'Obama Nation' vs. 'The Real McCain': A Study In Contrasts

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

t certainly is interesting to see the amount of attention Jerome "Swift Boat" Corsi’s new smear book, The Obama Nation, is already garnering. We wait with breathless anticipation Corsi’s multiple appearances on cable TV talking about Obama’s "unanswered questions" and anti-American attitudes, yadda yadda yadda — during which, one can rest assured, there will be no questions about Corsi’s history of ugly hatemongering at Free Republic.

In comparison, Cliff Schecter’s expose of John McCain, The Real McCain, has been given the classic media blackout treatment. There have been some brief references — like the Jon Stewart skit that discussed the "c word" story — but otherwise, Cliff’s cable appearances could be counted on one hand, as can the book’s mainstream-media reviews.

Today’s New York Times piece about Obama Nation sort of alludes to this when discussing how readily the right-wing media chamber picks up on books like Corsi’s:

“There’s just no doubt that in terms of longer-term infrastructure, there’s more out there on the right than there is on the left,” said Cliff Schecter, author of a liberal attack book on Mr. McCain, “The Real McCain,” which, with 35,000 copies in print, did not make the Times bestseller list.

Gee, I wonder if maybe the fact that the New York Times did not even bother to review the book — let alone treat its release as a news event worthy of thousand-word news piece — might have had something to do with the book’s relatively paltry sales.

Or maybe it was the fact that no one has yet come forward with anything even vaguely refuting the information in Schecter’s book. In fact, unlike Corsi’s entire body of work, The Real McCain is built out of well-established fact and thoroughly vetted information.

The Times piece, to its credit, does list the multiple falsehoods and distortions in Corsi’s book (Media Matters has a whole bunch more). So perhaps there will be at least a reasonable chance that this book will be treated more skeptically than Corsi’s Swift Boat book.

But you have to wonder why so much more ink and broadband will be devoted to this book than a similar book about McCain. Makes you wonder if those rumors about McCain’s people threatening the networks with retaliation for any airtime for Schecter are true.

Your librul media at work again.

Dave Reichert's lobbyist money

-- by Dave

Darcy Burner's opponent, Dave Reichert, likes to pose as a moderate, "independent" kind of Republican, even though he largely votes the GOP party line like a good footsoldier. And he's rewarded for that loyalty not just with visits from Preznit Bush and John McCain, but also with fund-raisers from the usual K Street lobbyists.

The problem with that, as Politico recently reported, is that those lobbyists represent business interests who work directly against the interests of Reichert's constituents -- particularly the Boeing employees who are in line to build the Pentagon's new tanker plane:

In Washington state, where Boeing would build the tanker if it finally got the contract, Rep. Dave Reichert, the Republican incumbent in the 8th Congressional District, has so far raised less money than his Democratic challenger, Darcy Burner. She has $1.48 million in the bank; he $928,000.

Just before the August recess, a group of well-connected young Republicans calling themselves Club 218 attempted to make up the difference, arranging a fundraiser for Reichert, according to news reports.

The problem?

Roll Call recently listed some of Club 218’s members, including Mike Chappell, a lobbyist for the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co. at Fierce, Isakowitz and Blalock; and Christopher Cox, a D.C. Navigators’ lobbyist for Alabama Aircraft Industries, which is fighting Boeing on a tanker maintenance contract.

EADS is teamed with Northrop Grumman in the tanker competition, to assemble the tanker in Mobile, Ala.

... “The fact that Congressman Reichert is benefitting from fundraisers organized by lobbyists for corporate interests trying to strip thousands of jobs from our district is the height of hypocrisy,” said Burner’s spokesman, Sandeep Kaushik. “It raises questions about his commitment to the district.”

Reichert's campaign denies that there's anything wrong with taking money from Club 218, and claims it hasn't taken any money from the EADS lobbyist (while saying nothing about Cox). But that's an evasion of what this story is about.

The K Street Republicans are savvy enough to keep an Airbus lobbyist off Reichert's FEC filings; the story is that this group of anti-Boeing/pro-Alabama lobbyists quietly organized a Capitol Club fund-raiser for Reichert.

This funder was a joint event with Darren White of New Mexico; one would assume that White was the object of any EADS lobbyists' largesse. But the event itself was reflective of how deeply, incestuously enmeshed the Republican House members have become with K Street lobbyists, and Reichert is as deeply entwined as any of them.

Which is why he'll go on TV and denounce the original decision not to award the tanker to Boeing (as he does in the video above) and then privately gather funds with help from anti-Boeing lobbyists. It's called talking out both sides of your mouth, and Reichert is a master.

It’s Not Just Immigrants On Sheriff Joe’s List — It’s Everyone

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

Right-wing nativist assholes are also right-wing authoritarian assholes. They come in the same package. Case in point: Arizona’s Crazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio:

PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union is in a federal district court beginning today seeking to rebuff an attempt by Maricopa County and its sheriff, Joe Arpaio, to terminate a federal consent decree mandating that he maintain conditions at the Maricopa County Jail that meet constitutional minimums.

The ACLU will argue in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona that deteriorating conditions within each of the jail’s five facilities that house pre-trial detainees – people who have been arrested but not yet tried or convicted – necessitate federal court oversight to ensure that Arpaio and other county officials maintain safe and humane conditions and provide the thousands of pre-trial detainees held there basic levels of medical and mental health care.

… Pre-trial detainees at Maricopa County Jail are regularly given moldy bread, rotten fruit and other contaminated food. Detainees with serious medical, mental health and dental needs receive inadequate care, and they are routinely denied beds or bunks at intake, forcing them to sleep on the floor. Additionally, severe overcrowding in three of the jail’s facilities has created extremely dangerous environments by significantly increasing the potential for violence among inmates.

In one recent and particularly galling example, jail officials chose to punish rather than treat the bizarre behavior of a young and severely psychotic African immigrant. Jail officials put him in disciplinary segregation and chose to house him with other inmates, resulting in his being so severely beaten by his cell mates that he had to be taken to the emergency room.

It was only last week that the ACLU was similarly taking Arpaio to court to force him to live up to a court order to transport female prisoners to abortion appointments.

This is the same wingnut sheriff who has been rounding up every Latino in Maricopa County, transforming his department into an immigration bureau and incapacitating his office’s normal law-enforcement duties. I guess it shouldn’t be a big shocker that someone who thinks brown people’s rights are expendable would feel the same about women. This is just the right-wing approach to the "rule of law" in action — it’s only the law if a right-winger says it’s so.

As the WaPo opined the other day: It’s time for someone sane to step in here. Kudos to the ACLU.

Obsession: Sally Quinn’s Old D.C. Fragrance

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

Ever notice how the adultery scandals always manage to draw Sally Quinn out of the society-maven closet?

Quinn awhile ago sorta donned her tatty and never-particularly-good old journalist’s hat back to co-author Newsweek’s "On Faith" column — which, true to form, has always been awfully short on actual faith and long on moralizing. What made Quinn an expert on faith? Who knows. But adultery scandals, well, that’s another parlor game altogether.

So of course, given the chance this week, she used her "On Faith" column space to weigh in on her favorite subject — adultery. The John Edwards foofara was perfect grist for her lofty moral mill — though she manages to discuss it with nary a reference to "faith," other than the marital kind:

Yes, I want to smack John Edwards across the puss. But more than that I want Elizabeth Edwards to do it for me. Not just for me but for all of us.

Oooh, yeah, smackin’ those hound-dog men around just feels sooo good. And smackin’ the wife around for lettin’ him hound-dog feels even better!

