ACORN is the new code for the n-word

An incredible piece by Cesca examines the history of Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy and the evolution of ACORN as codetalk for the n-word.

(Bob Cesca)
In my Wednesday Huffington Post column, I mentioned the famous Lee Atwater quote about race-baiting and the Southern Strategy and noted that Atwater would probably have loved the use of ACORN as a dog-whistle for "nigger." Here's the Atwater quote again:

You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff.

Now watch this video courtesy of Dave Neiwert:

As Neiwert writes, there's no reason for this group of white wingnuts to believe that an African American young lady selling the flags was from ACORN. But that doesn't matter because ACORN is just a substitute word for what the guy clearly wants to be shouting.

Adding... Some Colbert genius:

Michael Moore takes it to Wolf Blitzer

The public option is going to happen

First, the latest poll, from CBS/New York Times:

"Would you favor or oppose the government offering everyone a government administered health insurance plan -- something like the Medicare coverage that people 65 and older get -- that would compete with private health insurance plans?"
Favor 65%
Oppose 26%

How will it ever find support in Congress with numbers like that? {sarcasm off}

Next, the latest CBO numbers show that the public option plan is MORE fiscally responsible than those plans without it:

In a bid to wrangle concessions from the Blue Dog Coalition on healthcare reform, House leaders Thursday released CBO estimates for liberals' preferred version of the public option that show $85 billion more in savings than for the version the Blue Dogs prefer. [...]
In total, a public plan based on Medicare rates would save $110 billion over 10 years. That is $20 billion more than earlier estimates, a spokesman for House Speaker Pelosi said.

This, as CA Lt. Gov. John Garamendi correctly points out that a mandate requiring all citizens to buy health insurance without some kind of price controls effectively throws the entire nation to the sharks. Without price controls, but with a mandate to buy, there would be no limits on what big insurance can charge.

The legislators' reluctance to control premium costs comes despite the fact that they intend to require virtually all Americans to get health insurance, an unprecedented mandate -- long sought by insurance companies -- that would mark the first time the federal government has compelled consumers to buy a single industry's product, effectively creating a captive market.
"We are about to force at least 30 million people into an insurance market where the sharks are circling," said California Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, a Democrat who served as the state's insurance commissioner for eight years. "Without effective protections, they will be eaten alive."

And with Blue Dog opposition fading, Bernie Sanders has come up with a parliamentary plan that would use all 60 votes to block a filibuster, yet let conservative Democrats in tight races vote against a final bill without affecting passage:

Senate Democrats, lead by Bernie Sanders, appear to be whipping votes to break a Republican filibuster of healthcare reform -- but, at the same time, giving conservadems the latitude to vote against the bill.

In other words, if the Senate Democrats can get secure their entire caucus and achieve 60 votes (including the interim senator Governor Patrick is due to appoint anytime now) to break the filibuster, some of the centrist Democrats can feel free to vote against final passage of the bill when only 50 votes (plus Biden) are required. No reconciliation swiss cheese, the public option would pass a floor vote, and the Blue Dogs would have political cover. It's win-win.

Pearl Jam: The Fixer

Sen. Rockefeller calls out pawns of insurance industry in Senate

Huff Post
Reacting to an amendment proposed by Sen. Jon Cornyn (R-Texas) during the Senate Finance Committee's markup of health care reform legislation on Thursday, committee member Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) called his colleague a pawn of the health insurance industry.

"This is a very, very important amendment and it's a very, very bad amendment," said Rockefeller. "If there's anything which is clear, it's that the insurance industry is not running this markup, but is running certain people in this markup."

On Wednesday, committee member Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) unintentionally made the same point about himself when he begged for "at least 72 hours for the people that the providers have hired to keep up with all of the legislation that we pass around here, and the regulations that we pass around here, to say, 'Hey, wait a minute. Have you considered this?'"

Cornyn, for his part, took umbrage.

"With all due respect, senator, I don't know what amendment you're referring to," he said.

Capitalism: A Love Story - Michael Moore live on GMA

Huff Post
Michael Moore called out ABC on "Good Morning America" Wednesday for employing "permalancers," permanent freelancers who are effectively full-time employees but hired on a contract basis, and thus not extended any benefits.

"I'm talking to employees, people backstage here, they don't get to be real employees here because they don't get the benefits, so they're freelancers," Moore told Chris Cuomo.

"And I said 'Guy, I was here two years ago and you were a freelancer' — right backstage here at ABC — he said, 'We call ourselves permalancers now. They don't get to share in just the basic benefits that an employee used to have who worked here. What's wrong with that? What is wrong with just giving people basic things for their hard work?"

Stewart takes on wankery over Obama media appearances

Did wingnut socialism outrage kill census worker?

Huff Post
The FBI is investigating the hanging death of a U.S. Census worker near a Kentucky cemetery, and a law enforcement official told The Associated Press the word 'fed" was scrawled on the dead man's chest.

The body of Bill Sparkman, a 51-year-old part-time Census field worker and occasional teacher, was found Sept. 12 in a remote patch of the Daniel Boone National Forest in rural southeast Kentucky.

Investigators are still trying to determine whether the death was a killing or a suicide, and if a killing, whether the motive was related to his government job or to anti-government sentiment.

Lucindia Scurry-Johnson, assistant director of the Census Bureau's southern office in Charlotte, N.C., said law enforcement officers have told the agency the matter is "an apparent homicide" but nothing else.

Now, this might have nothing to do with anything.

BUT, is it beyond the realm of possibility that the anti-government rhetoric spouted by the far right - Fox News, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage - had something to do with this?

Or how about everyone's favorite wingnut from Minnesota, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, who has been stirring anti-census fears for the last few months.

