Grassley Tries To Whitewash Hateful Opposition To NY Mosque: No One Is Saying There Is ‘Any Ill Intent’
Grassley Tries To Whitewash Hateful Opposition To NY Mosque: No One Is Saying There Is ‘Any Ill Intent’
In their attempt to stop the construction of an Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York City, right-wing opponents of the mosque have voraciously attacked the motives of Feisal Abdul Rauf, the imam behind the project, demonizing him as a radical and a terrorist sympathizer.
But in an interview with the editorial board of the Sioux City Journal, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) — who supports moving the mosque to a new location — attempted to ignore the ugly attacks against Rauf and his supporters, saying none of the mosque’s critics have suggested there is “any ill intent” behind the proposed center:
Said Grassley: “I doubt there was any ill intent by Muslims in wanting to place that there. I don’t have any evidence, I don’t think any of the critics have said there was any ill intent, and constitutionally you can’t question their right to do it. But I hope, on second thought — and we also sometimes have to have second thoughts about initial decisions, even well-thought-out initial decisions — that it is insensitive and unwise to do it.”
In fact, the right-wing echo chamber has done little else but smear Rauf and question his “intent” in recent days. In a campaign ad, New York Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Lazio warned, “Now a terrorist-sympathizing imam wants to build a $100 million mosque near Ground Zero. Where is this money coming from? Who’s really behind it?” Fox News host Bill O’Reilly said Rauf “is no friend to America,” because his “radical” views are “very disturbing.” Fellow Fox host Glenn Beck falsely claimed Rauf is “connected to” Hamas, and that Rauf employs an antisemitic imam.
Meanwhile, Pamella Geller, a key organizer of the mosque opposition, has completely dedicated her blog Atlas Shrugs to pumping out smear campaigns against Rauf. She’s argued that the mosque is all about “stealth Jihad,” that Rauf is a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, that Rauf “supports homicide bombers,” and that he has even “prais[ed] Hitler’s antisemitism.”
Of course, Rauf is no radical — he and his wife “are actually the kind of Muslim leaders right-wing commentators fantasize about: modernists and moderates who openly condemn the death cult of al-Qaeda and its adherent.” The Bush administration understood this, sending Rauf on a diplomatic mission, and having him work with the FBI on counter-terrorism efforts. Even Beck understood this in 2006, suggesting Rauf was a “good Muslim,” like those who make up the “vast majority” of Islam’s believers.
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Producer Of New Commercial Smearing Muslims For Political Gain Also Produced The Willie Horton Ad
Producer Of New Commercial Smearing Muslims For Political Gain Also Produced The Willie Horton Ad
The American Future Fund (AFF) is a 501(c)(4) organization that bills itself as an institution designed to “elect candidates who reflect our values through a variety of activities aimed at influencing the outcome of the next election.” Its latest ad takes aim at Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) and is focused on the subject of the proposed Park 51 Islamic community center that is going to be built near Ground Zero in New York City.
The ad ominously warns that, “for centuries, Muslims built mosques where they won military victories. Now, they want to build a mosque at Ground Zero…It’s like the Japanese building at Pearl Harbor.” It goes on to say that the “Muslim cleric building the mosque believes America was partly responsible for 9/11, and is raising millions overseas from secret donors.” It then says, “Bruce Braley supports building a mosque at Ground Zero.” Watch it:
Many of the ad’s claims are offensive, some are wildly misleading and others are outright lies. The Sufi Muslim founders of Park 51 have no connection to Muslim conquerors (Muslims do not think as a hivemind) in Europe centuries ago, and aren’t building a mosque at Ground Zero — they’re building an Islamic community center two blocks away from the site of the attacks. As even the conservative Daily Caller admits, “you can’t even see the [site] from there!” The Japanese actually have built in the area of Pearl Harbor, with a few Shinto and Buddhist shrines near the location of the Japanese attack that occurred decades ago.
Park 51’s Imam Abdul Rauf did not say America was responsible for 9/11. He called the attacks a “crime” that America did not deserve, and merely noted that certain American policies have served to radicalize Muslims over the years, an admission also made by Donald Rumsfeld’s Defense Department and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). And Rauf is not “raising millions overseas from secret donors.” His organization has barely even started fundraising for the project — the last financial report filed with the state found that it had raised $18,255 so far.
To be able to put out a misleading ad smearing a minority group like the one above, AFF turned to a dubious cast of “experts.” One of the organization’s key media strategists is Larry McCarthy, who is president of media firm McCarthy Marcus Hennings. “In 1988, McCarthy produced the infamous, racially tinged Willie Horton television ad” in the Dukakis-Bush race that helped tank the Dukakis campaign by ginning up racial animus against African-Americans.
AFF’s founder Nick Ryan confirmed to the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) that McCarthy produced the ad. Ryan also told CPI that McCarthy “does a lot of ads for the fund.”
Unfortunately, AFF is far from a fringe organization. This special interest group using racially-charged ads has deep ties to the Republican establishment. Although it has scrubbed its official website of the details of its lecture series, a search through its web cache reveals that in recent months it has hosted such GOP heavyweights as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Iowa Republican gubernatorial candidate Terry Branstad.
RNC Communications Director Doug Heye: What Glenn Beck Rally?
This Saturday is Fox News host Glenn Beck’s highly-anticipated “Restoring Honor” rally, and in recent days, cable new channels from Beck’s Fox to MSNBC have devoted significant air time to the upcoming event. Meanwhile, a Google News search of just the past week delivered over 420 print news articles and blog posts discussing the rally. But Republican National Committee Communications Director Doug Heye apparently missed all this coverage, telling the Washington Post, “I don’t know about any Glenn Beck event:”
“In general, people coming to Washington, being organized and active is a good thing,” said Doug Heye, a spokesman for Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele. “But I gotta be honest with you – I don’t know about any Glenn Beck event.”
