Josh's blog

There are many unanswered questions about the tragic hanging death of Bill Sparkman, a US Census Bureau employee, in rural Kentucky. But one thing is clear. Right-Wing leaders like Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and media outlets like Fox News have whipped up hysteria and paranoia over the 2010 Census.

Mr. Sparkman's untimely demise may or may not have been the doing of an anti-government fanatic, but it’s clear that the Right is creating an environment that is hostile to Census workers and the Constitutionally-mandated Census.

A steady stream of conspiracy talk by Beck, Bachmann, and others on Fox News has legitimized and propelled conspiracy theories among many everyday Americans who are now terrified of their own government. Talk of rounding up dissidents into concentration camps and nefarious plots by ACORN to steal Congress has fed anti-government sentiment, which could boil over at any moment.

This should be an important wake-up call to those national outlets that have employed fear in pursuit of ratings.

Here is a video compilation of recent Fox News coverage of the 2010 Census -- featuring Beck and Bachmann among others -- along with three amateur YouTube videos created by Americans who fear the Census:

In the current issue of the Washington Blade, Lou Chibbaro interviews Brian Brown, the executive director of the National Organization for Marriage, the anti-gay group behind Proposition 8. The interview contains this gem:

"Brown promised to release to the Blade NOM’s 2007 IRS 990 finance reporting form and said the group also would release its 2008 990 form as soon as it completes its processing. He said the group submitted the 2008 report to the IRS last Friday."

NOM's finances are a complete mystery, and the group seems intent on keeping it that way for as long as possible. But there's just one problem -- there's no such thing as a "processing" period.

NOM, as with all nonprofits, must make their tax returns -- form 990 -- available to the public. This must be done from the date the 990 "is required to be filed (determined with regard to any extensions)." (see pg 15 of IRS publication 557)

NOM filed for a routine three-month extension to the standard May 15th filing deadline and reportedly filed its 990 on Friday, August 14th. In other words, NOM was required to disclose its 990 when asked by the Blade's Chibbaro.

NOM should know better than to play games with its 990. The group could be fined by the IRS for its conduct and is succeeding only in generating greater interest in its finances.

Orson Scott Card, author of the popular sci-fi novel Ender’s Game, has joined the board of the National Organization for Marriage. You may have heard of NOM recently thanks to its misleading “Gathering Storm” TV ad campaign which attacked equal rights for gays and lesbians.

We think that Card, who turned into a reactionary crank somewhere along the way, will be a good fit for NOM. Both have ample experience with alternate realities, and that should prove useful in explaining why committed same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry.

But Card’s recent writings have been outlandish even by the standards of NOM. Last July in the Mormon Times he appeared to advocate overthrowing the government if Prop 8 failed (h/t Box Turtle Bulletin):

How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. […] American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.

While it’s clear that Card is a fiction writer through and through – albeit unintentionally – we’d like to know if NOM shares his radical views.

Rick Santorum filled in for Bill Bennett last Friday and got a bit carried away singing the praises of conservative talk radio.

Air America is “just a bunch of liberal, emotional sop,” he claimed. Whereas conservative radio has facts and reason and intellect.

But Michael from LA made quick work of that theory:

Santorum:

Talk radio has succeeded because talk radio engages the mind…

 

That is why they want to quash talk radio. It appeals to the reason within us, and that’s like conservatism, which is seen by the American left as anti-intellectual, is in fact the intellectual argument for policy here in America.

 

So that leads me to our caller, who again has been kind enough to hang on for quite some time, Michael from Los Angeles…

Michael:

There’s a way that we Catholics as Catholics can defeat the left [and] I laid it out to your staff…

After 6 six years of theological research with a friend of mine…we found out that Catholic laymen who were confirmed can do exorcisms.

I have been doing them since 1990…on leftist politicians.

Santorum:

So the answer is, we have to do exorcisms on…who?

Michael:

Politicians.

[Thanks to Mike Stark for recording the segment.]

The Senate is currently debating the nomination of David Ogden to be Obama’s Deputy Attorney General. That, in itself, is telling. Ogden was expected to sail through the confirmation process, but by last week there was talk of a full-on filibuster.

It’s not easy to disrupt the confirmation of a widely respected attorney with previous government experience and bipartisan backing. It takes big lies and a big megaphone. But the Religious Right and its Senate allies managed just fine.

