No More Mister Nice Blog: Erickson and Malkin: The People's Front of Judea

Stinque: Facebiter Bachmann & Fox News calling out to Brownshirts to storm congress and kill the health care reform bill.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition: Grassley on the National Criminal Justice Commission: "The point is, for them to do what we tell them to do. And one of the things that I was anticipating telling them not to do is to -- to recommend or study the legalization of drugs."

Liberal Values: Triple X home movie leads to settlement of Prejean suit

The Reality-Based Community: Absolute prosecutorial immunity?

Gordon notes that November 4 has been an important date in American history

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Michelle Malkin was the featured guest on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to talk about President Obama's address to the United Nations, and it was a sight to behold. A wretched, horrifyingly ugly sight, but yeah, a sight:

Malkin: He doesn't like this country very much. And I think you did a great video tour there of all of his wonderful hits on his "We Suck '09" tour, ah, so far. And this latest speech before the United Nations and its cast of villainous characters -- it was really a Legion of Doom parade that he dignified with his presence -- and he solidified his place in the international view as the Great Appeaser and the Groveler in Chief!

Hannity finds it "almost shocking" that "Obama was saying we're not going to force our values on you." Malkin correctly calls this "a rejection of American exceptionalism" -- as though that were a bad thing. Maybe that's one of the differences between movement conservatives and sane people: The latter do not harbor megalomaniacal visions of American power ruling the world and forcing our values on other nations.

Ah, but we liberals are so naive, Malkin says, because "hatred of America is never going to go away" -- which is probably true. On the other hand, policies that arrogantly inflame and deepen that hatred are not, you know, really in our best interests.

And then Malkin finishes with a flourish:

Malkin: With this speech, and over the last eight months with his policies of retreat and surrender, he has solidified his place as the weakest of weak leaders of modern American history. There's no question about it! They laugh at us! He is a laughingstock.

There she goes, projecting again.

At some point, you have to wonder whether these people understand that the angrier and more venomous and more hateful they become, the more disempowered they become? Because the only people who are going to be convinced by this kind of nastiness are already True Believers. And even some of them may take pause at how bottomless is the pit from which this stuff crawls.

So Verizon Wireless is one of sponsors of the Friends of America Rally this Labor Day weekend, an anti-environment, pro-coal event. Most of the other sponsors are in the coal industry and there is even a link to the National Mining Association’s anti-Waxman-Markey petition on the home page.

Credo Action wanted to know why Verizon would sponsor such a reactionary event with such polarizing figures--especially ones that have gone out of their way to foment violence. From their email:

Before we launched our campaign, CREDO Action reached out to Verizon Wireless to confirm its sponsorship of the pro-coal "Friends of America" rally. Becky Bond, our Political Director, then sent a cordial follow-up to give Verizon Wireless a heads-up that our campaign had launched. Verizon replied as follows:

"This is how our response is going over with the activists. Becky once lived in a tree for a while. At least now I know where the emails are coming from."
— James Gerace, VP of Corporate Communications at Verizon Wireless

You got that?

If you don't think that Verizon Wireless should support global warming deniers and practitioners of mountaintop removal mining, then Verizon Wireless thinks it's okay to dismiss your concerns because you must have "lived in a tree for a while."

If they're going to try to mock us for opposing right wing demagoguery, then we'll just have to make more noise.

So please take a minute to ask your friends and family to join this campaign, especially if they are Verizon Wireless customers.

Let's remember how this campaign started. Verizon Wireless apparently sees nothing wrong with co-sponsoring a rally put on by Massey Energy, the biggest violator of the Clean Water Act in history; sees nothing wrong with giving a platform to people who deny global warming; sees nothing wrong with giving the emcee microphone to Ted Nugent who famously said:

Obama, he's a piece of sh — . I told him to suck on my machine gun...Hey Hillary [Clinton] you might want to ride one of these [machine guns] into the sunset, you worthless b — ch.