For someone whose job it is to monitor political news coverage, Heye’s ignorance seems dubious, but it is apparently not unique. “Operatives at virtually every Republican committee in Washington claimed little or no knowledge of the event,” the Post reported. “They might well have cause to be squeamish,” the Post continued, noting the irony of Beck — who called President Obama a “racist” with “a deep-seated hatred of white people” — holding an event on the anniversary of, and in the same location as, Martin Luther King’s bridge-building “I Have A Dream” speech.
Daniels To Accept $434 Million In State Aid That He Requested But Then Opposed
In an interview this week, Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN) asserted that “only a blind zealot” would say that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus) “has done any good.” “It hasn’t worked,” he said. “It’s trickle down government is the best way I can describe it.” Daniels’ rhetoric hid the fact that he not only trumpets stimulus investments on his state’s website, but he also signed a letter in February asking that some stimulus provisions be extended.
Now that an additional $26 billion in state aid has been approved by the Congress, Daniels has his hands open for $434 million, “even though he opposed the legislation”:
“Whether it’s wise from a national standpoint, whether it’s really doing anything about the private economy where we need the jobs, that’s an open question to say the least,” Daniels said…“But they’re going to send it so we’ll be very cautious with it. … The most likely event is that it helps us maintain our position in the black with a little more room to spare.”
“If they send a check, we’ll cash it,” said the governor’s press secretary, Jane Jankowski. So, for the record, Daniels requested the money in February, opposed it this month, but now plans to accept it, just like all the other governors who have grandstanded against stimulus funding before gladly taking it. Daniels says that the additional funding “helps us maintain our position in the black” without noting that he is only in the black because of the Recovery Act.
In fact, the Indiana budget includes more than $1 billion in stimulus money. The Wonk Room warns that Indianans should keep an eye on this money, as Daniels used education funding from the Recovery Act not on students and teachers but to boost his state’s Rainy Day Fund.
Paterson Says Muslim Stabbing Is One Reason We Need A ‘Unifying Conversation’ About Moving Park 51
Paterson Says Muslim Stabbing Is One Reason We Need A ‘Unifying Conversation’ About Moving Park 51
The stabbing of a Muslim cab driver by a 21-year-old man who attacked him once he learned of his Islamic faith has made headlines across the country, with the city of New York already charging the young man with committing a hate crime.
The cab driver, Ahmed Sharif, told the New York Post that he believed tension surrounding the proposed Park 51 Islamic community center being built near the site of Ground Zero “may have played a role in the horrifying attack.” “Right now, the public sentiment is very serious. All drivers should be more careful,” Sharif said.
However, instead of simply condemning the attack and defending the rights of Muslim Americans to live freely and safely, Gov. David Paterson (D) took the opportunity to respond to the attack by plugging his plans to try to convince the developers of Park 51 to choose a different location. He said in a statement that “this kind of violence is one of the reasons” he called for a “respectful and unifying conversation about the Park 51 project”:
“In the wake of the alleged hate crime against a New York City taxi driver, I must take this opportunity to remind New Yorkers that we cannot and will not allow bias and ignorance to infect our communities and deny our hard working, innocent residents the respect they deserve.
“The potential for this kind of violence is one of the reasons why I have called publicly for a respectful and unifying conversation about the Park51 project. I continue to offer my assistance for an open dialogue that I believe will help to bring New Yorkers together.
It is difficult to imagine how it would be “respectful and unifying” to respond to a hate crime by imploring those targeted to consider giving in to the hate and relocating the Islamic center. To do so would be the equivalent of asking the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to consider giving into white racism by ending its drive to register black voters following the incineration of the 16th Street Baptist Church by a white extremist, or requesting that the Freedom Riders end their quest for desegregation following the firebombing of one their buses in Anniston, Alabama.
Malkin Indicts TP For Our Commenters, But Disclaims ‘All Liability’ From Her Own Blog’s Comments
Malkin Indicts TP For Our Commenters, But Disclaims ‘All Liability’ From Her Own Blog’s Comments
Yesterday, ThinkProgress reported news that a Muslim cab driver in New York City had been assaulted by a passenger simply because of his faith. The passenger, 21-year-old Michael Enright, asked the cabbie if he was a Muslim and “when the driver said yes,” Enright “pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.”
Today on Fox News, right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin discussed the incident and argued that the real story is not about the hate crime, but rather, the progressive blogosphere. “Something really ugly happened,” she said. “Time and again, when something like this happens — any random incident of violence — there are people on the left with a knee-jerk impulse to indict the right.” As evidence, Malkin pointed to comments left on ThinkProgress:
MALKIN: Within an hour of this thing happening, people not really knowing fully who the perpetrator was and as details did come out, you know, this is no right winger, there’s no evidence whatsoever that he’s identified with the Tea Party and yet if you look at the comments and headlines of some of these blogs, let me read some. [...]
[T]he bilge spewing commenters at ThinkProgress immediately indicted Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and yes, right here it says, “Thanks Fox.”
Watch it:
On her blog, Malkin also indicts TP for statements left by “bilge-spewing commenters.”
In our story, ThinkProgress never mentioned anything about Enright being a right winger or a member of the Tea Party. The original post simply reported the facts that were known at the time and continually updated as new information about the story became available.
