Denialists want to pretend global warming will be good for some people -- and not bad for every species on the planet

-- by Dave

If you wanted a prime example of the kind of blinkered, circular dumbassery that passes for right-wing thinking on global climate change -- or for that matter, any kind of science issue -- check out the discussion that emerged this weekend over this absurd contribution from economist Stefan Karlsson in the Christian Science Monitor:

What has always troubled me the most with the view that we needs to stop "climate change" in the form of "global warming" is the idea that it would be bad if the Earth became warmer.

Sure, that could be negative in some areas for some reasons, but it would also be beneficial in other areas for other reasons. Suppose for example that Antarctica, or at least parts of it, would become habitable due to a warmer climate, wouldn't that be a good thing that could possibly outweigh possible problems elsewhere

... Note that some "climate change" theories argue that "global warming" could lead to colder weather in for example northern Europe. But even assuming that this is really true, it begs the question of why colder weather is bad there but good everywhere else. And this cold weather will largelly undo the initial warming effect, leaving us with little to worry about, assuming "global warming" is bad.

Fairly typical of an economist to only consider the surface economic effects of global climate change with nary a word about the far more significant biological impacts that are heading our way like a big runaway train careering down the tracks.

Sure enough, the usual half-thinkers of the wingnutosphere were happy to promote this nonsense, including Glenn Reynolds and Ann Althouse, who remarked: "The reason is that when [IF!] global warming sets in, there will be winners and losers, and those who predict that they will win understand the value of circumspection and restraint." (Even more absurd is the outright denialism that dominated the comments to this post.)

Actually, the reason to be concerned is that EVERYONE loses -- every species on the planet will suffer, including human beings. Even wealthy, conceited, arrogant conservative human beings.

But this is fairly typical right-wing cant when it comes to climate change -- believing that the only impacts of global phenomena are to be found in the obvious manifestations they can see. Remember how, last winter, everyone on Fox was trying to argue that the heavy East Coast snowstorms somehow disproved that global warming was occurring?

So let's leave aside the reality that rising ocean levels will seriously impact the globe's coastal populations, particularly those in the Third World. Leave aside the certainty that many of the world's forests (and thus their oxygen-producing capacities) are going to be burning up and dying because of climate change. And leave aside the likelihood that the world's storms -- hurricanes, tornadoes, rainstorms and snowstorms -- likely will be increasing significantly in intensity, killing many more human beings than they already do.

Let's consider instead simply a small spectrum of the impact global warming will have on the world's oceans -- our coral reefs. Because the evidence is nearly indisputable that, because of climate change, the world's coral reefs are rapidly dying.

This isn't even being seriously contested by anyone, and we've known it for awhile. In 2006, there was this National Geographic report, based on a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, describing how global warming is devastating the world's coral reefs. It has been borne out by numerous studies, including one published in Science in 2007.

No one is even attempting to claim that this effect is not happening. Indeed, the concern has only been intensifying in more recent years. See, for instance, the maps showing the loss of calclifiers in the oceans, which inevitably is leading to a significant loss of biodiversity within the world's oceanic ecosystems.

Well, OK, the denialists might try to say -- sure, we can lose some coral reefs, but it really won't matter, except to tourists in Australia and Hawaii and Mexico and the people who make a living from them. At least, that's what one would expect, given the kind of dumbassery they regularly spout.

Consider the biological reality that the world's ecosystems are intricately interconnected webs -- and when you start pulling out strands, especially significant ones that form the backbone of the structure, eventually it all collapses.

But the significance of the loss of coral reefs runs even deeper than that. It is really only an indicator of the massive effects that human activity is having on the world's ecosystems -- an effect that endangers our ability to feed ourselves, and sustain ourselves as a biological species.

The chief problem here is the acidifcation of the world's oceans -- which, as the scientists studying it point out, is not even slightly controversial:

"Unlike global warming, which can manifest itself in nuanced, complex ways, the science of ocean acidification is unambiguous," said Andrew Dickson, a Scripps professor of marine chemistry.

"The chemical reactions that take place as increasing amounts of carbon dioxide are introduced to seawater have been established for nearly a century."

Even more important, the impacts include a significant loss for the world's food supply:

"We know that the increasing concentration of CO2 [in the air] is making the oceans more acidic," Mr Benn told BBC News.

"It affects marine life, it affects coral, and that in turn could affect the amount of fish in the sea - and a billion people in the world depend on fish for their principal source of protein.

"It doesn't get as much attention as the other problems; it is really important."

There are related effects involved here as well, including the impact that changing ocean temperatures have on oceanic upwelling, which is one of the important ways that a multitude of species -- from whales to salmon to herring -- are able to feed and sustain themselves.

All in all, it's absurd to contemplate that global warming might make make things more pleasant in some locales -- such as making the Antarctic habitable (as though that would not wipe out hundreds of animal species too) -- while ignoring the massive biological effects of the phenomenon, which ultimately have not just economic but other real-world effects too, such as mass starvation and increased conflict over the remaining and rapidly diminishing natural resources around the globe.

Maybe an economist like Karlsson should take the time to more seriously examine the economics of the problem. Here's a good place for him to start: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity.

As for the wingnutosphere denialists, they're beyond help. When the waves are lapping at their doors and they find themselves unable to feed their families because food simply isn't available, they'll somehow find a way to claim that it really isn't a problem. And it's all liberals' fault anyway.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Now that would be nice Christmas present: Hawaii's governor wants to finally demolish the birthers

-- by Dave

Neil Abercrombie, Hawaii's new governor, wants to give the country a Christmas present: He intends to finally demolish the conspiracy theories adopted by diehard Obama haters demanding to see the president's birth certificate, even after it has long been made available:

The governor, a Democrat and former congressman, said he has initiated conversations with the state’s attorney general and the chief of its Health Department about how he can release more explicit documentation of Mr. Obama’s birth on Aug. 4, 1961, at Kapiolani Maternity and Gynecological Hospital. He said he has done so of his own accord, without consulting the White House, which declined to comment.

“He’s a big boy; he can take sticks and stones. But there’s no reason on earth to have the memory of his parents insulted by people whose motivation is solely political,” Mr. Abercrombie said. “Let’s put this particular canard to rest.”

Abercrombie, you see, knew Obama's parents and met the president when he was a baby:

Mr. Abercrombie, 72, said that although he did not see the elder Obamas at the hospital with their newborn son, he did remember the couple bringing the baby to social events. He says the critics who suggest that Mr. Obama’s mother slipped off to Kenya to give birth are engaging in a “demonological fantasy.”

An L.A, Times story has more:

"What bothers me is that some people who should know better are trying to use this for political reasons," said Abercrombie, 72. "Maybe I'm the only one in the country that could look you right in the eye right now and tell you, 'I was here when that baby was born.' "

One of Abercrombie's aides said the governor is voicing the frustration of many Hawaiians who continue to be troubled by the rumors, which they see as emblematic of the view that Hawaiians are not Americans in the same way as those who live in the continental United States.

Of course, as the L.A. Times story points out, this really won't stop the birthers. But it will at least create the kind of hurdle to peddling their irrationality that will make it much, much harder to do so. And for that, he will have the nation's gratitude.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

O'Reilly and Coulter try to explain why right-wing scroogery is really Christian charity

-- by Dave

Bill O'Reilly really took it personally when Stephen Colbert made fun of O'Reilly's bizarre column claiming that Jesus really wouldn't have helped the poor at Christmas time -- or at least worried about their unemployment checks.

