Bad Deeds for 4/12/2010

 

Oklahoma Conservatives, Lawmakers Plot Anti-Federal Militia – Frustrated by recent political setbacks, tea party leaders and some conservative members of the Oklahoma Legislature say they would like to create a new volunteer militia to help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.
Tea party movement leaders say they’ve discussed the idea with several supportive lawmakers and hope to get legislation next year to recognize a new volunteer force. They say the unit would not resemble militia groups that have been raided for allegedly plotting attacks on law enforcement officers.

Critics also asserted that the force could inflame extremism, and that the National Guard already provides for the state’s military needs.

“Have they heard of the Oklahoma City bombing?” said Joseph Thai, a constitutional law professor at the University of Oklahoma. The state observes the 15th anniversary of the anti-government attack on Monday. Such actions could “throw fuel in the fire of radicals,” he said.

 

NY Tea Party Gov. Candidate Sent Videos of Bestiality, Pics of Obama as Pimp – The Tea Party-backed Republican candidate for governor of New York State sent dozens of sexually explicit and racially insensitive mass emails as a matter of course in recent years, including one featuring bestiality and another that was made popular by a neo-Nazi organization.

An online news source in western New York has uncovered dozens of emails from Carl Paladino, a Buffalo-area land developer who threw his hat into the ring for governor last week.

Among the emails Paladino forwarded to numerous people was one of a photo of President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama dressed in pimp and prostitute outfits. The email subject line read “White House Ball.”

 

Tea Party Movement Spreads To Military – A new Tea Party group, Armed Forces Tea Party Patriots, has grown quickly since being launched last month by an active duty Marine Corps sergeant. The group, which vows to “stand up on the very soil we defended to preserve common sense conservatism and defend our Constitution that is threatened by a tyrannical government,” currently has over 400 members, who have signed up through its Facebook page, though many are not active duty military. And it has close ties to the broader Tea Party movement.

 

More Compassionate Conservatism From the Teabaggers – Grand Rapids resident Sharon Downer said, “[The health care bill is] going to tax the system way beyond what we have. For some reason, liberals seem to think people deserve paychecks who don’t work and that’s silly considering I don’t want my hard earned money, my parents money, my siblings money to go to people who don’t deserve it.” [It’s a matter of paying back to the nation for the protection and empowerment provided by the government to the citizens. Those who gain the most from the infrastructure pay the most through taxation. Those who don’t gain from the infrastruction pay the least.]

Hmmmm… I wonder just who she thinks those lazy “people” are that don’t deserve anyone’s help. I guess this gal will sign a statement right now that says if she is ever disabled she’ll turn down that government “paycheck”, right? We wouldn’t want her contributing to the lazy people living off of the government dole.

 

Bill O’Reilly Ambushes Al Gore – Everyone in the journalism business knows that Bill O’Reilly’s ambush crews are among the more outstanding examples of the gaping lack of anything resembling journalistic ethics at the Fox News Channel.

But no one wants to talk about it. So like clockwork, we can count on Jesse Waters and his intrepid crew ambushing various people — some of them public figures, some of them private citizens.
Their most recent victim was Al Gore, who knows a thing or two about journalism. He recognized what Waters was up to and told him flatly at the outset: “I don’t like ambush journalism.”

Finally, Gore had to get in Waters’ face to explain to him he had no intention of being interviewed under those circumstances. O’Reilly seems to think that this was some sort of coup.

But notice that Waters does get off two questions. And they’re very revealing, because both are predicated on falsehoods. In other words, Waters’ questions are lies.

A. “What’s your reaction to the fact that the Arctic ice is increasing?”

Actually, the Arctic ice cap is indeed shrinking dramatically, with 2007 being the worst year on record. However, things got slightly better in 2008 and 2009: they were only the second- and third-worst ice-cap melt years on record.
See, for folks on the right, that constitutes an “increase.” But only for folks on the right.

B. “Are you embarrassed at all by Climategate, sir?”

Actually, the scientific work and the scientists involved have been completely exonerated and the entire “Climategate” dustup revealed as a right-wing hoax that served double duty as propaganda and a smear campaign.

