“We’ve all become familiar with the ways the Republican noise machine transmits lurid bits of misinformation and tendentious attacks from the conservative fringe into the heart of American political discourse, the process by which a slightly misdelivered joke by John Kerry attracts the ire of Rush Limbaugh and ends up on the front page of the New York Times.”

The New Right-Wing Smear Machine

On February 27, 2001, two members of the American Gold Star Mothers, an organization of women who’ve lost sons or daughters in combat, dropped by the temporary basement offices of the new junior senator from New York, Hillary Clinton. They didn’t have an appointment, and the office, which had been up and running for barely a month, was a bit discombobulated. The two women wanted to talk to the senator about a bill pending in the Senate that would provide annuities for the parents of those killed, but they were told that Clinton wasn’t in the office and that the relevant staff members were otherwise engaged. The organization later submitted a formal request in writing for a meeting, which Clinton granted, meeting and posing for pictures with four members of the group.

But the story doesn’t end there. In May of that year, the right-wing website NewsMax, a clearinghouse for innuendo and rumor, ran a short item with the headline “Hillary Snubs Gold Star Mothers.” Reporting via hearsay–a comment relayed to someone who then recounted it to the column’s author–the article claimed that Clinton and her staff “simply refused” to meet with the Gold Star Mothers, making hers the “only office” in the Senate that snubbed the group.

At first the item didn’t attract much attention, but it quickly morphed into an e-mail that started ricocheting across the Internet. “Bet this never hits the TV news!” began one version. “According to NewsMax.com there was only one politician in DC who refused to meet with these ladies. Can you guess which politician that might be?… None other than the Queen herself–the Hildebeast, Hillary Clinton.”

The article goes on to state that, even with pleas from the Gold Star Mothers website that the allegations were fabrications and untruths, the emails and smears continue to circulate to this day.

I see nothing new here. The people involved in this behavior are the underbelly of our society. They are uneducated. They are bigoted. They are diseased. And, unfortunately, there is no humane way to dissect them from our society.

Multitudes of Americans, for multitudes of reasons, are annually held back from their right to vote. These idiots get bussed in! In my area anyways, they vigorously decry the “welfare state”, but THEY are the ones standing in line at the local grocery with some form of government handout clutched tightly in their hands. The hypocrisy is astounding!

Nope. Nothing new here!

The new face of the antiabortion movement: Post-Abortion Syndrome–for men.

Pity the Man

Pity the man who conceived four babies with four women and suffered anxiety attacks and nightmares after all four, with his consent, were aborted. Pity the man who saw his soon-to-be-born baby on an ultrasound and instantly came to believe that he “had killed two of my own kids” through abortion. Pity the man who abused alcohol after his girlfriend aborted. Pity the man who suffered a nervous breakdown, depression, psychosis and nearly suicide after his girlfriend had an abortion despite his pleas.

Reverse this. What about the men who don’t want to become dads? Long ignored, does this mean they now have a voice in this argument? I think so!

Are there no straws these people won’t grasp for?

Why can’t they just let Sen. Craig have a walk on this? Do they not realize just how instrumental he has been at keeping gays down? For you see, a bigot makes for a great republican senator. And a lying, hypocritical bigot is, well, just as nice.

Embattled senator Craig files appeal over guilty plea in sex sting

WASHINGTON - Lawyers for Sen. Larry Craig asked a Minnesota appeals court Tuesday to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea stemming from his June arrest in a public bathroom sex sting, citing a “grave procedural flaw.”

The Idaho Republican argues that a state law related to his misdemeanor conviction is unconstitutional and that it “manifestly unjust” not to allow the lawmaker to be given another chance to prove his innocence.

A state judge refused on October 4 to allow the senator to withdraw his earlier plea. Judge Charles Porter ruled the plea “was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and … supported by the evidence.” Craig had earlier promised to resign if the judge ruled against his motion, but he changed his mind and vowed to stay in office until his term expires in early 2009. He is not seeking re-election this year.