To hear Senator Orrin Hatch talk about it, you’d think that Obama had actually nominated Larry Flynt to be Eric Holder’s deputy: “The pornography industry is excited about Mr. Ogden’s nomination.”

But that’s nothing. Here’s how the executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition summed up Ogden: “He will be a great ally for advocates for death and homosexuality inside the Justice Department.”

Bear in mind, they’re talking about a man who enjoys the backing of the National District Attorneys Association, National Association of Police Officers, Fraternal Order of Police, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and many others. He even won the support of Republican Senators Specter, Graham, and Kyl in committee.

Ogden’s right-wing antagonists don’t care about any of that. They’ve latched onto a handful of cases involving abortion and obscenity from his many years as a corporate lawyer and have distorted them beyond all recognition. Ogden, for instance, represented the American Library Association in its fight against overzealous internet filtering and the American Council for the Blind over whether the Library of Congress should make a Braille version of Playboy, as was the practice for other popular periodicals.

These cases had very real First Amendment implications. But never mind that. His old casework is enough for the Traditional Values Coalition to call him a “pro-pornography zealot.” Concerned Women for America has even speculated that his nomination might mean that the “United States will also fund the international production and distribution of pornography.”

These smears reached hundreds of thousands – perhaps millions – of Americans via right-wing cable news, talk radio, and blogs. Senate conservatives took notice, hence the five ‘no’ votes in the committee and the grumbling about a filibuster. In fact, Senator Majority Leader Reid was forced to file cloture on the vote.

Ogden will surely be confirmed when the Senate finally votes on his nomination today (around 2 pm). But the outlandish rhetoric from the far right and the willingness by conservative Senators to play along are sure signs of what’s to come.

It’s almost March and you haven’t made your Spring Break travel plans, have you? Well not to worry, the Creation Studies Institute can help:

If you’ve never been on an Ice Age Fossil Adventure, it apparently looks like this (judging from the brochure we received in the mail):

In between wooly mammoth sightings, you’ll stand around in a river and learn “how to collect and interpret Florida fossils using a biblical framework.” Just imagine the shock and wonder on your children’s faces when they learn, according to CSI, that fossils prove the world is only 6,000 years old:

Even though this is an oversimplification and there are anomalies in the fossil record, the lack of intermediates in the fossil record and the abrupt appearance of virtually every major living creature, fully formed in the fossil record confirm the record of the Word of God recorded in the book of Genesis.

While an evolutionist looks at this evidence and sees a slow progression of life morphing itself into other, higher forms of life, the Creationist sees exactly what would be expected as a result of a worldwide cataclysmic flood such as the Flood recorded in the days of Noah.

The Ice Age Fossil Adventure is happening this March and April, and there’s still time to book the family adventure of a lifetime!

But sorry ladies! You'll have to work on your tan somewhere else:

Have fun, and be careful out there:

The Smoking Gun has the sordid details:

A Fox News producer who covered Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign for the cable network is facing child porn charges after federal agents discovered photos and videos on his computer depicting "children under the age of ten being sexually abused by adult men and women."

The Dallas Voice, by way of Box Turtle Bulletin, brings us this news:

The son of T.D. Jakes — the Dallas megachurch pastor who’s called homosexuality a “brokenness” and declared that he would never hire a sexually active gay person — was arrested in a gay sex sting in Kiest Park in January, according to Dallas police reports. […]

T.D. Jakes is the founder of the Potters House, a 30,000-member church in South Dallas. A vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, he’s been criticized by HIV/AIDS activists for undermining prevention of the disease by stigmatizing homosexuality and drug use. 

Jakes joins a distinguished list of anti-gay public figures with gay sons and daughters, including such luminaries as Phyllis Schlafly, Alan Keyes, Randall Terry, and notorious Oklahoma lawmaker Sally Kern. (One might be tempted to list Dick Cheney, but Mary Cheney seems to have been able to bring him around somewhat on the issue.)

Yesterday was the birthday of Lincoln and Darwin, and Virginia GOP chairman Jeff Frederick couldn't pass up the opportunity to go all Cro-Magnon on the father of modern biology.

Frederick obviously put a lot of thought into his assault on evolution and created a foolproof (or so it seemed) plan -- put Darwin up alongside Lincoln and let the people see Darwin for the monster he was.