It’s odd that Malkin would indict “the left side of the blogosphere,” and ThinkProgress in particular, for comments posted on our website because Malkin herself, on her own blog, absolves herself from any association with what her commenters may say:
I do not own your comments and I expressly disclaim any and all liability that may result from them. By commenting on my site, you agree that you retain all ownership rights in what you post here and that you will relieve me from any and all liability that may result from those postings.
ThinkProgress has a similar policy, allowing commenters regardless of their political persuasion to write and post comments that agree or disagree with our perspective.
But to recap: Malkin is not liable for what her commenters write, but she feels that it is perfectly appropriate to attack the entire progressive blogosphere based on comments from one blog. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald once called this “one of the lowest and most dishonest tactics,” attempting “to smear and demonize…by exploiting statements left on the blog by commenters despite the fact that the comments have no relationship to the arguments made by the blogger.” It’s a “[s]tandard tactic on the Right,” Greenwald tweeted today referencing Malkin’s Fox News appearance, “(1) use commenters to impugn liberal blogs; (2) screech when done to them.”
‘Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan’ — New Reality TV Series Eager To Show U.S. Soldiers ‘In Direct Contact’ With Deadly IEDs
‘Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan’ — New Reality TV Series Eager To Show U.S. Soldiers ‘In Direct Contact’ With Deadly IEDs
The G4 cable channel has announced it plans to air 10 one-hour episodes of a new documentary titled “Bomb Patrol: Afghanistan,” a reality show inspired by the Academy Award-winning movie “The Hurt Locker.” The show’s producers secured a special agreement with the U.S. Navy to follow around an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit on duty.
The Hollywood Reporter notes that “the serious tone and life-and-death stakes is new for the network best known for such lighter fare,” such as shows called “Cheater,” “Ninja Warrior,” and “The International Sexy Ladies Show.” G4 president Neal Tiles touts the show as an opportunity to “showcase the work of the courageous men and women on the front lines” and as a way to appeal to their “young male demo.”
Military.com reports that, “While the Navy certainly green-lighted the show based on its potential to highlight the courage and skills of dedicated Sailors, it’s not likely everyone is going to see it that way.” Because camera crews will be following Navy explosive ordinance teams through Afghanistan, there is indeed a potential that casualties will be captured on video. In fact, a statement from G4 appears to gleefully tout such a possibility:
While one day’s patrol could result in the successful disarmament of a 50-pound roadside bomb via remote-controlled robot, another could put an EOD tech wearing a 70-pound protective bomb suit in direct contact with a potentially deadly IED.
A G4 spokeswoman told Military.com that she did not know how the company would handle situations involving casualties. Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow blasted the concept of the show. “Maybe the thinking is,” Maddow commented, “if you can’t keep the American people supporting the nine-year war in Afghanistan, at least if you let in the right camera crews, then killing American soldiers over there can make for some good home-front entertainment.”
Maddow’s guest, NYT columnist Frank Rich, recalled that this has happened before. In 2003, just as the U.S. was preparing to go to war in Iraq, ABC announced that it would air a television series titled “Profiles from the Front Line.” Producer Jerry Bruckheimer coordinated with the Rumsfeld-led Pentagon to document the lives of soldiers serving in Afghanistan. While the war was far more popular then, “the show still bombed,” Rich said. Watch Maddow’s segment:
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ThinkFast: August 26, 2010
ThinkFast: August 26, 2010
In an interview with The Atlantic, former chairman of the Republican National Committee Ken Mehlman revealed that he is gay. Mehlman, who was also George W. Bush’s campaign manager in 2004, said he arrived at the conclusion recently and disclosed it now because he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage.
After a New Yorker article and ThinkProgress research exposed their role in “crafting the modern right,” Charles and David Koch “have launched a public relations effort” through Koch Facts, their company’s new website. The website offers “point-by-point rebuttals and responses to every charge” in the New Yorker story in an “odd combination” of “bland language and the brothers’ strong views and family pride.”
More than 40 Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and civic groups formed a coalition yesterday in support of the proposed Islamic center two blocks from the World Trade Center site. The newly-formed New York Neighbors for American Values said the debate over the center “was creating fear and division and that [the group] would fight for U.S. constitutional freedoms to be upheld.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) sent a letter to President Obama asking him to fire Deficit Commission co-chair Alan Simpson “in the wake of remarks Simpson made in an e-mail likening Social Security to a cow ‘with 310 million tits.’” The two write that replacing Simpson is necessary for the commission’s recommendations “to have credibility with Congress.”
President Obama will deliver a prime-time Oval Office address Tuesday night about the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, and the drawdown of troops from the country. Obama will meet with troops returning home before giving the address, in which he is expected to note that the drawdown “fulfills one of his major campaign promises.”
Insurgents in Iraq “unleashed a wave of coordinated attacks across” the country yesterday, launching strikes in 13 towns and cities from Basra in the south to Mosul in the north that killed dozens. “The message the insurgents want to deliver to the Iraqi people and the politicians is that we exist, and we choose the time and place,” a former Iraqi lawmaker said.
Nearly 20 congregations at local religious institutions plan to protest the Dove World Church’s planned burning of the Quran by doing interfaith readings of the Torah, Bible, and Quran. “Silence in the face of their statements can be misconstrued as agreement, and I think it’s important for all of us to speak up,” said Larry Reimer, minister of the United Church of Gainesville.
Vice President Joe Biden said yesterday that Republican claims that small businesses will be hurt by not extending the Bush tax cuts is a “bunch of malarkey.” Biden said that few small businesses would benefit from an extension of the cuts, and that removing $700 billion in revenue by extending them is “just bad economic policy.”