Looks like this 20-year-old law student is trying to make a name for herself.

If it weren’t for their utter hypocrisy and complete lack of sympathy and understanding for a woman that’s considering abortion, I wouldn’t be as sickened by the anti-women’s rights crowd. Just once I’d like to see in the news where someone that proudly displays a pro-life bumper sticker on their car quit their job in order to open up an orphanage on their block. Or read a story where a 20-year-old law student out of Colorado is causing a stir by changing legislation that makes adoption much easier. Adoption by gay couples is out of the question for these God-fearing pro-lifers. Forcing an infant to live in an environment where he/she was “not wanted” to begin with is what they demand, making it clear they only give a goddamn for infants before they draw their first breath.

I’m not a big fan of abortion myself. Who really is? But unwanted pregnancies do occur. And for some women, abortion is the only viable solution. Taking away her rights in this matter while systematically ripping the Constitution to shreds is not!

Abortions are not the problem though. Unwanted pregnancies are. Taking away a woman’s right to choose is only a quick-fix to a symptom of the problem. And a terrible one at that! I do not have all the answers, but smarter, wiser people than me do.

It really falls back on lazy thinking and a lack of leadership. We need people from both sides of the issue to get serious on this. We need people to take charge, stand up and start addressing this problem head on.

Colo. measure tests strategy to ban abortion

Law student wants state Constitution to define fertilized eggs as people

DENVER - A 20-year-old law student has become a cause célèbre in the anti-abortion movement for her efforts to have the state Constitution define fertilized eggs as people - a tactic spreading nationwide in bids to neutralize the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

The measure spearheaded by Kristi Burton would give fertilized eggs state protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process, and she needs 76,000 signatures to get it on the state ballot next November.

Similar efforts are under way in Georgia, Michigan, Mississippi and Oregon.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw the awakening of a sleeping giant here as conservatives come out to vote on this because of the purity of the bill and because it’s a no-nonsense amendment,” said Keith Mason, a veteran of grass-roots efforts defending Ten Commandments displays and parental notification laws. He is helping the petition effort.

This is really turning out to be one hell of an election cycle, folks! Not one presidential contender, republican or democrat, worth holding the position, if you ask me. (Sorry if that offends)

Was just reading an article on the MSNBC site, “Romney attacks Huckabee on immigration“, and am still feeling a bit nauseous from being subjected to all the s-curve, flip-flopping, gut-wrenching hypocrisy permeating nearly every paragraph.

For example, Mitt is about to fire up a new television ad in Iowa in an attempt to deflate Huckabee’s recent gains in the polls:

Excuse me? Mitt can say this in light of his past stand on the abortion issue?

This one speaks for itself:

And, of course, dead-head Fred has to rise to the occasion:

Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Down and dirty mud’slinging hypocrisy, for a job that should require someone of the highest morals and ethics. Someone above reproach.

Mike Huckabee opens his mouth and Christian love pours forth:

True Christian love knows no bounds. Whoops! Well maybe they know a couple after all.

I would say: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do“… but they know damn well what they do.

Huckabee Wanted to Isolate AIDS Patients

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Mike Huckabee once advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general public, opposed increased federal funding in the search for a cure and said homosexuality could “pose a dangerous public health risk.”
[...]

“If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague,” Huckabee wrote.
[...]

“In light of the extraordinary funds already being given for AIDS research, it does not seem that additional federal spending can be justified,” Huckabee wrote. “An alternative would be to request that multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor (,) Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding be encouraged to give out of their own personal treasuries increased amounts for AIDS research.”

And then there’s this gem:

Mike, I agree. I feel the same way when your f-ing religious crowd, while ignoring separation of church and state, tries to legislate your f-ing beliefs over the rest of us. Mind getting it the hell out of the public square? And while you’re at it, you can take Bush’s f-ing faith-based initiatives with ya. I think it would be a tad bit HYPOCRITICAL of you to expect gays to support it.