So O'Reilly earlier this week featured an opening segment responding haplessly to Colbert, attempting a serious theological argument with a comedian -- and miserably failing:

But Judeo-Christian tradition does not require blind largesse. We are not mandated to buy people gin or cocaine, or pay someone's bills if they refuse to work. If you want to do that, you can in a free society. But to force the responsible to pay for the irresponsible is immoral in my opinion.

The U.S. government makes no distinction when it comes to entitlements. The feds do not drug test or regulate the behavior of those on the dole. And there is no question that the feds waste billions of dollars every year, money taken from hardworking people.

Americans are the most generous people on Earth, but our government does not have a right to seize anyone's assets in pursuit of an impossible social nirvana. And I do believe that Jesus would agree.

The best part came when he invited on Ann Coulter to back him up. Coulter tossed out her usual turdlike bon mots: “Liberals think sending a check to the IRS constitutes charity” was about as cogent as she got -- while claiming that good Christian Republicans are “actually giving to poor people.”

Hey, I dunno about you, but when I think of Christian charity and kindness, Ann Coulter is the first person to spring to mind. That is, as someone in deep need of it.

Grade: Massive FAIL.



[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Righties are mad that so much got done during the lame-duck session. Cue the whining

-- by Dave

As Ezra Klein observes, the lame-duck session of Congress was unusually productive. And one of the keys was that, for a change, there actually were a few Republicans who decided to be, you know, sane:

The incumbent -- and the outgoing -- Republicans know that the fact that Republicans will have more power in 2011 doesn't necessarily mean that they'll use that power to pass sensible legislation. So those of them who wanted to pass sensible legislation decided to get it all done now, even if that meant handing Reid and Obama a slew of apparent victories in the lame-duck session.

Ooooooh! That wascawwy Obama! Laura Ingraham and Dick Morris were all worked up about it last night on The O'Reilly Factor, turning blue in the face

Morris: But what is crucial to focus on, is they didn't get any spending cuts in return! Had the Republicans simply said, 'No dice. This is an illegitimate, lame-duck session of people who are not entitled to vote because they were defeated. And we're not going to pass anything, and we're going to do it on January 2, and then we're going to demand spending cuts!' Which now will have to be fought for in the debt limit ceiling or the new budget. And in the meantime the deficit keeps clicking.

Morris then went on to list all the Republican Senators who were going to be facing primaries -- from Tea Party challengers, no doubt -- in the near future because of their various sins in the lame-duck session. Considering this is the guy who predicted a 100-seat gain for Republicans in the House, I'm sure they're quaking.

But I'm also struck by Morris's proposal: Evidently he doesn't care that the Constitution pretty explicitly lays out how this election stuff works. Congress keeps meeting after elections, and new members do not take office till they take their oaths. It's all there in the 20th Amendment.

Don't these guys have great reverence for the Constitution? Except, as always, the parts they find inconvenient.

Like every other Republican right now, Morris also seems to have conveniently forgotten about the 1998 lame-duck session when Republicans impeached President Clinton. Which is quite a remarkable case of amnesia.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Fox & Friends appalled Daily Show gets 9/11 responders credit: People 'think his show is real news, which is a problem'

-- by Dave

Now that the 9/11 first responders' health bill has passed the Senate, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show obviously deserve a round of applause for stepping up and playing a critical role in getting it done.

That really seemed to stick in the craws of the crew at Fox & Friends this morning. Check out this exchange between Gretchen Carlson (who I think is just still mad at Stewart for calling her out on the dumb-blonde schtick), Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade, culminating with this:

Carlson: I think it's interesting when you have Jon Stewart, who apparently decided to get really serious on this topic, have a serious show about it. That's like mixing apples and oranges, c'mon! I mean, people already think that his show is real news, which is a problem.

So then when you have comedy and then one day you decide to just get totally serious --

Doocy: He's an activist.

Carlson: But I don't know if that works in the mind of the -- mind of the American people.

You know what's an even bigger problem, Gretchen? That people already think every show on Fox News other than Shep Smith's is real news. When in fact, it's demonstrably little more than lying, smearing, fearmongering propaganda. Now THAT'S a problem.


[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Barbour's 'clarification' of White Citizens' Council apologia is still more whitewashing

-- by Dave

Haley Barbour is obviously eager to walk back his boneheaded apologia for the old White Citizens Councils in Mississippi, so yesterday he issued a "clarification":

"When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time."

Barbour is actually just making matters worse, because this too is false information and incredibly misleading. First of all, Yazoo City certainly did not reject the Klan -- it was very much a significant and well-reported presence on the local landscape at the time.

Moreover, it didn't need violence because the White Citizens Council in Yazoo City had so thoroughly intimidated and threatened its local black population into abject fear and silence. Let's recall Barbour's original exchange here, especially the question that prompted it:

Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley Barbour why he thought that was so.

Well, as Adam Nossiter describes in some detail in his remarkable book, Of Long Memory: Mississippi and the Murder of Medgar Evers, the real answer is that the White Citizens' Council's intimidation campaign was so successful that it took years before blacks had the wherewithal to challenge school segregation in Yazoo City:

And fear forced people out of the NAACP. It atomized the community, making any kind of association a frightening undertaking. Whites saw any grouping of blacks as a threat.

"The Negroes will not come together, and our former president has not cooperated at all," Evers wrote despairingly from the Delta town of Yazoo City in 1956. Blacks there had filed a petition to desegregate the schools, as they had in a number of other Mississippi town, in the wake of the Supreme Court's desegregation decision in 1955. The Citizens' Council responded with a well-honed campaign of intimidation and published in the local newspaper the names of parents who had signed the petition. The people working for whites almost immediately lost their jobs, and soon all but two of the petition signers had backed down.

The Citizens' Council had intimidated the local NAACP president to such a degree that the group could no longer hold meetings in Yazoo City. "It appears that they have gotten next to him and we just can't get any results, not even a call meeting. One thing, the people are afraid. I would say is is worse than being behind the Iron Curtain," reported Evers.

Indeed, the assassination of Evers in the nearby city of Jackson, was committed by a charter member of the White Citizens' Council, a Greenwood man named Byron de la Beckwith -- who also happened to be a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Leonard Zeskind has a good deal more on this:

Actually, the line between the Klan and the Citizens Councils in Mississippi was often a distinction without a difference. Consider Byron de la Beckwith, a member of the Greenwood Mississippi Citizens Council. He was also associated with Sam Bowers' White Knights Klan. In 1963, Beckwith used a sniper rifle to gun down the president of the Mississippi State NAACP, Medgar Evers, while he was virtually on the doorstep of his home in Jackson. And when Beckwith went to trial the first time for this brutal slaying, the Citizens Councils provided essential aid and succor. Haley Barbour would have been a sophomore in high school the year of the murder. In 1994, when Beckwith was finally convicted of first degree murder in that crime, Barbour would have been head of the Republican National Committee. Certainly he read the newspapers then. He has no excuse for even a momentary lapse with a Weekly Standard reporter.

Further, when Barbour claims that the Citizens Councils kept the Klan out of Yazoo City through the threat of economic boycott, that was actually the tool the Councils tried to use to keep the NAACP out. Across the South, Citizens Councils would gather the names of NAACP supporters and threaten them with economic sanctions if they continued to support desegregation.

Compare that historical reality to Haley Barbour's original description of this history:

“Because the business community wouldn’t stand for it,” he said. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you’d lose it. If you had a store, they’d see nobody shopped there. We didn’t have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City.”

