The Hollywood Liberal

Early Morning Swim: Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment on Bigotry in Tea Party Movement, GOP
Blistering.

Blistering.

At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.

It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.

[…]

This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.

Glenn Beck of Fox News has called President Obama a “racist” and asserted that he “has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”

Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, has said of Mr. Obama’s economic policies: “Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff.”

The G.O.P. poisons the political atmosphere and then has the gall to complain about an absence of bipartisanship.

Read the whole thing. Herbert has never been better.

Tags: Early Morning Swim

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Late Late Night FDL: Down On Loving (Democrats)
Featuring two new videos from Northern Lights final show and The Soft Pack.

Featuring two new videos from Northern Lights final show and The Soft Pack.

What’s on your mind tonight?

Tags: Northern Lights, The Soft Pack

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Meet the Republicans
Paul Broun, Republican Representative and moronic statement machine. His influences…pretty much what you’d guess them to be.

Paul Broun: Should have followed Morganna the kissing bandit

Lost over the last few days in a deluge of imbecilic comments by the John Birch Society and the Council of Conservative Citizens Republicans, was this completely over-the-top and unintentionally hilarious statement of Georgia Republican Paul Broun:

If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States — the Great War of Yankee Aggression.

“The Great War of Yankee Aggression”? Really, that’s how you are still referring to it? Who the hell is this guy, Theodore Bilbo? (worst hobbit ever — even the Sackville Bagginses hated that guy [ed. “NERD!”])

But if nothing else, Broun has a history of profound thoughts…

While watching an NFL game, Broun became entranced by a “gentleman with this big type hair wig on” holding a “John 3:16” sign. “As I sat there in my office that fall trying to figure out life, I picked up the Bible and read John 3:16,” Broun said. He suddenly transformed into a true believer, a cadre of the Christian right.

Anyone who grew up in the 70s and 80s and watched sports remembers that guy.

And, as Digby noted a while ago, that ubiquitous guy in the wig with the John 3:16 banner — is now doing life in prison on multiple kidnapping and terrorism convictions.

So he certainly makes an inspirational symbol for a Republican Paul Broun.

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Clinton to AIPAC: ‘Status Quo Is Unsustainable’ in Middle East
In a speech before members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Netanyahu government’s plan to construct new settlements in East Jerusalem “undermines mutual trust” between Israel and the U.S. This strain of admonition apparently hasn’t hit its intended audience with enough force to compel it to change its plans, however. —KA BBC: In her speech to a convention in Washington of the influential Aipac (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Mrs Clinton underscored the Obama administration’s “rock solid” commitment to Israel. “Guaranteeing Israel’s security is more than a policy position for me. It is a personal commitment that will never waver,” she said. But, she added, it is Washington’s “responsibility to give credit when it is due and to tell the truth when it is needed”. Read more  

In a speech before members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that the Netanyahu government’s plan to construct new settlements in East Jerusalem “undermines mutual trust” between Israel and the U.S. This strain of admonition apparently hasn’t hit its intended audience with enough force to compel it to change its plans, however. —KA

BBC:

In her speech to a convention in Washington of the influential Aipac (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), Mrs Clinton underscored the Obama administration’s “rock solid” commitment to Israel.

“Guaranteeing Israel’s security is more than a policy position for me. It is a personal commitment that will never waver,” she said.

But, she added, it is Washington’s “responsibility to give credit when it is due and to tell the truth when it is needed”.

Read more

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Right-wing media demonstrate “judicial activism” by urging landmark healthcare bill be overturned by courts

Despite their purported opposition to “liberal judicial activism” and supposed support for judicial restraint, right-wing media have responded to the passage of health care reform legislation by urging it be overturned by the courts. Media Matters has previously noted that despite the conservative myth that judicial activism is solely a “liberal” practice, at least two studies have found that the most “conservative” Supreme Court justices have been the biggest judicial activists.

Right wing media urge historic health care bill be overturned by judiciary

Wash. Examiner‘s Stirewalt: “Either learn to love Obamacare, or sue to stop it.” In a March 21 said of the process of replacing Supreme Court Justice David Souter, “Republicans do have a role here, and it’s to talk about judicial activism and the dangers of it”; Barnes also stated that “liberal judicial activism” is “entirely results oriented.” And radio host Laura Ingraham asserted that Judge Sonia Sotomayor, nominated by Obama to replace Souter, has “been described as judicially liberal, which means you don’t favor the principle of judicial restraint.” Ingraham later added that Sotomayor is “a traditional liberal and does not believe in, I think, a strict adherence to separation of powers.”

In fact, studies show that conservatives — not liberals — most likely engage in “judicial activism.” A 2005 study by Yale University law professor Paul Gewirtz and Yale Law School graduate Chad Golder showed that among Supreme Court justices at that time, those most frequently labeled “conservative” were among the most frequent practitioners of at least one brand of judicial activism — the tendency to strike down statutes passed by Congress. Those most frequently labeled “liberal” were the least likely to strike down statutes passed by Congress.

A 2007 study by Cass R. Sunstein (subsequently named by President Obama to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs) and University of Chicago law professor Thomas Miles used a different measurement of judicial activism — the tendency of judges to strike down decisions by federal regulatory agencies. Sunstein and Miles found that by this definition, the Supreme Court’s “conservative” justices were the most likely to engage in “judicial activism” while the “liberal” justices were most likely to exercise “judicial restraint.”

Numerous experts conclude that health care reform is constitutional

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Health Care Reform Heads to the Courts
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Overheated Talk Undoing Republicans
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Democratic Offices Vandalized In Days Surrounding Health Care Vote
Rhetoric surrounding the health care debate has often been very violent, with Rep. Steve King (R-IA) just yesterday promising to “beat that other side to a pulp” and at least one Tea Party sign threatening gun violence if health care reform passes. In recent days, several Democratic offices around the nation have also been vandalized. […]

Rhetoric surrounding the health care debate has often been very violent, with Rep. Steve King (R-IA) just yesterday promising to “beat that other side to a pulp” and at least one Tea Party sign threatening gun violence if health care reform passes.

In recent days, several Democratic offices around the nation have also been vandalized. Although it’s unclear who the perpetrators are, all the incidents took place shortly before or after the House’s vote on health care yesterday:

– The glass front door of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-AZ) Tuscon office was “smashed out” a “few hours after she voted in favor of health care reform.” Giffords’ spokesman C.J. Karamargin “said it was unclear if the glass had been shot out with a kind of pellet gun, if it had been kicked or smashed with an object. The door has been covered with plywood.”

– On the morning of March 19, someone threw a brick through the front window of Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-NY) Niagara Falls office. Monroe County Democratic Committee officials also said that a brick shattered the glass doors at their party’s headquarters in Rochester, NY on Saturday or Sunday.

In a more confusing incident, someone spray-painted the word “DORKS” on the window of the Knox County Democratic Headquarters in Mount Vernon, OH. ThinkProgress spoke to Jim Zak, Democratic Party chairman, who said that this morning, he received a call about the vandalism, which seems to have happened sometime after midnight last night. He said that he has “no idea who would have done it,” but noted that “things are running pretty high here in Knox County, as far as the health care reform bill was concerned.”

At the Code Red protest this weekend, Tea Party activists also spat on a lawmaker and shouted racist and homophobic slurs at others.