In summary: (1) women who report being raped or assaulted are not to be trusted, and (2) women who have miscarriages are to be presumed guilty of self-induced abortions until proven innocent.
Sure, Bobby Franklin is an extreme case. But is he unique to the point where the mainstream GOP, such as it is, will scorn him, or does he serve their interests by pushing the Overton Window that much farther to the right?
(h/t: Scott Lemiuex | x-posted | title: cf.)
Check out what else the Koch-puppet "governor" of Wisconsin is up to. Nice catch, Ed.
Further commentary on this stealth maneuver from Mike Konczal at Rortybomb.
(x-posted)
As you may or may not know, Sen. Joseph McCarthy Rep. Peter King (R-NY) is planning to hold hearings, starting 7 March, on how hard we should freak out about the supposed threat from "radicalized" American Muslims and their plans to murder the rest of us. According to PRR's survey, nearly two-thirds of Americans say they haven't heard anything about this. However, of those who say "Fox is their most trusted news source," 40% have.
Further:
• Republicans who say Fox News is their most trusted news source are more likely than Republicans who trust a different news source [Such people actually exist? --ed.] to say they are well-informed about Islam (53% to 34%). They are also more likely than Republicans who most trust other news sources to say the hearings are a good thing (82% to 60%).
• White evangelicals who most trust Fox News are much more likely than those who trust a different news source to say they feel informed about Islam than those who trust other sources of news (70% to 37%). This same group of evangelicals is also more likely than their counterparts who most trust other news sources to say the hearings are a good thing (84% to 60%).
• More than three-quarters (76%) of those who most trust Fox News say it is a good idea [to hold the hearings] compared to only 45% of those who most trust CNN and 28% of those who most trust Public television.
• Those who most trust Fox News are twice as likely as those who most trust Broadcast news and about four times as likely those who most trust public television to believe ["Muslims want to establish Shari’a law as law of the land"] (35%, 18% and 9%)
Further observations from Pareene.
Just ask John McCain!
Pic from The Saccharinist, via Pareene, but neither of those actually has anything to do with excitement generated by Willard. Such a post could not be written.*
* K-Lo doesn't count.
... or maybe I just think that because she's apparently telling those who still read her Facebook page that "everyone" needs to "sacrifice."
It's no surprise that someone so smug about her own ignorance thinks public school teachers should just bend over and take whatever the Koch puppet Scott Walker wants to give them, but seeing Sarah Palin speak of "real solidarity" to her "union brothers and sisters" makes me throw up in my mouth a little.
Remember Mark A. Ciavarella, Jr. and Michael T. Conahan from a couple of years ago? Those two scumbag judges who made millions in kickbacks by sending kids to a for-profit juvenile detention center? Good news: they've finally been convicted.
I suppose I should not say "ends." Their sorry asses aren't in jail yet. Soon, one hopes.
(h/t: M. Bouffant)
... I'll be able to write like this: "a skeptic is an activist who’s been mugged by the HuffPo wellness section."
And that's just the title. It is a truly wonderful blog post.
[Added] I see that the target of the ire has responded in comments under that post. "Breezy," hmmm? Way better than stagnant, that's for sure.
Not from The Onion:
A Montana legislator is proposing the state embrace global warming as good for the economy.
Republican Rep. Joe Read of Ronan aims to pass a law that says global warming is a natural occurrence that "is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana."
(h/t: Matt Yglesias | title: cf. | x-posted)
[Added] Wonk Room scored an interview with this clown. Among other revelations:
... the 55-year-old first-time legislator graciously explained why he filed this bill to outlaw science, which even he admitted was a “radical” act. Unlike the man who tried to get the Indiana legislature to redefine pi for a crank mathematical “proof” in 1897, Read’s motivation is primarily ideological. Read did not consult any climate scientists in the drafting of this bill, he said, relying instead on his own experience and understanding of the issues at play:
Read also explained why he chose to write a set of scientific conclusions into law that go against the last 150 years of climate research and the political consensus of every government in the world:
Sometimes you have to do fairly radical things to address a federal government.
Spoken like a real Commensense Conservative™.
Wolcott gets a cry for help from Amis:
It is a measure of the stress Martin is under that his email contains a minor grammatical error, which shook me to my core.
A shocking report on The Enemy Within:
Fight toddler coddlers!
(h/t: Ocean, via email)
From a report on HarperCollins's plans for a new division dedicated to telling the wingnuts what they want to hear:
“What I intend to do is uphold a standard of intellectual seriousness on the right,” Mr. Bellow said.