First he talked about Lincoln; it went haltingly but we got his point:

"Abraham Lincoln is best know (sic), as you all well know, for freeing the slaves by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation affirming in his Gettyburg (sic) Address in 19, I'm sorry, 1863..."

Then on to that bad, bad man:

"Darwin however is best known for the theory of evolution, arguing that men are not only, quote, are only, not, not created, but they are not equal, as some are more evolved... Darwin's theory was used by atheists to explain away the belief in God."

I can only imagine what this guy has up his sleeve for Galileo's birthday, but it's really a shame that Frederick knows so little, perhaps nothing, about the man he's attacking.

He could have learned a lot from this recent piece marking Darwin's bicentennial:

"While many of his contemporaries approved of slavery, Darwin did not. He came from a family of ardent abolitionists, and he was revolted by what he saw in slave countries[.] 'It makes one’s blood boil, yet heart tremble, to think that we Englishmen and our American descendants, with their boastful cry of liberty, have been and are so guilty.'"

But anyone who's familiar with Frederick knows that this kind of thing is par for the course -- Karen Tumulty captured him in his element last fall:

He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." [...] "And he won't salute the flag," one woman added, repeating another myth about Obama. She was quickly topped by a man who called out, "We don't even know where Senator Obama was really born."

It's pretty clear in which direction Frederick is taking the Virginia GOP. No wonder the party has continued to lose ground under his tenure.

But maybe I'm being too hard on Frederick. He is after all facing a strong challenge to his chairmanship from this gentleman:

[Note to interested readers: you too can look like the guy above by shopping here]

Barack Obama claimed the state of North Carolina today, which hasn’t gone to a Democrat since Jimmy Carter. But before we could reflect on this historic triumph, we were reminded of something we read last week, which made us think of this:

Don’t worry. We can explain.

Senator Lindsey Graham, warming up a North Carolina audience for McCain, assured them that McCain would win: "He fits North Carolina like a glove…I’ll beat Michael Phelps in swimming before Barack Obama wins North Carolina." Whoops! Graham continued, "Don't let me down, because I can’t swim."

But rather than eating his words, we hope Graham will take the opportunity to learn to swim. Swimming is an important skill, especially for a man who could himself get washed away by a blue wave.

We’ve done him the favor of inquiring about beginner lessons in South Carolina. The Columbia YMCA has two very promising offerings:

Graham was right about one thing: McCain does fit North Carolina like a glove. We tried it ourselves, and the glove kept getting hung up on Asheville:

In the weeks leading up to Tuesday’s historic election, the McCain campaign and RNC led a coordinated campaign to cast the integrity of the vote into doubt. They claimed ACORN was engaging in massive voter fraud. They claimed that Obama was receiving illegal foreign contributions. They claimed that the “liberal media” was skewing the polls in favor of Democrats.

In other words, they were writing themselves an insurance policy in the event of a contested election or narrow loss. But it wasn’t even close.

As a result, the anticipated barrage of conspiracy theories and false charges never materialized. Yet not everyone could just let it go.

Here’s the current poll on Hannity.com:

(h/t: Bob Geiger)

By now, you’ve probably heard about this segment on Thursday’s NBC Evening News:

Brian Williams asked Sarah Palin if “an abortion clinic bomber [is] a terrorist under this definition” and she answered, “Now others who would to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities, I don’t know if you’re gonna use the word ‘terrorist’ there, but it’s unacceptable, and it would not be condoned of course on our watch.”

As others have noted, it’s disturbing that after 7 murders, 17 attempted murders, 41 bombings, 175 acts of arson and hundreds of cases of death threats, stalking, assault, and break-ins, Palin doesn’t think it’s appropriate to use the T-word.

But what has been mostly overlooked is the fact that the comments by Palin, a self-described “hardcore pro-lifer,” run contrary to the longstanding position of American law enforcement.

For instance, the FBI has long considered acts of violence by radical anti-abortion activists to be domestic terrorism. In its 2002-2005 Terrorism in the United States report, Eric Rudolph – the man responsible for two abortion clinic bombings, the Olympic Park bombing, multiple deaths and serious injuries to many more – is described as falling into the “FBI’s 'lone offender' category of terrorist for those who engage in terrorist activities free from organizational guidance.”

The FBI defines domestic terrorism, logically enough, as “the unlawful use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual based and operating entirely within the United States or its territories without foreign direction committed against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” In other words, Palin is out of step with the FBI.