ThinkProgress
Next year, the 2010 Census will be sent to every American household, as required by the U.S. Constitution. The far right has issued dire warnings of the Census; on a May 29th episode of Bill Bennett’s radio show, RNC Chairman Michael Steele intoned, “Certainly the collection of this information is going to be part of an ongoing political campaign by this administration.”

In an interview with the Washington Time’s right-wing radio show this morning, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) declared that she would break the law and refuse to answer the Census questions, beyond noting the number of people in her household:

BACHMANN: The mother lode of all data information will be from the Census. … Unfortunately, the Census data has become very intricate, very personal, a lot of the questions that are asked. I know for my family, the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home. We won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.

Where does this lunacy stop?

Moral Kombat: Jon Stewart on Values Voters Summit

Kings..... 'nuff said

Kings Of Leon on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien from liveyourloveyourlife on Vimeo.

PSA: Will Ferrell, Jon Hamm support insurance companies

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Uh-oh

Research 2000

Frank Rich
Now, as then, a Dixie-oriented movement like this won’t remotely capture the White House. Now, unlike then, it is a catastrophe for the Republicans. The old G.O.P. Southern strategy is gone with the wind. The more the party is identified with nasty name-calling, freak-show protestors, immigrant-bashing (the proximate cause of [Joe] Wilson’s outburst at Obama) and, yes, racism, the faster it will commit demographic suicide as America becomes ever younger and more diverse. But Democrats shouldn’t be cocky. Over the short term, the real economic grievances lurking beneath the extremism of the Beck brigades can do damage to both parties. A stopped clock is right twice a day. The recession-spawned anger that Beck has tapped into on the right could yet find a more mainstream outlet in a populist revolt from the left and center.

BTW, most of those look like giant middle fingers. Coincidence?

Glenn Beck is a disgusting race-baiter

(Bob Cesca)
So, yes, Glenn Beck is crazy and a race-baiter and all the rest of it.

But now he's deliberately editing audio of the president -- I mean, wholesale reconstruction of the president's thoughts about the Constitution in order to make it sound like the president hates that founding document.

This could be Beck's lowest moment. He's spent many months deceiving his ignorant viewers, but this is easily his most egregious and obvious deception. Media Matters fully documents the fraud, but here's the shorthand:

What Glenn Beck aired:

OBAMA: The original Constitution [edit] I think it is an imperfect document, and I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture -- the colonial culture nascent at that time. [edit] I think we can say that the Constitution reflected a enormous blind spot in this culture [edit] and that the framers had that same blind spot. [edit] It also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.

What the president actually said in 2001 (cut lines noted):

OBAMA: Well, you know, I think it's a remarkable document. I think --

HOST: Which one?

OBAMA: The original Constitution, as well as -- as well as the Civil War amendments, but I think it is an imperfect document, and I think it is a document that reflects some deep flaws in American culture -- the colonial culture nascent at that time.

African-Americans were not -- first of all, they weren't African-Americans. The Africans at the time were not considered as part of the polity that was of concern to the framers. I think that, as [program co-panelist] Richard [John] said, it was a nagging problem in the same way that, these days, we might think of environmental issues or some other problem that, where you have to balance, you know, cost-benefits, as opposed to seeing it as a moral problem involving persons of moral worth.

And, in that sense, I think we can say that the Constitution reflected a enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day, and that the framers had that same blind spot. I don't think the two views are contradictory to say that it was a remarkable political document that paved the way for where we are now, and to say that it also reflected the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.

The president was speaking about the 3/5 Compromise -- an embarrassingly racist line in the Constitution that defined African-American slaves as 3/5 of a person. John Santore at Media Matters writes:

Does Beck really believe that such original elements of the Constitution should not be considered imperfections -- imperfections that were indeed the product of a cultural "blind spot" shared by the 18th century individuals who authored it?

So now there are millions of wingnuts going around thinking the president hates the Constitution. And Glenn Beck can just do this and get away with it, and the people who ought to be seriously offended are the wingnuts who are tricked into believing it.

Remember in the 1950s when Congress investigated fraud in the quiz shows? That was awesome.

Czar-gate more like Douchebag-gate

So Glenn Beck is citing all of the czars in Obama's government as a sign we've become socialist, or Nazi, or racist, or whatever he's pushing this week.

Czars ar epolitical and policy advisors in the White House that do not have to be confirmed by Congress. All recent presidents have had them. Energy czars. Drug policy czars. Environmental czars.

Except in the Bizarro World that Beck inhabits, facts don't matter. With Obama, it's different. It's taking away the America we used to know. It sounds like a pre-Communist Russian takeover. Mobilize the Red Dawn kids to save us. Except for Swayze, of course. RIP.

As Cenk Uyugr said on his show it's like the "gate" suffix added to a scandal. It's fun to say but there wasn't an actual "gate" involved in, say, "Travelgate."

From an Ezra Klein commenter:

The czar thing also bugged me because it's not an official title. Like if people would have called for the resignation of Tom Delay back in the day because a hammer can't be the Majority Leader. After all, hammers are inanimate objects and it's an affront to American values to have a lifeless tool at such a high office.

Teabagger, anti-socialism purity pledge

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

Social Security
Medicare/Medicaid
State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
US Postal Service
Roads and Highways
Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
The US Railway System
Public Subways and Metro Systems
Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
Rest Areas on Highways
Sidewalks
All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)
Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
Public and State Universities and Colleges
Public Primary and Secondary Schools
Sesame Street
Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
Public Museums
Libraries
Public Parks and Beaches
State and National Parks
Public Zoos
Unemployment Insurance
Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies

If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History
The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
The government-operated Statue of Liberty
The Grand Canyon
The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC

I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.

_____________ _________________________

Signed Printed Name/Town and State