h/t ThinkProgress

Why anyone disputes Markos' characterization of these lunatics as American Taliban is beyond me. This isn't political speech; it's hate speech.

Since they're so into claiming policies are being "shoved down their throats", all I can say is that I hope they all choke on it.

Local members of the Tea Party sponsored a float, decorated to look like a Radio Flyer wagon, pulled behind a truck. In that truck a number of people sat holding signs that read everything from “Obama Care” and “Healthcare Take Over” to “Wasted Tax Money.”

But the thing that got people upset was a man in shirt and tie wearing a mask of President Barack Obama. In one hand he held a sign that read “Hey Kids! Thanks for paying out debt!” In the other hand he held a horse riding crop which he snapped at a young teen in front of him pretending to pull the wagon by the handle wearing a shirt that read “Future Tax Payer.”

Don't ever forget that Jenny Beth Martin, co-head of the Tea Party Patriots, received a $510,000 tax bailout. Biggest. lying. hypocrite. ever.

Goldie at Horses Ass has more.

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"How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions." -- Logan Pearsall Smith.

Bill O'Reilly was all a-squawk yesterday at the prospect that someone might point out what's obvious to everyone who's watched the growing fake "controversy" over the NYC "Ground Zero" mosque -- namely, that the predicate of people's objections to it revolve around their irrational and bigoted eagerness to lump peaceful American Muslims in with a tiny handful of violent radicals.

O'Reilly: Here's the question. How does the far left survive in this country? How? That crew is so hateful, so harmful to the nation, it's amazing they have any platform at all. If you oppose gay marriage, you're a homophobe. If you want a secure southern border, you are anti-Hispanic. And now, if you think building a mosque two blocks away from Ground Zero is inappropriate, you are intolerant, an anti-Muslim bigot.

... Do you see what's happening here, ladies and gentlemen? The far left will never debate the merits of the issue. They simply attack and begin branding their opponents as racists, bigots, and un-American. Let's get down to it. There are thousands of Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11. Many of these people feel a Muslim display so near the attack zone is hurtful because fanatical Muslims killed their family and friends. So, where is the tolerance toward the 9/11 families? Where is the understanding and respect for their feelings?

President Obama well understands the emotions in play, which is why he will not comment on the so-called wisdom of building a mosque so close to Ground Zero. But the far left doesn't care about the wisdom of the project because they are promoting the fiction that America is mean to Muslims. Anything that makes U.S. policy seem oppressive is embraced by these loons.

Every poll says the majority of Americans believe the proposed mosque is simply not a good idea. Nobody I know wants to violate religious freedom. Nobody wants to persecute Muslims. Nobody wants to cause trouble. What we do want is a sane country. Again, I don't know how the far left continues to survive in the USA. And that's the Memo.

A little while later, he brought on Karl Rove to affix his seal of approval -- and he only confirmed that Republicans are sinking to the lowest kind of bigotry in this affair:

Rove: They're demonstrating that they're way out of touch with the American people. This is an issue in which the vast majority of American people believe there is a freedom of religion that is ingrained in our Constitution, and that right of freedom, of free expression of religion is best exercised by not building it here.

Look, we've got a free -- in that same First Amendment, there is a right of freedom of speech. Who believes that, say, skinheads should show up at a black sorority convention and scream bigoted remarks? Who believes that there is a right of freedom of assembly? Who believes, you know, that neo-Nazis should show up at the B'nai B'rith hotel and have their meeting in the same, you know, the next meeting room?

There are rights that everyone has that it would be prudent not to exercise them at certain times, and this right that they have to build a religious building where they want should be prudently exercised elsewhere.

It does seem that Rove doesn't actually believe there is freedom of assembly. In point of fact, we do allow neo-Nazis to hold rallies in racially inflamed communities, just as we allow the Fred Phelpses of the world to show up at the funerals of soldiers.

But it tells us everything we need to know about the right-wing perspective on this that he would blithely compare Muslims practicing their religion peacefully to neo-Nazis and skinheads -- as though they're moral equivalents.

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Sorry for the picture, but you'll understand later in the post.

UPDATE: Pezzi is the King of the Internet!

When I did a panel with Breitbart, he got off on yelling the word "racist" over and over again because he felt that would weaken the meaning behind the word. Conservatives just hate being called racists for some reason. Hmmmmm, wonder why. Breitbart, after all, has only spent most of his time and resources attacking organizations that benefit African Americans and poor people -- all so he can prove that the real racists in post-racial America are black and brown people. Instead of waving the 'Bloody Shirt,' he should just be upfront about his loathing of nonwhites. You can read more about this in Chapter 4 of our book, Over The Cliff.

