Front-Group Mailer Attacks Female Candidate For Being ?Unmarried?
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 12th, 2011 5:36 am by HL
Front-Group Mailer Attacks Female Candidate For Being ?Unmarried?
Less than two weeks ahead of Election Day in Tampa, FL, a nasty mail advertisement surfaced yesterday attacking candidate Rose Ferlita. Funded by Less Government Now, a 527 group, the mailer urges voters to vote against Ferlita because she is “Unmarried. Unsure. Unelectable.” (Click for full size): The mailer suggests that because Ferlita is not […]
Less than two weeks ahead of Election Day in Tampa, FL, a nasty mail advertisement surfaced yesterday attacking candidate Rose Ferlita. Funded by Less Government Now, a 527 group, the mailer urges voters to vote against Ferlita because she is “Unmarried. Unsure. Unelectable.” (Click for full size):
The mailer suggests that because Ferlita is not married, she is incapable of valuing family or holding public office. “Rose Ferlita has put her political ambition first and foremost, while her opponent is a dedicated family man with two children — Ferlita is an unmarried woman with a suspect commitment to family values,” it reads. Moreover, as Florida blog Saint Petersblog notes, “unmarried” is a “codeword” — “if you read between the lines is a subtle way of casting doubt on Ferlita’s sexual orientation.” Other mailers sent by Less Government Now going after men have focused on the candidates’ record or policy positions, not their personal lives, marital status, or sexual orientation.
Less Government Now appears to be tied to Scott Maddox, a Democratic operative who unsuccessfully ran for Agricultural Commissioner last year, and has been used to bolster tea party candidates in an attempt to split the GOP vote. Tampa has non-partisan mayoral elections, but Ferlita, a current county commissioner, is a Republican.
State Dept. Spokesman: Treatment Of Bradley Manning Is ?Ridiculous And Counterproductive And Stupid?
This past May, the military arrested Private First Class Bradley Manning, a soldier who worked in military intelligence and had served overseas in Iraq, over charges that he was involved in leaking numerous classified documents and videos to the Wikileaks whistleblowing group, including a video of a U.S. attack helicopter killing numerous unarmed journalists. Since […]
This past May, the military arrested Private First Class Bradley Manning, a soldier who worked in military intelligence and had served overseas in Iraq, over charges that he was involved in leaking numerous classified documents and videos to the Wikileaks whistleblowing group, including a video of a U.S. attack helicopter killing numerous unarmed journalists.
Since his arrests, civil liberties groups and members of Congress have protested his treatment, which involves being kept in solitary confinement, being denied access to a pillow or bed sheets, and being forcibly stripped naked every single night.
Last night, as reported by former BBC America journalist Philippa Thomas, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley commented on Manning’s treatment during an event organized by the Center for Future Civic Media. Crowley blasted the treatment of Manning by his “colleagues at the Department of Defense“:
Around twenty of us were sitting around the table listening to his views on social media, the impact of the Twittersphere, the Arab uprisings, and so on, in a vast space-age conference room overlooking the Charles River and the Boston skyline. And then, inevitably, one young man said he wanted to address “the elephant in the room”. What did Crowley think, he asked, about Wikileaks? About the United States, in his words, “torturing a prisoner in a military brig”? Crowley didn’t stop to think. What’s being done to Bradley Manning by my colleagues at the Department of Defense “is ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid.” He paused. “None the less Bradley Manning is in the right place”. And he went on lengthening his answer, explaining why in Washington’s view, “there is sometimes a need for secrets… for diplomatic progress to be made”. [..]
A few minutes later, I had a chance to ask a question. “Are you on the record?” I would not be writing this if he’d said no. There was an uncomfortable pause. “Sure.” So there we are.
Crowley’s response is the strongest condemnation yet by an American official of the treatment of Manning. Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), who was asked about the soldier last month, defended his treatment. “There are concerns about what is happening, but a strong argument is being made that they’re trying to preserve his safety, they don’t want him harming himself, and using his own clothing to hang himself, or do something like that,” Kerry said.