This is such a gross distortion that it really amounts to a baldfaced lie. Especially when you consider, as Ta-Nehisi Coates observes, the kind of history he is attempting to blot out here.

On Fox, the criticism is described as raising questions of racism on Barbour's part. But that's really not the immediate issue -- though it may be lurking at a deeper level down the road. The real issue here is that Haley Barbour is covering up for and whitewashing one of the most vicious white-supremacist organizations ever to have formed on American soil -- winking and nudging at them, and thereby enabling both them and their legatees. And he wants to run for president?

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Barney Frank completely pwns hapless CNS reporter attempting 'gotcha' DADT question

-- by Dave

You can tell that all these reporters for right-wing propaganda organs like the Media Research Center spend waaaay too much time watching Fox News and their army of would-be ambush journalists. Because they often try to imitate their betters only to discover that it can seriously backfire on them.

Especially when the intended victim is a seriously smart person like Barney Frank.

This happened yesterday to a young reporter for CNS (an MRC outlet), as Terry Krepel at Media Matters reports:

Apparently feeling confident (and sufficiently homophobic), CNS decided to target Rep. Barney Frank with a question about the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – specifically, whether he thought gay and straight soldiers should shower together. This was based on a statement calling for a ban on separate showers from the Pentagon’s report on the impact of repealing DADT that CNS had previously singled out.

Frank saw this coming from a mile away. As CNS reporter Nicholas Ballasy slowly got out the words “shower with homosexuals,” Frank let out an exaggerated gasp and responded, “What do you think happens in gyms all over America?” After calling it a “silly issue,” Frank added, “What do you think goes wrong with people showering with homosexuals? Do you think it’s the spray makes it catching? ... We don’t get ourselves dry-cleaned.”

Frank then turned the tables on his interviewer by quizzing Ballasy: “I know you’re looking for some way to kind of discredit the policy. Do you think that gyms should have separate showers for gay and straight people? I’m asking you the question because that’s the logic of what you’re telling me. You seem to think that there’s something extraordinary about gay men showering together. Do you think gyms should have separate showers for gay people and straight people?” Ballasy wouldn’t answer, insisting that he was “just quoting the recommendation.” Frank responded: “Don’t be disingenuous. You’re quoting those you think may cause us some problems. You’re entitled to do that, but you shouldn’t hide behind your views.” Frank again asked the question of Ballasy, who again wouldn’t answer, trying to change the subject: “So that’s the question you would pose to people who have an issue with that part of the report, the recommendation?” Frank made his point one more time, and that’s where the CNS ends the video.

As is often the case with Barney Frank, it is a delightfully thorough humiliation.



[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Nuclear-arms expert Jon Voight warns Mark Steyn about Obama: 'This man is capable of destroying our country'

-- by Dave

Mark Steyn is filling in for Sean Hannity this week on Fox, and he wanted to have an in-depth, thoughtful discussion of the START nuclear-missile treaty. Naturally, this meant he brought on wingnut actor Jon Voight, who springs to mind immediately as an careful and knowledgeable analyst of nuclear issues, thanks to his incisive portrayals of FDR in Pearl Harbor and Jonas Hodges in 24.

And it was deeply insightful indeed. It opened up a tremendous window on the full-blown idiocy and paranoia of the wingnut Right. F'r instance:

VOIGHT: And now I hear Obama trying to convince the American people that if we give up our nuclear weapons, this will set a fine example and all other countries will follow suit. What a dangerous and naive notion that is. If President Reagan wasn't such a powerful force of strength, we never would have seen Premier Gorbachev take down the Berlin Wall.

In reality, of course, it was Reagan who opened the negotiations with the Soviets in 1982 that eventually led to the first START treaty, ratified in 1992 under George H.W. Bush. Reagan often remarked in his speeches that his "ultimate goal" was the "total elimination of nuclear weapons."

Maybe Jon was too busy on the set of Lookin' To Get Out back then or something. Because he nattered on in this vein for awhile -- including this utterly incoherent bit:

VOIGHT: Well, our President Kennedy in September of 1961 and by the way, of course he served in the World War II nearly losing his life and he stated that American military might is the only way to keep our freedom. Of course, President Reagan was of the same point of view. And thank God he had the foresight not to sign away our national missile defense when he saw the world full of presidents and future threats from multiple nuclear powers.

Steyn obviously found this deeply insightful:

STEYN: Do you think the Republicans are going to stand firm on this? The president tonight seems to be pretty confident he can get enough Republicans to get on board with this thing to pass it with 67 votes. Are you confident the Republican Party will stand firm?

VOIGHT: Well, I certainly hope, so. And I think, again, a lot of it has to do with the American people. Get on the phones, folks, and make sure that we encourage our senators to reject this thing. You know, I don't -- we have seen this before. We have seen it coming towards Christmas as well. This idea that we push something through and people are thinking about, you know, presents for their grandchildren and wanting to get out of town, they come in and no one is thorough in their questioning or their reading of the materials. And they push something through. I don't know how many more wrong Obama policies we need to see before we wake up to the possibility that this man is capable of destroying our country.

The whole segment reminded me of an earlier Jon Voight performance:

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: I want to serve this to the men. Taste it and let me know what you think.

[Yossarian takes a bite]

Yossarian: What is it?

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Chocolate covered cotton.

Yossarian: What are you, crazy?

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: No good, huh?

Yossarian: For Christ's sake, you didn't even take the seeds out.

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder: Is it really that bad?

Yossarian: It's cotton!

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Barbour's spokesman wants specifics on racist leanings in his past. Well, OK.

-- by Dave

After Haley Barbour's wink-and-nudge act about the White Citizens Councils caught a lot of people's attention, Eric Kleefeld at TPM called up Barbour's spokesman, Dan Turner, who gave Kleefeld a decidedly prickly and paranoid interview -- including this nugget:

"Tell me what in Gov. Barbour's past gives any indication of any racist leanings, and I'll be glad to address the question," said Turner. "Otherwise, it's not a legitimate question. There's nothing in his past that shows that. If you pick out a sentence or a paragraph out of a fairly long article and harp on it, you can manipulate it. And that sounds to me like what you're trying to do."

Hmmm, that's tough. Oh yeah. There is this:



This is Barbour on July 19, 2003, at the Black Hawk Barbecue and Political Rally, held to raise money for [wink wink, nudge nudge] "private academy" school buses. The barbecue is the big fund-raising shindig thrown every year by the Council of Conservative Citizens -- the successor organization to the White Citizens Councils and one of the nation's most prominent white-supremacist outfits. On the far right (appropriately) is the CofCC's national field director, Bill Lord.

Barbour later tried to claim, incidentally, that he didn't know anything about the CofCC. Considering how knowledgeable he appears to be regarding the White Citizens Councils, this doesn't seem particularly credible anymore. Still, he declined to ask them to remove his photo from their website:

"Once you start down the slippery slope of saying 'That person can't be for me,' then where do you stop?" Barbour said. "Old segregationists? Former Ku Klux Klan like (Sen.) Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.? You know?

"Once you get into that, you spend your time doing nothing else," Barbour said. "I don't care who has my picture. My picture's in the public domain. It gets published in newspapers every day."

Suuuuuure.

Wanna bet if an outfit called the "Council of Conservative Pedophiles" ran Barbour's picture, he'd be so sanguine?

Kos had details at the time about Barbour's participation in the picnic.