Breitbart's latest hire, Kevin Pezzi, represents what this man is all about. You know the old cliche, Be all that you can be? Well, he's everything a wingnut could be. And he's even cured cancer!

(corrected) Ben Dimiero & Eric Hananoki: Meet Breitbart's Sherrod writer: Racist sexual "expert" and inventor (who cured cancer)

In two posts on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment website, Dr. Kevin Pezzi smears Shirley Sherrod as a racist, claiming that "if someone deserves to be put on a pedestal for overcoming racism, it isn't Sherrod." The racism criticism is ironic coming from Pezzi, who has repeatedly used racial epithets like "Japs" and "Chinks," and claimed Native and African Americans should have been grateful for their subjugation by whites.

Pezzi, who says that "Breitbart asked me to write for BigGovernment.com," has a peculiar self-described history. Pezzi claims to be responsible for "over 850 inventions" and schemes such as a "magic bullet" for cancer, a "robotic chef," and sexual inventions like "penile enlargement techniques" and "ways to tighten the vagina" (because "men like women with tight vaginas"). Pezzi has started multiple websites, from term paper helpers to a sexual help site that answers "your questions about sexual attraction, pleasure, performance, and libido" (Pezzi is qualified to do so because "No doctor in the world knows more about sexual pleasure than I do").

Pezzi also claims to have "beaten Bill Gates" on a math aptitude test, turned down a blind date with Katie Couric, and says he's "bigger than some porno stars."...read on

Read all about him in Eric's post, it's almost unbelievable. And for the kicker, he's a major league sock puppet to boot.

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Mark Williams -- having seen his Tea Party Express booted from the National Tea Party Foundation for his nakedly racist screed about "coloreds" -- went on CNN Newsroom with Don Lemon yesterday and announced he was stepping down as the TPE spokesman. In the process, demonstrated exactly why the Tea Parties cannot distance themselves from their racists within quite as easily as they'd like:

LEMON: So I want to ask you, why did you resign from the Tea Party Express?

WILLIAMS: To take the spotlight off of me. It's a movement. It's not about me. It's not about my ego. It's not about my fat head. I did succeed in getting the NAACP to the table. And by the way this tea party federation which represents exactly 40 groups out of 5,000, I was never a member of. I have no idea who they are, but they threw me out.

Hmmmm. This is most peculiar, since the press release announcing the formation of the National Tea Party Foundation in April 2009 lists the Tea Party Express as one of its founding member organizations. And I can't find any indication the Tea Party Express ever indicated that this listing was in error.

In any event, Williams then went on to explain that he was still very much a Tea Party activist:

LEMON: OK. So listen, if you say that you wanted to take the spotlight off of you, I have to ask you then why did you accept this interview if you don't want to be in the spotlight?

WILLIAMS: I weaselled on you last time. The reason why I canceled last time was because the day before David Webb went on TV and did all this nonsense about kicking me out of a group I never belonged to, I had sat down with the Urban League, the NAACP, Reverend Al and a bunch of other people and we reached an agreement to put all the rancor behind us and find common ground.

This guy Webb, looking for headlines, cashing in, whatever it was, decided he would chime in. That makes me the issue when the issue should really be America and what we're working to save.

LEMON: OK.

WILLIAMS: I am still a Tea Partier. I just don't speak officially for the Tea Party Express.

And then he demonstrated exactly the kind of racist ignorance that is embedded deeply in the movement he formerly represented:

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[WARNING: Audio not safe for work.]

It's obvious why Andrew Breitbart successfully smeared Shirley Sherrod on utterly fake grounds -- he wants desperately to prove that it's the NAACP is actually a racist organization, after its condemnation of racism within the Tea Parties. Indeed, this has been a long-running schtick of Breitbart's -- that the "real" racists are not white people, but people of color.

He was even on CNN yesterday whining that "It is un-American" that the NAACP accused the Tea Party movement of racism "absent evidence".

Um, actually, Andrew, the NAACP provided plenty of evidence of racism within its ranks.