Mohammed Zia Salehi, an Afghan National Security Council official and an aide to President Hamid Karzai, is “at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation” but is also being paid by the CIA. It is unclear what Salehi is being paid for but it highlights the “deep contradictions” in the Obama administration’s Afghanistan policy — wanting to root out corruption, but paying allegedly corrupt officials.
And finally: There was a “teensy, weensy little problem” with paperwork Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) filed with the Federal Election Commission last month — “she spelled her name wrong. Or at least the person who did her paperwork did.” Her PAC submitted a document referencing “Michelle PAC,” adding an extra “L” to the right-wing congresswoman’s name.
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NV GOP Minority Leader Suggests Placing A Two Percent Tax On Food To Close His State’s Budget Deficit
NV GOP Minority Leader Suggests Placing A Two Percent Tax On Food To Close His State’s Budget Deficit
Nevada is currently “facing a projected $3 billion deficit for the two-year budget cycle that begins July 1.” State legislators are wrangling with different ways to deal with the deficit, and efforts have been complicated by conservative leaders signing pledges to not raise taxes under any circumstances.
Appearing on KRNV-TV’s Nevada Newsmakers Monday, Assembly Minority Leader Pete Goicoechea, (R-Eureka), broke with many of his conservative colleagues and admitted that the state is “going to have to have some revenues increased.”
However, instead of calling for taxes on the wealthiest Nevadans who can afford it, Goicoechea took aim at all Nevadans by advocating taxing food. “I believe that we should have had a 2 percent sales tax on food on the ballot this fall,” he told Newsmakers’ hosts. Local news station MY4News filed a report about Goicoechea’s comments. Watch it:
The minority leader’s suggestion comes at a time when food stamp usage in the stage has nearly doubled since 2008 and hundreds of thousands of Nevadans are relying on federal assistance just to be able to afford to eat.
As the Associated Press notes, taxing “food not intended for immediate consumption is banned by the Nevada Constitution.” Amending the constitution to allow for the food tax would “passage by voters in two successive general elections,” making it unlikely that Goicoechea’s plan would ever make it into law.
When Asked What, Besides Tax Cuts, Would Help The Economy, Pence Says Tax Cuts
When Asked What, Besides Tax Cuts, Would Help The Economy, Pence Says Tax Cuts
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) went on Fox News last night to back up House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-OH) over-the-top call for President Obama to sack his entire economic team, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and top adviser Larry Summers. “The President ought to ask for and accept the resignation of the Secretary of the Treasury and Larry Summers, and he ought to bring a new team,” Pence said.
But beyond that, Pence, like the rest of his GOP colleagues, didn’t offer any ideas of his own that would help the ailing economy. When host Greta Van Susteren asked what, besides tax cuts, he would do to turn the economy around, Pence at first dodged, but then said tax cuts for the rich would be the way to go:
VAN SUSTEREN: What — besides the sort of the usual — the — you know, the tax program, extending the Bush tax cuts that I know the Republican Party want, what is it that you could do to turn it around?
PENCE: Yes, look, the enemy of our prosperity is uncertainty. … the greatest uncertainty right now is — and you just heard — you heard the Vice President again kind of defend it in passing, their tax cuts — their tax increases on the rich — is this administration actually thinks that it would be a good idea to allow a tax increase on job creators on January 1st, 2011. You know, higher taxes never got anybody hired.
Watch it:
In addition to creating massive deficits, extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans would do little to help the economy and create jobs. In fact, the evidence suggests that if the GOP got their tax cuts for the rich, the economy could get worse. After the Bush tax cuts were enacted, the country “registered the weakest jobs and income growth in the post-war period.” And as the Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo noted, GDP increased faster following the tax increases of 1993 than it did following either the Bush or Reagan tax cuts.
It’s clear that Pence and his GOP colleagues just don’t have much to offer. Given that Pence has been asked repeatedly for new ideas on the economy — and hasn’t been able to offer any — one would imagine that he could think of something other than “tax cuts,” but apparently not.
RNC Spokesman: ‘We Embrace Whatever Candidate Needs To Do To Win’
RNC Spokesman: ‘We Embrace Whatever Candidate Needs To Do To Win’
In May, the tea party movement successfully toppled long-time Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) in a wave of anti-establishment sentiment that is “altering the nation’s political landscape.” This tea party tide carried Trey Gowdy to victory over the “reasonable Republican” Rep. Bob Inglis (SC) and now may push tea-party-backed Senate candidate Joe Miller (R-AK) to a win over current Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) in “one of the biggest political upsets of the year.” As President Bush’s former speechwriter Michael Gerson points out today, the Republican party now faces an uphill struggle to rein in the “untested ideology” of these new candidates that is “clearly incompatible with some conservative and Republican beliefs” and may prove “toxic to the GOP.”
But Gerson’s concerns are falling on deaf ears at the Republican National Committee. Today on ABC’s Top Line, RNC spokesman Doug Heye enthusiastically embraced the radical views of GOP candidates like Miller. In opening the discussion between Heye and DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse, Top Line host Jonathan Karl “wanted to see how excited” Heye was about “[his] man” Miller. He aired a previous interview on Top Line in which Miller said unemployment extension benefits are “not constitutionally authorized. I think that’s the first thing that’s got to be looked at so I do not favor their extension.” When Karl asked whether Heye embraces that view, Heye responded “we embrace whatever candidate needs to do to win”:
KARL: Ok, so you have a candidate who thinks that unemployment extension is not constitutionality authorized…uh…First of all, do you embrace that?
HEYE: Well we embrace whatever candidate needs to do to win. Every candidate campaigns in a different manner, every governor is a different governor, every senator is a different senator. But we look for candidates who can win.
KARL: Is that a mainstream Republican position that can win?