Note, as Megan Carpenter does, that we’ve heard this before: Sally Quinn said almost precisely the same thing about Hillary Clinton when Monica erupted — and is still saying it about her.

Why the obsession with adultery? Well, maybe it has to do with Quinn’s own marital history as a husband-stealer:

At the time Bradlee was married but separated; Quinn was living with journalist Warren Hoge, who would later work for the Times. Quinn and Bradlee became an item, Bradlee’s marriage failed, the two were married in 1978 — and Sally Quinn’s career took off.

Ah, those moral paragons of the Beltway. They always know better than the rest of us.

The New McCain Salute

[Cross-posted at Firedolglake.]

The wingnuts are having lots of fun kicking around an LA marketing company’s dumbass idea for an "Obama salute" (you form an O with both hands). I have no idea why these geniuses thought authoritarian gestures would become a big thing with liberals and progressives, but what the hell. The market will speak on this one, I’d bet.

So all the wingnut bloggers, notably the A-listers like Ole Perfesser and Malkin, are all over this major pressing and campaign-changing story like stink on shit. One can only imagine the scene if anyone actually affiliated with the Obama campaign were behind a dumb idea like this.

I’m sure, however, that this is just jealousy. So in the spirit of political sharing, we dirty fucking trekkies of the left have concocted a similar salute for John McCain:

So Much For McCain’s Outreach To Latinos

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

 The folks over at The Sanctuary — one of the premier group blogs about Latino issues — last month sent out a questionnaire to the Obama and McCain campaigns trying pin them down on the specifics of key issues, particularly immigration. Here’s what happened:

By the July 31st deadline, only the Obama campaign had responded to the survey. The Sanctuary conducted extra follow-up with McCain’s campaign headquarters via e-mail and telephone to investigate their failure to meet the deadline.

"The first phone call I placed was answered cordially. I was told that someone would get back to me. I never heard back from anyone," said Sanctuary editor Kety Esquivel of www.CrossLeft.org, who has appeared on CNN to discuss the questionnaire. "The second time I called, the person I was speaking with hung up and the third time I called the line was disconnected."

Of course, it was only last month that McCain was cooing sweet nothings in the ears of Latino voters in Chicago, holding a late-night town-hall session that was closed to the public. Even then, it was obvious he was telling Latinos he was their pal — but just not to let anyone else know that. And it went over about as well as you’d expect.

Looks like he’s taking my advice and just embracing his party’s inner nativist wingnut.

The Anthrax Case Might Be Cracked, But It Is Far From Closed

Bruce Ivins

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

I hope everyone watching the anthrax/Bruce Ivins case has been reading Marcy’s stellar work, particularly her delving of the Justice Department’s selective document dump yesterday (see especially her wrapup on the documents and the timeline she constructed, as well as this morning’s note). The bottom line: "they haven’t solved this crime, but they want us to all go away and pretend they have."


Some of the evidence presented is fairly damning, to be sure. There’s a big red flag in the middle this affidavit: Ivins gave the FBI false anthrax samples during their investigation of the mailings in April 2002. What’s particularly noteworthy is that he appeared to be hiding the fact that his lab samples (which he originally did not hand over) matched the samples in the mailings.

Besides being extraordinarily suspicious behavior (Ivins’ explanations were far from convincing) this sort of non-cooperation is also obstruction of justice. And that, no doubt, was a club the FBI began holding over his head to get his cooperation in the years that followed.

It’s also worth noting that this event happened only days before Ivins was involved in discovering an anthrax leak at the lab, an event that set off a panic within Fort Detrick. (The Frederick News Post published an excellent series describing this event.)

At the same time, you have to be struck by some of the FBI’s behavior that emerges from these papers as well as other documents. The Washington Post story following the dump covers this well: It really was an extraordinary pattern of constant harassment, including showing up at a supermarket with autopsy photos to tell Ivins’ wife that he had killed those people.

I’ve been around federal law enforcement for a long time, and agents almost never engage in tactics like that unless they are dead certain they have their man and are trying to shake him into a misstep. Problem is, I’ve also seen agents be wrong about that.

What stands out in these documents is what we’ve gotten so far from the leaks (almost certainly coming from an investigator) that have fed us most of the public information about the case against Ivins: Namely, there are tons of cause for suspicion, and even a reasonable circumstantial case to make against Ivins, but it’s a dubious proposition at best that this evidence would have yielded a conviction — it’s more likely, in fact, that it wouldn’t have.

Indeed, it’s likely that Ivins would still be alive if their case against him had been stronger. After all, they could easily have taken him into custody after his release from the hospital where he was treated just before his suicide — but probably didn’t because their case was so weak and they feared it would be dismissed outright if they grabbed him.

What the public has to work on so far are affidavits for search warrants — which are fine for establishing probable cause, but don’t do diddly for establishing actual guilt. They may have gotten a good crack on the case, but the FBI is far from having solved it.

Indeed, the affidavit contains several inconsistencies. One of the key pieces of evidence it raises is his mysterious late-night work around the time of the attacks, emphasizing his refusal to explain what he was working on. Yet a later section quotes an e-mail showing showing that Ivins resumed work on a vaccine project at this time. And the “unusual” pattern of night work is clearly shown to have begun in August, well before the Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. — meaning if Ivins was working on the attacks then, he conceived them before 9/11. And yet whoever was responsible for the attacks was clearly piggybacking off them (see the phony "Muslim" content of the letters).

This incoherency is also evident in the concluding final section, which makes clear that investigators are continuing to look outside of Fort Detrick for the location and the equipment used in making the anthrax and the letters. (It also makes it unlikely that the lyopholizer used in making the anthrax was the one recently linked to Ivins in news reports based on the leaks.)

Even if Ivins can be linked with hard evidence, the case still has many unresolved issues, particularly whether Ivins had any co-conspirators (the affidavits even indicate this was a possibility). And then there are the larger issues about what was happening at Fort Detrick — why security was so lax, and whether the facility was violating the international bioweapons convention if it was making this anthrax.

But it’s clear the Justice Department wants to walk away from this case — and with someone linked closely to Scooter "Germ Boy" Libby calling the shots, that seems increasingly likely. Hopefully, Congress will have something to say about that.

[Thanks to Warbaby for the links and pointers.]

You’re Not Being Paranoid If They Really Are Out To Get You

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

 Today’s AP story about the NRA spy who infiltrated Ceasefire NJ, a major gun-control organization, was perfectly in line with classic right-wing gun-nut behavior.


One of the ways that the paranoid mindset endemic to the American right plays out is that they always wind up doing the very things they like to suspect the rest of us of — like playing dirty tricks and infiltrating them. It’s because they start out fearful, and then move on to imagining what those they fear might be doing to harm them, and those imaginings inevitably are built out of what they themselves might do in reversed positions … all of which becomes a self-fulfilling rationale for doing it entirely on their own.

This is especially true of the gun culture. I grew up in it. I know.

Their integrity and honor — you know, the kind of values they like proudly announce they’re all about — is showing, too, in the NRA’s tight-lipped refusal to comment on the story. A press release on the purity of the essence of our bodily fluids is forthcoming, no doubt.

I think the comment from one of the spy’s supposed friends said it all:

Bryan Miller, executive director of Ceasefire NJ, said he feels betrayed by McFate. Miller’s brother, an FBI agent, was shot to death in 1994.

"To have somebody that I consider a friend, have been with dozens of times, shared meals with, treated as a friend, to have her be an employee, a subcontracted spy for the NRA, is just mind-boggling. It’s so venal," Miller said. "In the battle of ideas with the gun lobby, we’re at a constant disadvantage because we’re honest."

