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Glenn Beck must have been feeling the pressure from Virginia Foxx yesterday in the Absurd Wingnuttery Championships. So, after Foxx compared the liberal health-care reform package working its way through Congress to terrorism, Beck went on his Fox News show and compared the package to the 9/11 attacks:

Beck: On 9/11, we experienced a feeling we had never had before -- when the buildings and our markets and the economy came falling down around our ears, we realized -- 'Oh my gosh. Our country isn't unsinkable.'

We came, on that day, to the understanding that this Republic is fragile. Here we are now, a decade later. I'm on the air again, warning you that our government cannot sustain our massive spending. The system will collapse if we continue down this progressive path.

Ten years ago, I could have shouted every single day about Osama bin Laden and his wacky, crazy threats to kill Americans in New York. And no one would have been willing to stand in line two hours while some security officers made grandma take her shoes off. No one would have done it.

But don't you see -- while the government is still not willing to do these things, today, America is different. America has changed. Washington, we're not going to let you get away with it anymore.

Look, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Conservatives are awake. 912ers are willing to do the hard things. We know what this means. We're taking time out of our busy lives, taking time away from their families, they're attending town-hall meetings -- you think they wanna do that? They are calling their representatives -- how many times do we have to be yelled at by your people in Washington? to work against the enactment of health care reform.

They are reading 2,000-page health-care bills on the weekend. They 912ers are willing to stand in line and take our shoes off before the plane actually hits the tower.

Glenn Beck has a long history of exploiting the 9/11 tragedy for the sake of ratings and rantings. (Who could forget his encomium to the widows? "It took me about a year to start hating the 9/11 victims' families.")

Indeed, you could make the case that his current stellar rise was built on such exploitation. Beck was a nobody until he started making incendiary remarks about Muslims on air and attacking liberals for their insufficient patriotism after 9/11 and cheerleading the Iraq invasion as a post-9/11 necessity. It's what made him famous in the first place.

And now he's springboarding from that to leading an open revolt against the liberal policies Americans just voted to implement, throwing a tantrum because no one believes in disproven and discredited conservative dogma anymore. No one, that is, except Glenn Beck and his hapless followers.

Okay, maybe requiring minimum IQs as a standard to run for national office is a bit harsh, but can we at least insist that politicians prove that they are actually human and not some mindless automaton programmed with talking points?

(In the past,) Foxx has claimed Democratic reforms would mean seniors are “put to death by their government,” that health reform is a “distraction,” and that “there are no Americans who don’t have health care.” She was at it again today on the House floor, arguing that health reform is a greater threat to our country than “any terrorist right now in any country”:

Everywhere I go in my district, people tell me they are frightened. … I share that fear, and I believe they should be fearful. And I believe the greatest fear that we all should have to our freedom comes from this room — this very room — and what may happen later this week in terms of a tax increase bill masquerading as a health care bill. I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.

Normally, this is where my head makes a very loud thunk against my desk at the stupidity, but instead I just find myself really angry at this illogical fear mongering and ugliness. But what can you expect from a politician ugly enough to call Matthew Shepard's murder "a hoax"?. Obviously her lip service towards valuing life doesn't really mean any living people.

Rep. Foxx, the lives of those 44,000 Americans who die needlessly every year because they do not have insurance is blood on your hands.

A cute take on the iPhone Apps commercial, and a who's-who of Republican douchebaggery.

From The Colbert Report:

Prevent your valid criticisms of Barack Obama from being unfairly associated with racism by putting on a little blackwashing.

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Countdown's Worst Persons for Sept. 15, 2009 with winner Virginia Foxx. Runners up Dick Morris and Michelle Bachmann.

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First Rep. Virginia Foxx called Matthew Shepard's murder a 'hoax'. Then, she turned around and issued a non-apology apology:

I am especially sorry if his grieving family was offended by my statement. I was referring to a 2004 ABC News 20/20 report on Mr. Shepard's death. ABC's 20/20 report questioned the motivation of those responsible for his death. Referencing this media account may have been a mistake, but it was a mistake based on what I believed were reliable accounts.

But it wasn't a reliable account -- a fact that is obviously not well enough known, but still isn't any kind of excuse for uttering that kind of smear. And that's the problem. She spread a lie, a harmful, ugly lie, about Matt Shepard on the floor of the Congress, and she has never made plain to the public that it was a lie.

So you can't really blame Judy Shepard, Matthew's mother, for declining to accept: "She's apologizing for semantics."

Yesterday she tried again, and failed just as miserably to actually own up to the problem:

“In the heat of trying to handle the rule on the floor, anybody can use a bad choice of words. Saying that the event was a hoax was a poor choice of words,” Foxx said. “I’ve apologized for that. I never meant in any way to harm the family or offend the family or anybody else for that matter.”

“The term ‘hoax’ was a poor choice of words used in the discussion of the hate-crimes bill,” Foxx said in a statement. “Mr. Shepard’s death was nothing less than a tragedy, and those responsible for his death certainly deserved the punishment they received.”

