Racism is dead. So decreed the late Tony Snow on his radio program almost a decade ago. So when we see racism, it's really not since it no longer exists. That's why rich white Republicans can use formerly racist imagery. It's all just good-natured fun!

The owner of a Cedar Grove storage business who dressed a monkey statue in an anti-Obama T-shirt said Wednesday that the statement was not racially-motivated

“It was not meant to be racial," business owner Rick Bond told Patch.

Rick Bond, a former councilman and police officer, placed the statue in front of his business, Don-Ric Self Storage at 405 Little Falls Road but removed it Tuesday afternoon after people started complaining.

“I absolutely never thought of it as racial,” Bond said. “It’s ridiculous.”

The monkey statue sported a t-shirt saying “OMG Obama Must Go.” The statue was in front of Bond’s business for at least a few days, but was removed after neighbors called the statue offensive.

Bond is a former Cedar Grove council member who served on the board from 1999 through 2003, and was also a police officer. Because the statue is near Route 3, it caught the attention of several passers-by, some of whom posted photos of it on their Facebook pages.

Bond would not say who dressed the statue, but added it was previously dressed in a Mets jersey. He said the statue was put up to scare away geese from coming close to his business.

He said other businesses – such as car dealerships - do the same, “What’s the difference between the things they put on telephone pole” and what I did?”

See, Bond doesn't consider it racist so what's the big deal? Did you see those telephone poles covered in Monkey-Obama Posters? I'm sure more anti-Obama gear will show up to do all sort of things. We'll see cotton-picking Obamas next, right? No racism here. Move along.

There are times when I honestly have to puke watching the Sunday talk shows. I find myself asking does this person actually believe a word he/she is saying? Case in point: John McCain. David over on Video Cafe writes this about the segment.

"I don't know, to tell you the truth, what we can do, and this immediately leads to the issue of gun control," McCain told CNN's Candy Crowley. "The killer in Norway, which is a country that has very strict gun control laws, and yet he was still able to acquire the necessary means to initiate and carry out a mass slaughter."

"I think we need to look at everything, if that even should be looked at, but to think that somehow gun control is -- or increased gun control -- is the answer, in my view, that would have to be proved," he added.

Crowley noted that James Holmes, the suspected Colorado shooter, had, over short period of time, purchased an arsenal of weapons and equipment, including an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle with a 100-round magazine, two Glock handguns, a Remington 12-gauge shotgun and various types of body armor.

"You get to this point, you don't want the government spying on what people are buying," she explained. "On the other hand, what's the price? The price is all these things we just read off."

"Let's remember it's a constitutional right," McCain replied. "Second of all, if you could prove the case that it, indeed, has a positive effect -- we had a ban on assault weapons that expired some years ago, it didn't change the situation at all in my view."

Hold on. McCain didn't just use Norway to justify Americans stockpiling AR-15's, did he? That's ridiculous. Anders Breivik, the Norway shooter was actually allowed to buy high powered guns in Norway:

He decided to obtain a semi-automatic rifle and a Glock pistol legally in Norway, noting that he had a "clean criminal record, hunting license, and two guns (a Benelli Nova 12 gauge Pump-action shotgun and a .308 Bolt-action rifle) already for seven years", and that obtaining the guns legally should therefore not be a problem.[29]

I guess Norway isn't as strict as McCain makes them out to be, but forget that....The Norway shooting and bombing was their worst violent incident since WWII, can we say the same? Candy Crowley ticked off just a few violent incidents to McCain since 1999.

CROWLEY: Let me turn you back now to the situation in Colorado, and remind our viewers of what has happened. This is dating back to 1999, Littleton, Colorado, otherwise known as Columbine, 13 killed in a mass shooting. 2007, Virginia Tech, 32 killed. 2009, Fort Hood, Texas, 13 killed; 2012, Aurora, Colorado, 12 killed. Different circumstances, different people, but people look at this and say, can't we do anything to stop this?