Heaven help us if we become as paranoid as they are. And the funny thing is, they keep proving that we ought to be.

The Right Jujitsus Obama On Race, And The Timid Left Tumbles Over

 
[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

It was easy to predict, going in, that the dynamics of race and politics were going to be a big factor in this year’s election — the main question was how naked the Republicans would play it.

And now we’re seeing what their plan is: Play it subtle, with a raft of images that will send off all the necessary messages to the lizard-brained wingnuts of their base, but nothing overt that can be readily flagged as racial — and when the Obama camp inevitably responds, play the wounded party. In other words, turn Obama’s race into a liability by making him respond to subtle, easily denied racial appeals so that he seems like he’s making unfair use of "the race card."

McCain’s "Celebrity" ad, and its aftermath, have so far played that strategy to perfection — Obama has been forced to retreat after initially calling it out, and his nominal defenders on the left have taken up defensive positions as well. Meanwhile, the wingnutosphere is in full roar; Peter Kirsanow’s post at NRO today, portraying Obama as making absurd overuse of "the race card," is the apotheosis of their emerging meme on race.

A little while back Jane pointed out that Republicans have done extensive polling to figure out how to play the race question, and they have concluded that they could succeed mainly by making "implicit" appeals instead of explicit ones. What we’re seeing now is that polling converted to campaign strategy.

No doubt, the end game of this strategy will be to open the floodgates so that more explicit appeals with similar dog-whistle content — like Floyd Brown’s ads linking Obama to black criminality — will gain added cover and be treated as legitimate.

It’s not, as Bob Herbert has argued, that the racial dog-whistle components of these ads are self-evident; they’re far more subtle than that. Neither, on the other hand, are they as utterly absent from them as folks like Taylor Marsh would have us think.

Last month in Austin I was on a panel about political rhetoric with Michael Shaw of BagNewsNotes, who presented the slideshow and talk you see in the video above (Michael has a post about it here.) As you can see, he makes a compelling case that a campaign has been well under way on the right — and becoming entrenched as a result within the mainstream media discourse — to marginalize Obama through these subtle appeals.

He explains it thus:

In looking at the fearful or polarized treatment of Obama, it breaks down into three categories:

• Obama as “Other.”
• Obama as racial stereotype
• And third, in descending order: Obama as shadow figure; Obama as man with a covert, anti-American agenda; Obama as Machiavellian mastermind; and Obama as closet Muslim and even Islamic Manchurian candidate.

It’s important to understand that these three categories interact and reinforce each other, often appealing as they do to the same base side of human nature. It’s the kind of appeal in which the GOP has come to specialize in since the days of Nixon.

As Shaw explains, one of the major racial personality stereotypes focuses on "lust, particularly toward white women." Several of the images, you’ll see, juxtapose Obama with a beautiful white woman in a way that is slightly startling — just as the "Celebrity" ad did. People familiar with racist-right appeals (particularly those common on the white-supremacist right) are all too familiar with the connotation of these juxtapositions: they are intended to appeal to the lingering white fear of "miscegenation" and racial mixing generally. That, and not simply our imaginings, is why so many people thought of the ugly miscegenation-mongering of the anti-Harold Ford "Fancy" ad.

Shaw also notes that the "uppity" racial stereotype is being trotted out increasingly as well, both by the right and by the media in general (see, e.g., Dana Milbank) in regards to Obama, though the favored version of it, I think, is that he’s "arrogant."

Responding to these kinds of appeals requires care. Calling them out as overtly racist, as we’ve seen, walks into the political ambush that’s being laid here. But at the same time, it’s foolish to pretend it isn’t happening. It’s still possible, in fact, to turn this to Obama’s advantage.

For now, calling out the dog-whistle components of the Republican appeal (and the resultant media coverage) isn’t a viable option, because McCain and Co. have seemingly immunized themselves for the time being. What’s called for, in fact, is some reverse jujutsu — because, let’s face it, the GOP strategy involves pushing a delicate line, and the best response is to find ways to get them to push past it.

It should be possible, while laying low, to invite the Republicans and their wingnut base to amp up the racial coding on issues where they are far less prone to being careful — issues such as immigration, where the nativist component largely holds sway. An aggressive effort by Obama to talk about immigration almost certainly would bring out the worst in the conservative movement — and make those "implicit" racial appeals in the rest of their ads look a lot more explicit in the process.

Regardless of whether the Obama campaign ever figures this out, it’s incumbent on those interested in seeing him elected to keep up the pressure and call this nonsense out for what it is. Obama doesn’t have to say it, but we can, and we will.

Is ‘Anthrax Killer’ Bruce Ivins Just The Latest Richard Jewell?

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

The East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona, recently ran a five-part series on Crazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the wingnut nativist who has been doing his damnedest to round up and deport every illegal immigrant in Maricopa County.

It’s really quite damning from the outset; the initial piece makes it clear that Arpaio has transformed what was once a typical local law-enforcement agency into an immigration bureau. Even more damning is the reportage on how grossly "America’s sheriff" and his crew violate federal laws along the way:

But the deputies’ work that morning, as with dozens of similar MCSO immigration patrols across the county, violated federal regulations intended to prevent racial profiling, a Tribune investigation found.

Those regulations specifically forbid crackdowns like Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “crime suppression/anti-illegal immigration sweeps” unless there is “reliable, empirical data” that serious crime is taking place. That’s defined as 911 calls and crime statistics based on reports, among other things.

But the sheriff’s office conducts large-scale operations without any evidence of criminal activity. The sweeps are billed as crackdowns on general crime, primarily in neighborhoods where many Hispanics live and work.

That’s exactly what federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement rules are designed to prevent.

What’s perhaps most outrageous about this: Even though Arpaio is clearly flouting the regulations, officials at ICE in Arizona have given him their official imprimatur.

And what do the Maricopa County taxpayers get out of all this? Why, crappy law enforcement, of course, as Part IV reported:

In Guadalupe, grocery store employees waited in vain for help during an armed robbery.


In Queen Creek, vandalism spread through a neighborhood where Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies rarely patrolled.

In Aguila, people bought guns in the face of rising crime that deputies couldn’t respond to quickly enough.

And in El Mirage, dozens of serious felony cases went uninvestigated.

Response times, arrest rates, investigations and other routine police work throughout Maricopa County have suffered over the past two years as Sheriff Joe Arpaio turned his already short-handed and cash-strapped department into an immigration enforcement agency, a Tribune investigation found.

Another point worth noting, and not mentioned in this series: Arpaio’s raids are not only a waste of his deputies’ time, they also suck up the resources of the local LEOs where the raids occur. When Arpaio repeated the Mesa raids this summer, it also cost the Mesa city government absurd amounts of overtime for its own officers to keep track of Arpaio’s deputies.

The standard nativist position on immigration — and it is largely now the position of nearly every Republican politician — is that we simply need to enforce the laws on the books, round up every illegal immigrant and deport them; if they want to immigrate, let them do it legally, blah blah blah.

Here’s a good example of what happens when you do that.

[H/t to bmaz for the Mesa info.]

Anthrax And The Bush 'War On Terror'

-- by Dave

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the Bush administration -- including the FBI, Homeland Security, and the Pentagon -- all want the anthrax-killer case to quietly die with the person of Bruce Ivins. Yep, case closed, move along, folks. Right?

Well, excuse us. If you don't mind, we still have a few questions:

-- Was Ivins, as Marcy and Glenn Greenwald have wondered, a conscious part of the disinformation campaign to convince Congress and the public to go to war with Iraq?

-- Did Ivins -- if he really was the anthrax killer -- have any co-conspirators, as the evidence suggests?