But don’t expect John McCain to set his running mate straight on the issue. He opposed the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act – a crucial anti-domestic terrorism bill which led to a considerable reduction in violence – when it came before him in the Senate, so he too is willing to pander to the far right on this issue.

There's a long history in American politics of exploiting divisions and fanning bigotry to win elections. In recent decades those strategies were honed by Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. Now the torch has passed to Steve Schmidt, and he’s done just about everything possible to fan the flames.

Schmidt’s tactics and the right-wing echo chamber have convinced millions of Americans that the nation is about to elect someone who hates America and “pals around with terrorists.” Just take a look at this video of supporters outside a Palin rally:

In recent weeks, the right wing has grown even more frenzied as McCain and his allies pushed the ACORN voter fraud hoax. Not only is Obama a Manchurian candidate, the thinking goes, but his evildoer comrades at ACORN are trying to steal the election. It’s little wonder that some people are going berserk.

McCain, Palin, Schmidt, Limbaugh, Hannity and the rest of them have created something very powerful, but very ugly, and it’s grown too big for them to control. Here is just some of what happens when you train your pit bulls to fear and hate and attack, and then they get loose:

Obama lawn sign replaced by rebel flag

Obama sign burned on black family's front lawn

Anti-Obama Fury Spills Over Into Down-Ticket Contests: "Bomb Obama"

Death threat, vandalism hit ACORN after McCain comments

ACORN Deluged with Threatening and Racist Voicemails and Emails

Obama Called a Socialist and 'Un-American'

McCain supporters heckle early voters

Dead bear covered with Obama signs found at school

People For the American Way is tracking such incidents around the nation. If something happens in your community that people should know about, please get in touch.

It’s bad enough that the employees of ACORN have had to endure days of baseless and outlandish attacks by John McCain and the RNC. But after McCain outrageously claimed before a national audience on Wednesday night that ACORN was “maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy,” the group came under attack, literally. In the following days, ACORN’s Boston and Seattle offices were vandalized and at least one employee received a death threat.

And for nearly two weeks, ACORN offices across the nation have been subjected to an onslaught of racist and threatening voicemails and emails. We have secured copies of some of the most disturbing and offensive messages and have reproduced them below in order to show the very real consequences of the Right Wing’s overheated and misplaced “voter fraud” rhetoric.

Warning: the emails and voicemails below are highly explicit and have only been edited to remove personally identifying information. Please also note that, where relevant, the proper authorities have been notified.

Voicemail #1:  

“Hi, I was just calling to let you all know that Barack Obama needs to get hung. He's a fucking nigger, and he's a piece of shit. You guys are fraudulent, and you need to go to hell. All the niggers on oak trees. They're gonna get all hung honeys, they're gonna get assassinated, they're gonna get killed.”

Email #1: This email was received by the Cleveland office. The subject line was the name of a senior staffer who had recently appeared on TV to defend the group.

According to McClatchy, the email was traced back to a Facebook account featuring a McCain-Palin sign.

Email #2:

Voicemail #2:

"You liberal idiots. Dumb shits. Welfare bums. You guys just fucking come to our country, consume every natural resource there is, and make a lot of babies. That's all you guys do. And then suck up the welfare and expect everyone else to pay for your hospital bills for your kids. I just say let your kids die. That's the best move. Just let your children die. Forget about paying for hospital bills for them. I'm not gonna do it. You guys are lowlifes. And I hope you all die."

At press conference earlier today in Washington, two of the GOP’s elder statesmen – former senators John Danforth and Warren Rudman – tried to convince reporters that vote fraud is a serious problem and could call the election into question. What they failed to say is that there is no evidence of widespread vote fraud.

On the other hand, there is undeniable proof of countless acts of voter suppression and disenfranchisement. All you have to do is open a newspaper to know that.

Today in New Hampshire, the former head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee for New England was indicted for lying to investigators about his role in a successful effort to jam the phones of the New Hampshire Democratic Party and its allies on election day in 2002.

And today in California, a former Republican congressional candidate pleaded not guilty after being indicted for obstructing an investigation into a letter sent by his campaign to 14,000 legally registered voters with Hispanic surnames informing them that “they could be deported for voting if they were in the country illegally or were an immigrant.”

We trust that Danforth and Rudman will hold another press conference tomorrow, this time to talk about the proven threat of voter suppression and disenfranchisement. But we’re not holding our breath.