That's quite a resume all by itself and McCain's lame excuse about the Second Amendment doesn't pass the smell test. How many actual gun owners have joined a trained militia? Jason Alexander answers that question in a very long and well thought out piece:

Many of them cite patriotism as their reason - true patriots support the Constitution adamantly and wholly. Constitution says citizens have the right to bear arms in order to maintain organized militias. I'm no constitutional scholar so here it is from the document itself:

As passed by the Congress:

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
As ratified by the States and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State:
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

So the patriots are correct, gun ownership is in the constitution - if you're in a well-regulated militia.
-
Or from Merriam-Webster dictionary:
Definition of MILITIA
1a : a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency
1b : a body of citizens organized for military service
2: the whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service

The advocates of guns who claim patriotism and the rights of the 2nd Amendment - are they in well-regulated militias? For the vast majority - the answer is no.

Exactly, but full scale massacres aren't even the biggest threat posed by gun violence, but those that happen everyday.

In 2006, there were 30,896 deaths due to firearms in the United States. This equates to an average of 85 deaths due to firearms each day. (CDC, WISQARS, 2009)

There are tons of stats you can find so I won't bother to list them all. And here's a heartbreaking story that happens all too often around America:

A 5-year-old girl was wounded in a drive-by shooting Saturday afternoon -- the fourth young child to be shot on Oakland's streets in the past 12 months, police said..
--

The shooting was one of several recent incidents involving gun violence and child victims.On Dec. 30, Gabriel Martinez Jr. -- a 5-year-old Alameda boy -- was shot and killed near his family's taco truck in the 5400 block of International Boulevard; 23-month-old Hiram Lawrence died Dec. 9, 11 days after he was struck by crossfire in West Oakland; and Carlos Nava, 3, was killed Aug. 8, in a drive-by shooting in the 6400 block of International Boulevard.

You'd think right wingers would support stricter gun control laws just for the children, but alas, no. It's a question of freedom.

Cars in America serve one particular purpose: to transport you and whatever passengers and/or cargo from point A to point B and so on. However, they can also be a deadly weapon under the control of some people. It is exactly that reason why you are required by law to pass tests to get a driver's license. Every car owner must register the vehicle with the DMV and buy car insurance. And if you abuse the privilege and harm or kill someone, you lose your driver's license. It's the law that Americans have been following for years without complaint.

Why not the same for guns?

It looks like someone's pocket Constitution was lost before she voted in the Louisiana legislature. That's Republican legislator Valarie Hodges, who wholeheartedly supported Bobby Jindal's school voucher program. Well, she supported it until she discovered that -- GASP! -- state money could go to Muslim schools.

Now she's just horrified.

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, says she had no idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s educational system might mean taxpayer support of Muslim schools.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.

“I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,” Hodges said.

Hodges mistakenly assumed that “religious” meant “Christian.”

HB976, now signed into law as Act 2, proposed, among other things, a voucher program allowing state educational funds to be used to send students to schools run by religious groups.

[...]
The school funding mechanism, however, did not come up for a vote until the end of the session. By then, a Muslim-based school had applied for support through the new voucher system.
During debate over the MFP (Minimum Foundation Program) funding formula, Hodges learned more about the consequences of the educational changes. She voted against the new MFP funding formula; Schexnayder voted for it.

“Unfortunately it will not be limited to the Founders’ religion,” Hodges said. “We need to insure that it does not open the door to fund radical Islam schools. There are a thousand Muslim schools that have sprung up recently. I do not support using public funds for teaching Islam anywhere here in Louisiana.”

Well, hey, Rep. Hodges. You don't get to pick and choose the "permissible religions" when you hand over public funds to private concerns, which is why those of us with half a brain think that public school money ought to be used to fund public institutions, especially when there is NO "founders' religion."

See, that way it's easy. My tax money doesn't go to fund stupid conservative, narrow-minded, intellectually dishonest education controlled by Catholic bishops and Southern Baptist wingnuts, and your tax money doesn't go to Muslims. Didn't you believe that whole "freedom of religion" thing in the Constitution?

The stupid just hurts. It hurts hard.

State Sen. Shadrack McGill (application/octet-stream - 13.01 KB)

I've heard a lot of insane attacks on paying teachers more money, but this one might take the cake. Shadrack McGill loves increasing legislators' salaries because somehow it'll stop corruption in politics, but you should never raise the pay of a teacher because it will interfere with their biblical calling.

Can you understand this logic from a Bible-thumping Republican?

State Sen. Shadrack McGill defended a pay raise his predecessors in the Legislature passed, but said doubling teacher pay could lead to less-qualified educators.--

Lawmakers entered the 2007 legislative session making $30,710 a year, a rate that had not been changed in 16 years. The raise increased it to $49,500 annually.

