Tonight's excerpt from "The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem," by Henry Ford

"Probably a million Americans have been brought to the verge of becoming Jew-haters this winter because of contact with Jewish merchants and landlords." - Henry Ford, "The International Jew"

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Bush pro-torture policies led to Iraq lies

Yeah, torture really worked:

The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.

The officials said the captive, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, provided his most specific and elaborate accounts about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda only after he was secretly handed over to Egypt by the United States in January 2002, in a process known as rendition.

Actually, in a sick way, torture did work for the Bush team. They got the info....and the war....that they wanted. Read the rest of this post...

I'm on Air America in a few minutes

UPDATE: It's over. Oh well, was a good ten minutes.

At 7:50 I believe. I think you can listen online, not sure... Any readers know? Read the rest of this post...

Volvo lies

Volvo, a Ford subsidiary, is now sending out a wonderfully reaffirming statement about the company continuing to support America's gay community. To bad, it's pretty much a lie.

A lie is defined as something said with the intent of misinforming. Volvo knows darn well that as part of the secret agreement Ford made with the extremist gay-hating organization, Volvo is changing its ad policy vis-a-vis the gay community.

In addition to Ford now banning Jaguar and Land Rover from advertising to the gay community, in an effort to curry favor with the religious right, it was reported yesterday that Ford has also told Volvo it can no longer run ads in the gay press that are specifically tailored to the gay community. Per the industry publication Wards Auto:

As part of the latest agreement hammered out Nov. 29 [between Ford and the American Family Association], sources confirm Volvo Cars will continue to advertise in the publications but will use generic ads not tailored to the gay community.

So what Volvo is really saying is that because of pressure from bigots it will only run ads in the gay press that are the same ads they run in the straight press - i.e., no more ads tailored to the actual buyers they're trying to reach, and certainly no photos of those shocking, horrifying, disgusting adult gay couples buying their first Volvo.

If you call Volvo reaching a secret deal with a gay-hating extremist group to ban the image of gay couples from their ads "embracing diversity," then I have a few volumes of "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Threat," by Henry Ford, I'd like to sell you.

Statement regarding Volvo Cars of North America Marketing Strategy

Volvo is a brand whose cornerstones are care, conscience and character. We have embraced diversity as one of our key business priorities and we will continue to do so in the future. We will continue to market to GLBT customers in 2006, as we will do with many key customer groups, because we believe it is an effective way of marketing our vehicles.

Oh, and PS. The secret deal you worked out with the gay-haters also says Ford won't be sponsoring any more gay events. Does that apply to Volvo and Ford's other brands too? Read the rest of this post...

Ford, note how Kraft dealt with a similar threat from extremist gay-hating groups earlier this year

"It's easy to say you support a concept or a principle when nobody objects. The real test of commitment is how one reacts when there are those who disagree."

When religious right bigots threatened to boycott Kraft earlier this year over its support of the Gay Games, here's how Kraft responded.

From: Marc Firestone, Executive Vice President, Corporate Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Kraft Foods Inc.
Subject: Kraft's Contribution to 2006 Gay Games

The true test of any commitment is how you respond when challenged. Kraft is experiencing this to a degree right now, as a result of our decision to be one of several contributors to the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago. The games will bring together thousands of athletes in a competition that will take place in our corporate hometown.

In recent days, the company has received many e-mails, the majority of them generated through the America Family Association, which objects to our sponsorship. We also have received calls and e-mails - - not as many, but equally passionate - - thanking us for supporting this event. A member of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's team said, "We applaud the businesses that are sponsors of the Gay Games, including Kraft Foods."

You may have questions or might have had questions from friends and family about our contribution to this event. While Kraft certainly doesn't go looking for controversy, we have long been dedicated to support the concept and the reality of diversity. It's the right thing to do and it's good for our business and our work environment.

Diversity makes us a stronger company and connects us with the diversity that exists among the consumers who buy our products.

