The Resistance: Stop Being Crybabies

Josh Marshall wrote this to journalists, but it applies to all of us.  As he says, PEOTUS is a punk and a coward.  Don't be afraid.

Journalists should be unbowed and aggressive and with a sense of humor until something happens to prevent them from doing so. Trump is a punk and a bully. People who don't surrender up their dignity to him unhinge him.

Much the same applies to the endless chatter about 'conflicts of interest' and the insufficiency of his plan to separate himself from his businesses. Why are we still saying Trump isn't doing enough to avoid conflicts of interest? He's made clear he wants to profit off his presidency. Let's accept that. That is what he wants to do. If you're a journalist, start documenting the details. If you're an activist or politician start mobilizing against his corruption.

Trump is the most unpopular incoming President in American history. We only have data on this going back a few decades. But there's little reason to think any President in previous decades or centuries has been this unpopular. Indeed, he's getting less popular as he approaches his inauguration. People need to have a bit more confidence in themselves, their values and their country. As soon as you realize that the Trump wants to profit from the presidency and that the Republicans are focused and helping him do so, all the questions become easier to answer and the path forward more clear. His threats against the press are the same. He's threatening to take away things the press doesn't truly need in order to instill a relationship of dominance.

There's nothing more undignified and enervating than fretting about whether the President-Elect will brand real news 'fake news' or worrying whether his more authoritarian supporters can be convinced to believe - pleaded with, instructed to, prevailed upon - actual factual information. The answer to attacks on journalism is always more journalism. And the truth is that Trump's threats are cheap stunts and bluffs, threatening to take away things journalists don't need.

QOTD

PZ Myers on conservative bullies complaining about being bullied:

It seems to me that the real problem here is that wingnuts don’t want to be held accountable for their ugly views — they want to be racist and sexist, but how dare you call them racist and sexist, and worst of all, how unfair to actually penalize them in the court of public opinion for being bigoted scumbags.

But it’s actually quite fair. You’re free to accuse me of being a feminist, an egalitarian, an anti-racist, and I won’t deny it — I’ll actually take pride in it.

QOTD

The Rude Pundit on conservative bullies whining about being bullied:

Let's get this right, okay? When someone tells you that the things you believe are wrong, it's not bullying. When someone says that facts clearly demonstrate that your opinion is false, it's not bullying. According to conservatives, teachers are bullying students if they point out that Reagan wasn't a demi-god who never did anything bad.

What's actually happening is that for decades, for centuries, the white, straight, conservative Christians have gotten to dictate the terms of the argument. They were used to being the home team. Now, with changes in demographics and changes in beliefs, they're increasingly playing an away game. Everyone loves it when the hometown crowd chants for you. Of course, you don't like it when you're the visitors and they boo.

For a bunch of people who were and, to a great extent, still are bullies, you really are just wimps who are begging for a swirlie.

AynRandy Gets Middle East Exactly Backwards

Really hard to figure out this one: is the Tribble-Toupeed One really that grossly ignorant of decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank or is he so completely owned and occupied by AIPAC that he doesn't care about the damage he's doing?

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul will introduce a bill this week, calling for an end of U.S. aid to Palestine until it recognizes Israel’s right to exist, which could be seen as an attempt to drum up pro-Israel support prior to a possible 2016 bid.

“Israel cannot be expected to negotiate with an entity that does not believe it should exist and that has used terrorist tactics to seek its end,” the Republican senator said in a statement Monday.

The biggest - by several orders of magnitude - obstacle to Middle East peace is the categorical refusal of Israel's fanatically right-wing government to stop its slow-motion genocide of Palestinian Arabs.

For decades, American presidents and Secretaries of State have begged Israel to stop building Israeli settlements on Palestinian land, to stop building the apartheid wall, to stop undermining the Palestinian economy, to stop attacking and arresting and detaining without charges every random Palestinian who catches an Israeli soldier's eye.

The only way to force this Bully Israel to the table is to cancel all U.S. aid to Israel - all the billions of tax dollars in military aid - and transfer it to humanitarian aid to Palestinian Arabs.

Israel is not the plucky, secular, socialistic democracy of 1948 or even 1978. It's a nuclear-powered bully that's on a downhill path to self-destruction.

It'll take the whole Middle East and a big chunk of the U.S. with it if we don't stop it.

Palestinian Arabs aren't the enemy any more.  Israel is.

Fuck You, MSNBC President Cowardly Worm: That Tweet Was Dead-on Right

Motherfuckers will probably give Chris Hayes' show to Avik fucking Roy.

