forgot to do his homework. This video says it all, though there’s always more where Bachmann is concerned. But from her own congressional YouTube site (via DailyKos diary) comes the description of the video, which a day after the Holocaust tragedy proves that we don’t have respect for her because she’s not only ignorant, but that her ignorance is dangerous:

Republicans take to the floor to call to question the recent Homeland Security department memo referring to conservatives as “right-wing extremists” who pose a potential threat to the security of the nation. Rep. Bachmann urges her to answer questions before Congress and potentially tender her resignation.

Of course, Surber’s new found anti sexism campaign was all inspired by Dave Letterman. As I said yesterday, he can fight his own battles.

But the right doesn’t get to conveniently co-op an issue they’ve ignored for one hundred years.

Conservatives finally finding a voice on sexism is not going to be taken seriously by anyone, let alone liberal women, who have watched these cretins eviscerate our brightest female, someone who almost became the Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton. Conservatives hunted her for two decades, calling her every name in the book, as well as attempting to destroy, not only her public life, but her personal life as well.

In fact, he can’t resist bringing it up again:

So-called feminists stand on the sidelines like so many Silda Spitzers or Elizabeth Edwardses or Hillary Clintons, standing by their menfolk while the boys treat women like dirt. Heck, Mrs. Edwards even served as her husband’s attack dog against any critic — even as she knew he was sleeping with his mistress of many years.

Funny how Senator David Vitter is omitted. I even remember what his wife was wearing at the time, as it got a certain cable host in trouble when she commented about it.

I also have never heard Mr. Surber or anyone on the right call Rush out for his “feminazi” rants, his “info-babe” belches, or any number of other names he’s called liberal women.

Selective sexism from the right, that’s what we’ve gotten for years, which includes not utilizing women when they actually do get an important job. Tell me again what real accomplishments Dr. Rice was allowed to achieve as she fought against Rummy and Dick Cheney? Like Christine Todd Whitman who had to leave the EPA because Bush had reduced her to a figurehead.

Oh, and when was the last time a Republican fought for equal pay? When I interviewed Carly Fiorina last year during the election cycle she wouldn’t even back the Ledbetter Act, making excuses for John McCain.

And someone needs to tell me how Sarah Palin was supporting her daughter when she dragged her in front of a national audience in a publicity stunt, TV shotgun wedding that was nothing but a fraud.

It’s not just about women. It’s about intelligence, competence and the policies people support. It’s about supporting women, all women, not just when you decide you can make hay from a comedian on tv.

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Holocaust Museum Latest Domestic Terrorism Scene

By on 10 June 2009

–updated–

When Fox News Channel starts backtracking on the DHS report, you know something big has happened.

What we know right now:

…A third person sustained minor injuries in the shooting, according to police.

A law enforcement source identified the gunman as James W. von Brunn, who is known to authorities as a white supremacist.

Sgt. David Schlosser, a spokesman for the U.S. Park Police, said the security guard and the gunman were the only two persons who were hit by gunshots. Initial reports said at least one other person sustained gunshot wounds.

He said the museum has been “completely secured and evacuated.”

We have a real escalation of domestic terrorism unfolding in the United States. Something Janet Napolitano warned about in her homeland security report, for which Republicans eviscerated her. She was ringing the warning bell, which as we’ve seen lately was fully warranted.

Along with the Post, Pete Williams of NBC news also named the shooter as James W. von Brunn. A person by the same name has a website that beyond his background contains highly inflammatory rhetoric, though whether this is the same person isn’t assured. News reports also state James W. von Brunn has “ties to white supremacist group,” so the website could be linked.

It’s the latest domestic terrorist incident that should be worrying the FBI, but also Pres. Obama. It’s very dangerous out there.


UPDATE: James W. von Brunn was an Obama birth certificate wacko. Sargent quotes the important DHS section right-wingers should have to recite together.

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