-- Why was security at Fort Detrick, home of USAMRIID, probably the nation's most sensitive and secretive weapons laboratory, so lax as to allow this to happen?

-- And finally (and perhaps most significantly), was the mere fact of this kind of weaponized anthrax's existence at Fort Detrick another example of the Bush administration's flagrant violations of international law?

You see, the process used to create this anthrax was in flagrant violation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (more here). The United States is not just a cosigner, it is one of the chief authors of this particular international law, which has been in effect since 1972. Chief among its tenets is the prohibition against developing new biological-weapons processes.

The FBI's self-evident conclusion that the anthrax was produced at Fort Detrick is manifest evidence that we are violating that law -- and have probably been doing so for some time, even preceding the Bush regime.

Indeed, we've known since this spring that the anthrax was almost certainly produced there, when a Fox News report on a possible breakthrough in the case disclosed that "scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues."

So you'll have to excuse us if we are not quite ready to move along. In fact, as Jane says, it's time for a full-blown, front-page congressional investigation.

The Second Coming

--by Sara

On Friday, the McCain campaign struck again, following up the Britney/Paris ad with one even more offensive -- a three-fer that managed to, all at once, reinvoke the Cult of Obama meme; suggest that popularity shouldn't be a criterion for picking US presidents (a notion that two stolen elections have proven in principle, but is now being baldly promoted as a GOP campaign talking point); and blast the dog-whistle at air-raid volume at the religious right, ginning up their already well-fermented fear that Obama is the antichrist.

I wrote one of the earliest blog entries on this over at ourfuture.org on Friday, and several other good posts have been written since. But I'd like to direct your attention particularly to Dave Johnson's offering at Seeing The Forest. Our buddy Dave, a man of great intestinal fortitude, waded out into the right-wing blogs and collected a few specimens of the net.slime that's already been raising the question of Obama's links to Satan. One choice bit:

Obama is the Anti-Christ. This is the evidence:

1.- He will come as a man of Peace (Obama promises peace in Iraq, defeat for the US)
2.- He will come mounted on a white Female horse(Obama mother is white who had 6 African husbands)
3.- He will come to deceive( Obama says he's a Christian but in fact he was born a Muslim, practices the Islamic religion, prays Friday’s facing Mecca)
4.- He will make himself the most powerful man on earth, if elected
5.- He will try to destroy the Jewish People and Israel( Obama has said he loves the Arabs specially the Palestinians, hates Israel and Jews. Admires Hitler, Osama etc)
6.- He will present himself as good and righteous but in fact he's Satan himself. Violence is in his heart
7.- Obama will help Al Qaida in its evil projects.
8.- Barack Hussein Obama is the “King of the South” predicted in the Bible.(Daniel .11, Kenya is south of Jerusalem)
9.- Obama comes to implant muslim Sharia Law upon America.
Obama is the Anti-Christ, beware of him.
Watch him and don't let you be deceived by Him.
Supporters of Obama: 1.5 billion Muslims, Oprah, Louis Farrakanh, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and all American Muslims.
OBAMA’S GAME IS DECEPTION AND VIOLENCE
A VOTE FOR OBAMA IS A VOTE FOR OSAMA AND KILLER ISLAM!!

Dave notes that everybody from Hal Lindsey to Glenn Beck has piled onto this, giving the an absurd level of media legitimacy to a story that should never, in any sane country, ever have risen to the level of a talking point in a presidential campaign. The only bright spot here is that the people most likely to believe this were never going to vote for Obama anyway due the race thing -- though I suppose the fact that they'd rather cop to believing in the Rapture fable than admit they won't vote for a black man does say something interesting about where our taboo lines fall these days.

Fortunately, the indispensable Snopes is on the case. Their last word won't be -- but should be -- the last word on this entire sorry farce:

The Biblical citation most relevant to this issue might not be one from Revelation, but rather this passage from the Gospel of Matthew:

Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.

Let the people of the word say amen.

An Open Letter to Open Left

-- by Sara

Regular readers may recall that a few weeks ago, I participated in a round-robin discussion hosted by Jon Pincus at Open Left, on the subject of "feminist and womanist perspectives on Hillary's withdrawal from the race."

The discussion ended abruptly after four posts, of which mine was the second. (It was also posted here at Orcinus.) It ended in a storm of recrimination, much of it crystallized in this thread, that soon enough devolved into pretty much exactly the same political correctness debate feminists have been having since I was in my first CR group in 1977. (Just reflecting on this fact makes me tired, all the way down to my bones.)

The personal part of this conversation included heated accusations from Paul Lukasiak (whose work I've admired) and Debra Cooper (with whom I generally disagree about almost everything anyway) that my offering was anything but feminist; and actually was a complete apology for, and a capitulation to, The Patriarchy. Other commenters picked up the theme, denouncing my lack of "feminist credentials." (Evidently, there's a licensing body out there somewhere that I've been derelict in sending my annual dues to.)

The discussion all went down in the days just before and during Netroots Nation, which is why I haven't really checked in and followed it all down until today. But, having done so, there are a few things I feel a strong need to set straight. Since I didn't make my case when the conversation was live, I'm going to accede to Jon's prompting for a reciprocating post here at Orcinus now.

This is my open letter to everyone involved in that conversation. (An earlier draft was circulated privately to the principals involved.)

To OpenLeft, fellow bloggers, and commenters:

I finally, belatedly, wandered into the 81 comments left at Jon's intermission post. And I really, really wish I hadn't.

It was delightful to discover, after 40 years of believing otherwise, that a bunch of people who've never even met me have decided that I'm not a feminist! Apparently (I had not known this), self-identifying as a feminist is Not Enough. You have to meet other people's externally (and badly) defined criteria. (I believe that, in other contexts, this is called "political correctness.") And I'm not politically correct, so Debra Cooper and Paul Lukasiak are going to revoke my card.

Fine. I've seen the "feminism" they represent, and it's not a club I've ever wanted to join anyway.

My main offense seems to have been in pointing out a historical pattern -- which, by the way, I first learned of in a women's studies class at UCLA taught by a radical lesbian feminist -- in which blacks almost always seem to come into their rights before women do. That's not an apology for anyone. It's simply a documentable description of how our society has worked in the past, and seems likely to work in the future barring extraordinary changes that don't appear to be in the offing.

This fact is annoying on some levels, and encouraging on others. I acknowledged that, too. If merely speaking a historical fact is enough to get one tossed out of the feminist movement (and, evidently, it is), I no longer have to wonder why we've made so little progress. The first step in dealing with reality is seeing it clearly. If contemplating the nature of reality is not allowed, then "feminism" will never amount to anything more than a shared fantasy; and those of us who consider ourselves card-carrying members of the reality-based world will be excluded from the work.

My other offense is that I apparently didn't feel sufficient allegiance to Hillary simply because she and I share a similar anatomy. In my feminism (which I realize -- all too acutely now -- does not look like that subscribed to by others in this discussion), we're allowed to choose our allegiances based on criteria other than shared gender; after all, this is exactly what we're asking the male power structure to do. I understand now that this kind of petty insistence on equivalency makes me a heretic; but since that's nothing new for me, so be it.

In my feminism, men do not get to be automatically wonderful just because they're men and hold all the power. And women don't get to be automatically wonderful just because they're women and we're supposed to be working off of some kind of presumed "sisterhood." (Sorry. I've been knifed in the back by too many rich white yuppie "sisters" in the course of my life to trust them blindly. I've also been in too many organizations that were completely disrupted by their combative operational style, and had to join the cleanup team after they left. Hillary did push that personal button for me, hard.) But mostly, I found Hillary distinctly unwonderful for a host of reasons that had nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with her alliances and her record.