As David Badash at the New Civil Rights Movement acutely observes:

Foxx’s newest “apology” demonstrates her lack of understanding of the basic issue confronting her: She lied about why Matthew Shepard was killed, and maligned the memory of a 21 year-old college student who, to the world, has become the face of a hate crime victim.

... One non-apology is bad, two demonstrates not only a lack of remorse or decency, but a total lack of understanding of the important and sensitive issues that confront our country.

You see, that ABC News report, by Elizabeth Vargas, was debunked at the time as a journalistic atrocity:

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Countdown's Worst Person segment with winners Bill O'Reilly, Karl Rove and repeat offender Virginia Foxx. Rep. Foxx has now blamed her remarks about Matthew Shepard on ABC News. Keith takes her to task for her extremely lame non-apology.

As noted previously here are the Congresswoman's phone numbers if you'd care to ask her for an actual apology.

Phone: (202) 225-2071
Phone: (336) 778-0211
Phone: (828) 265-0240

Update: I posted this last night at Video Cafe before this latest news came out. Tonight we learn that Rep. Foxx has issued a second non-apology. The Civil Rights Movement has more:

Just minutes ago, local Winston-Salem TV station WXII12 News released an exclusive interview with embattled Rep. Virginia Foxx, whose malicious comments about the circumstances surrounding the murder of Matthew Shepard have caused scorn and anger, and, according to her office, ten death threats.

Foxx’s newest “apology” demonstrates her lack of understanding of the basic issue confronting her: She lied about why Matthew Shepard was killed, and maligned the memory of a 21 year-old college student who, to the world, has become the face of a hate crime victim.

“In the heat of trying to handle the rule on the floor, anybody can use a bad choice of words. Saying that the event was a hoax was a poor choice of words,” Foxx said. “I’ve apologized for that. I never meant in any way to harm the family or offend the family or anybody else for that matter.”

Hardly a change from yesterday’s statement:

“The term ‘hoax’ was a poor choice of words used in the discussion of the hate-crimes bill,” Foxx said in a statement. “Mr. Shepard’s death was nothing less than a tragedy, and those responsible for his death certainly deserved the punishment they received.”

One non-apology is bad, two demonstrates not only a lack of remorse or decency, but a total lack of understanding of the important and sensitive issues that confront out country.

For more read the rest of their post here.

The lies that are told by right wing extremists know NO bounds. What Rep. Virginia Foxx said on the floor yesterday in attacking the hate-crimes bill was inexcusable. I will try to take some action against her.

From Media Matters Action Network:

Rep. Virginia Foxx Called Matthew Shepard Hate Crime "A Hoax"

Summary: On April 29, 2009, in a speech on the House floor, Rep. Virginia Foxx claimed that Matthew Shepard's death was merely the result of a robbery gone bad. While his killers Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson did rob him, they also admitted that they were well aware of his sexual orientation and pretended they were gay to lure him away from the bar he was in at the time. The most striking feature of the case, of course, is that during the course of a normal, simple robbery, the victim is not generally beaten, tied to a post, and left for dead.

Matthew Shepard's Death Was A Hate Crime, Not Simply A Robbery

Rep. Foxx: "The bill was named after a very unfortunate incident that happened, where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn't because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it's, it's really a hoax, that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills."[House Floor Speech, 4/29/09] All the evidence clearly indicates that this was a vicious hate crime, not a robbery gone bad...read on

America Blog says:

A hoax? Belittling the brutal murder of a 21-year-old college student? And Republicans wonder why their angry, hateful, pathetic party is now only 20% of the US population.

Dave N: I've written about the Shepard case a great deal, including in my book Death on the Fourth of July. Probably the chief source of misinformation about his murder was a 2004 ABC News report, which I debunked at the time:

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Countdown's Worst Person segment for April 29, 2009 with winners Michelle Bachmann, Rupert Murdoch and Virginia Foxx.

From AmericaBlog on Foxx:

The House Republican chosen to lead the charge against including women, people with disabilities, and gays in America's already-existing hate crimes law - existing law already counts violent crime based on the race, religion or national origin of the victim as a "hate crime" - just referred on the US House floor to Matthew Shepard's murder as "a hoax."

You will recall that Matthew Shepard was the young gay man in Laramie, Wyoming who, a decade ago, was tied to a fence, Jesus-like, pistol whipped in the head some 50 times, then left for dead in the cold fall night, only to be found a day later clinging to life. Shepard died five days later. Even though Shepard's murderers admitted that they killed him because he was gay, the far-right bigots who control the Republican party couldn't resist the opportunity to gay-bash Shepard one last time. Now by referring to his brutal murder as a hoax.

[...]

Watch the video for yourself. Then feel free to call this sorry excuse for a human being and tell her what you think of her bigotry.

Phone: (202) 225-2071
Phone: (336) 778-0211
Phone: (828) 265-0240