Fred Thompson, Republican. Lying his ass off so that he can be our next president.

Thompson warns of welfare state

LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. - Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson said Saturday that election of a Democrat to the White House in 2008 would open the way for a welfare state where bigger government, higher taxes and defense cutbacks sap the country’s economic and military strength.

“Our country is at a crossroads,” Thompson told several hundred people at a rally at a community clubhouse.

“We know that the most liberal element of the Democratic Party has taken control of the Democratic Party, and if they win this next election we’re going to go down the road of a welfare state,” he said.

After warning of a government that gets “bigger and bigger,” he said “I don’t think the American people are going to turn the keys to this country over to the most left-wing part of a left-wing party next year.”

“We’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen,” he said.

Oh, where to begin…

Democrats are “tax and spend”? Well, Republicans “borrow and spend”. How’s that working out for you, America?

Democrats want bigger government? The government, in it’s present state, is the largest it’s ever been… under REPUBLICAN control.

The liberal fringe has taken over the democratic party? Really? With pro-war Hillary and Obama, and an “impeachment is off the table” Pelosi, I beg to differ. No, Mr. Thompson. If liberals were in charge, there would have been no Iraqi war, thousands of our troops would still be alive, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens would still be alive, and Osama bin Laden might very well be in Prison.

Hell! It’s quite possible that the people lost on 9/11 could be alive today, busy working in their offices high up in the still’standing twin towers… because reports that Osama was about to attack would not have went ignored as it did on your REPUBLICAN watch!

Welfare state, my ass, Fred! If helping make sure poor, sick children get the medical attention they need and deserve, then, yes - call it a welfare state. Ignoring these children’s needs, leaving them to suffer in silence and quite possible die, well, that’s something we liberals won’t do.

And, Mr. Thompson, in case you’re wondering, this is precisely how you and your pro-life, party-of-family-values, REPUBLICAN party have earned the title “HYPOCRITES“.

New Mitt Romney “illegal immigration” ad:

Announcer: “Illegal immigration. We need smart, tough solutions, not just talk. What will it take to fix it? Technology, new ideas, guts, values, Mitt Romney. He said no to driver’s licenses for illegals, no to in’state tuition, fought for English in the classroom. The only candidate with a proven record of fixing the big problems. From day one, Mitt Romney will do what he does best - take charge, demand results, no excuses.”

Romney: “I’m Mitt Romney and I approve this message.”

Values?

I love how republicans throw that word around. Like they retain sole-ownership of it or something. The values-party, my ass!

A partial list of republican values:

• August 2, 2007: Bush administration senior adviser Karl Rove disregards a Congressional subpoena and refuses to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee
• August 6, 2007: Investigation called for after House Republican Leader John Boehner leaked classified information regarding a secret court ruling over warrantless wiretapping
• August 8, 2007: Republican Senator Larry Craig pleads guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct following his June 11 arrest
• August 9, 2007: Major Republican donor Alan Fabian is charged with 23 counts of bankruptcy fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, obstruction of justice, and perjury
• August 15, 2007: Republican state House candidate Angelo Cappelli is arrested for perjury and grand theft
• August 22, 2007: Republican political consultant Roger Stone resigns his role with the New York state Senate Republicans after reports surfaced that he made a “threatening, obscenity-laced” phone call to the 83-year-old father of Governor Eliot Spitzer
• August 27, 2007: Story breaks that Republican Senator Larry Craig was arrested and pled guilty - he had not publicly disclosed the events to that point

Again, this was only a partial list. There’s plenty more HERE.

If this is what you consider “values”, then you can keep your damn values!

Oh, man… we’re two-faced! Whodathunkit?

Actually, Dr. Eland is right on the mark. We lost our way a long time ago. Past administrations were much better at rationalizing their apparent ‘improprieties’. Today, they simply don’t seem to give a damn.