Diversity is more than a word many people like to say. At Kraft we truly respect all kinds of differences. And diversity is not a selective concept. By definition, it's nothing if not inclusive. We respect diversity of ethnicity, gender, experience, background, personal style and yes, sexual orientation and gender identity. Recognizing, respecting and valuing these differences helps us be a more successful business and a workplace where all employees can realize their full potential.

For more than a decade, we have had employee councils that promote our awareness of diversity. The newest of our nine diversity councils is the Rainbow Council, which strives to provide a forum for support and networking among gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender employees; raise awareness within Kraft and promote involvement in the community. Each council has an executive sponsor and I have been the Rainbow Council's sponsor since last year.

Through all of our councils, we support various initiatives that demonstrate how strongly we believe in diversity, through involvement in the community. Our sponsorship of the 2006 Gay Games is one of almost 1,700 cash and in-kind grants we make annually.

It can be difficult when we are criticized. It's easy to say you support a concept or a principle when nobody objects. The real test of commitment is how one reacts when there are those who disagree. I hope you share my view that our company has taken the right stand on diversity, including its contribution to the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago.

Read the rest of this post...

Republican House passes 4th tax cut in TWO DAYS, costing almost $100 billion

Take these people out of office now. They are no longer voting in any way shape or form based on what they were elected to do. The majority of the public didn't support tax cuts in 2001, let alone now. This is just pandering, pure and simple, to special interests. Republican lawmakers are giving money out hand over fist to their lobbying friends.

Can House members and Senators be recalled?

The House today passed a $56 billion tax cut bill that extends for two years a reduction in tax rates for capital gains and dividend income.

After spirited debate, the House voted 234 to 197 to approve the bill, the fourth tax cut passed by the body in two days. The four tax cuts combined would slash federal revenue by $94.5 billion over five years, an amount nearly double the budget savings in a spending-reduction bill that Republicans pushed through the House last month.

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Atrios on blog etiquette and other things

He makes some good points. I'd add even more suggestions, like don't you dare just put me on some mailing list for press release without asking me or I'll ban your email address faster than you can say "Have you driven a Ford exec crazy lately?"

But this is good for starters. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Christmas gifts, gag site

It's quite funny.

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New anti-Alito Web site is launched

Just checking it out now... Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Back from a rather long lunch. What's up? Read the rest of this post...

Ford ally AFA promotes known 'hate group' that 'echoes Nazi Germany,' per lead civil rights group

Ford Motor Company's new friend, the extremist American Family Association (AFA), is promoting the research of a known "hate group" whose work "echoes Nazi German," according to one of America's premiere civil rights groups (see samples below).

The hate group, the Family Research Institute (based in Colorado) is run by a discredited anti-gay researcher named Paul Cameron. What is most troubling about the AFA helping to disseminate Cameron's "research" is that Cameron's "institute" has been declared a "hate group" by the highly-regarded civil rights leader Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization best known for successfully taking on the Klan.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a listing of known hate groups it tracks on its Web site, Family Research Institute is listed under Colorado. To give you an idea of how bad the Family Research Institute is in the eyes of the Southern Poverty Law Center, it shares the page with the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis.

The Southern Poverty Law Center says that "Cameron's 'science' echoes Nazi Germany":

Exhibit number one in demonizing homosexuals is the Christian Right's Paul Cameron, a leading "scientist" on the evils of homosexuality who heads the hate group, Family Research Institute. Cameron's work, which has been cited both by the Christian Right and prominent Republicans, falsely claims that gay people are disproportionately responsible for child molestation, for the majority of serial killings, and for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

"Of all the vices," Cameron concluded in one pamphlet, "only homosexuality constitutes a conspiracy against society." Cameron's "science" echoes Nazi Germany in that these disparaging descriptions of homosexuals are reminiscent of themes found in the ugly history of anti-Semitism, where Jews were historically associated with disease, filth, and child stealing. Cameron has been thrown out of legitimate professional organizations for his crackpot and inhuman science.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:



Why is Ford Motor Company conspiring and working out secret deals with an organization that promotes the literature of groups akin to the Klan and neo-Nazis?

