Making Republicans own Rush's racism on Spanish-language radio

The GOP leader, Rush Limbaugh, has led the vicious, racist attack on Sonia Sotomayor. As we know, Republicans on Capitol Hill never stand up to Rush (or if they do, within hours, they beg forgiveness.) Presente.org, in conjunction with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, is running some Spanish language ads targeting GOP House members in Florida. You know the Republicans never expect to be held accountable. You can help denunciarush here.

John and I both endorsed this ad campaign along with several other bloggers, including:

Markos Moulitsas, Daily Kos
Manuel Guzman, Latino Político
John Amato, CrooksandLiars
Chris Bowers, OpenLeft
Kenneth Quinnell, Executive Director, Florida Progressive Coalition
Adriana Maestas, Latino Politics Blog
Howie Klein, DownWithTyranny
Digby, Hullabaloo
Alison Berke Morano, Chair, Florida Democratic County Chair's Association
Eric K. Ward, Imagine 2050
Kyle de Beauset, Citizen Orange
Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jones, The Unapologetic Mexican
Larry Thorson, Miami-Dade Dems blog

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UCC campaign is pushing for broadband access

A new campaign from the United Church of Christ.

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Did Obama just back off his promise to "repeal" Don't Ask Don't Tell?

It's not just me, Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post heard it too. You can read my extensive post on this over at AMERICAblog Gay. Read the rest of this post...

12 case of Swine Flu at Air Force Academy

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If the stimulus hasn't worked, then doesn't that mean the GOP tax cuts are to blame?

Reader Jason asks:

Krugman likened the tax cuts in the stimulus as fat, in that it would provide little genuine nutrition to the American economy. Correct me if I am wrong: the vast majority of the spending measures in the stimulus have yet to occur, whereas the tax cut effects were immediate. Right? So when the Republicans are saying the stimulus has failed aren't they really saying the tax cuts have failed? I feel like I am missing something because no one has really pointed that out.

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We've launched a new section of AMERICAblog devoted exclusively to gay politcs

gay.AMERICAblog.com

Joe and I have been talking for a while about launching our own gay civil rights and politics blog. Certainly over the past five years AMERICAblog has been, if we might steal a phrase from our friend Andy Towle, a blog with homosexual tendencies. But sometimes there's just so much gay news that Joe and I find it difficult to balance the amount of "straight" news vs. "gay" news we post on the site. Thus, AMERICAblog Gay was born.

With the explosion of gay-rights related news in the last month - and really since Prop 8 passed last November - we decided the time was finally right. Joe and I are beginning to feel like a gay Smithsonian Museum. We've got gay story after gay story that we want to publish, but can't, because there's just no room on the home page. I would say that for every gay story we've published, there are probably 4 or 5 more good stories that we haven't published because we couldn't fit them in and still cover all the other issues we cover. This new section will permit us to cover the good stories that we've been deep-sixing until now.

But rather than create an entirely new blog, we decided to create a special section of AMERICAblog that is devoted exclusively to gay politics. We'll continue to cover important gay politics stories on the main AMERICAblog home page, but we'll often send you to the new AMERICAblog Gay section for a more detailed discussion on a topic. We'll also be posting lots of stories on AMERICAblog Gay that you won't be saying on the AMERICAblog home page at all. The gay section of the site will have its own RSS and Twitter feeds, and all the rest. We've also tailored the sidebar news so that it exclusively provides updates from some of our favorite gay politics sites and blogs. And if you check the upper right hand corner of the gay section, you'll find that you can still follow what's going on on the main AMERICAblog home page. And finally, we're using the same comments system, so if you're already good to go on the AMERICAblog home page, you're just as set for the gay section.

Now, please don't expect our new AMERICAblog Gay section to be posting every hour as we do here on the AMERICAblog home page. The site will contain a heck of a lot more gay news, day to day, and hour to hour, than we're able to provide here on the main AMERICAblog home page.

We're really looking forward to this foray. And a good part of the reason we're doing this is the support we've had from our straight and gay readers during the recent blow up withe administration over the anti-gay DOMA brief. So, thank you all for both inspiring us, and more generally for the vote of confidence. We hope you like the new site section. Read the rest of this post...

Ralph Reed claims he's going to be the GOP's cool, hip, younger Steve Jobs

Disgraced GOP/Religious Right activist Ralph Reed, a close associate of the now-imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is making a comeback. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution profiles Reed and his new group. A couple quotes from Reed stand-out. It sounds like he's having a mid-life crisis. And, he really has a very high opinion of himself.

First, the creepy, I'm having a mid-life crisis quote:

“This is not going to be your daddy’s Christian Coalition,” Reed said in an interview to describe his new venture, the Faith and Freedom Coalition. “It has to be younger, hipper, less strident, more inclusive and it has to harness the 21st century that will enable us to win in the future.”

But, Ralph is a daddy. Then, the "I'm the Messiah" quote:

“Even though I’ve been doing other things, this is kind of like Steve Jobs returning to Apple,” Reed said.

Yes, Ralph Reed said he'll do for the right wing what Jobs did for Apple. Somebody really loves himself.