Apparently these are the values and sentiments Verizon Wireless feels comfortable associating itself with. You can violate the law, pillage the Earth and publicly insult Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in the most vulgar way. Verizon Wireless is fine with that. But when we express common sense concerns about environmental stewardship, Verizon Wireless thinks we're tree-hugging nuts.

You know you want to give Verizon a piece of your mind. Remember, be polite. Show more class than they have.

D-Cap has done a series of ten (!) photoshops in honor of Tom Delay's "Dancing with the Stars" gig.

Some of them may require brain bleach afterwards.

I wrote to D-Cap to give me a rundown of the personalities here in "Seven Brides for Seven Birthers" and he replied (L to R)

Tom and Babs
Newt and Malkin
Eric and Ann
Dicky Armey and Bachmann
Glenn and the Moose
Dick and his lovely daughter Mary.

Thanks to Tengrain for hipping me to this post.

Open thread below....

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Michelle Malkin has a new book out. If it's as well researched as her two most recent outings -- which featured the classic right-wing technique of gathering any smidgen of evidence one can find to support a thesis (no matter how dubious or downright false) while carefully excising any smidgen of contradictory evidence (no matter how mountainous) -- it promises to be a real mess.

Malkin was on Sean Hannity's program last night touting it. I was particularly interested in how she described it -- heavy on innuendo, intimations of shady dealings, and a major emphasis on First Lady Michelle Obama as a kind of Machiavellian manipulator running the show from behind the scenes. She labels her "the First Crony."

This has a familiar ring, doesn't it? The wingnut right attacked Bill Clinton relentlessly as a corrupt Southerner involved in shady dealings (think Whitewater or Mena), while the Evil Hillary ran the show behind the scenes. And the mainstream right made heavy use of these attacks.

It's just deja vu all over again.

Especially the complete and utter loss of perspective:

Hannity: Now that you've done all this research -- and I'll let the audience, because you really, with great specificity and detail, go into the corruption -- how corrupt is this administration compared to others?

Malkin: Well, I think you have to judge them by their rhetoric. And if you look at the gap between the rhetoric and the reality, this has to be one of the corrupt, most corrupt administrations in recent memory.

Hmmm. I dunno about you, but when I look at the levels of corruption within an administration, I look for actual things like, you know, corruption. Things like Halliburton and Enron.

As for the gap between rhetoric and reality, I usually think of it as matter of disappointment and disenchantment, not of corruption per se (though it can indicate a kind of ethical corruption, depending on the facts). And I think most other people do too.

Malkin and Hannity sure have a strange standard for what constitutes "corruption." Especially considering they not only stood idly by and cheered while corruption ran rampant in Bush's little war zone but aggressively attacked anyone who brought it up as insufficiently patriotic.

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There was another horrible shooting yesterday, this time in Arkansas. And this time, the motive appears to have been a hatred of the American military for the Muslims who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan:

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A 23-year-old man upset about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan opened fire from his truck at two soldiers standing outside a military recruiting station here on Monday morning, killing one private and wounding another, the police said.

... In a lengthy interview with the police, Mr. Muhammad said he was angry about the killing of Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, Chief Thomas said. Previously known as Carlos Bledsoe, Mr. Muhammad told investigators that he had converted to Islam as a teenager, Chief Thomas said.

Chief Thomas said investigators believe that Mr. Muhammad acted alone. He seemed to be familiar with the Army recruiting office because it was not far from his home, the chief said, but might have been on the prowl for anyone in uniform.

“I would say he was looking for any and all targets of opportunity that happened to be military,” the chief said in a telephone interview. “That may have well been the first place he found.”

This is, of course, a horrific case, and no one in their right minds would celebrate it.

Yet naturally, the right-wingers -- still feeling the sting from having been held culpable for their inspirational role in the assassination of Dr. George Tiller on Sunday -- have decided that this is all the fault of liberals. As usual, Michelle Malkin is leading that particular parade.

There's a significant difference, though, in this case and the Tiller murder: No one on the left is celebrating this or wishing that the recruiters had had a chance to make their peace with God before being shot. No one is trying to justify it by suggesting that the recruiters met a just fate.