Because of who I am and what I do, I daresay I have a more-specific-than-usual set of criteria for what I look for in a leader. (And let me further note that those criteria are not the least bit gender-based -- though, if anything, they tend to favor women.) Hillary didn't make the cut because she simply did not exhibit enough of the characteristics I seek -- and my sense of female solidarity was not strong enough to make up for this lack.

I also learned through this discussion that being a middle-aged white female means I'm the heir to the only true feminism, and cannot possibly be disinherited. Or else I'm not a feminist, because I failed to stand in unquestioning solidarity with Hillary when she needed me. Or else I'm a covert agent for the Male Supremacy because I made an observation of fact that some people chose to respond to with emotion. Or something.

Drop me a note when y'all figure it out. Or, y'no, don't.

My feminism, in case anyone still cares, is based in a larger humanism. It's predicated in the idea that I have a fundamental right to live my life in a way of my own choosing, without having to submit myself to any man simply because he is a man. To the extent that men have conspired to create a society that demands that women do this in almost every interaction we have with men, women and their thoughtful male allies must conspire to break that system.

But you can have legitimate disagreements on how that can happen, and still be a feminist. Or, at least, I keep thinking you should be able to -- but I'm eternally astonished by my own gender's ability to insist on an ideological purity that destroys unity, creates schisms, leads to fights like this one, and makes a farce of the entire effort.

This is why I don't usually engage much with identity politics. My personal feminist revolution -- and I like to think I have this much in common with everyone here -- is working in a deeply male-dominated domain under my own name, and earning a fair amount of respect for what I do because of (or in spite of) my gender. I'm raising a son who reflexively respects women, and a daughter who knows how to demand respect for herself. I don't put up with sexist shit from men; and, mindful of the fact that lot of women admire what I do, I do my best to set a good example and offer encouragement those who are trying to find their own way to empowerment.

I find the idea that four decades of living a life rooted deeply in feminist values isn't enough to qualify me as a feminist deeply, personally offensive. My feminism doesn't depend on meeting the criteria on somebody else's personal political checklist. Muriel Rukeyser once said, long ago, that if one woman told the truth about her life, the world would split open. Modern feminism began with the deep insight that the personal is political -- that every act a woman performs as a free woman has the power to transform the culture. Feminism, to me, is not about how well one can parrot high-flown academic theories. Rather, its most radical and transformative expression lies in how we choose to exist in the world every day.

And so I speak my truth right out loud in the blogsphere -- and then I go about the radical business of living my life. And in my world, that makes me a feminist, regardless of whether or not those who think they hold the current patent on the word agree. I'm not looking to any of you to punch my ticket for me. And thanks to you, I now realize that attitude, too, is a radical act of self-liberation.

Sara Robinson

White Supremacists See Their Imminent Defeat As A Good Thing

-- by Dave

White supremacists are nothing if not a deluded bunch. Even facing the prospect of the election of a black man to the presidency -- marking, in so many ways, another major defeat for their ideology -- they continue to believe his imminent election is a good thing for them:

Tom Prater, Florida spokesman for the white power group Euro and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, says the Illinois senator's success is a boon for his cause.

"I've gotten more calls in the last two months about interest in our organizations than I got in all the years in the past," said Prater, who lives in Jacksonville.

August Kreis, national director of Aryan Nations, another white supremacist and anti-Semitic organization, agrees.

"Obama's done my group a lot of good," said Kreis, who lives in South Carolina and says he keeps a Nazi flag over his mantel. "He's polarizing Americans, black and white.

"Especially in Florida, affiliates have increased recently," Kreis said, although he did not produce membership figures.

... [Stormfront leader Don] Black was quoted in The Washington Post last month as being optimistic about the opportunities offered by Obama's candidacy.

"I get nonstop e-mails and private messages from new people who are mad as hell about the possibility of Obama being elected," Black said. "White people, for a long time, have thought of our government as being for us, and Obama is the best possible evidence that we've lost that. This is scaring a lot of people who maybe never considered themselves racists, and it's bringing them over to our side."

Of course, the main people doing the scaring are overt race-baiters like Black, as well as the only slightly more subtle smears spread by the likes of Floyd Brown and Co. and their anonymous army of e-mail forwarders. And no doubt they will all do their damnedest to stir up trouble intended to harm an Obama presidency should it happen.

Sheriff Joe’s Desert Disaster: What Happens When Nativists Get Their Way

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

The East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona, recently ran a five-part series on Crazy Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the wingnut nativist who has been doing his damnedest to round up and deport every illegal immigrant in Maricopa County.

It’s really quite damning from the outset; the initial piece makes it clear that Arpaio has transformed what was once a typical local law-enforcement agency into an immigration bureau. Even more damning is the reportage on how grossly "America’s sheriff" and his crew violate federal laws along the way:

But the deputies’ work that morning, as with dozens of similar MCSO immigration patrols across the county, violated federal regulations intended to prevent racial profiling, a Tribune investigation found.

Those regulations specifically forbid crackdowns like Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s “crime suppression/anti-illegal immigration sweeps” unless there is “reliable, empirical data” that serious crime is taking place. That’s defined as 911 calls and crime statistics based on reports, among other things.

But the sheriff’s office conducts large-scale operations without any evidence of criminal activity. The sweeps are billed as crackdowns on general crime, primarily in neighborhoods where many Hispanics live and work.

That’s exactly what federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement rules are designed to prevent.

What’s perhaps most outrageous about this: Even though Arpaio is clearly flouting the regulations, officials at ICE in Arizona have given him their official imprimatur.

And what do the Maricopa County taxpayers get out of all this? Why, crappy law enforcement, of course, as Part IV reported:

In Guadalupe, grocery store employees waited in vain for help during an armed robbery.


In Queen Creek, vandalism spread through a neighborhood where Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies rarely patrolled.

In Aguila, people bought guns in the face of rising crime that deputies couldn’t respond to quickly enough.

And in El Mirage, dozens of serious felony cases went uninvestigated.

Response times, arrest rates, investigations and other routine police work throughout Maricopa County have suffered over the past two years as Sheriff Joe Arpaio turned his already short-handed and cash-strapped department into an immigration enforcement agency, a Tribune investigation found.

Another point worth noting, and not mentioned in this series: Arpaio’s raids are not only a waste of his deputies’ time, they also suck up the resources of the local LEOs where the raids occur. When Arpaio repeated the Mesa raids this summer, it also cost the Mesa city government absurd amounts of overtime for its own officers to keep track of Arpaio’s deputies.

The standard nativist position on immigration — and it is largely now the position of nearly every Republican politician — is that we simply need to enforce the laws on the books, round up every illegal immigrant and deport them; if they want to immigrate, let them do it legally, blah blah blah.

Here’s a good example of what happens when you do that.

[H/t to bmaz for the Mesa info.]

In Tennessee, eliminationism is no longer 'just a joke'

-- by Dave

In Tennessee this weekend, the chickens came home to roost when a gunman named James David Adkisson walked into a Unitarian Universalist Church and began shooting. So far, two people are dead, and seven more were wounded. He was saying "hateful things," according to all the news reports.

Naturally, right-wingers like the Ole Perfesser tried to fob it off on "Christian haters" -- Adkisson was the son of a church deacon and evidently hated going to church. But that also ignores the fact that he identified himself as a "Confederate."

Now, MSNBC is reporting this morning that Adkisson targeted the church because of its liberal politics. A four-page letter police recovered, according to Knoxville police officials, referred constantly to his "stated hatred for the liberal movement."