HEYE: Its certainly one that we have a lot of people in this party who have talked about. And certainly the Constitution is a key talking point for our party, it’s something that we do everyday.
Watch it:
Miller, whose constitutional challenge of unemployment extension benefits on Topline “went further” than other tea party candidates, also said that “we’ve got to transition out of the Social Security arrangement and go into more of a privatization,” insisting that “it’s not that radical of an idea.”
If Heye’s party is willing to embrace whatever tea party candidates like Miller believe, the Republican platform may also soon reflect Miller’s denial of “man-made global warming,” Sharron Angle’s (R-NV) espousal of the Church of Scientology’s prison rehabilitation program, Ken Buck’s (R-CO) no-exception abortion in cases of rape and incest, and an outright overthrow of the Constitution over birthright citizenship. However, as Ian Millhiser reports, the GOP is well on its way to embracing that mentality.
California Mosque Targeted With Anti-Muslim Sign: ‘No Temple For The God Of Terrorism At Ground Zero’
California Mosque Targeted With Anti-Muslim Sign: ‘No Temple For The God Of Terrorism At Ground Zero’
As ThinkProgress and many other outlets noted earlier today, a Muslim New York City cab driver appeared to be the first physical casualty of the controversy surrounding the Islamic center near Ground Zero. The passenger reportedly asked the cab driver if he was a Muslim. After the driver responded affirmatively, the passenger said, “Assalamu alaikum — consider this a checkpoint!” and slashed the driver’s neck and face.
But in addition to acts of bodily harm against Muslims, the ugly and emotional Ground Zero debate has generated hate crimes against a mosque in California. The Fresno Bee reports that a brick was thrown through a window of the Madera Islamic center last Friday. There have been repeated instances of hate directed against this particular mosque. Signs have been left at the Islamic center carrying inflammatory messages, like this one:
The other signs left at the Madera mosque read: “Wake up America, the Enemy is here. ANB” and “American Nationalist Brotherhood.”
ThinkProgress has previously noted that there has been a spate of hate crimes against mosques in America. For instance, a mosque in South Arlington, Texas, was vandalized earlier this month. “The vandals also cut a pipe, allegedly thinking that it was a natural gas line.” Also, the Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Nashville, Tennessee was vandalized with anti-Muslim graffiti. And in a Jacksonville mosque this year, a pipe bomb was set off and a “tissue stuffed inside with white powder” was sent in the mail to one of the community’s local religious leaders.
Meet Bruce Majors: The Tea Partier Advising Beck Rally-Goers To Stay Off The Green And Yellow Lines
Meet Bruce Majors: The Tea Partier Advising Beck Rally-Goers To Stay Off The Green And Yellow Lines
On Monday, a Maine tea party blog created a sensation when it published a “visitor’s guide” to Washington, D.C. for tea party activists coming to the city this weekend to attend Fox News host Glenn Beck’s big rally. The guide was widely mocked on blogs and cable news for its paranoid warnings about the vast majority of the city, but overlooked so far is the author of the guide — right-wing activist Bruce Majors.
While the guide’s absurd warnings could be dismissed as written by an overly-cautious out-of-towner who doesn’t understand D.C., Majors should know better — he’s “lived and worked in DC since 1980 (in 3 of the cities 4 quadrants),” according to his blog. Majors should also be intimately acquainted with the unsafe zones of the city, as he is a Realtor who is currently listing several homes (his company has many more) deep within the forbidden zone, and even near the dreaded Green and Yellow Metro lines. And apparently his political views seep into his business, as one client was forced to find another agent after Majors “was extremely inappropriate when he began discussing President Obama and how evil he is.”
But “Majors is no mere small-time troll or newcomer.” He is an active “Tea Party community organizer in Washington, D.C.,” and a major online organizer, especially at Tea Party Patriots. On that site, he is the second biggest poster of all time, with 2277 messages, to the group’s official email listerv:
He’s organized protests online, and is the owner of the Tea Party Professionals group on Linkedin. He was also identified as a “LP [Libertarian Party] campaigner and everyone’s-facebook-friend” by a libertarian blog. He also appears to have written for the American Spectator, among other publications.
A frequent commenter on progressive blogs, Majors describes himself on his OpenSalon.com profile as an “Anarcho-capitalist revolutionary sharpening his guillotine.” On Talking Points Memo — where he was flagged with a “Troll Alert” and the subject to a lengthy profile — his bio states that he is “[l]ooking for employment as guillotine operator for citizens’ tribunal.”
Indeed, elsewhere in Majors ‘extensive online presence, there is a clear flirtation with violence as a political tool. In a Facebook note titled “We will remember in November,” Majors listed the names of all the members of Congress who voted for the Affordable Care Act — dubbed the “The Executioner’s List” — followed by a picture of a guillotine and accompanied by this call to action:
Call Capitol Hill and promise them retribution. Not just in their next race, but in their attempt to run for or be appointed to ANY office, and any private enterprise they will engage in in the future. And any member of their family.