And most of all, while there are smatterings of fringe leftists who hate the military and regularly demonize military recruiters, they exist entirely on the margins. There are no liberal commentators -- particularly not cable-news-show anchors -- who demonize soldiers as "mass murderers" or "baby killers," or suggest they should be "taken out", let alone suggesting that citizens might want to take violent action against them.

You certainly can't say that about right-wingers and their feelings about abortion-clinic operators.

And besides: Wasn't Malkin complaining Sunday about "Those who have jumped to score political points before Tiller is even buried"? Physician, heal thyself.

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Did someone in the Obama administration force Chrysler, as part of its reorganization, to order the closure of auto dealerships mostly among Republicans, while leaving Democratic-owned dealerships intact?

Naaaah. What, are you kidding me? But, you know, it sounded really good to Michelle Malkin. Mostly because she loves to fancy herself an "investigative journalist" and these kinds of "scoops" entrance her on a regular basis. Of course, the fact that none of them ever pan out seems not to deter her in the slightest.

Malkin, along with her intrepid pals at Newsbusters and a variety of other right-wing blogs, were all over it yesterday. Malkin appeared on Fox and Friends in the morning to tout her latest liberal-perfidy theory.

Too bad it took only a flick of Nate Silver's wrist to blow it all to smithereens. Seems that when you go looking at political donations by occupation, people who list "auto dealers" or some variation thereof are Republican by about an 8-1 margin:

Overall, 88 percent of the contributions from car dealers went to Republican candidates and just 12 percent to Democratic candidates. By comparison, the list of dealers on Doug Ross's list (which I haven't vetted, but I assume is fine) gave 92 percent of their money to Republicans -- not really a significant difference.

There's no conspiracy here, folks -- just some bad math.

It shouldn't be any surprise, by the way, that car dealers tend to vote -- and donate -- Republican. They are usually male, they are usually older (you don't own an auto dealership in your 20s), and they have obvious reasons to be pro-business, pro-tax cut, anti-green energy and anti-labor. Car dealerships need quite a bit of space and will tend to be located in suburban or rural areas. I can't think of too many other occupations that are more natural fits for the Republican Party.

You can just toss this one on the ashheap of such discarded Malkin "investigative scoops" as the General Ripperesque notion that the Flight 93 memorial is actually a tribute to the terrorists or that a suicide bomber in Oklahoma was the forerunner of an Islamic conspiracy there. She likewise groundlessly attacked the Pulitzer winner in photography as a secret Jihadi sympathizer; attacked USA Today with conspiratorial accusations for a badly retouched photo; and perhaps most notoriously, tried to ferret out a nefarious conspiracy by the Associated Press in Baghdad that turned out to be completely false. Though perhaps nothing quite matches her attack on a 12-year-old that again turned out to be a case of overwrought right-wing fantasizing. But then, that incident pretty much was a case of self-immolation.

Steve Benen and Bob Cesca have more.

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President Obama today interrupted the daily White House press briefing to talk about replacing David Souter on the Supreme Court:

Now, the process of selecting someone to replace Justice (David) Souter is among my most serious responsibilities as president, so I will seek somebody with a sharp and independent mind and a record of excellence and integrity. I will seek someone who understands that justice isn't about some abstract legal theory or footnote in a casebook; it is also about how our laws affect the daily realities of people's lives, whether they can make a living and care for their families, whether they feel safe in their homes and welcome in their own nation. I view that quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people's hopes and struggles, as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes. I will seek somebody who is dedicated to the rule of law, who honors our constitutional traditions, who respects the integrity of the judicial process and the appropriate limits of the judicial role. I will seek somebody who shares my respect for constitutional values on which this nation was founded and who brings a thoughtful understanding of how to apply them in our time.

The Huffington Post has a lineup of the five most likely candidates.

On cue, the wingnuts (led by Malkin) are lining to scream, wail, tear out their hair, gnash their teeth, and do all those things wingnuts do reflexively, but with the added enjoyment of being completely impotent and irrelevant.

Meanwhile, white male Villagers like Mark Halperin are whining over the likelihood that the nominee will be neither white nor male, or at least not both. Of course, isn't William Ayers a white male? How much, exactly, do those attributes really matter?