Right-wingers love to "joke" about mowing down, rounding up, and otherwise "wiping out" all things liberal. It's become a standard feature of conservative-movement rhetoric. And whenever anyone calls them on it, they have a standard response: "Aw, c'mon -- it's just a joke!"

In reality, of course, rhetoric like this has historically played a critical role in some of the ugliest episodes in American history, as well as thousands of little acts of xenophobic brutality: functionally speaking, it gives violent -- and frequently unstable -- actors permission to act on these impulses. People like this always believe they're standing up for what "real Americans" think -- and the jokes tell them that this is so.

This was a violent attack on liberals. It was inspired by years of wingnuts talking about how much they hate liberals and wish they could do something about them. This man did. But watch the people who have been telling these "jokes" run away from any culpability for it.

Pam has more.

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

UPDATE: "All liberals should be killed"

Knoxville Update: ‘All Liberals Should Be Killed’

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

An update on the Knoxville shooting rampage, from the Knoxville News:

Police found right-wing political books, brass knuckles, empty shotgun shell boxes and a handgun in the Powell home of a man who said he attacked a church in order to kill liberals "who are ruining the country," court records show.

Knoxville police Sunday evening searched the Levy Drive home of Jim David Adkisson after he allegedly entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church and killed two people and wounded six others during the presentation of a children’s musical.

Knoxville Police Department Officer Steve Still requested the search warrant after interviewing Adkisson. who was subdued by several church members after firing three rounds from a 12-gauge shotgun into the congregation.

Adkisson targeted the church, Still wrote in the document obtained by WBIR-TV, Channel 10, "because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country’s hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of media outlets."

Adkisson told Still that "he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them in to office."

And on his reading list?

Inside the house, officers found "Liberalism is a Mental Health Disorder" by radio talk show host Michael Savage, "Let Freedom Ring" by talk show host Sean Hannity, and "The O’Reilly Factor," by television talk show host Bill O’Reilly.

Gee, I wonder how long it will be before these guys trot out Michelle Malkin’s defense when Chad Castagana sent out his hoax-anthrax letters: "Hey, I have no idea why a crazy guy would want to hurt liberals."


[Via fiveforanonymous at DKos; h/t to Marcy.]

The Postville Raids: Ordinary (Non-Wingnut) Americans Stand Up To Abuses

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

The word is starting to spread that what happened last month in Postville, Iowa, was much more than a mere immigration raid. A line was crossed by the federal government, and the citizens who saw it firsthand have decided to stand up.

And this time, it appears that Congress is paying attention too.

Over a thousand people jammed the streets of Postville on Sunday to demand an end to raids like the one that tore through their little town. Many of them were there to call on a delegation of visiting congressmen to take that message back to the Beltway:

Postville Mayor Robert Penrod told the congressmen to take the message back to Washington that immigration raids do not work.

"This raid did nothing for this community," he said. "It downgraded us substantially. It caused people to suffer, and it caused our reputation to suffer clear across the country."

The congressmen — Reps. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., Albio Sires, D-N.J., and Joe Baca, D-Calif. – were all members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and were clearly sympathetic.

In the meantime, the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law held a hearing on the Postville raids last week. I’ll be discussing that in more detail soon, but suffice to say that the Kafkaesque travesty of justice that the raids produced – not to mention the raid’s potential interference with an investigation into labor improprieties by the meatpacker who employed these Latinos – may yet get the full airing they deserve.

Meanwhile, I was particularly taken by this story about a couple from Wisconsin who felt compelled to come to Iowa to take part:

“I believe it is a moral imperative for us to be here,” John said. “I think our government is standing opposite communities and business with their current stance on immigration. It use to be that this nation was a melting pot — that everyone came together and gave up their cultural identities. Many are no longer willing to completely do that and both sides must adapt. Business knows this. I mean, look at product instruction sheets printed in so many different languages. Communities understand this. Look at how our communities have come to embrace and celebrate the differences between cultures. Our government does not understand this.”

Zombie Right-Wing Smears Return To Life: "Obaaamaaa..."

-- by Dave

First it was the return of Floyd Brown and Co. on the scene. Then came the fraudulent e-mail forwards that quoted a white nationalist and claimed the words were Barack Obama's. Slowly but surely, the old extremist right of the 1990s -- the ones who saw Bill Clinton as the New World Order Antichrist and formed militias to stop him -- has been crawling back out of the woodwork in response to Obama's looming presidency.

Now they're replaying one of their old favorites: the fake "body count" e-mail. Gavin M at Sadly, No! has the details:

This isn’t one of those snarky jokes we’re so often accused of making. It’s real, and it’s likely coming soon to an inbox near you (replete with nine-hundred AOL and Hotmail addresses in the ‘cc’ column).

You’ve heard of the Clinton Body Count, and now it’s time for…

The Obama Death List

The following is a partial list of deaths of persons connected to Barack HUSSEIN Obama during his time inside the United States. Read the list and judge for yourself…

The source of these mails is indeterminate. But you may recall that the similarly spurious "Clinton body count" e-mails that flooded our inboxes in the '90s was the product of the black-helicopter militia crowd:

Of Madmen and Martyrs

-- by Sara



We are an odd group, we Unitarians.

Conventional wisdom says that we're soft in all the places our society values toughness. Our refusal to adhere to any dogma must mean that we're soft in our convictions. Our reflexive open-mindedness is often derided as evidence that we're soft in the head. Our persistent and gentle insistence on liberal values is evidence of hearts too soft to set boundaries. And all of this together leads to a public image of a mushy gathering of feckless intellectuals that somehow lacks cohesion, backbone, focus, or purpose.

You can only believe this if you don't know either the history or the modern reality of Unitarian Universalism. The faith's early founders, Michael Servitus and Francis David, were executed for the radical notion that belief in the Trinity -- which excluded Muslims and Jews -- should not be a requirement for participation in 16th century public life. Four hundred years later, in the same part of the world, other Unitarians died in concentration camps for having the courage of their humanist convictions. Viola Liuzzo, a 39-year-old mother from Michigan who was killed by the Klan in the days following the Selma march in 1965, was one of ours, too.

And then there are the thousands of us who lived to fight another day -- surviving not because we were weak and indecisive, but because we were unshakable in our convictions and unwilling to back down out of sheer cussedness. That Unitarian-bred belief in the nobility of the human spirit was the spiritual foundation on which a plurality of America's founders found sure footing as their convictions crystallized into revolution against tyranny. It fueled the passionate oratory of Daniel Webster, the wisdom of Ben Franklin, and the incisively clear writings of Tom Paine. It sent Paul Revere out into the cold of an April evening, and set Thomas Jefferson to the task of writing a Declaration. It recklessly bet the church's entire existence -- and the lives of its leaders, who willingly and knowingly committed a capital act of treason -- in order to publish the Pentagon Papers.

Unitarianism and Universalism lit the spark of progressive change that drove Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Julia Ward Howe to organize for women's rights. It sent Jane Addams, Dorothea Dix, Albert Schweitzer, and Clara Barton forth to bring health and hope to the poor. It gave voice to poets from Whitman to Plath to cummings, novelists from Dickens to Melville to Vonnegut, and musicians from Bartok to Grieg to Seeger. It fueled the boundless imaginations of Bucky Fuller and Rod Serling and Frank Lloyd Wright. It kept Christopher Reeve alive and breathing and working for his causes. I still hear it crackling hot and fresh every time UU-bred Keith Olbermann goes on one of his trademark rants.