"That played into the corruption, guys, big time," he said. "You had your higher-ranking legislators that were connected with the lobbyists making up in the millions of dollars. They weren't worried about that $30,000 paid salary they were getting," McGill said, adding that lawmakers have to pay for their expenses out of pocket.

McGill said that by paying legislators more, they're less susceptible to taking bribes.

--
"He needs to make enough that he can say no, in regards to temptation. ... Teachers need to make the money that they need to make. There needs to be a balance there. If you double what you're paying education, you know what's going to happen? I've heard the comment many times, ‘Well, the quality of education's going to go up.' That's never proven to happen, guys.

"It's a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher's pay scale, you'll attract people who aren't called to teach.

"To go in and raise someone's child for eight hours a day, or many people's children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn't want to do it, okay?

"And these teachers that are called to teach, regardless of the pay scale, they would teach. It's just in them to do. It's the ability that God give 'em. And there are also some teachers, it wouldn't matter how much you would pay them, they would still perform to the same capacity.

"If you don't keep that in balance, you're going to attract people who are not called, who don't need to be teaching our children. So, everything has a balance."

Whenever I hear a bizarre rationale given by a card-carrying member of the religious right to defend some nutty point of view I think it can't get any more insane. And then comes McGill.

In his world shouldn't these righteous state senators be compelled on biblical principles not to take bribes because it's against the ten commandments?

After Hank Williams' disastrous Fox & Friends appearance where he compared President Obama to Hitler and called him the "enemy" -- which was so egregious that even Gretchen disavowed his comments -- I told you he'd use the 'Laura Defense,' or the ludicrous "First Amendment'" victimhood defense, which conservatives and tea-party activists love to trot out whenever they say things so far out of bounds that even a company that caters to many right-wing viewers like ESPN does had to sever ties with him.

If Gretchen said that they disavowed his disgusting comments then you know it was way, way, way out there. And his remarks caused ESPN to pull him off of Monday Night Football tonight.

“While Hank Williams Jr. is not an ESPN employee, we recognize that he is closely linked to our company through the open to Monday Night Football. We are extremely disappointed with his comments, and as a result we have decided to pull the open from tonight’s telecast.”

I'm sure he'll use the Dr. Schlessinger defense of saying his First Amendment rights were just violated by ESPN:

On the heels of a controversy surrounding her repeated use of the N-word on the air, Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced last night that her decades-long career on talk radio will be coming to an end this December.

"I made the decision not to do radio anymore," Schlessinger said on CNN's "Larry King Live." "I want to regain my first amendment rights. I want to be able to say what is on my mind, in my heart, what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry."

Dr. Laura Quits: Was She Forced Out or Were Her First Amendment Rights Really in Jeopardy?

Just last week in a debate about racism on her radio program, the conservative host used a racial slur 11 times on the air.

That's the standard tea party line of defense for all their incendiary rhetoric.

It didn't take him long to go there:

Williams, on his website, said he pulled the plug on his theme. "After reading hundreds of e-mails, I have made MY decision. By pulling my opening Oct. 3, you (ESPN) stepped on the Toes of The First Amendment Freedom of Speech," Williams wrote. "So therefore Me, My Song and All My Rowdy Friends are OUT OF HERE. It's been a great run."

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Bill O'Reilly attacks the Occupy Wall Street protests. He loves the tea party movement protests though. To Billo, the tea party are just folks angry at the government and whenever racist signs were proudly displayed or or voiced by Hank Williams Jr. they were dismissed. Turn to a real grassroots protest and Bill sends his lackey, Jesse Watters to uncover either a heavily edited video clip or one that portrays the protesters to be communists with potty mouths, sorta like he did last night.

Anyway, Juan Williams actually did a good job in defending the new protests. The new Pew poll supports the idea that the class warfare meme is working against conservatives because the results show only Republicans are supporting that idea. Also, Republicans are helping the "haves" much more than the have-nots. it's hard to follow Bill's thinking sometimes. I wish I had Jon Stewart's wit because in one moment he says it's not spontaneous and calls it organized by professionals and in the next he says they are walking around aimlessly. I guess that means that the pros were hired to create massive protests and their central tenet is to have them not finely tune their messaging which is what the Koch Brothers Americans For Prosperity does, but walk around aimlessly.