Be sure to read all of Kleefeld's interview, which is pretty remarkable -- especially these exchanges:

After being pressed further on whether Barbour's comments about the Citizens Councils were accurate, Turner said: "I'm aware of what the governor said in this interview. I'm not gonna get into the business of trying to twist what the governor said, or to manipulate it."

What does he mean by manipulate it, I asked?

"Your questions are very angular, let's say that," said Turner. "You have a very specific point that you're trying to drive at, and you're trying to paint the governor as a racist. And nothing could be further from the truth."

I then responded that I was not asking about whether Barbour is a racist, but was asking about whether it is true or not that the group he praised was a racist organization?

"It was an organization in Yazoo City that was, you know, a group of the town leaders and business people," Turner responded, then referring back to Barbour's comment. "And they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. And that doesn't sound like a racist to me. Does it to you?"

Turner then repeatedly asked me that question, whether the group in Yazoo City sounds racist from its anti-Klan policies. I responded again by asking about the same Yazoo City group that launched boycotts of African-Americans who sought civil rights.

In other words, because the WCC actively badmouthed the Klan -- for giving the South a violent black eye -- it couldn't possibly have been racist. Right. Those archives are just an illusion.

More generically, Barbour also loved to trumpet the Confederate flag when he was campaigning. No doubt his spokesman can gussy up a whole deluge of words to explain that away too. But the stain is pretty indelible. And becoming more obvious all the time.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Colbert follows O'Reilly's logic: 'We've got to pretend Jesus was just as selfish as we are'

-- by Dave

Stephen Colbert had some fun at Bill O'Reilly's expense over his bizarre column claiming Jesus wasn't all that concerned about the poor. The capper:

Colbert: Because if this is gonna be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we've got to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that he commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition -- and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

Ouch!

Apparently O'Reilly is all bent out of shape, and is planning a segment tonight attacking Colbert for his supposed lack of scriptural accuracy. Should be amusing.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Haley Barbour winks and nudges at the ol' White Citizens Council folks again

-- by Dave

Our favorite would-be Republican presidential nominee, Haley Barbour, got a wide-eyed adulatory write-up in the Weekly Standard yesterday that included this nugget:

Both Mr. Mott and Mr. Kelly had told me that Yazoo City was perhaps the only municipality in Mississippi that managed to integrate the schools without violence. I asked Haley Barbour why he thought that was so.

“Because the business community wouldn’t stand for it,” he said. “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you’d lose it. If you had a store, they’d see nobody shopped there. We didn’t have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City.”

In interviews Barbour doesn’t have much to say about growing up in the midst of the civil rights revolution. “I just don’t remember it as being that bad,” he said. “I remember Martin Luther King came to town, in ’62. He spoke out at the old fairground and it was full of people, black and white.”

Just to stipulate: In reality, the Ku Klux Klan in the South, both immediately after the Civil War and in its post-1915 reincarnation, in fact always was an organization of town leaders -- but secretly. The White Citizens Councils were merely their public face. As the Wikipedia entry puts it:

Members of the Citizens' Council were sometimes Klansmen, and the more influential the Citizens' Council member, the more influence he had with the Klan. In fact, the WCC was even referred to during the civil rights era as "an uptown Klan," "a white collar Klan," "a button-down Klan," and "a country club Klan." The rationale for these nicknames was that it appeared that sheets and hoods had been discarded and replaced by suits and ties. Much like the Klan, WCC members held documented white supremacist views and involved themselves in racist activities. They more often held leadership in civic and political organizations, however, which enabled them to legitimize discriminatory practices aimed at non-whites.

If you want to see for yourself, check out the archives of the old WCC newsletters. You get the flavor pretty quickly.

Matt Yglesias runs a sample from the archives and observes:

The Citizens’ Councils were, right in the state of Mississippi where Barbour is from, the respectable face of white supremacist political activism. Here’s an example from the Association of Citizens’ Councils pamphlet: “Why Does Your Community Need a Citizens’ Council?”

Maybe your community has had no racial problems! This may be true; however, you may not have a fire, yet you maintain a fire department. You can depend on one thing: The NAACP (National Association for the Agitation of Colored People), aided by alien influences, bloc vote seeking politicians and left-wing do-gooders, will see that you have a problem in the near future.

The Citizens’ Council is the South’s answer to the mongrelizers. We will not be integrated. We are proud of our white blood and our white heritage of sixty centuries.

Haley Barbour gives these people credit for keeping things calm!

Of course he does. That's because, as we pointed out, Barbour won election in 2003 by openly consorting with the Council of Conservative Citizens -- which is in fact the direct descendant of the White Citizens Councils, having been organized on its bleaching bones. Barbour also campaigned by promoting the Confederate flag.

When he was finally called on it, Barbour just winked and nudged and pretended that it was all just harmless gee-whiz folks stuff. Just as he is now.


[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

John McCain's viciousness on DADT, phoniness on DREAM Act secure an unpleasant legacy

-- by Dave

I dunno about you, but my initial instinctive sense of John McCain, even when he was giving George W. Bush heartburn on the campaign trail back in 2000, was that he really was a world-class phony. That whole "maverick" schtick was so transparently a cover for opportunism that he always had me counting my spoons, if you know what I mean.

This past week, he put his utter phoniness -- and the really vicious streak that it has always hid -- out there for the whole world to see, leading the Republican charge against Don't Ask Don't Tell in a truly ugly fashion. But every bit as phony, and significant, was his vocal opposition to the DREAM Act -- a bill he had once vocally championed in the Senate and on the campaign trail. Because of McCain, only a tiny handful of Republicans were willing to vote for what had once been a consummately Republican immigration bill.

He caught everyone's attention with his utter nuttiness on DADT repeal:

If John McCain gets any more hostile toward his Senate colleagues, they might consider having him go through the metal detector before he enters the Capitol.

Saturday's debate on the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy was only half an hour old when the Arizona Republican burst onto the floor from the cloakroom, hiked up his pants and stalked over to his friend Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). Ignoring Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), who had the floor, McCain hectored the men noisily for a few moments, waving his arms for emphasis.

When McCain finally stormed off, Durbin shook his head in exasperation and Lieberman smiled. A minute later, McCain returned -- he had apparently remembered another element of his grievance -- and resumed his harangue.

As Steve Benen observes:

When we look back at the apartheid-loving segregationists of the 1950s and 1960s, most decent people see racists and misguided monsters. Yesterday, it seemed as if McCain decided, perhaps deliberately, that he wanted to be that guy for the 21st century. Why? I obviously can't read the conservative senator's mind, but it seemed to have something to with (a) his intense disgust for President Obama and anything he wants; and (b) his revulsion towards gay people.

... This isn't another "Whatever happened to the old McCain?" piece, which we've all seen too many times in recent years. Rather, this is to suggest McCain has done more than make the transition from "maverick" to petulant right-winger. Yesterday, the man waving his arms on the Senate floor was a misanthropic hack who's abandoned basic decency, and trashed any hopes he might have had about a respectable legacy.

Indeed, McCain has now secured a kind of legacy for himself.

Today, we look back on figures like "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman and Theodore Bilbo and John Rankin and Strom Thurmond and James Eastland -- all ardent defenders of segregation and the sanctity of white womanhood -- as tragic monsters, bigoted misanthropes who fell on the wrong side of history defending a system of xenophobic hatred and human evil.

Fifty years from now, Americans will look back on McCain as that kind of politician too -- not just for his vile efforts to defend DADT, but for his utter betrayal of his onetime supporters among the Latino community by coming out against the DREAM Act.