Would Ford Motor Company sit down with groups that promote the works of David Duke? How about individuals who disseminate the views of Aryan Nation?

You can see the American Family Association's promotion of the Family Research Institute below:

Reference one:
http://www.afa.net/homosexual_agenda/childrenc.asp:

Research by Dr. Kirk Cameron [Paul Cameron's son and co-worker, no idea if he's the same guy as the actor] concurred. In a paper published in 1995 by Family Research Institute (FRI), that study found that while 25% of kids were unsure of their sexual orientation at age 12, that percentage steadily declined to about 5% by age 18.

Reference two:
http://www.afa.net/homosexual_agenda/childrend.asp

But in a review of the Jenny study, Dr. Paul Cameron of Family Research Institute said the researchers merely examined hospital charts: "[N]either the victims, perpetrators, nor even those who prepared the charts were interviewed" to discover their sexual orientation.

Reference three:
http://www.afa.net/homosexual_agenda/homosexuality.pdf:

The following material summarizes data from Paul Cameron, Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do, a Family Research Institute educational pamphlet (Washington, DC: Family Research Institute, 1993).

Read more about Paul Cameron and the Family Research Institute here, courtesy of the Southern Poverty Law Center. You can also read more about Cameron himself from SPLC here.

With Ford's Nazi past, you'd think the company would be a bit more sensitive about aligning itself with those who promote Nazi-esque "science" in the year 2005. You'd think wrong. Read the rest of this post...

See this movie

UPDATE: Towle Road has seen the film, loves it and reviews it - spoiler warning!

Brokeback Mountain



Enough said. Read the rest of this post...

Massachusetts foreclosures jump 35% in 2005

Thankfully the GOP Congress has made it so easy for corporate America to declare bankruptcy and so much more difficult for individuals to do the same.

With all of the easy lending and wild times in the real estate industry, who could have ever guessed that we would be seeing this problem? It's a good thing that the GOP has been there for the American public.

Among the state's three largest cities, Worcester had the largest increase with 52 percent, while filings were up 42 percent in Boston, and 20 percent in Springfield, Shapiro said.

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CALL NPR RIGHT NOW RE FORD: NPR discusses challenges facing auto industry at 10am Eastern - call 'em about Ford

UPDATE: Excellent job! "Gil" got his question asked on the air, and the guest apparently said it was a real stupid move by Ford. Way to go, folks. This is how you get the story growing and growing. Good work.

It's the Diane Rehm show. Call in and talk about Ford embracing bigotry and how it's going to affect their business. And some of you call in about Ford asking the federal government to bail them out. Don't even mention the gay thing, just call in as a concerned American who doesn't think we should be wasting money bailing out Ford.

During the show phone: 1-800-433-8850

You can listen online here. Read the rest of this post...

So now Hastert wants more ethics training

After Scooter Libby got indicted, The White House staff had to do ethics training, now Hastert wants "new ethics training for lawmakers"....shouldn't these guys know the rules by now?:

House members and aides said Mr. Hastert broached the subject in a closed-door session with House Republicans while they discussed former Representative Randy Cunningham, the California Republican who pleaded guilty last week in an extensive corruption case that has stunned colleagues.

"The speaker wants members on both sides of the aisle to understand the nuances of House rules," Ron Bonjean, a spokesman for Mr. Hastert, said about the plan.

Two quick things for Hastert and Bonjean: 1) the corruption is almost exclusively on the GOP side of the aisle and 2) there isn't too much nuance to bribery and the other rampant corruption perpetrated by Cunningham and the indicted Majority Leader. Read the rest of this post...

Thursday Morning Open Thread

It's 19 degrees in DC...and snow is allegedly on the way. Snow freaks out this city. Read the rest of this post...

Three Brits who are just saying "no" to the war in Iraq

As if Blair didn't already have plenty of bad PR about his war of choice, now a few people in the UK are taking a stand against his war in a very public way. One of the anti war protestors, Maya Evans, was convicted under a very creepy law that was just passed earlier in the year.

