• Romney’s lying. He’s not spinning the truth to his advantage; he’s not hiding in a gray area between fact and fiction; he’s just lying. The law hasn’t been “gutted”; the work requirement hasn’t been “dropped.” Stations that air this ad are disseminating an obvious, demonstrable lie. … I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention the racial subtext of an attack ad like this one. For decades, Republicans used “welfare” as part of a racially-charged message (“Democrats want to give white people’s money to lazy black people who’ll get checks for sitting around”). I can’t speak to Romney’s motivations — I’m not a mind-reader — but the language in the ad harkens back to the kind of ugly and racially divisive rhetoric we heard from GOP candidates for far too long.
• Big. Fat. Lie: Today, the Romney camp accused black President Obama of “gutting” white President Clinton’s welfare reform plan and promised that future white President Romney would promptly restore it. They don’t say “black” and “white” of course, but see the ad for yourself—the subtext is pretty obvious. An excerpt: “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.”
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should release more of his tax returns only after President Barack Obama makes public his college transcripts, real estate magnate Donald Trump said on CNBC.
• Libertarian Kook Wayne Allyn Root Floats Another Wingnut Conspiracy Theory. Question: How many US presidents have released college transcripts? Answer: Zero. That’s right, none of them. But this doesn’t stop today’s deranged right wing from demanding to see President Obama’s transcripts — years after he was elected.
• At any rate, it seems the Romney campaign has hit peak embarrassment. I can’t imagine his campaign becoming any more stupid, but holding a press conference and demanding school records will move this campaign from “what the hell?” to “Get the fuck out of here.” I hope he goes for it.
• Just an interesting note. Of all the right wing freakouts, we’re not hearing a peep from John McCain, who would definitely be in a position to know, considering that he’s seen 23 years of Mitt’s taxes and maybe, or maybe not, used this as a basis to opt for Palin over Mittens. Isn’t that interesting?
• It’s not just about chicken. The Chick-fil-A nonsense has nothing to do with freedom of speech and everything to do with the fact that Dan Cathy’s company donates money to organizations that cause real harm to LGBT folk.
• The Illinois Family Institute, an anti-gay hate group, wants to make sure kids are kept in the most sheltered environments possible, free from any hint that being LGBT might be okay. In a new document called “Challenge, Teachers, Not Books,” IFI’s Laurie Higgins encourages parents to pull their kids from any classroom where either the teacher supports a gay-straight alliance, uses LGBT-inclusive reading materials, or indicates support for LGBT students.
• Get tested or get out: school forces pregnancy tests on girls, kicks out students who refuse or are pregnant. In a Louisiana public school [Delhi Charter School], female students who are suspected of being pregnant are told that they must take a pregnancy test. Under school policy, those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out and forced to undergo home schooling. According to its Student Pregnancy Policy, the school has a right to not only force testing upon girls, but to send them to a physician of the school administration’s choice. A positive test result, or failure to take the test at all, means administrators can forbid a girl from taking classes and force her to pursue a course of home study if she wishes to continue her education with the school. This is in blatant violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
• What a coincidence, huh? The athletes singled out for character assassination by Fox News just happen to be black females. What are the odds?
• DHS Crushed This Analyst for Warning About Far-Right Terror. A former analyst for the Department of Homeland Security, Daryl Johnson called attention to the threat of far-right extremist groups — and sparked a political firestorm in the process. Under pressure from conservatives, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) repudiated Johnson’s paper — an especially bitter pill for him to swallow now that Wade Michael Page, a suspected white supremacist, killed at least six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. [rightwing]
• Federal agents are investigating a fire that completely destroyed the Islamic Society of Joplin in southwest Missouri on Monday. This is not the first attack on the Joplin mosque — the FBI has already issued a $15,000 reward for information about a July incident, when a surveillance camera caught a man throwing an incendiary device onto the building that damaged the mosque’s roof. The FBI has not yet figured out whether the two events are related, but they are focusing efforts on determining whether yesterday’s fire that burned the mosque to the ground was deliberately set.
• Your Bigoted Fear-Mongering All-Caps #Breitbart.com Headline of the Day, complete with a scary burqa dominating a US flag: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PAVES THE WAY FOR SHARIA LAW.