It's like Dylan sez: "It's wonder that you still know how to breathe."

Geraldo apologizes to Malkin on The Factor:

Then he says he fell on Bill's sword over the apology while explaining why Limbaugh should apologize over his "phony soldiers" comment... Download | play (h/t Scarce and justabill for the vids)

Malkin and Geraldo have been fighting for a while over her extreme immigration positions.

Download (2392) | Play (2766)

Rivera: Here’s the problem. I believe that proponents of immigration--like Michelle, Rush Limbaugh, Tancredo of Colorado, Lou Dobbs at CNN--those people would not agree to any immigration reform that allows the people who are here to remain.

Malkin: Geraldo has continued to play the race card..

Then Rivera bashed Michelle in an interview:

“Michelle Malkin is the most vile, hateful commentator I’ve ever met in my life,” he says. “She actually believes that neighbors should start snitching out neighbors, and we should be deporting people.

“It’s good she’s in D.C. and I’m in New York,” Rivera sneers. “I’d spit on her if I saw her.”

Then Malkin tried to run hate ads against Geraldo and they were rejected.....Now it looks like she bailed out of the Factor.

From: “Michelle Malkin”
To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 23:04:58 -0400
Subject: Re: Michelle no longer on the Factor?
I made the decision to quit appearing on the O’Reilly show in response to the poor handling of the Geraldo Rivera matter (the staged “apology” on The Factor was a complete farce). I won’t go into details, but please know that your support means a lot to me. You can catch me on other Fox News shows and read my daily blog posts and weekly columns at MichelleMalkin.com.

Best,
Michelle

FOX has been grooming her for a long time and something more had to happen for O'Reilly's team to let her go or for her to quit. A network doesn't develop what they think is an asset and then suddenly drop it. She was subbing on Fridays and Bill loves his girl team segments during the week. The most extreme right wing blogger out there just doesn't give up that spot over Geraldo in my opinion....I'm trying to get more information on this, but nobody--and I mean nobody--plays the victim better than Malkin...

(Remember this ad for Bush in '04?) Do you actually think I would ever have considered attacking her and her family because of their support of Bush? I mean, it boggles the mind, doesn't it?

The utter depravity of it all. The sickness that dwells inside the Malkinites must run deeper than I thought. That's the only way they can continue to dwell in such slime. I have an exclusive quote from an anonymous source close to the story:

"What these right wing bloggers and some of their Republican friends in Washington have done to this family is simply unconscionable. Instead of attacking the issue, they decided to attack a 12-year old boy. This entire smear campaign by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and their allies has been a perverse distraction from the issue at hand - the plight of millions of uninsured children in this country. It also needs to be remembered that the Frosts were viciously attacked for simply speaking their minds and voicing their support for the SCHIP program that was so instrumental in saving the lives of their children. From the Frosts' perspective, what could be more American?

Hmmm...just debating the issue at hand. Now there's an idea. You may remember that Howard Kurtz wrote a glowing profile of the right wing's very own Michelle Malkin a while back. It was rather odd, but not surprising. Soon after he attacked the Huffington Post for having some nasty comments about Dick Cheney on their site, which is a favorite trick of the mmm-essss-mmm. It was dirty pool because he understands the nature of blogging. Since you write about the bloggers quite often, Howie, will you denounce the right wing/Malkin attempts to smear a family and a 12 year old boy? (Here is a public email: http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/email/howard+kurtz/. Be polite if you send anything along) Outside of the obvious fact that nobody with any credibility or empathy would do something that odious. Then compound it with the fact that all their idiot reasons are flat out lies.

One critic, in an e-mail message to Graeme’s mother, Bonnie, warned: “Lie down with dogs, and expect to get fleas.” As it turns out, the Frosts say, Graeme attends the private school on scholarship. The business that the critics said Mr. Frost owned was dissolved in 1999. The family’s home, in the modest Butchers Hill neighborhood of Baltimore, was bought for $55,000 in 1990 and is now worth about $260,000, according to public records. And, for the record, the Frosts say, their kitchen counters are concrete.