In the first case of its kind, a woman received a criminal conviction for standing outside Downing Street and reading aloud the names of the 97 British soldiers who have died in the Iraq conflict. At the same time as Maya Evans, 25, appeared in court yesterday to become the first person to be found guilty under the legislation designed to create an exclusion zone around Parliament Square, Douglas Barker, 72, a retired businessman from Wiltshire, was told by a magistrate that he faces jail for withholding part of his income tax on his investments, also in protest over Iraq.

In a third courtroom in Aldershot, a military judge heard that Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith, 37, an RAF medical officer based in Scotland, faced a court martial for refusing to serve in Iraq on the basis that the war was illegal.

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Kissinger on Iraq: stay the course, more war

Who would have guessed? The architect of B-52 bombing of Laos, one of the poorest nations on earth and most heavily bombed on the planet despite its limited impact on the war and which still suffers today from leftover American ordinance, has spoken. No thanks, Hank. Previously disgraced US diplomats who used B-52s against grass huts should stick to the caves that they live in. How about facing up to the problems you created years ago and do something to earn your Nobel Peace Prize like, oh I don't know, promote peace? With all of the leftover ordinance and the US still taking little responsibility for its cleanup, perhaps Hank could help with that instead of promoting more death and war. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I'm off to bed. Doing an interview with Air America San Diego at 10am Eastern, 7am San Diego time, in the morning. Then doing another with Sam Seder and company at Air America in New York at 7:50pm Eastern Thursday night.

In the meantime, you may have noticed I've added Ford contact info to the top of the blog. These contacts are new, and their pretty senior. We've got lots of numbers and emails, please use them :-) Let them come to work tomorrow morning and be greeted with a surprise in their phone and email inboxes.

TTFN Read the rest of this post...

Today's excerpt from "The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem," by Henry Ford

"In every town, large and small, even where the Jewish community consists of a few, 30 or 75 souls, there is a leading Jew, be he rabbi, merchant, or public officeholder, who is in constant touch with headquarters. What is done in New Orleans or Los Angeles or Kansas City is known in New York with surprising dispatch." - Henry Ford, The International Jew

I understand they all wear secret decoder rings.

I've been working my way through Henry Ford's hideously anti-Semitic tome, "The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem." As you may know, Ford not only wrote this book, he had thousands and thousands (I'd read 700,000, per one account) printed and sent to all of his dealerships around the country, so they could distribute them to the American public for free.

In addition to being incredibly offensive, the book is actually quite frightening. I remember learning in school about the "great" Henry Ford creating the world's first assembly line. I grew up thinking this man was a hero. No one ever told me what a dangerous lunatic the man was.

Reading this book is absolutely horrifying. It's clear from the passages why Hitler was such a fan, of the book and Ford, and vice versa. Chapters and chapters are devoted to, as Ford calls it, "The Jewish Question" (we've heard that term used before). Then there's the chapters and chapters and chapters devoted to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fake document thought to have been created by the Russian secret police to demonize the Jews, the "Protocols" spell out the Jews' secret plan for world domination.

The other creepy thing is that it's very easy, when reading the book, to overlook the word "Jew" and replace it with "gay" or "black" or any other hated minority. The irony to me has been how much this book reads like something the religious right would embrace, if only you struck the word "Jew" and replaced it with "gay," or at the very least simply added the word "gay."

Anyway, as I've said before, my intent in educating you all about this book is not to suggest that Ford Motor Company is still the Hitler-loving enterprise it was just decades ago. But rather to impress upon us all the magnitude of just how much a pro-Nazi and pro-Hitler sympathizer Henry Ford was, to educate folks to what degree Ford used his company to promote this devastating bigotry, and finally to remind us all of the incredible historical burden Ford will always have to ensure that such bigotry never rears its head again.

Unfortunately Ford seems to have to forgotten the lessons of the past and the scar it will always bear. Ford's ugly bigotry for economic gain rises from the ashes yet again.

Those are the lessons of "The International Jew," and that is why AMERICAblog will be excerpting key passages from the book each and every evening until Ford remembers its burden and renounces its bigoted embrace. Read the rest of this post...