South Capitol Street

The sole example that everyone’s favorite hard-Left Mother offers for this wild claim is an attack on a black man, but “journalist” Jen Phillips cancels out that example by noting that the idiot yahoos who confronted him took him to be a Muslim, which is why they were confronting him. So in other words, this wasn’t a “racist” incident at all, or an example of “Islamophobia” leading to an increase in hate crimes against other groups.

Why make this claim at all? Perhaps because actual incidents like the one described, of jerks like acting jerks toward Muslims, are so rare. Hate crimes against Muslims are so rare (see here, here and here) that Hamas-linked CAIR has to trump them up to maintain the media myth of Muslims as victims.

But even that act wears thin after awhile, so here Mother Jones offers a new tack: hate crimes against other groups are really the fault of “Islamophobia”! So Muslims are victims after all, despite all evidence to the contrary! Watch for this to filter out soon enough into the more respectable and less obviously unhinged Leftist mainstream media.

“Does Islamophobia Increase Hate Crimes for Others?,” by Jen Phillips in Mother Jones, January 20:

[…] Despite these misconceptions, and the increase in blatantly anti-Muslim campaign ads, actual crimes targeting Muslims haven’t gotten worse in the past few years: they’ve just gotten more press. The jump in anti-Muslim attacks is real, but it happened 9 years ago. According to the most recent FBI data, before 9/11 there was an average of 30 anti-Islam hate crimes a year. Right after 9/11, that number jumped 1600%, but now the yearly average is reliably 100 to 150 attacks per year. That’s still more than three times the pre-9/11 average, but there are far more hate crimes against African-Americans (about 2,500/year) and Jews (around 950). The numbers of crimes against black people and Jews have also remained remarkably (some would say disappointingly) stable since 2003.

Though relatively stable, hate crimes against African-Americans rise and fall at very similar rates as crimes against Muslims, while crimes against Jews or Catholics do not. So it stands to reason, I think, that if this trend continues, increased anti-Muslim attacks would be reflected in a corresponding increase in crimes against black people, either by fostering a climate of hate or by people associating African-Americans with Islam. Who can forget this incident, when folks protesting the Park51 Islamic community center mistook an African-American WTC construction worker for a Muslim and quickly made him a focal point? Someone in the crowd tells him, “Run away, coward” and another yells “Muhammad’s a pig! Muhammad’s a pig!” The object of their attention, a union carpenter named Kenny, had some constructive advice for the anti-Muslim protesters. “Y’all [expletive] don’t know my opinion about [expletive],” he said. “Someone want to know about me? Ask me about me.”

Jihad Watch

One of the worst examples of the right wing’s contempt for the Constitution is the bevy of unconstitutional proposals state lawmakers have introduced attempting to nullify the Affordable Care Act. The Constitution expressly states that Acts of Congress “shall be the supreme law of the land…anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding,” so our founding document specifically denies the states a veto power over federal laws.

Nonetheless, a group of Idaho lawmakers are drawing inspiration for an unconstitutional nullification bill from an unusual source — a co-founder of a neo-Confederate hate group:

Though a 1958 U.S. Supreme Court decision reaffirmed that federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land,” Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter is promoting the nullification idea, too. In his January 10 State of the State speech, he told Idaho residents “we are actively exploring all our options — including nullification.”

Sen. Monty Pearce, an Idaho GOP lawmaker who plans to introduce a nullification bill early next week, wanted to be the first one to give Otter a recently published book on the subject, “Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century.”

But Otter beat him to the punch.

“I took that copy and tried to give it to the governor,” he said, pointing to a copy on his desk. “He already had a copy.” . . .

Thomas E. Woods, Jr., author of the 2010 book “Nullification” that Otter and Pearce have in their Idaho Capitol offices, argues states have the final say on issues as grave as when the government forces citizens to spend their hard-earned money.

Woods is, to say the least, a questionable source of counsel for a sitting state governor and state senator. One of the founders of the neo-Confederate League of the South, Woods once published an article declaring the Confederacy to be “Christendom’s Last Stand.” In it, he endorses the view that the Civil War was a battle between “atheists, socialists, communists, red republicans, jacobins on the one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other,” and he concludes that “[t]he real watershed from which we can trace many of the destructive trends that continue to ravage our civilization today, was the defeat of the Confederate States of America in 1865.”