[This is also how conservatives without conscience conduct their opinion polls. They ask questions about situations that don’t exist to make you think they do. They reinforce beliefs that contradict the facts. They scare their supporters into suporting beliefs.]

 

AP Fact-Checks Andrew Breitbart; Breitbart Loses – For weeks, an argument has been raging between liberal and conservative commentators over whether or not Tea Party protesters yelled racist and homophobic slurs at Democratic lawmakers on the day the House passed the health care overhaul.

Stung by linking of the Tea Party movement to racism and homophobia, conservative pundits began to fire back. At the head of the pack was Andrew Breitbart, who asserted that the incidents never happened and offered $10,000 for video footage proving otherwise. He has since increased his offer to $100,000.

“It’s time for the allegedly pristine character of Rep. John Lewis to put up or shut up,” Breitbart wrote. “Therefore, I am offering $10,000 of my own money to provide hard evidence that the N-word was hurled at him not 15 times, as his colleague reported, but just once.”

To back up his claim, Breitbart posted a short video clip of Reps. Lewis and Cleaver, among others, walking through the protest with no racial slurs audible on the video.

But an article from the Associated Press says the video Breitbart trumpeted was not shot at the time the black lawmakers say they were targeted with the N-word; rather, the video was shot an hour later, as the group emerged from a congressional meeting. They had alleged that they were targeted as they were walking into the meeting.

Asked by AP about the inconsistency, Breitbart responded, “I’m not saying the video was conclusive proof.”

On Sunday, the Washington Post’s ombudsman asserted that there was at least some truth to the allegations of abusive behavior at the protest.

Responding to criticism of the paper’s coverage by conservative activists, ombudsman Andrew Alexander went through a list of allegations of slurs, and found merit in many of them:
Many readers have told me there is no evidence to support The Post’s report that Frank was subjected to anti-gay slurs. They’re wrong. An ABC News video recorded the incident inside a House office building. When ABC aired its video, the epithets were bleeped. A review of the unaltered footage, made by ABC at my request, clearly captures a protester shouting, “Barney, you faggot.” Case closed.

Alexander wrote that video footage does show that Rep. Cleaver was spat on as he walked through the crowd, but he says the video “suggests” Cleaver may have been spat on accidentally.

And he also reported that spokespeople for Reps. Carson and Lewis are standing by their assertion that they were repeatedly called the N-word.

“Breitbart’s $100,000 challenge may be publicity-seeking theater. But it’s part of widespread conservative claims that mainstream media, including The Post, swallowed a huge fabrication,” Alexander wrote, in calling for reporters to get back onto this story and determine the truth.
“After all, a civil rights legend is being called a liar. That aside, there’s serious money at stake,” he wrote.

 

Who is Sarah Palin Looking Out For? Herself! – Since leaving her post as Alaska’s governor last July, Sarah Palin has earned a whopping $12 million, according to a new estimate published Tuesday by ABC News.

For her speaking gigs, Palin has received as much as $200,000 a pop, making the $12 million figure seem eminently more plausible. Last October, Palin also received a $1,250,000 retainer for publication of her memoir “Going Rogue” from HarperCollins, which doesn’t include royalties she’s been paid since the book’s publication last December.

While governor of Alaska, Palin earned a (relatively measly) $125,000 annual salary. By contrast, Palin now earns as much in a single day: she’s said to be accruing a nearly $200,000 honorarium for speaking to a hospital fundraiser in Toronto on Thursday.

 

Glacier Breaks Away in Peru, Causing Tsunami in Andes Lake – A huge glacier broke off and plunged into a lake in Peru, causing a 75-foot (23-meter) tsunami wave that swept away at least three people and destroyed a water processing plant serving 60,000 local residents. It was one of the most concrete signs yet that glaciers are disappearing in Peru, home to 70 percent of the world’s tropical icefields. Scientists say warmer temperatures will cause them to melt away altogether within 20 years.

Regards,

Jim