• Inevitably, someone was going to use yesterday’s mass shooting in a Wisconsin Sikh gurdwara to argue something insanely stupid. Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds has thankfully stepped in and made it so that we no longer have to wait: The 6 Sikh temple shooting victims identified; Satwant Singh Kaleka died trying to fight off shooter. Heroic. But it’s too bad he didn’t have a gun.
• I don’t like to see someone call another politician a “liar” for the simple reason that it ends the discussion. How do you respond to someone who says you’re not a man or woman of your word? And oftentimes it hurts the person who calls the other one a liar far more than it does the one he’s calling a liar.
• MS advocates say that policies Romney now supports would be detrimental for many MS sufferers, and they are actively opposing these proposals. Which means that Mitt Romney is now at odds with the MS community he and his wife have long supported.
• The Colorado Personhood Coalition submitted 121,000 signatures — more than the required 86,000 — to get their radical anti-choice amendment on the ballot for November. Voters have already turned down this amendment twice since 2008, so this will be the group’s third try to outlaw birth control, in vitro fertilization, and medical treatment for pregnant women with life-threatening medical conditions.
• Several veterans slammed Mitt Romney on Monday for opposing and mischaracterizing an Obama campaign lawsuit which would expand early voting rights to veterans, cops, firefighters and all Ohio voters.
• Days after falsely accusing the Obama campaign of working to restrict the voting rights of members of the military, the Romney campaign still won’t say whether they believe Ohio cops, firefighters and veterans are worthy of early voting rights.
• “It’s like Robin Hood in reverse — it’s Romney-hood.”
• President Barack Obama signed the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 into law on Monday, providing a wide-ranging package of benefits to military personnel and enacting new restrictions on protests of service member funerals. The new law will have strong implications for the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based organization which the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have labeled a hate group. Under the new legislation, protests must be held at least 300 feet from military funerals and are prohibited two hours before or after a service.
• Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said Monday that the attack on a police station in Sinai in which 16 policemen were killed “can be attributed to Mossad,” a claim swiftly dismissed by Israel. “This crime can be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the revolution since its inception and the proof of this is that it gave instructions to its zionist citizens in Sinai to depart immediately a few days ago.”
F.D.Brightly
Dog whistles got that much louder [Shorter Question Everything]
• Romney’s lying. He’s not spinning the truth to his advantage; he’s not hiding in a gray area between fact and fiction; he’s just lying. The law hasn’t been “gutted”; the work requirement hasn’t been “dropped.” Stations that air this ad are disseminating an obvious, demonstrable lie. … I’d be remiss if I neglected to mention the racial subtext of an attack ad like this one. For decades, Republicans used “welfare” as part of a racially-charged message (“Democrats want to give white people’s money to lazy black people who’ll get checks for sitting around”). I can’t speak to Romney’s motivations — I’m not a mind-reader — but the language in the ad harkens back to the kind of ugly and racially divisive rhetoric we heard from GOP candidates for far too long.
• Big. Fat. Lie: Today, the Romney camp accused black President Obama of “gutting” white President Clinton’s welfare reform plan and promised that future white President Romney would promptly restore it. They don’t say “black” and “white” of course, but see the ad for yourself—the subtext is pretty obvious. An excerpt: “Under Obama’s plan, you wouldn’t have to work and wouldn’t have to train for a job. They just send you your welfare check.”
• Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney should release more of his tax returns only after President Barack Obama makes public his college transcripts, real estate magnate Donald Trump said on CNBC.
• Libertarian Kook Wayne Allyn Root Floats Another Wingnut Conspiracy Theory. Question: How many US presidents have released college transcripts? Answer: Zero. That’s right, none of them. But this doesn’t stop today’s deranged right wing from demanding to see President Obama’s transcripts — years after he was elected.
• At any rate, it seems the Romney campaign has hit peak embarrassment. I can’t imagine his campaign becoming any more stupid, but holding a press conference and demanding school records will move this campaign from “what the hell?” to “Get the fuck out of here.” I hope he goes for it.
• Just an interesting note. Of all the right wing freakouts, we’re not hearing a peep from John McCain, who would definitely be in a position to know, considering that he’s seen 23 years of Mitt’s taxes and maybe, or maybe not, used this as a basis to opt for Palin over Mittens. Isn’t that interesting?
• It’s not just about chicken. The Chick-fil-A nonsense has nothing to do with freedom of speech and everything to do with the fact that Dan Cathy’s company donates money to organizations that cause real harm to LGBT folk.