Commenting on a TPM story, Majors wrote, “Poor walking cadaver [Senate Majority Leader] Harry Reid [D-NV] shouldn’t run fake tea party candidates to split the opposition vote against him. Someone might drop a plane on him. They already dropped a truck on his family,” referring to a car accident that seriously injured Reid’s wife and daughter. His Facebook page also features two jokes about President Obama’s death (and that he is a Muslim), and a picture of a sign referencing the Thomas Jefferson quote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
Like his visitor’s guide, which offered advice to dealing with “African immigrants,” Major’s other writings have clear racial undertones. In a tweet linking to an article about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan and affirmative action, Majors wrote, “Kagan says Obama is ‘my niggah.’” In another tweet linking to a video of Obama, Majors tweeted, “Poor little flop eared bitch. People are so mean to him.” Upon news of White House economic adviser Christina Romer’s upcoming departure, Majors tweeted, “Congratulations Christiina Romer! A house slave is now free. But all us field slaves are still in chains!” On the Shirley Sherrod dust up, Majors wrote:
[I]t is clear that most black Democrats in politics & the media are complete knaves and idiots (much like their white counterparts). The purpose of their constant race focus is, as Angela Codevilla discusses in his American Spectator article, to have a charge, racism, which which they can convict average Americans of a crime so they can then demand to enslave them.
Majors also posted a picture on his Facebook page comparing First Lady Michele Obama to Chewbacca from Star Wars:
In addition, Majors appears to be a birther, posting images on his Facebook page of a forged Kenyan birth certificate that birthers claim is authentic, and several birther joke images, including a sign saying, “Illegal immigration is destroying this county — look what it did to the White House.”
TPM’s Troll Watch reported that Majors has also conducted “direct e-mail harassment and identity theft against liberals,” using stolen screen names to harass commentors on blogs he has been banned from. Indeed, he is the subject of several threads on online forums warning about his harassment, and he reportedly told one woman who accused him of using multiple screen names to hide his identity, “you silly facist bitch. Do not tell me what screen name I can use or what I am free to say.”
What You Need To Know About Rick Scott: The Corrupt And Fraudulent GOP Gubernatorial Nominee In Florida
What You Need To Know About Rick Scott: The Corrupt And Fraudulent GOP Gubernatorial Nominee In Florida
Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Rick Scott
In his victory speech last night, Rick Scott, the 57 year old former health care executive and founder of the health care attack group Conservatives For Patients Rights, assured Republicans that the “party will come together” after a particularly bruising primary challenge against Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. Scott entered the race in April and proceeded to spend approximately $50 million of his estimated $218 million fortune on a negative campaign that sought to deflect attention from his past business controversies and smear McCollum as a product of the establishment.
That outlandish sum, however, is not nearly as shocking as how Scott came to acquire it — as the chief executive of one of the largest and most controversial for-profit hospital chains in the country, Columbia/HCA.
In 1987, Scott, a mergers and acquisitions lawyer who “had cut his teen on deals involving radio stations, fast food businesses, and oil and gas companies before focusing in on the money to be made by acquiring hospitals,” didn’t enter the health care business for the sake of improving the quality of care, but rather wanted to “do for hospitals…what McDonald’s has done in the food business” and “what Wal-Mart has done in the retailing business.” The goal, as Maggie Mahar explains in Money Driven Medicine, “was to combine volume with low cost.” This quote is demonstrative: “Do we have an obligation to provide health care for everybody? Where do we draw the line? Is any fast-food restaurant obligated to feed everyone who shows up?” he asked.
Indeed, through an aggressive strategy of rapid acquisitions and consolidation, Scott turned Columbia/HCA into one of the largest health care companies in the world. Forbes magazine noted Scott ruthlessly bought “hospitals by the bucketful and promised to squeeze blood from each one.” HCA/Columbia executives saw health care as any other commodity. “This industry’s not any different than an airline industry or a ball bearing industry,” said David T. Vandewater, Columbia’s chief operating officer. “You run at 40 percent of capacity or at 60 percent of capacity you’re not getting the maximum value out of your assets.”
Under Scott’s leadership, Columbia/HCA pled guilty to an massive array of fraud charges — which resulted in a fraud settlement of $1.7 billion dollars, the largest in U.S history. Columbia/HCA systematically defrauded taxpayers, charging Medicare $15,000 for Tiffany pitchers and other luxury goods, “exaggerating the seriousness of the illnesses they were treating,” and engineering a program where doctors were granted partnerships in hospitals as a kickback for referring patients. In 1997, “disaster struck in the form of an FBI raid.” In July of that year, “federal agents swarmed Columbia/HCA hospitlas and offices in five states. Within weeks, three executives were indicted on charges of Medicare fraud, and the board had ousted Scott.” Scott left in disgrace, but not before walking away with “a $9.88 million severance package, along with 10 million shares of stock worth up to $300 million at the time.”
During Scott’s tenure at Columbia/HCA, his cost cutting methods threatened patient care and safety:
– Susan Marks, a technician at one of Scott’s hospitals, was forced to monitor 72 heart monitors by herself. Marks explained, “I have to. I’ve been told you either do it, or there’s the door.” [ABC News, 9/26/97]
– Scott downsized nursing staffs, created conditions where “babies were attended as infrequently as every three hours. Once, the only nurse caring for seven ill infants was so busy she failed to hear an alarm when a baby stopped breathing. A parent dashed to the baby and stimulated breathing, the state report said.” [New York Times, 5/11/97]
– Hospital workers in Florida complained, “gloves come in only one size, and rip easily.” In addition, California employees protested “filthy conditions,” and being “stretched to the limit” as Scott’s company slashed “the ratio of nurses to patients.” [Money Driven Medicine, pg. 119]
In 2001, Scott would return to health care and the “McDonalds model,” with a chain of urgent care clinics all over Florida. And as Tristam Korten explained in this two part series for Salon, it quickly replicated many of Columbia/HCA’s favorite business practices.
Crosso-posted at the Wonk Room.