Uh huh. But it gets better, three paragraphs earlier:
As Mr. Bellow imagines it, Broadside Books (“it had a certain combative edge,” he said of the title) will publish books on the culture wars, books of ideas, books of revisionist history, biographies, anthologies, polemical paperbacks and pop-culture books from a conservative point of view.
One does have to appreciate, however, that the head of a company seeking to prey on the KEEP YOUR GOVERNMENT HANDS OFF MY MEDICARE!!!1! set is named Bellow.
(h/t: Frank Rich, whose column today is well worth reading in its entirety. And not just for the dish about the plummeting fortunes of Beck, Palin, and for that matter, Broadside Books.)
Oh, wait ...
The House vote to end Planned Parenthood funding would make very little sense — in some alternate universe where people who want to criminalize abortion were primarily concerned about protecting fetal life rather than regulating female sexuality. In our actually existing political universe, it makes perfect sense.
Back to the 19th century, with today's Republican Party! Do you not love your American Taliban and their own brand of sharia law?
If you're interested, Planned Parenthood has an open letter to Congress and a petition for you to sign.
(x-posted)
I just happened across a mention by Amanda Terkel of a $1 million donation by George Soros to Media Matters. This happened just a few months ago. This was the first time Soros has ever given money to Media Matters.
???!!!
NYT Caucus blog, 20 Oct 2010:
In an accompanying statement, Mr. Soros, a billionaire who has a history of supporting liberal politicians and causes, accused Fox News hosts of “incendiary rhetoric” and said he hoped that his money would be used “in an effort to more widely publicize the challenge Fox News poses to civil and informed discourse in our democracy.”
For years, conservatives have accused Media Matters of being a front organization for Mr. Soros. In May, Mr. Beck referred to Media Matters as “the left-wing George Soros-funded media machine that is now referring to me as a jihadist.” In 2007, Fox’s Sean Hannity called it “Hillary Clinton’s George Soros-funded group Media Matters.”
Officials at Media Matters regularly deny that they have ever taken money from Mr. Soros, who repeats that denial in Wednesday’s statement, saying, “I have not to date been a funder” of the liberal organization.
Who would have thought the right-wingers we count on to give us accurate information about George Soros have been lying all this time?
If you pay any attention to conservative media, you're probably aware that Beck and Hannity have been far from alone in their assertions on this matter. But let's just note a few examples, for the record.
In conclusion, thanks to George Soros, wingnuts can now claim to have been telling the truth all along!
By the way, the main point of that piece by Terkel (h/t: @Wolfrum) is a report that Angelo Carusone has been hired by Media Matters. Congratulations to him and them. Carusone is the founder of StopBeck, and has spearheaded an effort to get companies to stop sponsoring Glenn Beck's show. So far, over three hundred companies have agreed that this is a good thing to do.
One look at the "hairstyle" and the al Qaedas and Talibans would die laughing.
You have to love the comedy at the site, right from the beginning:
The Draft Trump 2012 committee is an independent grass-roots citizen's efforts to make Donald Trump President. We are neither funded nor directed by Donald Trump but we are encouraged by his public indications that he is seriously considering the race.
Uh huh. Just like those conservative Grassroots™ activists in Wisconsin.
(h/t: StrangeAppar8us, Hunger Tallest Palin)
So the good people from Anonymous say:
A rare .ru link that we can feel safe in clicking: anonleaks.ru.
Some details from Adrian Chen at Gawker.
The sudden new importance of Anonymous discussed on this blog starting here.
(h/t: @on_the_media)
Uncle Eb advises, over at Blogpocalypse, that Art Project is now live.
Their blurb:
Explore museums from around the world, discover and view hundreds of artworks at incredible zoom levels, and even create and share your own collection of masterpieces.
Yes, this is Google, being evil once again. Seems as though it's just getting going (or so one hopes), but you can already see a bunch of work from various famous museums and do a sort of walk-through of these museums. If you've used Street View in Google Maps, it will feel familiar.
(I've just started looking around.)
[Added] Google's plain-text intro/guide to the project.
Uh ...
Politifact: "Fact-checking CPAC."
This has the smell of a task created to get someone fired for Not Fulfilling Responsibilities, but maybe it'll be fleshed out at some point.
So far, they have one bit of truthiness and one outright FALSE from Willard "Mittens" Romney. And this:
We'll update this story with additional fact-checks as we publish them.
Godspeed to you, Louis Jacobson.
Remember that story about HBGary, the "security" firm that got pwned by Anonymous? Was worth it for the lulz at the time, but now it also looks like some disturbing information is coming to light as a consequence.