As you can see from the video atop this post, even on the campaign trail, McCain flip-flopped all over the place, telling some right-wing bloggers in 2007 that he now opposed the DREAM -- even though he had cosponsored versions of it in 2003, 2005, and 2007. In 2008, before a crowd of Latinos, he said he supported the act. Later, on the campaign trail, he had an Arizona backyard barbecue with some DREAM Act proponents, and as you can see he was very warm about helping them. He expressed similar sentiments on the campaign trail in Florida in 2008, when he met with several DREAM Act students, including Gaby Pacheco.

Yet when he encountered Pacheco a few months ago, threatened to have her arrested:

A few days before the Senate left for the Thanksgiving break, Pacheco met the new McCain when she tried to lobby him on the DREAM Act, the bill he'd once championed.

When Pacheco approached McCain, she said, he dismissed her and threatened to call the Capitol Police on her if she continued to follow him.

As he entered an elevator, the DREAM Act supporters told the senator that all they want is to serve their country.

"Go serve them then," McCain told them, according to Pacheco.

Brooke Buchanan, spokeswoman for McCain, said the protesters approached the senator, but said McCain did not say he would call the Capitol Police. She said she was not aware of him telling the protesters to "go serve them then."

Like I said: A world-class phony.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars].

By Asgard's Hammer! Far-righty whities mighty uptighty about black actor playing Norse god

-- by Dave

Hey, fellow white guys -- don't these characters make you feel proud? After all, that's what they're supposedly about -- "white pride":

A US white supremacist group has called for a boycott of the Kenneth Branagh-directed superhero movie Thor on the grounds that a black actor has been cast in the role of a Norse god.

The Council of Conservative Citizens is upset that London-born Idris Elba, star of The Wire and BBC detective series Luther as well as a number of Hollywood films, is to play deity Heimdall in the Marvel Studios feature. The group, which opposes inter-racial marriage and gay rights, has set up a website, boycott-thor.com to set out its opposition to what it sees as an example of leftwing social engineering.

"It [is] well known that Marvel is a company that advocates for leftwing ideologies and causes," the site reads. "Marvel frontman Stan 'Lee' Lieber boasts of being a major financier of leftwing political candidates. Marvel has viciously attacked the Tea Party movement, conservatives and European heritage.

"Now they have taken it one further, casting a black man as a Norse deity in their new movie Thor. Marvel has now inserted social engineering into European mythology."

The CofCC post [warning: hate site] goes on in this vein:

It’s not enough that Marvel attacks conservative values and promotes the left-wing, now mythological Gods must be re-invented with black skin.

It seems that Marvel Studios believes that white people should have nothing that is unique to themselves.

Considering that a number of outright neo-Nazi organizations have adopted Asatru and other "Nordic" neo-paganisms as their official religions (most famously, perhaps, The Order among them), it's not surprising, perhaps, that they would get all worked up at the prospect of a black face spoiling their long-awaited screen rendition of the Lords of Asgard.

Especially since Heimdall is known as the "white god" and "whitest of the aesir". It's enough to make one rend their Klan robes.

You all may recall that the CofCC was at one time a favorite cause of Trent Lott's, and was a big supporter of Haley Barbour's run to the Mississippi governorship.

Then there was Ann Coulter, claiming in her latest screed that the CofCC had been unfairly defamed and mischaracterized:

In her latest foaming-mouth tome — Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America, released on Jan. 6 — Coulter spends the better part of three pages defending a group called the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), which The New York Times had described as a “thinly veiled white supremacist organization.” Coulter begs to differ. The CCC, Coulter opines, is “a conservative group” that has unfairly been branded as racist “because some of the directors of the CCC had, decades earlier, been leaders of a segregationist group.” “There is no evidence on its Web page that the modern incarnation of the CCC supports segregation,” she says. “Apart from some aggressive reporting on black-on-white crimes — the very crimes that are aggressively hidden by the establishment media — there is little on the CCC website suggesting” that the group is racist. Indeed, its main failing is “containing members who had belonged to a segregationist group thirty years earlier.”

... [T]o Ann Coulter, there is “no evidence” on its website that the CCC “supports segregation.” Mostly, she says, the group — which was formed from the debris of the White Citizens Councils that Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall once called “the uptown Klan” — is about “a strong national defense, the right to keep and bear arms, the traditional family, and an ‘America First’ trade policy.” Indeed, she says, The New York Times and other critics of the CCC are simply liberals “who have no principles.”

In reality, this is only the most recent confirming example of the CofCC's naked white-supremacist ideology:

The CCC’s columnists have written that black people are “a retrograde species of humanity,” and that non-white immigration is turning the U.S. population into a “slimy brown mass of glop.” Its website has run photographic comparisons of pop singer Michael Jackson and a chimpanzee. It opposes “forced integration” and decries racial intermarriage. It has lambasted black people as “genetically inferior,” complained about “Jewish power brokers,” called gay people “perverted sodomites,” and even named the late Lester Maddox, the baseball bat-wielding, arch-segregationist former governor of Georgia, “Patriot of the Century.”

One day, the CCC ran photos on its home page of accused Beltway snipers John Muhammad and John Malvo, 9/11 conspirator Zacharias Moussaoui and accused shoe-bomber Richard Reed. “Notice a Pattern Here?” asked a caption underneath the four photos. “Is the face of death black after all?” On another occasion, its website featured a photo of Daniel Pearl, the “Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter” who had just been decapitated by Islamic terrorists. In the photo, Pearl was shown with his “mixed-race wife, Marianne.” The headline above the couple’s picture was stunning even for the CCC: “Death by Multiculturalism?” The CCC Arkansas chapter ran an essay waxing nostalgic for the days “when racial separation was the norm.”

And we wax nostalgic for the days when apologizing for white supremacists meant the death of your mainstream career.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Right-wingers sure seem eager to bring on a government shutdown. Wanna bet they do?

-- by Dave

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Bill O'Reilly seems to think it would be a good thing for the government to shut down. Last night in his opening "Talking Points Memo" monologue:

If the feds don't pass a new spending bill, the government might shut down in a few days, and I say good. These pinheads need some time off.

And of course, in O'Reilly's book, only "patriots" are the folks trying to create the shutdown.

Wait until such a thing comes to pass, though, and suddenly half the economy and a gazillion non-essential government functions come to a screeching halt. Then it'll be a catastrophe, and here's a prediction: Bill O'Reilly will say it's President Obama's fault.

O'Reilly wasn't the only one egging on a shutdown on Fox. On Fox Business News, David Asman was pontificating: "We have to shrink the government, and if that means shutting down the government then so be it":



Evidently Republicans don't remember what happened the last time they tried this tactic, in 1995. Not even the guy who engineered it, Newt Gingrich, seems to remember. He was on Fox too yesterday, likewise justifying a shutdown:



I especially like the part where Gingrich says he has no regrets about what happened. Well, here's what happened:

The Republicans blamed Clinton for the shutdown, and Clinton blamed the Republicans. Public opinion favored the president; Clinton's approval rating rose to the highest it had been since his election. The Republicans' support was further diminished two days later when Gingrich made a widely-reported complaint about being snubbed by Clinton; Tom DeLay called it "the mistake of his [Gingrich's] life".

DeLay writes in his book No Retreat, No Surrender:

"He told a room full of reporters that he forced the shutdown because Clinton had rudely made him and Bob Dole sit at the back of Air Force One... Newt had been careless to say such a thing, and now the whole moral tone of the shutdown had been lost. What had been a noble battle for fiscal sanity began to look like the tirade of a spoiled child. The revolution, I can tell you, was never the same."