Williams: First of all look at those Occupy Wall Street movement that you’re seeing right there first hand. It’s now spreading and it’s in LA, S, Pittsburgh, Boston,

O'Reilly: But you don’t think this is spontaneous do you?

Williams: Yes, I do, it's organic.

O'Reilly: Oh, they’re NOT! There’s groups behind them, professional people, these people, we sent Jesse Watters and these people just wander around…

Williams: Yea, but they’re jobless,

O'Reilly: They’re jobless because they don’t want to work! They admitted it to us. They won't work for the corporate man.

(Solidarity Pizza Fundraiser)

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Hank Williams Jr. joined the morning crew of Fox & Friends and meandered off the rails. It even had the Ailes puppet crew freaking out, causing them to disavow his comments at the end of the segment.

Newshounds tipped me off on this this morning:

Hank Williams, Jr. appeared on Fox & Friends this morning and, undoubtedly knowing that Williams is a Republican, the Curvy Couch Crew decided to probe his thoughts about the 2012 presidential election. The ensuing trainwreck as Williams compared President Obama to Hitler and called Obama “The Enemy!” proved too much even for these three hosts. It probably guarantees this will be the last time anyone on Fox asks for Williams’ political opinion again. How bad was it? Bad enough that Gretchen Carlson made a point of disavowing his comments after the segment was over.

Williams was obviously in a hostile mood from the get go. He appeared in dark sunglasses and with his arms crossed as the interview opened. His bizarre answers that followed strongly suggested he was inebriated. That would be the best of the possibilities. Otherwise, what he said was just hostile, ungracious and offensive - even by Fox News standards. (H/T Aunty Em).

If Gretchen said that they disavowed his disgusting comments then you know it was way, way, way out there. And his remarks caused ESPN to pull him off of Monday Night Football tonight. I'm sure he'll say that his first amendment rights were just violated by ESPN because that's the standard tea party line of defense.

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On Sunday mornings I usually wake up by turning on the plethora of talk shows. But watching Fox News Sunday yesterday quickly shook the cobwebs out of my brain. It obviously pains Chris Wallace to bring up Newt Gingrich's personal life because he's a leading voice of conservative hypocrites and a fixture on Fox News, (who doesn't work for Fox News that's involved in election 2012?) but he knows he must, so he does it even if it feels like he's getting a tooth pulled with no anesthesia.

Fox News Sunday:

WALLACE: I want to talk about your personal life. I hate doing it. But you know it's going to be an issue in the campaign.

GINGRICH: Sure.

WALLACE: So, I'm going to go there. You were asked recently about the fact that you cheated on your first and your second wives. And here's how you responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRICH: There is no question that at times in my life partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard, and that things happened in my life that were not appropriate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Speaker, you've had more than a decade to come up with an answer. And in all honesty, there were a lot of people who thought that answer was kind of lame. I know it's heart-felt. But let me explain why. You love your country and you're working hard. And so you strayed. That wouldn't work with my wife.

GINGRICH: No, it didn't work in my life. I went on to say that I had to seek God's forgiveness and I had to seek reconciliation and I had to believe that being genuinely repentant mattered. As you know, first, I have a great marriage.

Gingrich explains away being a serial cheater on wives who were also very ill: it's because he loves his country so much! Wallace sees how heartfelt his response was, but reacted to it like someone who is married: That wouldn't work with my wife.

Newt has been on a monumental crazy-train roll of insane logic lately to justify his previous wretched behavior because he wants to be president now. That's one of the reasons why he's been playing the God card (he has God's forgiveness, y'see) so much. But his response to his role in Bill Clinton 's impeachment may have even surpassed some of Michelle Bachmann's mindless brain activity. And to Jennifer Rubin from the Washington Post I say that without a hint of sexism.

Transcript continues....

WALLACE: There's something else that bothers people. You were leading the charge to push Bill Clinton from office for lying about an affair and yes, he lied in a court proceeding, in a deposition, where he was sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, but nothing but the truth. At the same time, you were leading that charge, you were having an affair. Isn't that hypocrisy?

GINGRICH: No. Look, obviously, it's complex and, obviously, I wasn't doing things to be proud of. On the other hand, what I said, very clearly -- I knew this in part going through a divorce -- I had been in depositions. I had been in situations where you had to swear to tell the truth.