And Woods’ pet issue — nullification — isn’t just unconstitutional, it’s also a terrible idea. In 1830, when Vice President John C. Calhoun was stoking a Nullification Crisis that nearly led to an armed conflict between South Carolina and the United States, James Madison wrote that allowing nullification would “speedily put an end to the Union itself” because it would allow the states to simply ignore any law they want. And Madison was right. Simply put, nullification is nothing less than a plan to remove the word “United” from the United States of America.

ThinkProgress

Nate posted this awesome graph:

A bunch of people really hate Barack Obama and even more people hate Sarah Palin. George Bush remains in the doghouse. Fine, no big surprises so far. But, wait! Who do the voters like? Nobody! I don’t know what to make of these numbers. 10% of the survey respondents have “very unfavorable” views of Tim Pawlenty. Tim . . . who? OK, I’ve heard of him. I think he used to be governor of Minnesota, he’s some middle-aged white guy, probably pretty conservative or he wouldn’t be mentioned as a Republican presidential candidate . . . “Very unfavorable”? Wouldn’t I have to know something more about him first? Apparently not many people know much about the guy, since only 4% view him “very favorably.”

I guess this is possible: I could imagine some subset of hard-core Democrats viewing anybody they know is Republican as very unfavorable, and Republican voters doing the same from the other direction. Meanwhile, people seem much less willing to give out the “very favorable” rating.

Still, it seems a little weird. Let’s see if we can find the data. Nate didn’t provide a direct link to the survey but he did write that it was released by Politco and conducted by Penn Schoen Berland, so I googled “politico penn schoen berland pawlenty” and . . . success! The survey report was the very first link. I couldn’t find Nate’s graph there but I did find a table on page 3. Here is the relevant section:

So whassup? Tim Pawlenty has 3% “very favorable” ratings, 11% “favorable,” 18% “unfavorable,” and 71% “don’t know.” They don’t give out the “very unfavorable” data here at all, for some reason. Nate must have found those numbers somewhere else. Also, there seems to be no neutral category. Apparently you can’t say that you just think a politician is doing his job-according to the survey, if you’re not in favor or opposition, that means you “don’t know.” Pretty scary to me: the implication seems to be that, once you know about someone, you’ll have to take a stand.

Also, 71% + 18% + 11% = 100%, so this implies that “very favorable” is not a separate category; it’s a subset of “favorable.” So Tim Pawlenty, for whatever reason, isn’t doing so well. But neither is just about any of the other obscure figures on the list.

Combining Nate’s graph with the Politico documentation, we learn that “very favorable” ratings are rare-in all cases, less than half of the favorables-but “very unfavorable” is happening all the time. For example, out of the 18% of the people who don’t like Pawlenty, more than half have a very unfavorable view.

Now let’s go back to the top of the table and read off some numbers. (For simplicity, I’ll lump all the favorable responses together. You can follow the link above to see more data.)

Barack Obama: 47% favorable, 48% unfavorable,
Hillary Clinton: 55% favorable, 38% unfavorable, (As I’ve argued before, I suspect that if Hillary had become president and Obama had been the runner-up, their ratings would be reversed right now.)
George W. Bush: 38% favorable, 54% unfavorable,
Sarah Palin: 36% favorable, 53% unfavorable,
. . .
Even after reading the table more carefully, we find that almost everyone has more enemies than friends. The only exceptions-the only politicians who are currently (as of this December poll) viewed more favorably than unfavorably-are Hillary Clinton and Mike Huckabee.

Maybe that will be the mold-breaking third party candidacy next year. You read it here first.

P.S. The winner in the popularity sweepstakes is “U.S. Congress,” which is viewed favorably by 19% (of which 3% say “very favorable”) and unfavorably by a whopping 67%. That’s gotta be even worse than “tenured political science professors” or “residents of New York City” or various other unpopular categories out there.