Leading AK GOP U.S. Senate Candidate Joe Miller: ‘We Haven’t Heard There’s Man-Made Global Warming’
Leading AK GOP U.S. Senate Candidate Joe Miller: ‘We Haven’t Heard There’s Man-Made Global Warming’
Following last night’s GOP Senate primary in Alaska, the race is “too close to call” between incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R) and challenger Joe Miller. As of this writing, with “98 percent of precincts counted, Murkowski trailed political newcomer Joe Miller by 1,960 votes out of more than 91,000 counted.”
Earlier this week, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner interviewed Miller, probing him on a variety of issues. On global warming, Miller didn’t deny the existence of climate change, but that human activity was not responsible for it. He told the newspaper that “temperature change is a part of the process of our existence,” and that we “haven’t heard there’s man-made global warming”:
Miller doesn’t doubt that the climate changing, only to what extent humans are causing climate change. “I think it’s undeniable, that anyone who has looked at the natural record of the Earth can see significant cyclical changes well before the industrial age, so we know the temperature change is part of the process of our existence, and frankly, you’re probably aware in the ’70s there were real concerns about global cooling,” he said. [...]
“We haven’t heard there’s man-made global warming,” he said. “Second, even if we proved that, we have not proven we have a solution that works. And third, even if we’ve proven that, we haven’t done a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether the solutions like cap-and-trade that Sen. Murkowski has proposed are actually worth the cost to people.”
If Miller is unconvinced of the existence of “man-made” global warming, all he has to do is pay attention to the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a UN group “made up of hundreds of scientists from 113 countries” determined that “human-generated greenhouse gases account for most of the global rise in temperatures over the past half-century.” A 2009 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States found that “97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets” of the IPCC’s conclusion that man-made greenhouse gases are responsible for the planet warming.
Skeptical Science, using data from several government agencies that monitor the global climate, created this graph demonstrating how the rise in carbon dioxide has closely tracked a rise in global temperature over time:
Four Of Five Health Care Plaintiffs Have Lost Their Republican Primaries
Four Of Five Health Care Plaintiffs Have Lost Their Republican Primaries
As ThinkProgress previously reported, five GOP officials who joined the completely merit-less lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act ran for governor this year. With Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum’s defeat at the hands of corrupt former hospital CEO Rick Scott last night, all but one of these five officials have lost their Republican primary:
This March, two attorneys general took the lead in lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the health care overhaul: South Carolina’s Henry McMaster and Florida’s Bill McCollum. Another, Michigan’s Mike Cox, soon signed on.
The lawsuits made them national leaders on the central national issue, and seemed tailor-made for Republican primaries. But all three lost those primaries, as CNN’s Peter Hamby noted of the first two last night.
McMaster lost to Nikki Haley, whose reform message trumped his series of ads touting his health care fight. Cox, who also put his health care suit on air, lost to a wealthy businessman who ran on a non-ideological platform under the slogan, “one tough nerd.” McCollum lost to Rick Scott, and there the message may not be as clear — Scott was also a leading national foe of the health care bill.
In addition to these three losing attorneys general, Nevada Gov. Jim Gibbons, who muscled his way into the health care litigation against his state AG’s objection, also lost his primary seeking another term as governor. Only Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett (R), who ran virtually unopposed for his party’s gubernatorial nomination, survived the voter’s scrutiny.
Of course, it’s hard to be sure just what message primary voters intended to send by choosing Scott over McCollum. Last May, 54 percent of Florida voters said that McCollum’s lawsuit was a “bad idea.” But it’s also quite possible that Florida Republicans were inspired by Scott’s decision to spend a portion of his vast personal fortune in a failed attempt to block the Affordable Care Act. It’s also possible that McCollum’s bitter confession speech, which claims that voters were bamboozed by Scott’s massive campaign spending, accurately explains his loss:
“The votes today have been tallied and I accept the voters’ decision,” McCollum said. “This race was one for the ages. No one could have anticipated the entrance of a multimillionaire with a questionable past who shattered campaign spending records and spent more in four months than has ever been spent in a primary race here in Florida.
One thing that is crystal clear, however, is that wasting taxpayer dollars on a frivolous lawsuit is never a good way to appeal to voters. Every single health care plaintiff in a contested primary for governor lost their election — hopefully this will inspire future candidates to abandon their counterproductive opposition to health reform.
Vitter’s Dire Prediction That Drilling Moratorium Would Be Worse Than BP Oil Spill ‘Failed To Materialize’
Vitter’s Dire Prediction That Drilling Moratorium Would Be Worse Than BP Oil Spill ‘Failed To Materialize’
As part of its response to BP’s disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the Obama administration in June issued a 6-month moratorium on deepwater offshore drilling in order to survey drilling safety measures and prevent a similar spill.
While the oil and gas industry went to court to prevent the moratorium from taking effect, Republicans responded by issuing fear-mongering rhetoric. The moratorium “could kill thousands of Louisiana jobs,” Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) said, while Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) called it “a second assault on the Gulf.” Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), who has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry, called on Obama to lift the temporary ban and claimed the moratorium would be worse for the Gulf region, economically, than the oil spill itself:
As I stated, there is no one more environmentally devastated by this oil disaster than the people of the Gulf Coast. It’s our coast, our marshes, and our way of life that is being impacted. However, despite the ongoing oil spill disaster, the great majority of Gulf Coast citizens feel strongly that the administration’s deepwater moratorium is a major mistake. Simply put, it will cost us more jobs and economic devastation than the oil spill itself.
But as it turns out, Vitter and his GOP colleagues’ rhetoric was mere hyperbole. The New York Times reports today that their dire predictions “failed to materialize”:
[T]he worst of those forecasts has failed to materialize, as companies wait to see how long the moratorium will last before making critical decisions on spending cuts and layoffs. Unemployment claims related to the oil industry along the Gulf Coast have been in the hundreds, not the thousands, and while oil production from the gulf is down because of the drilling halt, supplies from the region are expected to rebound in future years.