Republicans on Capitol Hill, who were gearing up to use Graeme as evidence that Democrats have over-expanded the health program to include families wealthy enough to afford private insurance, have backed off.

An aide to Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, expressed relief that his office had not issued a press release criticizing the Frosts.

As for accusations that bloggers were unfairly attacking a 12-year-old, Ms. Malkin wrote on her blog, “If you don’t want questions, don’t foist these children onto the public stage.”

All the proof you need is Rep. Mitch McConnell backing off of the Frost family. Would he so willingly fade away? Actually the real message is that if anyone stands up against the Republican agenda, the right wing bloggers will smear and stalk you with the desired effect of "STFU or we'll ruin you." Intimidation, plain and simple. How many times have we seen this? But to be so low as to go after a child. Joe Gandleman--who isn't a liberal--has a great take on it:

But no, it’s easier to go after a 12 year-old. After all, these days, anyone who is in the way of an agenda has to be discredited so that no one listens to them anymore. Yet, once upon a time, American society would pull out all stops not to go after a kid. The bar has been lowered yet again. This time it has been lowered so far, it has struck oil amid the sleaze...read on

Download | play Here's an old Daily Show Clip with Malkinite...(small file WMP only)

The wingnuts have been in full force attack against the family of Graeme Frost, the twelve year old boy that gave the Democratic radio address a couple of weeks ago. In their typical ignorance of the facts, Malkin and the rest on the right side of the blogosphere are trying to paint this family as phonies. Think Progress has noted the important facts the attack monsters are forgetting.

So what would you do if you saw that face snooping around your house? That might be a good question for the Frost's:

Update 2:50pm Eastern: I (Malkin) just returned from a visit to Frost’s commercial property near Patterson Park in Baltimore. It’s a modest place. Talked to one of the tenants, Mike Reilly, who is a talented welder. He said he had known the Frosts for 10 years. Business is good, he told me, though he characterized Frost as “struggling.” Reilly was an outspoken advocate for socialized health care without any means-testing whatsoever and an insistent critic of the Iraq war. Despite all that, he did agree with me that going without health insurance is often a matter of choice and a matter of priorities. Or maybe we were speaking two different languages.

I also passed by the Frosts’ rowhouse. There was an “01 - 20 -09″ bumper sticker plastered on the door and a newer model GMC Suburban parked directly in front of the house. I’ve seen guesstimates of the house’s worth in the $400,000-plus range. Those are high. But Mark Tapscott’s point remains: “[P]eople make choices and it’s clear the Frosts have made choice to invest in property and a business, but not in private health insurance. The Maryland-administered version of the federal SCHIP program, by the way, does not impose an asset test on applicants.”

Now isn't this the same Malkin who has complained about hate mail and threats? Ironically she did this on the same day that Free Republic decided to post the Frost's' home address. Of course this is also the same Malkin who tries to act like she is concerned about children. Well we see how much she really "cares" now.

John Amato:

This is just sick, but not surprising coming from her. On 04/17/06---I broke the story that she posted the phone numbers of some UC Santa Cruz students over the issue of military recruitment on campus and they received a ton of death threats as a result. A few right wing bloggers were so appalled that they de-linked her.

She endangered the life of Jamil Hussein, when she tried to discredit this AP report. The AP then responded: "AP executive editor rips into bloggers who have now endangered Jamil Hussein's life."

Not to mention that she posted Cindy Sheehan's divorce records to smear her...more reactions to that here.

Digby has more:

This is so loathsome I am literally sick to my stomach. These kids were hurt in a car accident. Their parents could not afford health insurance --- and sure as hell couldn't get it now with a severely handicapped daughter. And these shrieking wingnut jackasses are harassing their family for publicly supporting the program that allowed the kids to get health care. A program, by the way, which a large number of these Republicans support as well.

They went after Michael J. Fox. They went after a wounded Iraq war veteran. Now they are going after handicapped kids. There is obviously no limit to how low these people will go...read on

UPDATE (below the fold):

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