U.S. double standards for friend/foe

“If the U.S. is going to criticize other countries- behavior, it should eliminate the double standards at home first.”

Since World War II, the U.S. has been the most aggressive country in the world.

The Bush administration is attempting to soothe the Turkish government’s apoplectic reaction to the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s label of “genocide” on Turkey’s slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians, which occurred almost a century ago.
[...]

Similarly, the United States has never been too enthusiastic about criticizing Japan’s denial of having used Chinese and South Korean women as sex slaves (so-called “comfort women”) during World War II.
[...]

Yet the administration is still repeatedly bringing up Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s December, 2005 denial of the historical fact of the Jewish holocaust at the hands of the Nazis.

That’s because the U.S. government chooses to get along a lot less with the Iranian government (than it does with the governments of Turkey and Japan); because Israel, Iran’s nemesis, is a U.S. ally; and because the administration can win points with its domestic Israeli lobby.

In the same vein, the administration is supposed to be supporting the expansion of democracy overseas-that’s why the United States invaded Iraq, right?-but does so only in less friendly countries, not close allies.

Dr. Eland

Aljazeera.com

Or, in this case, “pump-tapping” would be more fitting. The man was wearing a dress, after all.

Hypocritical Republican men having gay sex in public places… it’s almost gotten to be non-news!

From The Columbian:

Police report sheds new light on Curtis encounter

State Rep. Richard Curtis, R-La Center, admitted to having sex with a man he met at an adult video store in Spokane last week, according to a police report released Tuesday afternoon.

The police report offers a damning and far different version of events from the brief account Curtis gave to The Columbian Monday, one that seems likely to threaten Curtis- political future.

The report is filled with graphic details of an encounter that began at a porn store on a Spokane Valley strip and concluded miles away in Curtis- room at the city’s poshest hotel.

The police report contains an account of how Curtis allegedly donned women’s clothing, red stockings and a black sequined lingerie top before engaging in a sex act at the store. He continued to wear them throughout the night under his clothing.

JEFFREY MIZE, Columbian Staff Writer

Also, acccording to renato:

Hypocrisy, thy name is REPUBLICAN!

These people never cease to amaze me. Rush Limbaugh, not a defender of the ACLU, was all too glad to have the group come to his defense when it suited his needs. Now Craig is doing it. Standard IOKIAR (It’s OK If You-re A Republican) bullshit line of thinking.

But the in-your-face hypocrisy is only half the story. How does having the charges dropped on a free’speech technicality remove the stain of “gay bathroom sex” from Sen. Craig? Will the NASCAR crowd simply forget about it? I don’t think so.

Craig to claim sex sting arrest unconstitutional

ACLU agrees, says senator’s foot-tapping in stall was protected speech
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Idaho Sen. Larry Craig will argue before an appeals court that Minnesota’s disorderly conduct law is unconstitutional as it applies to his conviction in a bathroom sex sting, according to a new court filing.

This is the first time Craig’s attorneys have raised that issue. However, an earlier friend-of-the-court filing by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that Craig’s foot-tapping and hand gesture under a stall divider at the Minneapolis airport are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech.

Craig has been trying to withdraw his August guilty plea to disorderly conduct. A judge turned him down earlier this month, and now Craig is taking his request to the state Court of Appeals. The conservative Republican at one point said he would resign from the U.S. Senate but now says he will finish his term, which ends in January 2009.

Associated Press

MSNBC.com

Lawdy, lawdy! Just how many bathrooms across the US has Larry done the toe-tap shuffle?

Before arrest, Craig hired lawyer to fight newspaper

Sen. Larry Craig hired a lawyer in a possible suit against The Idaho Statesman newspaper, a spokesman says.

WASHINGTON (AP) – Months before his arrest at a Minnesota airport, Sen. Larry Craig was considering a lawsuit against an Idaho newspaper and hired an attorney he later retained to represent him in the sex sting case.