 

Daniel Strauss at TPM:

MSNBC President Phil Griffin has apologized to Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus for a tweet by the network that ignited a conservative firestorm

Griffin issued a personal apology for the entire episode on Thursday.

"The tweet last night was outrageous and unacceptable. We immediately acknowledged that it was offensive and wrong, apologized, and deleted it. We have dismissed the person responsible for the tweet," Griffin said in a statement according to The Huffington Post. "I personally apologize to Mr. Priebus and to everyone offended. At msnbc we believe in passionate, strong debate about the issues and we invite voices from all sides to participate. That will never change."
 The tweet that started it all suggested that conservatives would hate the image of an "adorable new #Cheerios ad w/ biracial family." It was a reference to a 2013 Cheerios commercial that featured a biracial family.

In response to the since-deleted tweet Priebus told conservatives to boycott MSNBC

How many liberals does FucksNews have to flay alive on air before MSNBC learns the facts of broadcast life?

 

A. Never, never apologize when you are correct and have the facts on your side. 

 

B. Never, ever, EVER apologize to repugs or conservatives for any reason even if you are dead wrong.

 

C. No conservatives watch MSNBC unless they are masturbating to their own appearances.

D.  If no conservative ever watched MSNBC and the network responded by no longer booking motherfucking liars like Avik Roy and Katon Dawson, it would gain millions of viewers who know life is too short to listen to repug lies.

Climate Scientist Wins First Round Against Denialists

This, children, is why you must always stand up to bullies, fight them and fight them hard until they go down and stay down.

Mother Jones:

In 2012—after writers for National Review and a prominent conservative think tank accused him of fraud and compared him to serial child molester Jerry Sandusky—climate scientist Michael Mann took the bold step of filing a defamation suit. The defendants moved to have the case thrown out, citing a Washington, DC, law that shields journalists from frivolous litigation. But on Wednesday, DC Superior Court Judge Frederick Weisberg rejected the motion, opening the way for a trial.

Although public figures like Mann have to clear a high bar to prove defamation, Weisberg argued that the scientist's complaint may pass the test. And he brushed aside the defendants' claims that the fraud allegations were "pure opinion," which is protected by the First Amendment:

Accusing a scientist of conducting his research fraudulently, manipulating his data to achieve a predetermined or political outcome, or purposefully distorting the scientific truth are factual allegations. They go to the heart of scientific integrity. They can be proven true or false. If false, they are defamatory. If made with actual malice, they are actionable.

Weisberg's order is just the latest in a string of setbacks that have left the climate change skeptics' case in disarray. Earlier this month, Steptoe & Johnson, the law firm representing National Review and its writer, Mark Steyn, withdrew as Steyn's counsel. According to two sources with inside knowledge, it also plans to drop National Review as a client.

SNIP

As for Mann, he welcomes the recent ruling. "I'm pleased that the judge has reaffirmed the merit of our case and has allowed it to now move on to the discovery phase," he told Mother Jones. Beyond that, he declined to comment, but he has written about his reasons for coming out aggressively in his own defense. "As the staid scientific journal Nature put it, climate researchers are in a street fight with those who seek to discredit the accepted scientific evidence, and we must fight back against the disinformation that denies this real and present danger to the planet," he explained on the liberal blog ThinkProgress. "The worst thing we can do is bury our heads in the sand and pretend that climate change doesn’t exist."

What Alison Lundergan Grimes Can Learn from a New Jersey Mayor About Responding to Repug Bullying

Chris Hayes interviews Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich about Govenor Chris Christie's political retaliation, and the Mayor nails it. He starts out a little shaky, but by the end, when Sokolich explains why he, a Democratic Mayor, did not endorse Christie for re-election, I was on my feet cheering.

This is how a real Democratic politician talks, Alison. This is how a real Democratic elected official stands up to repug bullies.  This is how a real Democratic candidate lets voters know she is on their side.

As usual, MSNBC's embed sucks giant repug ass, so here's the link.

Stand Up to the Bullies. Even the TIny Ones

There's an epidemic of bullying going on these days, from congressional repugs to fat repug governors to evil freakazoid governors to at least one person in your life.

Bullying at the national, state and personal levels has exploded over the past decade, mostly because the victims of bullying have stopped fighting it.

It's just too much trouble: the bullies never stop, they never learn, they never give up. Fighting bullies is hard, lonely, thankless work.

But that's exactly why it's critical to keep fighting them, even when fighting them appears to accomplish nothing.