JAB calls attention ("You have to get up pretty early in the morning to make the Mafia look like pikers…") to a ThinkProgress post, which begins as follows:
Earlier today, ThinkProgress published an exclusive report that the law firm representing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a right-wing trade association representing big business, is working with set of “private security” companies and lobbying firms to undermine their political opponents, including ThinkProgress. According to e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress, the Chamber hired the lobbying firm Hunton and Williams. Attorneys for the firm solicited a set of private security firms — HBGary Federal, Palantir, and Berico Technologies (collectively called Team Themis) — to develop a sabotage campaign against progressive groups and labor unions, including ThinkProgress, the labor coalition Change to Win, SEIU, US Chamber Watch, and StopTheChamber.com.
New emails reveal that the private spy company investigated the families and children of the Chamber’s political opponents. The apparent spearhead of this project was Aaron Barr, an executive at HBGary. Barr circulated numerous emails and documents detailing information about political opponents’ children, spouses, and personal lives.
Of course, this is not nearly as sinister as the imaginary stuff Obama does, amirite?
The quoted link, among other things, points to some work done by Marcy Wheeler. She's got copies of some of the documents related to the US Chamber of Commerce's spying plans.
The ThinkProgress posts also describe other dirty tricks and disinformation campaigns that are or were being planned, that had the intent of smearing watchdog and other progressive groups. I'd say it's worth your time to spend a few minutes reading them, and perhaps also this post from Josh Harkinson at MoJo, but then I'm a liberal, so therefore I hate America, democracy, your freedoms, &c.
[Added] Hey, look! An actually decent story with some interesting tidbits (16 year old girl! lol) from the MSM: Byron Acohido at USA Today. (Don't be put off by the headline, as I almost was.) Also, Glennzilla has a typically thorough post up, which he describes as "just the summary." The more details the better in a case like this, I say. It appears that Glenn was on the list of targets.
[Added2] I should say that I don't know for sure that ThinkProgress is relying exclusively on info from the Anonymous hack. Glennzilla's post suggests they might have had other sources.
[Added3] So far, the silence is deafening from Wingnuttia.
[Added4] Soon, the emails will be made available to all, Anonymous says.
Charles M. Blow's column presents a good summary of what we've seen from your new Republican majority thus far, especially at the less well illuminated lower levels of power. Here's how it starts:
Republican state lawmakers, emboldened by their swollen ranks, have a message for minorities, women, immigrants and the poor: It’s on!
In the first month of the new legislative season, they have introduced a dizzying number of measures on hot-button issues in statehouses around the country as part of what amounts to a full-throttle mission to repeal, restrict and repress.
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
As Reuters pointed out this week, in the midterms, “Republicans gained nearly 700 state legislative seats and now have their largest numbers since the Great Depression, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.”
Judging by the lead-up to those elections, one could have easily concluded that the first order of business on Republicans’ agendas would be a laserlike focus on job creation and deficit reductions to the exclusion of all else. Not the case.
(x-posted)
Interesting segment from this week's On The Media.
Don't shy away if you're not the world's biggest hip hop fan. I'm not, either. I'll tell you this much, though. To the extent that Abdulla Darrat knows what he's talking about, and he sounds like he does, there's a lot of hope running through these ten minutes.
You can download the mixtape “Mish B3eed” (“Not Far”) and find links to the artists' Facebook pages on this page of Abdulla's site, Enough!Khalas.
__________
A related article appears on the website run by PRI's The World.
From that article, here's a song by Ramy Donjewan that caught my ear. (Hope I didn't condemn it, or him, to immediate uncoolness by saying that.) Google tells me the title translates as "Against the government."
Ramy Donjewan -
The advantage here is that the lyrics are printed on the screen, to make it easier to sing along.
__________
[Added] Also good: Ibn Thabit, "The Question." (More info, plus opportunity to download the MP3, here.)
If you're using the Firefox add-on Flashblock, the above might not play. Either disable it temporarily and reload this page or visit one of the above links to hear.
This will not be for everybody, but if you're a space nerd like me, you might like it: the 10th Annual Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History, moderated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, and featuring real experts:
Answering these critical questions were Kenneth Ford of the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, Lester Lyles (ret) of the United States Air Force, Paul Spudis of the Lunar and Planetary Institute, Steven Squyres of Cornell University, and Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin made a surprise appearance at the end of the conversation after having listened to the debate. His comments were followed by a question and answer session with audience members and reporters.
It's about two hours long, but if your tastes are like mine, you'll think it was too short. (Okay, the Q&A part at the end was a bit tedious, and they needed the hook for Aldrin after a while, but other than that.) Visit the link above to listen, or right-click and save directly on this MP3 link.