Gingrich's complaint gave rise to the perception of his behaving in a petty egotistical manner, and Clinton defended the seating arrangement as a courtesy to Gingrich, the back of the plane being closer to his pickup car. Later, the polls suggested that the event badly damaged Gingrich politically.

Go for it, bully boys.


[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Why filibuster reform is vital: The Founders' intent was for the Senate to be a majority body, not a supermajority

[From Fix The Senate Now: Interview with a senator who likes how it dysfunctions.]

-- by Dave

Quietly behind the scenes in the Senate, Democratic senators are working to prepare a package of filibuster-rules reforms, led in particular by Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico.

This morning I sat in on a conference call with Merkley and Udall, who explained how they were planning to roll out a framework for other senators to examine soon. (Here's Dave Weigel's report.) Certainly the urgency to do so has only been heightened by events of the past few days, with Republicans using the filibuster to effectively forestall any action by the Senate in the lame-duck session beyond extending the Bush tax cuts -- including approval of the START treaty, DADT repeal and the DREAM Act.

Fundamentally, as these events have demonstrated, Republican abuse of the filibuster has rendered the Senate into a body in which only the supermajority rules. Considering that it was clearly never designed to be anything other than a majority-rule body by the Founding Fathers, it's a pretty classic case of hypocrisy for Tea Partying right-wingers who love to parade their love of the Founders whenever possible.

So I asked them about whether they intended to use the Founders' intent as a kind of marketing point for their plan. Here's what they said:

Udall: That point is very much talked about. And it was not that long ago that there were major pieces of legislation in which the public discussion always was, 'Can we get 51 votes to pass this?'

We had controversial Supreme Court justices -- for example, Clarence Thomas -- who was passed through without a supermajority. There was no cloture process or extended debate requested by those who opposed him.

It was considered a privilege to exercised -- that is, the privilege of delaying the Senate so that you could continue to make your points was considered a precious privilege to be exercised upon very rare occasion. That social contract has been eliminated. And members of the Senate are ready to make their objection to the regular order of 51 on everything, and often many times on a single bill, and that has done what you've just described, which is it has turned the Senate into a supermajority body. And for all those who say, do not disrupt the tradition of the Senate, the response is, the tradition of the Senate has never been for it to be a supermajority body.

Merkley: To give you one little factoid here: When Lyndon Baines Johnson was in the Senate, the time he was the Majority Leader from 1954 to 1961, in that entire six-year period, he only attempted to cut off debate, filing cloture, one time. The last two years, Harry Reid had to do that 84 times.

So we've taken something that was an extraordinary rare expression of opposition -- where you went down to the floor and you did everything you could to persuade the American people and your own constituents as to your point of view -- now we don't do that. Now the only filibuster -- the only filibuster I think I've really seen, a true filibuster in the Senate tradition, in the two years I've been here is what happened with Bernie Sanders in the last couple of days, where he took the floor for approximately eight hours or more to actually talk about the tax package.

Most of the time, we see this in a secret way, when you look at C-SPAN2 and you're looking at the Senate, you see a quorum call, the post-cloture debate time -- that time is not being utilized for debate, and that has rendered the Senate a broken institution.

Merkley also talked about the dysfunction that occurs after a cloture vote -- that is, a vote to end the debate and thus the filibuster -- fails to reach the 60-vote threshold:

Merkley: You can think of a cloture vote that fails as the following: 41 senators have said they want to continue debate. When that happens, under current rules, we do not have ongoing debate. People just leave the floor and we are let with a quorum call. There's nothing to compel senators to actually engage in the debate that they have said they want to have. There are a number of potential rules that could be used that exist currently, but each of them is trumped by some other procedural mechanism. And that's why you don't see continuous debate after a cloture call. ...

The advantage of continuous debate is that it honors the purpose of the cloture vote, which was to have debate. The other advantage is that it says to the American people: 'Here is my position. This is why I'm not ready to have a vote yet. This is what is most important. Here is my case.' In other words, senators stand on the floor, literally stand on the floor and make their case to the American public. And the American public and their colleagues can say, 'You're a hero' or 'You're a bum.' And provide that kind of feedback to all of the senators, who will have to vote on a subsequent cloture vote at some point down the line. And if no one has anything left to say, then the whole purpose of the post-cloture debate is concluded -- that is, if no senator at some point is ready to continue the debate, then we should automatically go to a majority vote.

This would get rid of many of the frivolous objections. And just to give you a sense of this -- we just had a food safety bill in which three filibusters were launched, delaying the work of the Senate by three weeks. Each objection to the regular order creates a one-week delay and a 60-vote hurdle. And yet that was on a bill that had substantial bipartisan support, it was not, if you will, one of the bills that has grave national consequences one direction or the other. So if, on a simple, ordinary bill, you can have three cloture motions, you can imagine the type of delay that has resulted in we have no appropriations bills, why we don't have a budget that was debated, and so on and so forth. Why so many House bills come here to die.

Aas Greg Sargent reports today, there is some quiet momentum building in support of these reforms, especially given the galling impotency of the past couple of weeks:

The key thing that's happening is that groups pushing to reform the filibuster are now laying down a clear roadmap to action, and are setting their sights on clearly defined common-sense reforms that seem eminently achievable if enough political will gathers to make them happen. For instance, a range of lefty groups and powerful labor unions like AFL-CIO and SEIU recently spelled out a statement of core principles that would form the bedrock of reform.

The underlying ideas here are twofold: First, there's Senator Tom Udall's insight that each Congress has the power under the Constitution to set its own rules. And second, Senator Jeff Merkley, one of a new crop of younger reform-minded Senators, is getting traction with a proposal of simple, achievable reforms to encourage as much open debate as possible, mainly by forcing Senators to actually filibuster.

Of course, as anyone even casually familiar with the inner workings of the Senate will tell you, the best-intentioned ideas can -- and often do -- disappear without ever getting acted on, for reasons that no one can explain. But it's certainly noteworthy that a real movement seems to be taking shape to prevent that from happening this time around.

Tom Harkin is predicting some serious fireworks on Jan. 5:

Senate Democrats will make a dramatic effort to reform the rules of the chamber when the next Congress begins, one of the body's primary filibuster-reform advocates said Wednesday morning.

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who has championed a weakening of the procedural mechanism that allows the minority party to hold up legislation, predicted "fireworks" on Jan. 5, 2011 -- the day on which the Senate can, he argued, revamp its rules by a simple majority vote.

"There could be some fireworks. There could be some fireworks on January fifth," Harkin said at a pro-reform event sponsored by several like-minded organizations. "I'm going to be there. I'm armed. I'm armed with a lot of history, and I know the rules, and I know the procedures too, so we will see what happens on the fifth."

"[Former Sen.] Robert Byrd in 1975, the last time that last time that we changed the rules and [brought the filibuster threshold] from 67 [votes] down to 60, actually stated on the floor that a majority, 51 senators, could change the rules. And that's what we intend to do and that is what we are working on right now. We are coming on the fifth to basically send a motion to the vice president ... that will change the rules and there is a procedure to provide 51 votes to do that. Robert Byrd said that in 1975 and that's what we are going to try to do."

Essentially, that path to reform requires Vice President Joe Biden -- who supports weakening the filibuster -- to rule on the first day of the next session that the Senate has the authority to write its own rules. Republicans, presumably, would immediately move to object, but Democrats could then move to table the objection, setting up a key up-or-down vote. If 50 Democrats voted to table the objection, the Senate would then move to a vote on a new set of rules, which could be approved by a simple majority.