I have a bully in my life right now. The practical effect on my life is minor: no physical injury, no financial loss, no threat to friends or family or pets. Which is why even close friends advise me to let it go. To tolerate the bullying. To "rise above it."

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as "rising above" bullying. The instant you stop fighting a bully with every fiber of your being, the bully drags you down to his or her own subterranean level.

Every time you choose to ignore rather than fight even the smallest, weakest bully in your life, you make it easier for every other bully in the world from the tiniest to the largest, most vicious and destructive to continue to wreak havoc everywhere it goes.

So I will spend an inordinate amount of time and effort fighting back against my pathetic little bully, enduring pity and derision from everyone around, because everything you do to delay, or annoy, or slow down any bully takes power away from all bullies.

Especially motherfuckers like Mitch McConnell. 

Cowardly Bullies Paul and McConnell Whine That Dems Fought Back

Nobody nails the GOP like the Rude Pundit:

In Brief: Oh, Shut the Fuck Up on the Filibuster, GOP:

Dear GOP,

You reap what you have sown, motherfuckers. And now you get at least a year of eating shit on judges and executive branch appointees. Why? Because you were such unbelievable dickheads for the last three years and the government can't function when a minority of one house of one branch can stall everything. Frankly, this should have been done all the way in January 2009, with no exception for bills and Supreme Court justices, and then we'd have real heath care reform, Gitmo closed, and more.

Just fucking stop with the outrage and the promise that you're gonna do even more evil cuntery if you ever get the majority and the presidency again. C'mon. You know and so does everyone else that, no matter if Reid went nuclear or not, you were gonna change the filibuster the first chance you got. And that's because you're dishonorable scumfuckers who won't stand to let the black man president have his way.

SNIP

Let's just hope Obama tees up a shit-ton of liberal judges to correct the rightward tilt of the judiciary in this country. You know how it got so conservative, GOP? Because Democrats weren't complete and utter pricks. Like you. So even some fuckin' perverse animals got through to lifetime appointments on the bench.

You got what you deserved. Now, really, go out and try to sell America on how much majority rule sucks as you try to get the majority.

Kisses in Hell,

The Rude Pundit

No, It's Not Just A Joke

It's the foundation of oppression

From Divine Irony:

I Hope Jonathan Martin Sues the Shit Out of Incognito, the Dolphins and the NFL

All the macho motherfuckers defending Richie Incognito need to learn some lessons from the wide receiver in this video.

Erik Loomis at Lawyers, Guns and Money: 

How the NFL and its supporters have rallied around Richie Incognito over the hazing and threatening of Jonathan Martin is both disgusting and typical. Martin is essentially being drummed out of the league. It’s really hard to see how he returns to the league. It would take the right kind of coach, the right kind of locker room, one that seemingly doesn’t exist in the violent, homophobic, misogynistic NFL. Everyone on the Dolphins supports Incognito and is blaming Martin, saying he wasn’t enough of a man to just punch Incognito in the face, which evidently is the solution to all problems. Peter King is opening his site at Sports Illustrated to a former Dolphin who is basically saying the same thing (I love the “I’m only interested in the truth” line. Ah). What’s more, everyone is saying there’s no way Incognito can be called a racist. After all he did was call his black teammate a “half-nigger,” who could call that racist! We all know that the only real racists in American society are those who support equality for blacks and who therefore are racist toward whites. And while of course no one in the NFL is tying their explanation away or half-apologies for Incognito’s racist text to the modern conservative political definition of racism, they are in fact closely related. In our society, no one is a racist. The mom who dressed her kid up as a KKK member for Halloween? She’s just continuing a family tradition. Why, I bet some of her best friends are black! There evidently are no racists anymore. The word itself has become demonized, as if it doesn’t actually describe certain behaviors and is itself a term more offensive than “half-nigger.” It’s all horrifying.

Also, given all of this, anyone think a gay NFL player is possibly going to come out? And put up with the horrors of the locker room, not to mention other teams? What would Richie Incognito do to a gay teammate? I don’t really want to know.

Yet there are voices of dissent. Travis Waldron at Think Progress:

Stick to the code. Don’t go to others. Be a man. Handle it yourself. Do it any other way, Murtha and others are saying, and you’re weak, soft, not a man.

That’s not how Terrelle Pryor sees it, though. Asked about the Dolphins’ situation Thursday, the second-year Oakland Raiders quarterback applauded Martin’s courage to stand up against the bullies, even if he didn’t do it with his fists.