The Monkey Cage

Did you hear about the slogan-spouting left winger who tried to assasinate the Governor of Missouri four months ago?
American Thinker Blog

Jim Taranto over at the WSJ believes he has figured out the “irrational hatred” of Sarah Palin by the left, and does a spectacularly irrational job of it by pinning it on “liberal feminist women”.

We’d say this goes beyond mere jealousy. For many liberal women, Palin threatens their sexual identity, which is bound up with their politics in a way that it is not for any other group (possibly excepting gays, though that is unrelated to today’s topic).

An important strand of contemporary liberalism is feminism. As a label, “feminist” is passé; outside the academic fever swamps, you will find few women below Social Security age who embrace it.

That is because what used to be called feminism-the proposition that women deserve equality before the law and protection from discrimination-is almost universally accepted today. Politically speaking, a woman is the equal of a man. No woman in public life better symbolizes this than Sarah Palin-especially not Hillary Clinton, the left’s favorite icon. No one can deny Mrs. Clinton’s accomplishments, but neither can one escape crediting them in substantial part to her role as the wife of a powerful man.

It’s pretty impressive saying Sarah Palin proves women are equal politically and then in the same paragraph saying Hillary Clinton’s political power derives from being Bill Clinton’s wife.  That would imply that women are not politically equal, particularly at the highest levels of American government.  But back to how Palin somehow threatens sexual identity of irrational liberal women…

But there is more to feminism than political and legal equality. Men and women are intrinsically unequal in ways that are ultimately beyond the power of government to remediate. That is because nature is unfair. Sexual reproduction is far more demanding, both physically and temporally, for women than for men. Men simply do not face the sort of children-or-career conundrums that vex women in an era of workplace equality.

Except for the small minority of women with no interest in having children, this is an inescapable problem, one that cannot be obviated by political means. Aspects of it can, however, be ameliorated by technology-most notably contraception, which at least gives women considerable control over the timing of reproduction.

As a political matter, contraception is essentially uncontroversial today, which is to say that any suggestion that adult women be legally prevented from using birth control is outside the realm of serious debate. The same cannot be said of abortion, and that is at the root of Palinoia.

To the extent that “feminism” remains controversial, it is because of the position it takes on abortion: not just that a woman should have the “right to choose,” but that this is a matter over which reasonable people cannot disagree-that to favor any limitations on the right to abortion, or even to acknowledge that abortion is morally problematic, is to deny the basic dignity of women.

So government cannot fix the intrinsic workplace inequality that Taranto says exists between men and women, but that a government solution to the morally problematic question of abortion is needed.  Government cannot legislate equality in the workplace, but it must legislate the reproductive choices of women.  Maybe Taranto believes the former is because of the latter, I don’t know.

The fact that Sarah Palin wants the government to tell other women what they can and cannot do with their uterus makes the dislike women have for Palin who are opposed to that “irrational”?

What’s “irrational” is one one side of their mouths conservatives who scream that buying health insurance is fascism, but that banning abortion is a proper use of government authority.   I guess it hasn’t occurred to Jim that these fears of government overreach by the new GOP House leadership on abortion may not be “irrational”.

What the GOP is doing with H.R. 3 is something entirely different. They’re not only placing new restrictions on abortion services but also expanding the role of government in private life. As CAP’s Jessica Arons put it, “H.R. 3 would redefine the concept of government funding far beyond the current common understanding. Rather than simply prohibiting the use of federal funds to directly pay for abortion, H.R. 3 would insert itself into every crevice of government activity and prohibit even private and non-federal government funds from being spent on any activity related to the provision of abortion any time federal money is involved in funding or subsidizing other, non-abortion-related activities.

It’s all so…irrational…if you think about it.

Zandar Versus The Stupid

“You have become a lighting rod less for your clarity of vision, but more for your ability to turn any criticism of you of into persecution of you,” Jon Stewart for the Persecution addressed Sarah Palin without irony on his “Daily Show” the other night.