Keep your fingers crossed. And call your senators and buck them up.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

McCain says he wants to see 'an uprising' of angry Tea Partiers against omnibus bill

-- by Dave

John McCain went on Sean Hannity's show last night to rail like an aging old crank again, this time against Republicans' pet target of the week: the omnibus spending bill making its way through the lame-duck session of Congress. In the process, he seemed to be calling out the Tea Party troops to action:

McCain: It's a direct repudiation of the voters of last November 2, it is a direct insult, to stick their thumb right in their eye. I was on the phone with the Tea Partiers all over Arizona today. They are enraged. They are outraged. And I want to see an uprising all over this country. The same people that caused the victories, we've got to hold these people to account.

He's actually going to have to hope that none of his newfound Tea Partying friends -- remember, they weren't always so close, back when J.D. Hayworth was making him sweat -- actually heed his call in the way some of them are likely to.


[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.

Scrooge O'Reilly: Baby Jesus Would Not Want Us to Worry Our Pretty Heads About the Poor

-- by Dave

At the ominous word “liberality,” Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”

“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned—they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

A Christmas Carol

Bill O'Reilly's most recent column:

"Keep Christ in Unemployment"

There comes a time when compassion can cause disaster. If you open your home to scores of homeless folks, you will not have a home for long. There is a capacity problem for every noble intent.

America remains the land of opportunity, but you have to work for it. The unemployment rate for college graduates is 5%. For high school drop-outs, it is 16%. Personal responsibility is usually the driving force behind success. But there are millions of Americans who are not responsible, and the cold truth is that the rest of us cannot afford to support them.

Every fair-minded person should support government safety nets for people who need assistance through no fault of their own. But guys like McDermott don't make distinctions like that. For them, the baby Jesus wants us to "provide," no matter what the circumstance. But being a Christian, I know that while Jesus promoted charity at the highest level, he was not self-destructive.

The Lord helps those who help themselves. Does he not?

Since that aphorism appears in no known religious work -- particularly not any known Scripture -- we'll refer instead to what Jesus actually said about the poor. And about rich men like Bill O'Reilly.


[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]

Gay-hating fundamentalists are not happy about being designated 'hate groups' by the SPLC

-- by Dave

When right-wingers got wind of the fact that the Southern Poverty Law Center had designated a number of Religious Right organizations who specialize in rhetorically bashing gays and lesbians as hate groups, they and their allies on the Right came more or less unglued.

Now, rather than face up to the substance of the accusations, they're choosing to demonize the SPLC and their critics. Par for the course for this crowd.

What was especially noteworthy about the SPLC report was that it zeroed in on the fundamental falsity of the material attacking people in the LGBT community that these so-called "Christian" organizations distribute maliciously and knowingly. That is, they are lying baldfacedly, and they frankly seem not to care. Evidently, that 9th Commandment about bearing false witness and all that is now a disposable rule.

Jeremy Hooper noted that the Family Research Council -- one of the largest of the groups named -- launched a counteroffensive called "Stop Hating/Start Debating," with a press release that begins thus:

The surest sign one is losing a debate is to resort to character assassination. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal fundraising machine whose tactics have been condemned by observers across the political spectrum, is doing just that.

The hypocrisy, of course, is not just a laughable bug, but a definitive feature of these groups. Alvin McEwen at Pam's House Blend enumerates just how many ways the FRC's opening salvo is a farce.

Their political friends leapt into action too. Cliff Kincaid called the SPLC's hate-group designation a "racket" by conniving liberals. And Peter LaBarbera at Americans for Truth About Homosexuality -- also one of the designated groups -- complained that the SPLC never seems to pick on mean gay groups that fight back against the fundamentalist assault. Meanwhile, of course, he doubles down by claiming that all the lies against LGBT folks enumerated by the SPLC are in fact actually true. Uh-huh.

Perhaps the funniest attack came from Ed Meese at CNS News:

Former Attorney General Edwin Meese says it is “despicable” for the Southern Poverty Law Center to classify the Family Research Council and a dozen other top conservative organizations as “hate groups” similar to the Ku Klux Klan.

“I think it’s ridiculous,” Meese told CNSNews.com about the list published by the SPLC. “I know about seven or eight of those groups. I know the people very well. I know the groups very well, I’ve worked with them over the years, and I think it actually undermines the credibility of the Southern Poverty Law Center to make such a statement.”

Last week, the Southern Policy Law Center announced that it was going to classify the Family Research Council and 12 other organizations as “hate groups” because of their positions on homosexuality.

Among the groups being designated by the SPLC are the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission, Coral Ridge Ministries, Family Research Institute, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Illinois Family Institute, Liberty Counsel, MassResistance, National Organization for Marriage and the Traditional Values Coalition.

The SPLC said these organizations will be named to its "hate group" watch list.

But Meese said the Southern Poverty Law Center had cited no evidence whatsoever to show that the FRC or the other major pro-family conservative organizations were hate groups.


“I think it is attacking them for exercising their freedom of speech and their freedom of religion,” said Meese, who served as U.S. attorney general during the Reagan administration, and is currently the Ronald Reagan distinguished fellow in public policy and chairman of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

“I know that none of these groups, in anyone’s wildest imagination, could be thought of as hate groups,” Meese told CNSNews.com.

“All of the groups that I know of--and that’s about half of them--take the traditional biblical views of homosexuality, which is not at all unusual," he said. "And I think it is despicable of an organization that purports to be a civil liberties organization to make those kinds of attacks.”

The CNS story then goes on to include similar whining from Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage, whom similarly "said the announcement contains nothing that even hints at why the groups are being compared to the KKK."

Evidently, neither Meese nor Gallagher bothered to actually read the report. Because it lays out quite a bit of relevant information about these groups. For instance, here's the entry on the FRC:

*Family Research Council
Washington, D.C.

Started as a small think tank in 1983, the Family Research Council (FRC) merged in 1988 with the much larger religious-right group Focus on the Family in 1988, and brought on Gary Bauer, former U.S. undersecretary of education under Ronald Reagan, as president. In 1992, the two groups legally separated to protect Focus on the Family’s tax-exempt status, although Focus founder James Dobson and two other Focus officials were placed on the FRC’s newly independent board. By that time, FRC had become a powerful group on its own.

Headed since 2003 by former Louisiana State Rep. Tony Perkins, the FRC has been a font of anti-gay propaganda throughout its history. It relies on the work of Robert Knight, who also worked at Concerned Women for America but now is at Coral Ridge Ministries (see above for both), along with that of FRC senior research fellows Tim Dailey (hired in 1999) and Peter Sprigg (2001). Both Dailey and Sprigg have pushed false accusations linking gay men to pedophilia: Sprigg has written that most men who engage in same-sex child molestation “identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual,” and Dailey and Sprigg devoted an entire chapter of their 2004 book Getting It Straight to similar material. The men claimed that “homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses” and similarly asserted that “homosexuals are attracted in inordinate numbers to boys.”

That’s the least of it. In a 1999 publication (Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex With Boys) that has since disappeared from its website, the FRC claimed that “one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual order,” according to unrefuted research by AMERICAblog. The same publication argued that “homosexual activists publicly disassociate themselves from pedophiles as part of a public relations strategy.” FRC offered no evidence for these remarkable assertions, and has never publicly retracted the allegations. (The American Psychological Association, among others, has concluded that “homosexual men are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.”)