“I hope that we see [Jonathan] Martin playing again soon – I’ve watched some tape of him, he’s a good player,” Pryor said, according to Raiders.com. “Hats off to him for standing up and being a man.”

But that wasn’t all. Pryor also insinuated that there should have been leaders — men — in the locker room who stood up for Martin and spoke out about Incognito’s problems (which are only looking worse with each passing day).

“There are some situations where sometimes you have to do that, it’s minor things, but you want to cut things off,” Pryor said. “There are so many situations that pop up – your teammate has one drink or something like that and you want to say, ‘Hey, maybe you should take a cab, come take a cab with me,’ something small like that you just get so much respect from your teammate that you stopped and helped him. It’s just little things like that, it matters and that definitely comes in on a leadership role.”

The NFL could use a few more players with Terrelle Pryor’s definition of manhood. It’s a shame the Dolphins don’t seem to have any.

All You Have to Lose Is Your Shitty, Expensive, Fraudulent Non-Coverage

This must be the repug propaganda that Anonymous in comments believes:

Health care overhaul means about 280,000 Kentuckians will lose current insurance coverage

Wow, Roger Alford - you're as bad as Ron Fournier in your desperation to blame Democrats for repug obstruction and sabotage.

No, 280,000 Kentuckians are not losing current insurance coverage. 280,000 Kentuckians are about to escape the trap of useless, fradulent, fake insurance that costs the earth and doesn't cover a fucking thing.

Talking Points Memo explodes the myth:

Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies' own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces -- which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended. In some cases, mentions of the marketplace in those letters are relegated to a mere footnote, which can be easily overlooked.

The extreme lengths to which some insurance companies are going to hold on to existing customers at higher price, as the Affordable Care Act fundamentally re-orders the individual insurance market, has caught the attention of state insurance regulators.

The insurance companies argue that it's simply capitalism at work. But regulators don't see it that way. By warning customers that their health insurance plans are being canceled as a result of Obamacare and urging them to secure new insurance plans before the Obamacare launched on Oct. 1, these insurers put their customers at risk of enrolling in plans that were not as good or as affordable as what they could buy on the marketplaces.

All insurance companies are greedy motherfuckers and pathological liars. Get on the exchange. Discover the truth.

Scott Lemiuex piles on:

This is a very important point:

The employer-based health-insurance system is much more popular than the individual market. It’s also much more redistributive. The 25-year-old male in the loading dock has to pay the same premiums as the diabetic 60-year-old in accounting. Is this injustice an important part of the political discourse? How often do you hear people complain about it?

Every iteration of an alternative conservative health-care proposal would impose far more disruption on the status quo than would Obamacare. Most conservative plans involve drastically curtailing the tax deduction for employer-based insurance. That would create cancellation notices for many times the number of people currently seeing them. Even the more modest plans to scale back Obama’s regulation of the individual market would run the GOP into a political minefield. Which regulations do they want to strip away? Discrimination against people with preexisting conditions? Discrimination against potentially pregnant women? Mental-health parity? Every single one of those changes creates millions of angry potential victims.

This is exactly why the actual Republican Party health-care plan is not repeal and replace, but repeal and cackle. Republicans are on strong ground exploiting fear of change. They have understood perfectly well that they must avoid having to defend a different set of changes to the status quo. They have kept their various replace ideas safely to the side for exactly that reason.

I’d also note that there’s nothing in the status quo ante that guarantees that you could keep your existing insurance. You could, for example, lose your job.

And this is also crucial. A lot of anecdotes about “cancelled insurance” aren’t actually going to pan out.

Arrest These Motherfuckers

Breaking the law and bragging about it. It's not even a victimless crime, either: defying this federal mandate will cause direct harm to thousands of employees and their families.

 

Annie-Rose Strasser at Think Progress:

 

Craft store chain Hobby Lobby announced on Friday that it will ignore the ruling of U.S. courts and refuse to provide copay-free birth control access to its employees. It will do so despite whatever costs it may incur, even if they are higher than the cost of birth control itself.
Upon learning that Obamacare required employers and insurance companies to provide birth control with no cost to employees, Hobby Lobby sued, saying that, despite the secular nature of the business, the company’s owner’s religious objections should be taken into consideration. When a court denied that line of reasoning, Hobby Lobby took its grievances to the Supreme Court and asked for an injunction. The highest court in the land denied that request, telling Hobby Lobby that it must allow its employees access to birth control as it seeks further litigation.

But Hobby Lobby is saying no.