• The Illinois Family Institute, an anti-gay hate group, wants to make sure kids are kept in the most sheltered environments possible, free from any hint that being LGBT might be okay. In a new document called “Challenge, Teachers, Not Books,” IFI’s Laurie Higgins encourages parents to pull their kids from any classroom where either the teacher supports a gay-straight alliance, uses LGBT-inclusive reading materials, or indicates support for LGBT students.
• Get tested or get out: school forces pregnancy tests on girls, kicks out students who refuse or are pregnant. In a Louisiana public school [Delhi Charter School], female students who are suspected of being pregnant are told that they must take a pregnancy test. Under school policy, those who are pregnant or refuse to take the test are kicked out and forced to undergo home schooling. According to its Student Pregnancy Policy, the school has a right to not only force testing upon girls, but to send them to a physician of the school administration’s choice. A positive test result, or failure to take the test at all, means administrators can forbid a girl from taking classes and force her to pursue a course of home study if she wishes to continue her education with the school. This is in blatant violation of federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
• What a coincidence, huh? The athletes singled out for character assassination by Fox News just happen to be black females. What are the odds?
• DHS Crushed This Analyst for Warning About Far-Right Terror. A former analyst for the Department of Homeland Security, Daryl Johnson called attention to the threat of far-right extremist groups — and sparked a political firestorm in the process. Under pressure from conservatives, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) repudiated Johnson’s paper — an especially bitter pill for him to swallow now that Wade Michael Page, a suspected white supremacist, killed at least six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. [rightwing]
• Federal agents are investigating a fire that completely destroyed the Islamic Society of Joplin in southwest Missouri on Monday. This is not the first attack on the Joplin mosque — the FBI has already issued a $15,000 reward for information about a July incident, when a surveillance camera caught a man throwing an incendiary device onto the building that damaged the mosque’s roof. The FBI has not yet figured out whether the two events are related, but they are focusing efforts on determining whether yesterday’s fire that burned the mosque to the ground was deliberately set.
• Your Bigoted Fear-Mongering All-Caps #Breitbart.com Headline of the Day, complete with a scary burqa dominating a US flag: OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PAVES THE WAY FOR SHARIA LAW.
• Inevitably, someone was going to use yesterday’s mass shooting in a Wisconsin Sikh gurdwara to argue something insanely stupid. Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds has thankfully stepped in and made it so that we no longer have to wait: The 6 Sikh temple shooting victims identified; Satwant Singh Kaleka died trying to fight off shooter. Heroic. But it’s too bad he didn’t have a gun.
• I don’t like to see someone call another politician a “liar” for the simple reason that it ends the discussion. How do you respond to someone who says you’re not a man or woman of your word? And oftentimes it hurts the person who calls the other one a liar far more than it does the one he’s calling a liar.
• MS advocates say that policies Romney now supports would be detrimental for many MS sufferers, and they are actively opposing these proposals. Which means that Mitt Romney is now at odds with the MS community he and his wife have long supported.
• The Colorado Personhood Coalition submitted 121,000 signatures — more than the required 86,000 — to get their radical anti-choice amendment on the ballot for November. Voters have already turned down this amendment twice since 2008, so this will be the group’s third try to outlaw birth control, in vitro fertilization, and medical treatment for pregnant women with life-threatening medical conditions.
• Several veterans slammed Mitt Romney on Monday for opposing and mischaracterizing an Obama campaign lawsuit which would expand early voting rights to veterans, cops, firefighters and all Ohio voters.
• Days after falsely accusing the Obama campaign of working to restrict the voting rights of members of the military, the Romney campaign still won’t say whether they believe Ohio cops, firefighters and veterans are worthy of early voting rights.
• “It’s like Robin Hood in reverse — it’s Romney-hood.”
• President Barack Obama signed the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012 into law on Monday, providing a wide-ranging package of benefits to military personnel and enacting new restrictions on protests of service member funerals. The new law will have strong implications for the Westboro Baptist Church, a Kansas-based organization which the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have labeled a hate group. Under the new legislation, protests must be held at least 300 feet from military funerals and are prohibited two hours before or after a service.
• Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood said Monday that the attack on a police station in Sinai in which 16 policemen were killed “can be attributed to Mossad,” a claim swiftly dismissed by Israel. “This crime can be attributed to the Mossad, which has been seeking to abort the revolution since its inception and the proof of this is that it gave instructions to its zionist citizens in Sinai to depart immediately a few days ago.”