Reed's sole foray into electoral politics didn't fare so well. In the GOP primary for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, back in 2006, Reed got thumped by a relatively unknown state senator. But, fear not, he's coming back. Hipper and cooler than ever. Read the rest of this post...

Gillibrand may offer DADT repeal amendment this week in Senate

Great, but.... there'd better be a damn good strategy for victory. You win these battles not just by trying, but by doing all the legwork leading up to the actual vote. It's a concern I've raised before, all the way back when I was complaining about the last minute effort to filibuster the FISA bill. Pulling off legislative victories takes real organizing, real strategy. You can't just blow an issue off for a year, or 15, and then come waltzing in and expect to get the legislation passed. You need to prepare, lobby, organize the grassroots, have a media strategy. This is Joe's and my concern about Obama's never-ending "tomorrow" when it comes to following through on his major gay rights promises. The real problem isn't that Obama is delaying following through on the promises, but rather, that there's no sign of any strategy to get us to the point where the Congress and the American people will eventually support Obama following through on those promises.

Bill Clinton's mistake on DADT, one of them, was letting the issue get ahead of him when he didn't have a strategy for success. If Gillibrand offers this amendment later this week, she needs to have a darn good strategy for getting the votes, lest a loss on DADT kill the issue for next several years. Read the rest of this post...

Updates from the Sotomayor hearings

The hearing is in recess until 2:00 PM. Senators have been giving opening statements all morning. Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III set the tone for the GOP with a pretty scathing assault on Judge Sotomayor. As predicted, he couldn't help himself. Sessions talking about bigotry was rich.

Sotomayor will give her opening statement later this afternoon after we hear from four more Democratic Senators, including Specter and Franken. Questions from Senators start tomorrow, which will give Sessions another opportunity to attack the nominee.

Senator Tom Coburn, another of the extremist right wingers in the GOP, tried very hard to sound sane. He told Sotomayor that our nation is showing cracks because we don't have blind justice anymore. Huh? Those GOPers sure seem to long for the good old days. You know, before all those darn justices took away the sacrosanct "separate, but equal." Coburn is concerned that her statements might be inconsistent with impartiality. And, he's quite concerned that she live up to her oath. (Meanwhile, Coburn, as a physician (OB/GYN) and church deacon, is ducking questions about his involvement in the Ensign scandal.)

Democrats have been doing a good job of rebutting GOP attacks. And, while we don't always love her, credit where credit is due -- Senator Feinstein lets the Republicans have it over conservative judicial activism:

Also, while the Confederacy wing of the GOP is attacking Sotomayor, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told the judge that she's going to get confirmed:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) told Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor that she is virtually assured of Senate confirmation during his opening statement during Monday’s confirmation hearing.

“Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re going to be confirmed,” said Graham, capturing the sentiment of many Republicans at the outset of Sotomayor’s hearing.

A bunch of Lindsey's GOP colleagues are having meltdowns. Read the rest of this post...

Frank Rich: Palin broke the GOP, now she owns it

Frank Rich, NYT:

That’s why Palin won’t go gently into the good night, much as some Republicans in Washington might wish. She is not just the party’s biggest star and most charismatic television performer; she is its only star and charismatic performer. Most important, she stands for a genuine movement: a dwindling white nonurban America that is aflame with grievances and awash in self-pity as the country hurtles into the 21st century and leaves it behind. Palin gives this movement a major party brand and political plausibility that its open-throated media auxiliary, exemplified by Glenn Beck, cannot. She loves the spotlight, can raise millions of dollars and has no discernible reason to go fishing now except for self-promotional photo ops....

Those Republicans who have not drunk the Palin Kool-Aid are apocalyptic for good reason. She could well be their last presidential candidate standing. Such would-be competitors as Mark Sanford, John Ensign and Newt Gingrich are too carnally compromised for the un-Clinton party. Mike Huckabee is Palin-lite. Tim Pawlenty, Bobby Jindal — really? That leaves the charisma-challenged Mitt Romney, precisely the kind of card-carrying Ivy League elitist Palinists loathe, no matter how hard he tries to cosmetically alter his history as a socially liberal fat-cat banker. Palin would crush him like a bug. She has the Teflon-coated stature among Republicans that Romney can only fantasize about.

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Krugman on why we need a second stimulus

Paul Krugman, NYT:

At this point, however, the acute crisis has given way to a much more insidious threat. Most economic forecasters now expect gross domestic product to start growing soon, if it hasn’t already. But all the signs point to a “jobless recovery”: on average, forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal believe that the unemployment rate will keep rising into next year, and that it will be as high at the end of 2010 as it is now.

Now, it’s bad enough to be jobless for a few weeks; it’s much worse being unemployed for months or years. Yet that’s exactly what will happen to millions of Americans if the average forecast is right — which means that many of the unemployed will lose their savings, their homes and more.

To head off this outcome — and remember, this isn’t what economic Cassandras are saying; it’s the forecasting consensus — we’d need to get another round of fiscal stimulus under way very soon. But neither Congress nor, alas, the Obama administration is showing any inclination to act. Now that the free fall is over, all sense of urgency seems to have vanished.