The store plans to ignore the provision anyway, opting to pay a fine instead of provide birth control, including the morning after pill commonly known as Plan B, which the owner feels goes against his personal religious values:

With Wednesday’s rejection of an emergency stay of that federal health care law by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Hobby Lobby and sister company Mardel could be subject to fines of up to $1.3 million a day beginning Tuesday.

“They’re not going to comply with the mandate,” said Kyle Duncan, general counsel of The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the company. “They’re not going to offer coverage for abortion-inducing drugs in the insurance plan.”

As for the potential fines, Duncan said, “We’re just going to have to cross that bridge when we come to it.”

This ignores two obvious points — first, that Plan B is not an ‘abortion-inducing’ drug, as Hobby Lobby claims, and second, that the company may well end up paying more to avoid covering contraception than they would simply providing access. It also takes a twisted view on the ‘Freedom of Religion’ argument; the company is actually forcing its owner’s religious beliefs on all employees, no matter their personal religious views.

 Hmmm. $1.3 million a day.  That might actually hurt these Mammon-worshippers more than jail time.  Especially if the money is earmarked for something that'll really hurt them.  How about a grant program to pay for state-mandated unnecessary upgrades to abortion clinics?

"People Died for the Right to Vote"

And don't you ever fucking forget it.

Via Steve Benen:



Down with Tyranny describes it as Lewis "shaming" Broun into withdrawing, and that's the biggest takeaway here: What repugs are doing - not just on gay rights, but on women's rights, on global warming, on the budget, on helping the poor, on saving the middle class, on growing the economy - everything, repugs are shameful.

Lewis shows that it is not just possible but easy to shame them into backing down and backing off if you are not afraid to stand up and argue passionately for human and civil rights.

Repugs are bullies. And bullies are cowards. And cowards always back down when confronted by righteous courage.

The New Bullying

This is what happens when you respond to attacks on people who have responsible sex for pleasure by whining that it's not about sex, it's about "women's health."

No, it's not. It's about the right to have sex for pleasure anywhere, anytime, in any position, in any combination of partners that you want, without interference from anyone for any reason.

If you don't fight loud and proud for the right to have sex for pleasure anywhere, anytime, in any position, in any combination of partners that you want, without interference from anyone for any reason, you get shit like this:

David Atkins, "thereisnospoon," at Hullabaloo:

The Consequences of Hate

DailyKos diarist beantown mom writes:

You see, my 16 year old daughter came home from school on Friday in tears and has been in a state of utter despair since. She was told, in no uncertain terms, that she is a slut, a prostitute, a horny piece of trash that is out to sleep with every guy in school! The horrid little monsters who started harassing my daughter had the audacity to tell her their mothers were the ones who labeled her with these despicable opinions- they were just "telling it like it is, you know, like that guy on the radio! The one who isn't afraid to tell the truth!"

Here is the note that one of the hatemonger classmates who attends her school gave her:

Little miss innocent, huh? Whatever slut- you take birth control pills so you can f*&# every guy in school! What a joke- u are nothin but a whore! Pretty bad when some guy on the radio who isn't afraid to tell the truth has to break it down for everybody- if u on the Pill u are nothing but a skank ass ho! My mom said girls on the pill are tramps who just wanna get laid and don't care about nothin- is that how u are?

This is the consequence of the hate being peddled by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. It's not just "entertainment" or "humor" as he and his defenders like to claim. The bullying these folks do on the airwaves trickles down to bullying in the workplace and in the schoolyard. It has very real, very negative consequences to people's lives--including to these "mean girls" bullies themselves, who are at significantly higher risk of teen pregnancy and doomed shotgun weddings due to a learned prejudice against basic birth control.

Now, I might also point out that this woman's daughter is taking the pill to address horrible cramps. But while that clarification might matter to the pearl-clutching prudes, the fact is that it doesn't matter at all. If she's taking them because she needs birth control, then good for her. That's her decision to make, and hers alone.

This is also, incidentally, why I'm a big proponent of liberal homeschooling for those with the capability to do so. If it were up to me, every kid who engaged in this sort of horrid behavior would be subject to significant suspension and/or expulsion. There should be a zero-tolerance policy for this sort of behavior, and it should be rigorously enforced. If this ever happened to any daughter of mine at a public school, I would first have the heads of the principals and the administrators, then the kids' parents would get a personal visit, then my kid would get yanked out of the school. I would encourage as many parents of her friends to do likewise as possible, and then I'd get an op-ed and letter-to-the-editor campaign in every local newspaper. Either the parents of these bullies would be humiliated in the community, or I would find a different community in which to live.