In fact, in a Nov. 30, 2010, debate on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” between Perkins and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok, Perkins defended FRC’s association of gay men with pedophilia, saying: “If you look at the American College of Pediatricians, they say the research is overwhelming that homosexuality poses a danger to children. So Mark is wrong. He needs to go back and do his own research.” In fact, the college, despite its hifalutin name, is a tiny, explicitly religious-right breakaway group from the American Academy of Pediatrics, the 60,000-member association of the profession. Publications of the American College of Pediatricians, which has some 200 members, have been roundly attacked by leading scientific authorities who say they are baseless and accuse the college of distorting and misrepresenting their work.

Elsewhere, according to AMERICAblog, Knight, while working at the FRC, claimed that “[t]here is a strong current of pedophilia in the homosexual subculture. … [T]hey want to promote a promiscuous society.” AMERICAblog also reported that then-FRC official Yvette Cantu, in an interview published on Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s website, said, “If they [gays and lesbians] had children, what would happen when they were too busy having their sex parties?”

More recently, in March 2008, Sprigg, responding to a question about uniting gay partners during the immigration process, said: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.” He later apologized, but then went on, last February, to tell MSNBC host Chris Matthews, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Matthews asked. “Yes,” Sprigg replied. At around the same time, Sprigg claimed that allowing gay people to serve openly in the military would lead to an increase in gay-on-straight sexual assaults.

Perkins has his own unusual history. In 1996, while managing the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican State Rep. Louis “Woody” Jenkins of Louisiana, Perkins paid $82,500 to use the mailing list of former Klan chieftain David Duke. The campaign was fined $3,000 (reduced from $82,500) after Perkins and Jenkins filed false disclosure forms in a bid to hide the link to Duke. Five years later, on May 17, 2001, Perkins gave a speech to the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group that has described black people as a “retrograde species of humanity.” Perkins claimed not to know the group’s ideology at the time, but it had been widely publicized in Louisiana and the nation. In 1999, after Republican House Speaker Trent Lott was embroiled in a national scandal over his ties to the group, GOP chairman Jim Nicholson urged Republicans to quit the CCC because of its “racist views.” That statement and the nationally publicized Lott controversy came two years before Perkins’ 2001 speech.

Here's an even more detailed file on the FRC's hatemongering.

And here's the report's entry for Maggie Gallagher's outfit:

National Organization for Marriage
Princeton, N.J.

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), which is dedicated to fighting same-sex marriage in state legislatures, was organized in 2007 by conservative syndicated columnist Maggie Gallagher and Princeton University politics professor Robert George. George is an influential Christian thinker who co-authored the 2009 “Manhattan Declaration,” a manifesto developed after a New York meeting of conservative church leaders that “promises resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same sex marriage.”

NOM’s first public campaign was in 2008, supporting California’s Proposition 8, which sought to invalidate same-sex marriage in that state. It was widely mocked, including in a parody by satirist Stephen Colbert, for the “Gathering Storm” video ad it produced at the time. Set to somber music and a dark and stormy background, the ad had actors expressing fears that gay activism would “take away” their rights, change their lifestyle, and force homosexuality on their kids.

The group, whose president is now former executive director Brian Brown, has become considerably more sophisticated since then, emphasizing its respect for homosexuals. “Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose,” NOM says on its website, “[but] they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.”

For a time, NOM’s name was used by a bus driver named Louis Marinelli, who drove a van for NOM’s “Summer for Marriage Tour” this year. Marinelli called himself a “NOM strategist” and sent out electronic messages under the NOM logo that repeated falsehoods about homosexuals being pedophiles and gay men having extremely short lifespans. In homemade videos posted on his own YouTube page, he said same-sex marriage would lead to “prostitution, pedophilia and polygamy.” But this July, NOM said it was not associated with Marinelli.

Maybe Maggie Gallagher and Ed Meese don't understand that the chief way the Ku Klux Klan operates these days, a la David Duke, is to claim disingenuously that it is only "standing up for white culture" while doing so by expending most of its energy demonizing and attempting to disenfranchise anyone who is not white. Similarly, these anti-gay hate groups claim that they're only standing up for Christianity, but they do so by demonizing and attempting to disenfranchise anyone who is gay. That alone is why your fundamentalist friends are considered to have organized hate groups.

Likewise, we heard from Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel -- the guy who described gay relationships thus: "one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love’ " -- in the Moonie Times, arguing that the SPLC was attacking these groups because it is a liberal outfit dedicated to promoting the gay agenda. And besides, he says, if you think about it, they're trying to make gay-bashers out to be Nazis:

Of course, the tired goal of this silly meme is to associate in the public mind's eye mainstream conservative social values with racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazism. The ironic result, however, is that, as typically occurs with such ad hominem and hyperbolic attacks, the attacker ends up marginalizing himself and galvanizing his intended target (I'm rubber, you're glue and all that).

Hence, beyond a self-aggrandizing liberal echo chamber, the SPLC - and by extension the greater "progressive" movement - has become largely, as it stews in its own radicalism, just another punch line.

It's often said that the first to call the other a Nazi has lost the argument.

Congratulations, conservative America: They're calling you a Nazi. Carry on.

This is pretty ironic, when you think about it: as Warren Throckmorton points out, the canard that gays are Nazis is in fact one of the common myths bandied about by fundamentalist gay-bashers.

As Throckmorton -- himself a dedicated Christian advocate, but not a hater -- explains, the people on this list should be working to repair their badly damaged reputations as Christians that the hate-group designation represents, rather than simply doubling down by insisting that their lies are true and telling even MORE lies:

The groups which now populate the SPLC list specialize in ad hominem and hyperbolic attacks. Claims that gays die 20+ years early, that they are child abusers, that they are inherently diseased, and responsible for the Holocaust are the kinds of ad hominem and hyperbolic attacks which lead thoughful people, liberal and conservative, to question the credibility of those making the claims.

Christian groups should care about nuance and bearing honest witness. They should avoid misleading stereotypes and strive for accuracy in fact claims. When they don’t, they hurt the church and the good work that others are doing. Being designated a hate group is a serious matter and one which should cause reflection about the charges and not reckless defensiveness.

This is not the only serious Christian response I've seen. A woman named Kathy Baldock, who writes a Christian blog called Canyon Walker Connections, wrote a devastating post examining the Religious Right's lies about gays and lesbians:

I listened to Tony Perkins, President of FRC, on Fox and Friends as he responded to the dishonor announced last week on being place on the SPLC’s Hate Groups list. I talked to my computer screen and boiled at his smiling, what-me? attitude. No, Mr. Perkins, FRC is not on the list because you are a conservative group. Your actions have placed you there. No, Mr. Perkins, the left is not trying to shut down the debate or take away your freedom of religion. GLBT people are fighting for what the mascot-version-God aside you says they deserve—equality. Religious straight conservatives (and I am one) will still be able to get married, have children, serve in the military and attend houses of worship of their choice. No one wants to strip us of any of those rights; they just want the same rights, not special rights, not more rights, not gay rights—the same rights. Mr. Perkins, you drag God into your battle as an accomplice and, to me, that is even more despicable than your messages. You use God as your validation, saying you are fighting to protect His Judeo-Christian values. You and FRC deserve to be called dangerous and hateful; you and FRC have earned it.

Indeed they have. And they're doing nothing to escape the condemnation that follows.

[Cross-posted at Crooks and Liars.]