These are not fearful people. Nor do any of them seem to be bedeviled by a lack of conviction. "Mushy" or "feckless" are about the last words I'd use to describe any of them. ("Stupid" isn't anywhere on the list, either.) When you sign up to become a UU, this is the legacy you take on, and from then on attempt to live up to. It's not God's job to make the world a better place. It's yours. This has never been work for the faint of heart, mind, or spirit -- and in this era of conservatism gone crazy, it still isn't.

I'm thinking about all this tonight as I sift through the incoming news that seven people were shot when 58-year-old Jim Adkisson pulled a shotgun out of a guitar case and opened fire during a kids' performance at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist church this morning. Two have died; four are in critical condition as I write this.

One of the dead, Greg McKendry, apparently took a shotgun blast full in the chest while trying to shield other members from the line of fire. Three other members of the congregation almost immediately charged the gunman and took him down, breaking his arm in the process. Still other members acted sanely and calmly to quickly get the dozens of children out of the sanctuary, and summon the police.

Those are the Unitarians I know. Smart, tough, fearless, calm in a crisis, committed to right action. It could have been any UU church in America, and they'd have behaved pretty much the same way.

It could have been any UU church in America -- and that's the problem.

Nobody seems to know just yet what motivated the attacker. The information is coming out in drips and drabs as police put it all together, and the congregation retreats into itself to pick up the shattered pieces. As we've always noted here when things like this happen, mental illness will probably figure largely in the story when it finally all comes out. You don't have to be crazy to shoot up a church, but past experience suggests that it definitely helps.

But for those of us who've watched and worried about right-wing crazies for years now, there's the sickening feeling that our worst nightmare may have also come true here. Witnesses say that the man was shouting "hateful things." The FBI is standing by, investigating this as a possible hate crime. It's not out of the question: according to Out & About, a Tennessee gay news site, there was plenty going on at TVUUC for the right kind of right-winger to hate:

Knoxville Police have not yet released a motive for the shooting. The church is the site of some gay affirming activities.

A member of the congregation wrote in a national blog that the church just recently put up a sign welcoming gays. One of the goals of the church's long range plan is to "Increase congregational participation in human rights programs for
gay/lesbian/transgendered persons."

“Elrod,” who posted a comment on the blog, “The Moderate Voice” says he is a member of the church. He said he was not present today but did add “all we know right now is that the suspect was not connected to the church in any way. I have no idea if the man had some sort of political or cultural agenda (TVUUC had just put up a sign welcoming gays to the congregation), or if it’s just some lunatic acting for no reason at all.”

It is home to Knoxville’s Spectrum Café, which is a social gathering place for Knoxville area high school youth who “support the principles of diversity, tolerance, and the worth and dignity of every human being.” Teens who come to Spectrum respect each others' ideas, religious views, race, sexual orientations, abilities, and ethnic backgrounds. The group welcomes “self-identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, or who are questioning their sexual or gender identity.”

The Knoxville Monday Gay Men’s Group meets at the church each Monday from 7:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

David Massey is one of the coordinators of Spectrum Café, also known as “Spectrum Diversi-Tea and Coffee House,” which will begin its eighth year this spring. “We advertise it as a safe harbor for teens who identify as LBGTQ and their straight friends and allies, plus any other youth who are being harassed for religious beliefs, appearance, or abilities,” Massey said in an interview with UU World Magazine.

Other sources note that the church has taken the lead in sheltering and feeding the homeless in the community, and founded the local ACLU chapter.

And in this, too, it could have been any UU church in America.

After 25 years of right-wing eliminationist rhetoric about liberal hunting licenses and scaring us out of our treason and keeping a few of us alive as museum exhibits, it's natural that some of us would jump to the thought that maybe, at long last, somebody finally decided to grab a shotgun and go bag himself some libruls -- and decided (not unreasonably) that down at the local UU church, they'd be as thick on the ground as quail on one of Dick Cheney's private hunting trips.

Whatever the reasons turn out to be, there are at least two lessons I hope y'all take away from today's events.

One is that you can bet that the members of this congregation will find a novel way to approach their healing -- and in doing so, they'll set example for the rest of us to watch carefully. If (when) mental illness becomes the issue, they will respond to this man and his family with compassion and justice, because that's the UU way. And if hate turns out to be part of the story, too, then Knoxville, TN is about to have a dialog on hate crime that will leave nobody in town untouched or uninvolved. That's the UU way, too.

The other is that this congregation's cool, brave response shows, once again, that it's past time to drop that old stereotype, and stop underestimating the courage and intelligence of the religious left in America. We've gotten incredibly short shrift over the past few decades -- not only from the religious right, which thinks we're the minions of Satan on earth; but also from fellow progressives, who think that "religious" is a synonym for crazy, dangerous, irrational, and definitely not an asset to the movement.

Secular progressives don't seem to understand that while politics is all about how we're going to make the world better, progressive religion tells us why it's necessary to work for change, and what "better" will look like when we get there. Liberal faith traditions offer the essential metaphors and worldview that everything else derives from -- the frames that give our dreams shape and meaning. It has an invaluable role to play in helping our movement set its values and priorities, understand where we are in the larger scheme, and gauge whether we're succeeding or not.

The conservative movement knew from the get that it would not succeed unless it could offer people this kind of deeper narrative. Providing that was one of the most important things the religious right brought to their party. Progressivism will not defeat it until we can offer another narrative about what America can and should be -- and our liberal churches have longer, harder, better experience than anyone at developing and communicating those stories, and building thriving -- and on occasions like today, literally bulletproof -- communities around them.

And then there's that long, tough history to draw on. The UUs, along with the Congregationalists and Quakers, have been at the beating heart of American liberalism since before the country was founded. We've faced down the ignorant and the arrogant, the terrified and the unreasonable, the cops and the courts and the Congress so many times that it's not even news any more. Civil disobedience is built into our bones (yes, *sigh,* Thoreau was one of ours, too), and we've come to regard it as one of our more important sacraments. These days, it's not only in our defense of gay rights and our gathering fury about torture, but also in our leadership role in the New Sanctuary Movement defending immigrants from ICE raids.

If the right wing ever does turn its anti-liberal crusade into a shooting war, it's easy to predict that the country's UU churches will be among their first targets. What's less predictable -- unless you know the people, the theology, and the history, or took careful note of everything that happened in Tennessee today -- is just how surprisingly fierce and fearless that response is likely to be.

Grief and pride taste strange together, but I am full of both for the people of the Tennessee Valley UUC tonight. After all, it could be any UU church in America. That's the bad news. It's the good news, too.

Update: Word coming in this morning confirms both possibilities. Adkisson was a Vietnam-era veteran with a history of alcoholism who was having a hard time finding work. And he blamed this fact on "liberals" -- gee, I wonder where he got that idea? -- whom he believed were getting the good jobs, and were about to cut his food stamps to boot. (How's that for a misunderstanding of the progressive project?) According to a four-page letter he wrote during the week he'd been planning this, his plan in launching the attack was take out evil liberals while committing suicide by cop.

A guy having trouble who, almost without a doubt, spent too much of his abundant spare time listening to right-wing hate radio. As the economy sours and the Democrats move into power, we probably haven't seen the last of these.

Any UU church in America, indeed.

'A line was crossed at Postville'

-- by Dave

It seems there was good reason to be concerned about the unusual handling of the cases of illegal immigrants caught up in last month's massive raids at Postville, Iowa -- where, as we noted at the time, immigrants not only were treated like cattle, the prosecutors engaged in questionable tactics as they processed these cases: deploying the unusual tactic of threatening the immigrants with felony identity-theft charges and sending them to prison when they either plead guilty or were quickly found guilty.