But then, I'm an activist like that.

The tiniest concession to the boring-missionary-position-with-your-uninterested-spouse-only forces is unconditional surrender. The only response to their stupidity is to unconditionally demand sex for pleasure, with mandatory universal contraception and free, frequent abortion on demand.

We should celebrate and honor and hold up as social exemplars people who have sex for pleasure outside of marriage. We should point and laugh at everybody who thinks only married sex for procreation only is acceptable.

A Death in Western Kentucky

Western Kentucky is the most conservative section of the Commonwealth. No Democratic statewide candidate can ever be assured of victory until the late returns come in from the counties west of Louisville.

But deep in the heart of conservative Western Kentucky, Hopkinsville is rallying to a family mourning the death by suicide of its bisexual teenager.

From the Kentucky New Era:

Miranda’s death from a self-inflicted gunshot wound has sparked a local movement against bullying and teen suicide. The Miranda Campbell Challenge, started Sunday by Felty and kids from the teen center, has a Facebook page with 1,129 likes from users. Many users have left supportive comments for the movement and Miranda’s family.

The school had a memorial service for Miranda in its gymnasium Wednesday night. Friends and family spoke about Miranda during the event.

Travis Campbell, Miranda’s father, said that his daughter dealt with bullying on a day-to-day basis in school, in connection to her bisexuality. Felty, who knew Miranda for more than two years, also said bullying was a factor in her life.

Both Campbell and Felty want the movement to help discourage bullying in schools and the community.

“We are going to use (the challenge) to communicate to parents and teachers in the area the price that can be paid from lashing out and bullying,” Campbell said. “We are making sure we can turn this into something positive.”

Read the whole thing.

The Bullying Cowards of ALEC

All bullies are cowards, and you can smell their fear a mile away. They never stand and defend themselves, but hide behind thugs and mercenaries.

The bullying cowards don't come any more craven than the Koch Brothers and their evil creature, the American Legislative Exchange Council.

Nicole Belle at Crooks and Liars:

Wow, it's like they have something to hide...

Yesterday, at a conference in New Orleans, two ThinkProgress reporters were attacked by security guards for no apparent reason. Reporters Scott Keyes and Lee Fang were at the Marriott Hotel for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting, an event that brings together state lawmakers with corporate lobbyists to draft “model” legislation.

While [Keyes and Fang] stood by the second floor lobby of the conference hotel, security guards surrounded [them], demanding that [they] leave. As we were leaving, [the guards] approached [Keyes and Fang], violently pushed [them] and twisted [their] arms. A guard approached Fang from behind, tackling him and later bending his arm to take his camera. Keyes, faced similar treatment: two security guards roughed him up on the escalator, taking his video camera, and cutting Keyes’ hand as he attempted to leave the premises. As Keyes asked why he was being forced to leave, he was shoved from the back. Asked why they were being so belligerent, the security guards said they were acting on instructions from ALEC.

I tend to stay away from shadow government conspiracy theories, but this truly is a shadow organization--accountable to no one and with no need or desire for transparency--that is writing legislation that affects all of us throughout the country. And now, they're roughing up reporters who get too close? New world order, indeed.

Click for video.

Liberals are proud of what we do and eager to explain ourselves to anyone who asks and is willing to listen.

Standing Up to the Bullies in Your Neighborhood

This will make you squirm and want to go find something else to do. But read it anyway - it's important, and the lesson is not what you think it is.

Digby:

I've been lectured recently about being nice to these people because they're just good folks with different views and problems of their own that I should try to understand and empathize with. But I can't empathize with people who think it's cute or funny or useful to surround average citizens having a meeting to bully and intimidate them. I'm sorry, I just can't. In fact, I think it's immoral not to speak out against them.

They may have their grievances, but there's is no reason on earth to do this:

A small political gathering of about 18 liberal thinkers at River Forks Park Sunday afternoon erupted in conflict when about 35 members of the conservative tea party intruded upon the meeting, waving flags and holding signs accusing the rival group of being communists, Marxists and socialists.

The liberal group — organized by MoveOn.org — decided to leave the park and move its potluck to a nearby home. Members of the conservative group followed, parking at the entrance of a private lane leading to the home to continue their protest.

Roseburg Democrats Dean and Sara Byers said Monday they told tea party members who followed that they were not welcome to drive down the lane to their home.

[...]

A leader of the tea party group, Rich Raynor of Roseburg, disputed the liberal group's version of events.