By Sissy Willis of sisu

“She challenges me a little bit. She keeps me a little more honest,” says The Alaska Dispatch’s Amanda Coyne, who gave Howard Kurtz one of a series of punchy and twitterable quotes for his crisp and crunchy column on “Sarah Palin’s Enforcer,” Rebecca Mansour, “an ex-Hollywood screenwriter with sharp teeth who felt so strongly about Palin —  whom she’d never met — that she founded the website Conservatives4Palin. Originally hired to help with Palin’s famous Facebook page,” SarahPAC staffer Mansour is a one-woman response team who uses Twitter to “whack Palin’s detractors with such thumb-in-the-eye passion as to make her boss seem downright diplomatic” …

Read full post here.

Liberty Pundits Blog

Most insiders know that Joe Scarborough, hired to be Politico’s token conservative, is anything but. At one point, he may have been a Reagan Republican, but, since starting work at MSNBC, he has slowly moved further and further to the left, as the station did. But, Joe has some un-civil words for those on the Right

We get it, Sarah Palin. You’re not morally culpable for the tragic shooting in Tucson, Ariz. All of us around the “Morning Joe” table agree, even if we were stunned that you would whine about yourself on Facebook as a shattered family prepared to bury their 9-year-old girl.

Sounds like a typical lefty talking point: those on the right are not allowed to defend themselves from even the worst of smears

The same goes for you, Glenn Beck. You’ve attacked your political opponents with words designed to inspire hatred and mind-bending conspiracy theories from fans. Calling the president a racist, Marxist and fascist may be reprehensible, but it did not lead a mentally disturbed man to take a Glock to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s “Congress on Your Corner” event.

No, it didn’t lead Loughner there, Joe. Do you have any proof that it did? You should be careful about throwing libel at someone without proof. Of course, Joe lives in MSNBC World, and unhinged progressivism has surely washed off onto him.

But before you and the pack of right-wing polemicists who make big bucks spewing rage on a daily basis congratulate yourselves for not being responsible for Jared Lee Loughner’s rampage, I recommend taking a deep breath. Just because the dots between violent rhetoric and violent actions don’t connect in this case doesn’t mean you can afford to ignore the possibility — or, as many fear, the inevitability — that someone else will soon draw the line between them.

Actually, someone already has. When you get a minute, Google “Byron Williams” and “Tides Foundation” to see just how thin a layer of ice Beck skates on every day.

Which proves that Joe never actually listens or watches Beck (who’s ratings beat Joe’s hands down. This is like a Pee Wee league QB criticizing Peyton Manning): Beck constantly talks about the Tides Foundation. Oops!

Beck and Palin aside, I do understand why other conservatives pushed back on the media’s initial response to the Giffords shooting. The avalanche of condemnations that came pouring down on Palin, Fox News and the tea party were off base and offensive. Most of the same outlets calling for restraint after the Fort Hood shooting showed no such discipline after Tucson. The fact that the left predictably played to type did more to unite the conservative movement than any event since President Barack Obama’s election.

Thank you so much for your understanding, Joe. I’m sure you are not going to condemn all those liberal outfits, such as your own network…..no?

Now that the right has proved to the world that it was wronged, this would be a good time to prevent the next tragedy from destroying its political momentum. Despite what we eventually learned about the shooter in Tucson, should the right have really been so shocked that many feared a political connection between the heated rhetoric of 2010 and the shooting of Giffords?

So, he understood, but, he blames the Right for being shocked. It’s like the rapist blaming the victim, since she was wearing a little black cocktail dress.

And who on the right is really stupid enough to not understand that the political movement that has a near monopoly on gun imagery may be the first focus of an act associated with gun violence? As a conservative who had a 100 percent rating with the National Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America over my four terms in Congress, I wonder why some on the right can’t defend the Second Amendment without acting like jackasses. While these types regularly attack my calls for civility, it is their reckless rhetoric that does the most to hurt the cause.

Got that, You’re “jackasses.” Skipping near the end

If you can’t be civil because it’s the right thing to do, then do it because it is in your party’s best interest.

Just make sure you don’t call people you disagree with “jackasses.”