Last week there was a New York Times editorial directing us to an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a Spanish-language court interpreter who was called in to help process detainees in the raid. It makes the devastating case that the Department of Homeland Security, in collusion with the Justice Department, is (in the words of one observer we heard from about this case) "basically gaming the Federal judiciary using existing law, rules and regulations to force the judiciary to act as a coerced agent of the executive to imprison undocumented workers, after which they are deported with a prison record."

As Camayd-Freixas makes clear, these workers were charged improperly with a crime of which they were innocent as the means of forcing them to plead guilty to a lesser charge, for which they then accepted five-month prison sentence.

As the NYT editorial says:

Under the old way of doing things, the workers, nearly all Guatemalans, would have been simply and swiftly deported. But in a twist of Dickensian cruelty, more than 260 were charged as serious criminals for using false Social Security numbers or residency papers, and most were sentenced to five months in prison.

What is worse, Dr. Camayd-Freixas wrote, is that the system was clearly rigged for the wholesale imposition of mass guilt. He said the court-appointed lawyers had little time in the raids’ hectic aftermath to meet with the workers, many of whom ended up waiving their rights and seemed not to understand the complicated charges against them.

You really need to read the entire piece by Camayd-Freixas. This passage in particular stood out:

It is no secret that the Postville ICE raid was a pilot operation, to be replicated elsewhere, with kinks ironed out after lessons learned. Next time, “fast-tracking” will be even more relentless. Never before has illegal immigration been criminalized in this fashion. It is no longer enough to deport them: we first have to put them in chains.

Must. Stop. Fist … Of … Doom!

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]

First it was Bob Novak in his black Corvette, obviously reliving his viewing of The Dark Knight on his way to work at 18th and K the other day. ["Must . Ignore. Pedestrian."]


Now, Andrew Klavan at the WSJ wants us to see George W. Bush as … [nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh] Batman!

There seems to me no question that the Batman film "The Dark Knight," currently breaking every box office record in history, is at some level a paean of praise to the fortitude and moral courage that has been shown by George W. Bush in this time of terror and war.

Yeah, he’s just like Batman. Except that Bush’s frat-boy-on-steroids presidency has turned everything it’s touched — from the "war on terror" to Iraq to the economy to disaster preparedness — to complete shit. Batman is, you know, competent. Other than that, he’s just like him.

You lie down with dogs ...

-- by Dave

In a way, you have to feel kind of sorry for Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, R-Cranberry:

For the past month, Metcalfe, R-Cranberry, has been the subject of an anonymous letter-writing campaign that appears to be run by a white supremacist group called the White Christian Nation.

In June, the group announced that it planned to give Metcalfe its White Christian Soldier Award. He declined the award and denounced the group which already had used his name in publicity postcards for a rally on Aug. 10 in Adams Township Community Park.

Nothing worse than being adopted unwillingly by neo-Nazis. Ah, but how did this happen to come about?

The situation apparently stems from remarks Metcalfe made on the House floor last month.

Metcalfe is a Christian and social conservative and has been outspoken about his religious beliefs.

Metcalfe held up voting on a routine House proclamation honoring the 60th annual convention in Harrisburg of a Muslim group, saying he wouldn't vote for the measure because Muslims "do not recognize Jesus Christ as God."

I don't feel so sorry for him after all.

Wingnuts: Obtuse in any language

-- by Dave

K Lo is "just curious":

If Obama could go to Germany and give a speech in English and be not only understood but well-received, why does he say we all need to learn another language?

Gee, maybe because he thinks being multilingual, as the Germans (and most Europeans) are, is a good thing. Here's what he said:

“You know, it’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], ‘Merci beaucoup.’ Right?"

I guess K Lo thinks monolingualism is one of those gawd-given American rights that actually makes us superior to the rest of the world. Hey, they all want to learn English, right -- so why should we bother?

Some Immigration Advice For John McCain

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]
 
[Written in the spirit of all that pre-2006 helpful advice to liberals right-wingers used to dispense]

Dear John: Your poll numbers with Latinos are sucking worse each week. Now you’re down to 23%.

Wow. Never thought Mr. GOP Latino Sensitivity Guy could do worse than Team Bush, but you’re there. It’s obvious the "I’m your pal but just don’t tell anybody" routine with Latinos is kinda backfiring.

So what the hell. Jettison ‘em! Embrace your party’s inner nativist wingnut! Who cares if it does for the GOP with Latinos what the Southern Strategy did with blacks? You can’t do any worse, can you?
 

Immigration and the Democrats

-- by Dave

A new study by ImmigrationO8 about Latinos and the November elections confirms what we've been saying here for awhile: Immigration is a winning issue for Democrats if they know how to handle it right, and a losing issue for Republican bigotry-mongers.

Most of all, it's an important opportunity: Progressives can establish that they can solve seemingly intractable policy problems by taking a pragmatic and humane approach, contradistinct from the Republican scapegoating approach that only makes the problem worse.

In introducing the study yesterday at a conference call [audio here], Frank Sharry of America's voice put it best:

Immigration is an issue that works for Democrats who lean into it rather than for Republicans who demagogue it.

Polling maven Celinda Lake joined Sharry on the call, and offered advice to Democrats based on what her group found whenever immigration became a campaign issue: "It's an issue you cannot duck and hide from," she said. Candidates are successful, she said, when they engage voters in what it means to enact comprehensive immigration reform.

The study itself also debunked a lot of the myths about the election that are commonly bandied about among the pundit class, most of which fit into the "Americans aren't eager to end the war" insofar as they have any grounding in reality. For instance, the notion that Latinos are unsure about Obama and like McCain. Bzzzzt! Likewise, ixnay on the "Clinton's Latino supporters voted against Obama"ay.

But this is particularly worth remembering:

Anti-Immigrant Politics Push Latinos Away From the GOP

As with most Americans, Latinos view the Republican Party as being on the "wrong side" of key issues such as immigration, health care, the war, and the economy. In addition, the Republican Party's embrace of harsh anti-immigrant campaign tactics and policies has clearly undermined its ability to attract and retain Latino voters.

All apologies

-- by Dave

Hey all. It probably seems like I've dropped off the face of the earth over here at my little blog. I've been swacked by:

-- A trip to the San Juans where I was completely out of touch.

-- Meeting a deadline for my months-long investigative project on the Minutemen. (More about that later.)

-- Heading off to Austin for Netroots Nation.

-- Plus the exigencies of being managing editor at Firedoglake.

Upcoming, I also have a trip to the Democratic National Convention on the schedule.

It's been quite a summer.

I've decided that, for the time being (or at least until I have more time) I'll just largely be cross-posting from FDL here. I know that a lot of you are having trouble finding my stuff at FDL (though you can always check here).

And to make up for the last couple of weeks, I'm going to start off with the video I made in the San Juans. Followed by some of my better FDL posts of the past few weeks.

Back in action. Hope to see you all here.

Because Organizing Bloggers Is Just Like Lynching Black People

[Cross-posted at Firedoglake.]
 
So BillO thinks Al Gore shouldn’t have been at Netroots Nation:

The fact that he went to this thing is the same as if he stepped into the Klan gathering. It’s the same. No difference.

Right. Well, I decided to call up someone who actually knows something about the Klan and what they do: Mark Potok of the SPLC. He told me:

The idea that Netroots Nation is somehow like the Klan is not only ludicrous but obscenely misleading. This is a group with a long history of murder and terrorism, and they continue to inflict it on American society. This kind of talk utterly trivializes the very real problems, the real violence and hatred, caused by the Klan and groups like them.