“They are liars,” said Raynor, director of Douglas County Americans for Prosperity. “That is what communists do.”

Members of the smaller group said Monday they were intimidated by the tea partiers, whom they accused of violating their constitutional right to peacefully assembly.

Roseburg resident Lillen Fifield, 70, called the group's actions an “act of domestic terrorism” and said she was appalled that a peaceful gathering — mostly of women older than 65 — was interrupted.

“It is not OK to go around and intimidate and threaten people. That is not acceptable in a polite society,” Fifield said.

Conservative organizers defended their actions and said they will continue to protest similar gatherings.

“We were there to find out what they had to say and to bring a notice to the public that this kind of thing was going on. Quite honestly, if they have it again, then we are really going to make it well known,” Raynor said.

Raynor said the group believes MoveOn.org is a communist front and said he would not stand for America becoming a fascist nation.

Sara Byers said she could not believe the meeting was targeted for protest. She said the group supports the middle class and wants to take back the government from the stranglehold of corporations.

She laughed at the accusations of communism and said the two groups actually have more in common than people think.

“I just said, ‘Are you kidding me?' ” Byers said.

Tea party members posted a 2:46-minute video of the confrontation in the park and added captions.

On the video, heckling members of the larger group celebrate breaking up the meeting.

“That sure did it in a hurry, huh?” a man says. A woman references next year's election year and shouts, “Sure shows who is going to win! We are!”

I wouldn't go so far as to call it domestic terrorism, but it is mean and thuggish and these Tea Partiers are jerks for doing it.

Watch the video. It's true that the meeting was out in the open in a public place, so there was no expectations of privacy. The Tea Partiers didn't break any laws and they didn't get violent. They didn't have to. They just converged on a group of fellow citizens sitting quietly at picnic tables and hovered over them holding accusatory signs until the citizens packed up and left. They may have the perfect right to do that, but that doesn't make it right.

Raynor maintained the tea party's goal was to attend the meeting and hear what the rival group had to say.

He said the fact that they stopped the meeting and left proves they have something to hide.

Sutherlin conservative Karen Meier said she posed as a MoveOn.org member and infiltrated the group's meeting prior to the confrontation. She said she found many of the liberals to be pleasant.

“Obviously, they don't really know what MoveOn is and who it entails,” Meier said.

A MoveOn.org meeting attendee Lorna Hayden of Roseburg said the tea party mischaracterized the nature of the meeting. Still, any group, no matter what its agenda, has a right to be in the park Sunday without being harassed, she said.

Raynor said the tea party never threatened anyone with violence and said no one brought guns to the confrontation. [big of him] He said he urged his group to be civil but also to stand up against a group they believe is harming America.

“It is not our fault that we outnumber them,” Raynor said. “The philosophy they espouse is not a live-and-let-live philosophy. ... I am fearful for my children and my grandchildren.”

I'm sorry if this offends my critics who believe it's "bad politics" to pass judgment on my fellow Americans, but too bad: These people are assholes. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Click here for video

Yes, my reaction would be to drive very fast to a place far away beyond their ability to follow. But we're now at a point where liberals have to stand our ground and make our case, no matter how uncomfortable the circumstances.

As Steve M. notes about a Fox Nation story blaming liberals for the lack of AC in Chicago summer schools (caused by repug-demanded budget cuts):

As the plutocrats get more and more (with, yes, the cooperation of Judas-goat Democrats), the right will have more and more opportunities to blame the resulting societal decay on ... liberalism.

They'll call us names whether we stand up to them or not, so let's stand up to them and be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.

They're the Rule, Not the Exception

Funny how so many intolerant bullies get drawn to the same line of work.

Bon The Geek:

One of my very first articles was about a woman whose five-year-old son wanted to dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo. The mother allowed it, and some moms at school said unkind things about his choice of costume, and her parenting skills. In a well-written response, the mother very eloquently calls them on it and a viral blog post was born.

I go through and follow up on topics from time to time, and I was surprised to see that her blog post has led to the mother being bullied by her pastor, who gave her an ultimatum that included an apology to those mothers she so offended, and the pastor included a helpful draft in case she needed help saying she was sorry. The pastor claimed she broke the 8th Commandment and bore false witness. She was told she couldn't transfer to another church and be considered "in good standing" if she did not apologize and meet the terms of the agreement he was proposing.

And again I say to you that bullying is not okay, even if you wrap it in a bow and call it ‘spiritual care.’