Craig, who pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct following his arrest in a June 11 police sting at an airport men’s room, hired Washington lawyer Billy Martin and public relations executive Judy Smith in late January or early February, spokesman Dan Whiting said Wednesday.

Craig hired Martin and Smith because he was thinking of suing The Idaho Statesman newspaper for “harassment” over its investigation into Craig’s sexual orientation, Whiting said.

Whiting said the pair stopped working for Craig on June 7 — four days before Craig’s arrest at a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Martin and Smith ended their work June 7 because the dispute with the newspaper had “certainly died down by that point,” Whiting said.

Associated Press

CNNPolitics.com

Over at The Non Sequitur a short while ago, jcasey dissected the tortured logic of a 10/4/07 Roger Cohen op-ed for the The New York Times. Cohen’s agenda? Bashing liberals for criticizing the neocons, and creating a false equivalency about how both sides engage in unfair name-calling, yadda yadda yadda. Of course, Cohen doesn’t go after actual liberal positions, just the evil phantoms he’s conjured. What’s all the more laughable is one of the few liberals he actually cites is Matthew Yglesias, one of many “liberal hawks” who advocated for invading Iraq (although at least Yglesias has apologized for it).

I’ve previously described Cohen’s sort of assertion as “a straw man argument with an ad hominem attack nestled inside.” (It’s a GOP favorite.) Jcasey uses similar terms, but also observes that Cohen employs “the basic bait and switch typical of all fallacies of relevance.” Over at Gin and Tacos, Ed delves into the same article and considers its other “false or misleading analogies.” Check out both their takes.

Of course, as Jonathan Schwarz points out, “America’s conservatives either cannot or will not construct accurate analogies.” Cohen may not be an official conservative, but like Richard Cohen (more on him in a subsequent post), Roger Cohen offers a ridiculous, unfounded and poorly argued attack on liberals. He and other “liberal hawks” often achieve the same goals as their more conservative brethren, and with the same means to boot. As Ed notes:
Read more »

Why stop at 9/11? Rudy’s pretty good at taking credit for things he doesn’t deserve.

Giuliani sells New York as town he tamed

Republican candidate is at once running against the city and embracing it

CHARLESTON, S.C. - It was a depressed and devastated place: a city shoulder-to’shoulder with welfare recipients, free’spending city officials and greedy lawyers. New York was, in the telling of Rudolph W. Giuliani , a haven of high taxes and high crime, crumbling buildings and filthy streets. It was governed by liberals and dominated by Democratic voters who did not agree with the ideas of Mr. Giuliani but who nonetheless twice elected him mayor.
[...]

“I got elected and re-elected honestly not because the people of New York City agreed with my ideas,” he told an appreciative audience at the York County Republican dinner in Rock Hill, S.C., on Thursday. “They didn-t. They agreed with my results. You agree with my ideas.”

Adan Nagourney, The New York Times

MSNBC.com

But also from that article:

Whether it be a bathroom stall or the hall of fame, when you’re a republican, it’s all good.

Embattled Craig honored at Idaho Hall of Fame

First appearance in state since lawmaker’s bathroom bust became public

BOISE, Idaho - Senator Larry Craig has been named to the Idaho Hall of Fame, marking his first ceremonial appearance in his home state since his bathroom bust became public in August.

The state’s senior GOP lawmaker received polite applause and a few encouraging hoots when he was introduced at the Boise convention center.

He told other nominees attending the dinner he hoped the attention brought to him did not not lessen the honor they received.

Craig was chosen for induction last spring well before his arrest.

Craig entered the Boise convention center through its front doors, accompanied by family members including his wife and mother. They walked through a crowd of about a dozen photographers, TV cameras and reporters.

In response to a question Craig said he’s “doing very well,” adding, “I’ve got my whole family with me.”

Associated Press

MSNBC.com