And then, as if to prove the point, a caller who clearly is an angry Tea Partier left the following message at NAACP's Hollywood bureau:

Caller: Of course you won't answer the phone yourself. Because you're chickens--t racist n---ers. The entire black race is nothing but a have-not bunch of bums. You can't work for yourselves. All you do is suck off the white man. F--k you, motherf---er! F--k you! You want a race war, you got it, motherf---er! You want to f---ing kill our babies, and kill white people? You, you're gonna f---in' -- the streets will run red with blood. The streets will run red with your blood. F--k you!

Not only was this caller severely lacking in the logical consistency department -- first he calls the NAACP racist, then embarks on a rant about "the entire black race" (in this regard, he's a lot like the typical Fox pundit). But the reference to "kill our babies" and "kill white people" was also an obvious reference to that incendiary video Fox News ran as a way of ginning up racial hatred and resentment among its white audience.

In other words, they fully succeeded. They should be so proud.

And is it just me, or does this guy actually sound a lot like Breitbart himself? Hmmmmmmm.

[H/t Common Dreams.]

Even for Mark Williams, this is bizarre. In an interview with NPR, he accused the NAACP of wanting racism to continue because it is profitable for them.

Now to a war of words between the Tea Party and the country's largest civil rights group. At its annual convention in Kansas City, the NAACP approved a resolution condemning what it calls racist elements within the Tea Party. Tea Party leaders dispute the charge, as NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.

CHERYL CORLEY: Here's how this fray began. NAACP President Benjamin Jealous issued this challenge to the Tea Party...

Mr. BENJAMIN JEALOUS (President, NAACP): You must expel the bigots and racists in your ranks or take full responsibility for all of their actions.

CORLEY: Last night, delegates at the convention unanimously approved a resolution echoing Jealous's words. It said that while the group believed in freedom of assembly and people raising their voices in democracy, the Tea Party should repudiate bigoted statements, images and any racist leaders.

Mr. MARK WILLIAMS (Spokesman, Tea Party Express): I don't recall the NAACP speaking out when George Bush was portrayed as curious George or as the Joker.

CORLEY: Mark Williams is a national spokesman for the Tea Party Express.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I don't recall the NAACP ever standing up and saying that we needed to, you know, civilize discourse when Republicans were in the White House.

CORLEY: A number of Tea Party leaders say they don't tolerate racist displays. And Williams contends that it's actually the NAACP that's bigoted.

Mr. WILLIAMS: You're dealing with people who are professional race baiters, who make a very good living off of this kind of thing. They make more money off of race than any slave trader ever. It's time groups like the NAACP went to the trash heap of history where they belong, with all the other vile racist groups that emerged in our history.

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In New Hampshire, voters have an interesting choice. Ryan J. Murdough is campaigning not on change so much as similarity. His message: Keep New Hampshire white.

"I would like to preserve what we have before it gets totally out of control," Murdough, a 30-year-old father of two young boys, said last week. "The more it becomes non-white, the more it's going to become a much different place to live, for white people especially."

Well, yes. It will be far more interesting, peppered with culture and stories and music and people who come from a different place but are still people. Only, Ryan just doesn't see it that way.

Whatever you do, don't call Ryan a racist. He's not a racist, he claims, because racists have to hate others. He doesn't hate them; he just doesn't want them in his town.

So please, don't call him a racist. He says that's not true.

"I would ask you about your version of racist," Murdough said. "The word does not have a specific definition. If someone says, 'You seem to hate people who aren't white,'

I say no, so I can't really be a racist, because I don't hate them. I just don't want to live around areas that are heavily, predominantly non-white."

Ahem. He's dead wrong on this one. Here's the Merriam-Webster definition of racism:

1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination

So he's not a white supremacist (though that is certainly questionable). He's clearly a racist, simply by arguing for discrimination against people who are 'non-white'.

Ryan Murdough, in his own written words:

For far too long white Americans have been told that diversity is something beneficial to their existence. Statistics prove that the opposite is true. New Hampshire residents must seek to preserve their racial identity if we want future generations to have to possibility to live in such a great state. Affirmative action, illegal and legal non-white immigration, anti-white public school systems, and an anti-white media have done much damage to the United States of America and especially New Hampshire. It is time for white people in New Hampshire and across the country to take a stand. We are only 8 percent of the world's population and we need our own homeland, just like any other non-white group of people deserve their own homeland.

What will happen to New Hampshire once it is only 60, 50 or 40 percent white? Statistics show that areas with high non-white populations have higher rates of violent crime. New Hampshire has one of the lowest rates of violent crime in the country, but that will change as the white population percentage declines and the non-white population percentage increases.