The Times reports that “[e]ven the government’s estimate of the impact of the drilling pause — 23,000 lost jobs and $10.2 billion in economic damage — is proving to be too pessimistic.”
But the news is unlikely to pull Vitter away from his close ties to Big Oil. The Louisiana senator introduced a bill shortly after the Gulf spill to limit BP’s liability to the amount of its profit in the last four quarters, or $150 million, whichever is greater. (BP ended up agreeing to a preliminary $20 billion liability fund). And in 2000, while a member of the House, Vitter introduced a bill (which never became law) to reduce oil companies’ criminal liability for spills.
‘Are You Muslim?’: Passenger Stabs NYC Muslim Cab Driver
‘Are You Muslim?’: Passenger Stabs NYC Muslim Cab Driver
NY1 reports today of a likely hate crime in New York City, which has been the site of an ugly, emotional debate over the proposed Park 51 Islamic community center near the site of Ground Zero. The news station reports that a cab driver was attacked by a young man who appears to have assaulted him due to his Islamic faith. The man reportedly asked the driver if he was Muslim, and when he confirmed that he was, the young man attacked the driver, slashing him “in the throat, arm and lip” with a knife:
A city cab driver is in the hospital after being stabbed by a passenger who allegedly asked if he was Muslim, police tell NY1. Investigators with the New York City Police Department say it all began Monday night when a 21-year-old man hailed a cab at 24th Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan.
Police say the passenger asked the driver, “Are you Muslim?” When the driver said yes the passenger pulled a knife and slashed him in the throat, arm and lip.
Both the driver and the alleged attacker are currently hospitalized in Bellevue Hospital. The first casualty of the “Ground Zero mosque.”
The passenger, Michael Enright, 21, of Brewster, N.Y., hailed the cab at Second Avenue and East 24th Street around 6 p.m. Tuesday, the police said. Twenty blocks north, they said, he slashed and stabbed the 43-year-old driver in his throat, face and arm. [...] After falling silent for a few minutes, the passenger began cursing and screaming, and then yelled, “Assalamu alaikum — consider this a checkpoint!” and slashed Mr. Sharif across the neck, and then on the face from his nose to his upper lip, the alliance said. [...] “I feel very sad,” Mr. Sharif said in a statement released by the taxi workers’ alliance. “I have been here more than 25 years. I have been driving a taxi more than 15 years. All my four kids were born here. I never feel this hopeless and insecure before.”
Right-Wing Christian Militia Vows To Protect Florida Church Burning Qurans On September 11 (Updated)
Right-Wing Christian Militia Vows To Protect Florida Church Burning Qurans On September 11 (Updated)
Despite the city’s fire protection ordinances, the poorly-named Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, FL is committed to hosting “International Burn a Quran Day” on September 11. The radical church, which boasts an “Islam Is Of The Devil” message on a sign outside the church and as the title of its pastor’s book, insists “we will still burn Korans” on the church grounds despite being denied a permit. While the church may be fined for openly burning the holy texts, one “armed Christian conservative group” aptly named Right Wing Extreme vowed Sunday to protect the church from any other harassment during the burning:
The Christian conservative organization Right Wing Extreme has offered its support and protection for the International Burn a Quran day.
Right Wing Extreme was founded in April of 2009 after the Department of Homeland Security’s report titled Right Wing Extremism.[...]
“We fully support Dove World Outreach Center and its efforts to put an end to the notion that Islam is a peaceful religion. Islam is a violent cult with the goal of world domination.” Says Right Wing Extreme founder Shannon Carson.
Right Wing Extreme insists that “President Obama is a Muslim who is intentionally destroying America’s economy, constitution, and has a socialist agenda aimed at bringing about a New World Order.” The group measures its “state of alert” through a “Defcon system.” Currently set at level 3, the “Defcon system” warns that the group’s “moral and ethical code are under moderate attack” and that the U.S. Constitution is only “partially intact.” According to their ethical code, members swear to defend the Constitution and recognize “that freedom comes by the shedding of blood and sacrifice.”
While Right Wing Extreme is supporting the church’s “protest” of Islam by militaristic means, one non-profit Muslim group, the Book of Signs, is countering the protest by “distributing 50 free Qurans for every Quran burned” and by urging bookstores to refuse to sell Qurans to those involved.
TP’s Lee Fang Discusses The ‘Kochtopus’ Network On Countdown
TP’s Lee Fang Discusses The ‘Kochtopus’ Network On Countdown
For the past two years, ThinkProgress researcher Lee Fang has been digging into the nefarious activities of the Koch family, reporting on their funding of the tea parties, the depth of their astroturfing, and their family’s record of right-wing radicalism.
Using a great deal of TP’s research, The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer published a lengthy article this week that gives the “Kochtopus” ideological network the mainstream media attention it deserves. In order to “alter the direction of America,” the oil family has been “giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.”
“They are out to destroy progressivism,” Democratic strategist Rob Stein said of the Kochs. Appearing on MSNBC’s Countdown last night, Fang observed the long history of Kochs’ efforts to bring down the progressive movement:
Charles Koch, about 10 years ago, compared himself to the theologian Martin Luther and he said he’s bringing a right wing radical free-market reformation to this country. So, you know, like you said, Fred Koch, the father, did this to President Kennedy, funding the John Birch Society. They did it to Clinton, funding a lot of the attack groups and the rallies on Capitol Hill, smearing Hillary Clinton. They’re doing it to Barack Obama. But they’re going to keep doing it.
Watch it:
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