Congrats to this woman, for having common sense and the ability to write about it in a way that is respectful and thoughtful. I wish her luck in fighting The Stupid.

It's very good to see this woman standing up to the ubiquitous bullying of the xian priesthood.

I just wish someone would introduce her to some of the many secular organizations that offer community and support without the ridiculous badgering of the freakazoids.

Those Who Appease Bullies Get What They Deserve

All the tsk-tsking about unfairly blaming the Obama administration for the Shirley Sherrod debacle instead of blasting the real culprits - Andrew Breitbart and Faux News - misses the point:

By continually caving to the racists and nihilists of the frightwing, this administration is surrendering the battle before it begins.

Down with Tyranny highlights three who get it.

Right-wing bullies thrive on fear, cowardice and on political leaders like Barack Obama who don't want to make waves and would rather "split the difference." When I was just a wee lad in elementary school no one had explained the physics of muscles and fists to me properly. I was a safety crossing guard and there was this one big bully-- he towered over me-- who used to terrorize weaker, smaller students. He pushed some poor kid down at my post one morning and I walked over to him and pulled him off the guy. We got in a fist-fight... and he pulverized me. But he never bothered me again and he never made any trouble on my corner again. It's when you don't stand up to bullies, as Neville Chamberlain learned, that they feel empowered.

I hope you read Alan Grayson's post at Daily Kos yesterday. Watch the video (above) he put up in response to a right-wing asshole offering to pay someone to assault Alan. Alan's response: "I punch back." It's why the Republican's hate him and fear him more than any other Democrat. ANY. OTHER. DEMOCRAT. He should start a school for his fellow congressmen. A couple weeks ago, one called me, a decent progressive, whimpering how he's being challenged by a conservative in his primary and asking that Blue America give him some money. I suggested instead that he go sit at Alan Grayson's feet for a few weeks and learn how to be a man and a Democrat. Alan should be the head of the DCCC instead of these weak, corrupt vacillators who think winning a campaign is collecting a bunch of tainted corporate PAC contributions, hiring some Inside-the-Beltway hacks to do 30 second TV spots that no one cares about and sending setting up some pointless phone banks for incumbents who vote with the Republicans as their default positions.

One person who Grayson won't have to give lessons in self-defense to is America's new sweetheart: Shirley Sherrod. Greg Sargent hit the nail plum on the head in yesterday's Washington Post when he pointed out that her reaction is going to drive the right bananas:

Check out this nugget in an interview that Shirley Sherrod did with Joe Strupp, in which she comes right out and claims Fox News is using her as a "pawn" in a racist plot to undo the gains African Americans have made:

She said Fox showed no professionalism in continuing to bother her for an interview, but failing to correct their coverage.

"I think they should but they won't. They intended exactly what they did. "They were looking for the result they got yesterday," she said of Fox. "I am just a pawn. I was just here. They are after a bigger thing, they would love to take us back to where we were many years ago. Back to where black people were looking down, not looking white folks in the face, not being able to compete for a job out there and not be a whole person."

This is pretty incendiary stuff. Sherrod is clearly not going away, and now she appears determined to force a larger conversation about the Breitbart-Fox News axis's broader efforts to stoke white resentment towards the nation's first African American president.

Of course, if the White House's goal is to avoid racial controversies, this blast from Sherrod isn't going to make it any easier for them to take a stand and resolve this.

But let's have that conversation about what Breitbart and Fox are really up to, say I! Looking forward to Fox's coverage of this.

Obama can still have his Mr. Cool image and not get walked all over by Fox and the right wing hyenas who are never going to treat him any better than they've been treating him no matter how much he kisses their asses. They will continue to root for him to fail, continue to look to trigger his Waterloo, continue to do everything they can-- in Congress and in the media-- to undermine America for their own selfish interests. It's time to take a stand-- it's past time to take a stand.

Obama should fire Rahm Emanuel and beg Alan Grayson for advice. Or Shirley Sherrod. And he wouldn't go wrong listening to the Democratic candidate running for Congress in western Ohio's 8th district, Justin Coussoule who learned a lot about dealing with bullies as a cadet at West Point. Coussoule says the Army confirmed something he'd known his whole life. "Leaders of character choose the harder right over the easier wrong, and they do it even when no one else is watching." Coussoule's view that public service is synonymous with selfless service isn't new, but it is reassuring given the fact that so many, including Boehner, seem to have forgotten the basics.

"If Democracy is worth dying for, then it's sure as hell worth fighting for. We have to support those who take this battle seriously."