This will probably change once the reality of the jobless recovery becomes all too apparent. But by then it will be too late to avoid a slow-motion human and social disaster.

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Sotomayor hearings on now

The Washington Post has a live video feed. You can watch the Senate Judiciary Committee feed as well. I'm watching Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III now. Someone needs to ask Beauregard if he thinks Loving v. Virginia and Brown v. Board were examples of activist judging. Oh my, Beau is now saying that Sotomayor's membership in a Puerto Rican civil rights group might just make her a bigot. Beau knows a few things or two about bigotry. Rachel Maddow reminds us:



Taegan says she won't get any questions today. Read the rest of this post...

Even Dianne Feinstein thinks the Bush admin. might have broken law

We're not fans of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). She's one of those Democrats who is way too willing to side with the GOP. And, she did that many times during the Bush administration era. So, when Feinstein says the Bush administration might have violated the law, well, there must be very strong evidence. It's so obviously bad that Congress can't ignore it -- and so bad that the Obama administration shouldn't ignore it:

Regarding the 8-year-old counterterrorism program, Feinstein said the Bush administration's failure to notify Congress "is a big problem, because the law is very clear."

Congress should investigate the secrecy because "it could be illegal," Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said.

According to Feinstein, Panetta told Congress late last month that "he had just learned about the program, described it to us, indicated that he had canceled it and ... did tell us that he was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to the Congress."

"We were kept in the dark. That's something that should never, ever happen again," said Feinstein.

It something that should never have happened in the first place. Read the rest of this post...

Monday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

The confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotomayor start today before the Senate Judiciary Committee. All signals point to a relatively smooth process ahead.

However, keep your eyes on Senator Jefferson Beauregard Sessions (R-AL). He's the ranking Republican on the Judiciary committee and is leading the charge against Sotomayor. In 1986, Sessions own nomination to become a federal judge was defeated (in a Republican-led Senate) because he was accused of being a racist. Let's just say, the leopard hasn't changed its spots. The Jefferson of 1986 is the Jefferson of 2009. He can't help himself. The nomination of a Latina to the Supreme Court could put him over the edge.

It says a lot about the current state of the GOP that Sessions is the leader of the anti-Sotomayor effort. (It's really not too hard to imagine Sessions in the uniform of a Confederate officer.) In some ways, the hearings will show us more about Sessiona and the GOP than Sotomayor.

Should be a busy week... Read the rest of this post...

Chinese president Hu personally involved in arrest of Australian

Could this band of thugs be any creepier? The president of the country actively participating in the arrest of foreign nationals following a failed business deal? Really, what fools in the west ever thought Beijing could be trusted?

China's President Hu Jintao personally endorsed an investigation into global miner Rio Tinto that led to the detention of four of its China-based staff, a newspaper said on Monday, citing Chinese government sources.

The investigation appears to be part of a realignment of how China managed its economy in the wake of the global financial crisis, with spy and security agencies promoted to top strategy-making bodies, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper said.

The detention a week ago of Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto's top iron ore salesman in China, Australian Stern Hu, and three of his Chinese subordinates has cast a shadow over Australia-China relations and unnerved the iron ore trade.

Can you even imagine if the tables were turned? Read the rest of this post...

Pepper spray added to ATMs in South Africa

My first thought was "huh, so how does someone trigger it if they're being robbed while at the ATM" but of course, they don't. It's to protect the machine and its cash from being physically removed or damaged due to a rapidly increasing problem. Whatever successful attempt to crack into the ATMs has definitely been repeated a few times though I'm not sold on this pepper spray model. The banks around the world always take care of number one.

Cash machines offer an ever-growing menu of services beyond merely dispensing money. For tampering criminals, this now includes a squirt of pepper spray in the face .

The extreme measure is the latest in South Africa's escalating war against armed robbers who target banks and cash delivery vans. The number of cash machines blown up with explosives has risen from 54 in 2006 to 387 in 2007 and nearly 500 last year.

The technology uses cameras to detect people tampering with the card slots. Another machine then ejects pepper spray to stun the culprit while police response teams race to the scene.

But the mechanism backfired in one incident last week when pepper spray was inadvertently inhaled by three technicians who required treatment from paramedics.

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Murdoch's News of the World hacking case grows, again

If true, this is is seriously pushing the limit. Hacking into the phone of the Metropolitan (London) police chief? They were begging for trouble.

A top BBC executive and the former Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair were targeted by the News of the World's phone hacking operation, it was claimed today.

Blair was named in a report in the Sunday Times, part of Rupert Murdoch's News International, which also owns the News of the World. However, tonight police sources denied his name was on the list.

The names emerged as the Met said it had begun to contact people who allegedly had been the subjects of hacking by the tabloid newspaper, but warned that the process could take some time to complete. "We are not discussing who we are contacting at all," a spokeswoman said.

BBC sources said that the corporation did not know which of its executives had been affected by the scam at the paper, which led to Clive Goodman, then News of the World royal correspondent, and the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, going to jail in 2007.

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