There are no words, no arguments, no gushing-forth of facts and statistics that I could possibly bring forth to change his mind. But as a white person living in a diverse area with all of the richness different backgrounds, colors and nationalities bring, I could not disagree with his premise more.

At least New Hampshire Republicans aren't afraid to embrace what Tea Partiers deny, but clearly represent: A small contingent of scared white folks.

By the way, is the name Murdough a colloquial form of Murdoch? It would explain a lot.

I'm not sure who is more evil: Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin. Both have an uncanny ability to sound high-pitched shrill dog whistles for their fellow racists.

Michele Bachmann spoke in Colorado at the Western Conservative Conference over the weekend, and in Bachmann-like fashion, dropped a few claims that just made me shudder. This one, in particular:

"'We are determined to live free or not at all. And we are resolved that posterity shall never reproach us with having brought slaves into the world,'" Bachmann read from founding father John Jay , ending her reading with the statement, "We will talk a little bit about what has transpired in the last 18 months and would we count what has transpired into turning our country into a nation of slaves."

She then launches into the requisite Tea Party theme of tyranny, pointing specifically to health care reform as some sort of tyrannical monster threatening the nation. (Cue death panels.)

But really, it's worth looking at her agenda, because Bachmann is as wingnut crazy as Sharron Angle:

“We reform social security, then we reform Medicare, then we pare back welfare to the truly needy, for the truly disabled, because, yes, we can make that determination,” she said. “Close and secure American boarders, cut the budget, limit our foreign entanglements for America, then we massively cut spending first, then we cut taxes.” Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39608.html#ixzz0tamKLmmS

A closer look, restated with real terms would read like this:

We privatize Social Security, then we privatize Medicare, then we starve those most needy, we let the disabled twist in the wind. Then we leave our troops twisting in the wind while cutting all social programs but not touching military spending. Then we give it all to our corporate masters.

In case you're curious, here's a list of Michele Bachmann's owners.

Tarryl Clark is within striking range. Let's push her over the top and send Michele home to commiserate with half-Governor Palin.

The Reid Report: Rand Paul, the Joe the Plumber of eye doctors

Eunomia: U.S. hawks suddenly discover the futility of NATO

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Because there are no racists...

Check out the Stand-Up Economist (h/t Batocchio)

Manifesto Joe's Texas Blues: Colorado Springs is what happens when rich twits refuse to pay taxes

onegoodmove: Freedom vs. Suckas

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Michael Steele is the gift that keeps on giving. When I ran into him during the DNC convention at an airport in Denver, he sounded like an idiot as we had an exchange about Sarah Palin's nomination, but I didn't think he was this thick.

On ABC's GMA, Steele said that he was being singled out in GOP politics because he's black. He's calling Republicans racists. Wow, he's joining us except in a much deeper way because I've been calling many in the Tea Party movement racist. In his case....

He's indicting the whole Republican party:

The embattled chairman played the race card today when asked on "Good Morning America" if he has a slimmer margin of error because he is African American.

"The honest answer is, 'yes,'" he said. "Barack Obama has a slimmer margin. A lot of folks do. It's a different role for me to play and others to play and that's just the reality of it. But you take that as part of the nature of it."

"My view on politics is much more grassroots oriented, it's not old boy network oriented, so I tend to, you know, come at it a little bit stronger, a little bit more street-wise, if you will. That's rubbed some feathers the wrong way," Steele told "GMA's" George Stephanopoulos.

You can call Steele many things, but street-wise ain't it.

Robert Gibbs called his remarks silly and said this:

GOP Chairman Michael Steele shouldn’t blame criticism of his actions on race, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday. Gibbs called Steele’s remark that criticism of his leadership is motivated by race “silly” during a meeting with reporters. “I think Michael Steele’s problem isn’t the race card, it’s the credit card,” Gibbs added.

Oliver Willis says:

I love Steele trying to compare himself to President Obama, when in fact Steele isn’t even a grub on the other side of the President’s shoe. And then he plays the race card, while he’s the head of a party packed to the gills with racist detractors of the President. Such is the life of the black Republican: Nobody actually likes you.

Many people have said the only reason he still has his job because of all the embarrassing things that have hit the RNC since he took over is because he's black and the GOP doesn't want to look like racists if they fire him. It appears he's going to hold that over their heads.