I understood that in a federal court, in a case in front of a federal judge, to commit a felony, which is what he did, perjury was a felony. The question I raise was very simple: should a president of the United States be above the law? I don't think the president of the United States can be above the law.

And it's not about personal behavior. It's about whether -- it's not about what he did in the Oval Office. You can condemn that. You can say it's totally inappropriate.

But it was about a much deeper and more profound thing, which is: does the president of the United States have to obey law? Or as long as he's popular or she is popular, can they flout the law and become a third world country where the leader gets to get away with anything they want to, but you and I obey the law?

I thought the notion -- I mean, I don't know what you would have had me do because I think the notion that the president of the United States committing perjury -- remember, he is a lawyer. This is not some accidental thing. And I thought the outcome was about right. The House indicted - in effect indicted him. That's what impeachment is.

He's using his own twisted behavior with his previous marital relationships to justify why he felt he wasn't being a hypocrite to Bill Clinton. You can't make this up.

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He's baaaack. Or trying to be. Mark Williams was booted out the Tea Party because of his insane, racist screed against the NAACP. Is he that desperate to get some publicity? The Wisconsin protests are really messing with their heads because goons like Williams are calling for people to lie and try and sign up to be actual organizers.

UPDATED: His post is very confusing and now his site link is broken so I've had to update this post, but this is how his rant started.

http://action.seiu.org/page/s/solidarityaction

.

That link will take you to an SEIU page where you can sign up as an “organizer” for one of their upcoming major rallies to support the union goons in Wisconsin.

Here is what I am doing in Sacramento, where they are holding a 5:30 PM event this coming Tuesday: (1) I signed up as an organizer (2) with any luck they will contact me and I will have an “in” (3) in or not I will be there and am asking as many other people as can get there to come with, all of us in SEIU shirts (those who don’t have them we can possibly buy some from vendors likely to be there) (4) we are going to target the many TV cameras and reporters looking for comments from the members there (5) we will approach the cameras to make good pictures… signs under our shirts that say things like “screw the taxpayer!” and “you OWE me!” to be pulled out for the camera (timing is important because the signs will be taken away from us) (6) we will echo those slogans in angry sounding tones to the cameras and the reporters. (7) if I do get the ‘in’ I am going to do my darnedest to get podium access and take the mic to do that rant from there…with any luck and if I can manage the moments to build up to it, I can probably get a cheer out of the crowd for something extreme.

Here's a screen grab from one of our readers that captured his fundraising ask:

You might remember when he went on TV and said this: Teabagger Mark Williams says: 'Obama is an Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief' and tries to defend it!
Even if that fails he'll still try to go all August Town Hall on the events. Too bad, the people trying to protect their collective bargaining rights deserve better, but they must know to expect more of this. As for Williams, once a creep, twice a creep, three times a creep---always a creep.

Since his url isn't working now you can find his post at the bottom of this very long post from Patriot Action Network:

Mr. Blue Pill goes on another hate-speech rant as he usually does and attacks his usual targets, Pelosi and Reid.

Maybe, he continued, the U.S. is fighting the wrong enemy:

"It could well be, ladies and gentlemen, that we're fighting the wrong enemy in the Middle East. Maybe the real terrorists that we face are on Capitol Hill. I mean, really, who's doing as good a job to undermine what this country stands for as the terrorists? 'Dingy' Harry, Nancy Pelosi. I mean, look, if they call us 'hostage takers' and 'gangsters,' then why can't we call them what they are? They are terrorists. They certainly seem suicidal. Look at what they're doing. Look at what they did. They knew they were going to get shellacked in this election and they did it! They knew they were gonna lose. And they want to take us with them."

I don't care if he uses Mob related analogies, but calling members of Congress "terrorists" and constantly playing up the race card is way out there. I know Al Sharpton is breathing down on Limbaugh's neck for his outwardly racist comments, but the FCC is as feckless a body as there is.

I'm glad this is driving right wingers nuts because it doesn't take much to tweak them. When Rush plays the race card he takes this country back 60 years in race relations within the US and that's a very dangerous proposition. Hey, he loves to party like it's 1909, but there weren't any blue pills back then to keep up his stamina.

Rush Limbaugh could see a deal with prosecutors in a long-running prescription fraud case collapse after authorities found a bottle of Viagra in his bag at Palm Beach International Airport. The prescription was not in his name.

I don't know of anyone that has fraudulent scripts written for Viagra, but that goes to the character of the man.