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

Stop The ACLU

The last sentence of a Huffington Post write-up of Glenn Beck’s “Today” interview simply can’t be beat. The article starts out normal enough — Beck talks over host as she tries to run through some of his nastier statements over the past few years, Bleck shuffles responsibility off onto others and then BAM!!! This: “Do […]
The Reid Report

Fox News host Glenn Beck showed up on Wednesday's Today show to promote his new book The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, but it was NBC's Meredith Vieira's misperceptions of him and conservatives as a whole that Beck was forced to try to change. After an initial discussion about Beck overcoming his personal struggles, Vieira, brought Beck into the debate over whether conservative talk caused the Tuscon shooting, as she charged: "You talk about spewing anger in your personal life but also in your professional life, Glenn. I mean there are people who've criticized you and said…you're part of the problem in terms of anger…you've added to this dialogue of hatred."

Beck deftly responded that anything he may have said was not any worse than what Vieira has heard from the likes of Jon Stewart and The Simpsons, as seen in this fiery exchange:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: You've said things like and this is, I guess, where the critics come into play and say you've added to this dialogue of hatred… Some things that you have said in the past, just to get them out there and you know this. That the…

BECK: Do you, wait, wait, do you really think that people really don't know the things that I say?

VIEIRA: I think some people do, some people don't. A lot of people do.

BECK: Okay.

VIEIRA: I'm just, I'm ticking off a couple of them. That the President was a racist. You, you said, at one point, you were joking around, that you wanted to poison Nancy Pelosi. You wanted to beat Congressman Charlie Rangel to death with a shovel. In the spirit of this book-

BECK: Like eight years ago.

VIEIRA: In the – that doesn't matter. It's in the past. I understand that. But in the spirit of this book, do you regret that stuff now – having gone through this crisis – say you know what, that was dumb?

BECK: I regret that anything that I said – Let me, let me give you this. Anything that I said in jokes? No. Ask Jon Stewart, ask The Simpsons okay?

A little later Beck, appearing with his co-author Dr. Keith Ablow, gave the Today co-anchor some much needed historical perspective on American political discourse:

(video after the jump)

BECK: Just like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went back and forth. John Adams was called a hermaphrodite by Thomas Jefferson. Adams responded and said [about] Jefferson, "Your children will be raped and your towns will be burned if he becomes the President." Let's keep political discourse in context of history. Children weren't raped. Nobody killed each other. We have to fix the individual. The problem in Tucson was the individual. Look at the individual and be responsible for ourselves.

Vieira, undeterred from her line of questioning, then asked Beck to comment on Sarah Palin's "blood libel" comment, but Beck, again turned it around, saying the focus of blame in the Tuscon shooting should be on the one individual who actually did physical harm.

VIEIRA: So the controversy around Sarah Palin and when she used that term "Blood libel" what are your feelings about that?

BECK: I think, I think, again, political discourse is dicey sometimes. People don't like it. When the President said, what was it he said? "If the Republicans bring a knife I'm gonna bring a gun." Did he mean that or was that political discourse? He didn't mean that. Let's, let's put things in perspective. Let's stop dancing around the corners and, and looking at Republicans and Democrats and let's start to find real answers. And the real answers are the, are the principles that you will find in this book that will change you. Just change yourself. Don't worry about anybody else. Change you.

The following is a transcript of the relevant exchange as it was aired on the January 19 Today show:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: But you, you talk about spewing anger in your personal life but also in your professional life, Glenn. I mean there are people who've criticized you and said that you're, you're, part of the problem in terms of anger.

GLENN BECK: No, I know.

VIEIRA: Let me just finish the thought.

DR. KEITH ABLOW: You know what I have people in my office who tell me that too, by the way, Meredith. I think that there is a corollary, parallel here. If you're the therapist for a country you have to tell the truth and it can-

VIEIRA: But there's a difference between telling the truth-

ABLOW: -kind of set people back on their heels.

VIEIRA: Yeah but there's a difference-

ABLOW: You're an alcoholic, I say to someone-

VIEIRA: Right.

ABLOW: He says to the country "you're drunk."

VIEIRA: But, but you say more than that. You've said things like and this is, I guess, where the critics come into play and say you've added to this dialogue of hatred.

BECK: Meredith, I can tell you right now that-

VIEIRA: Let me just finish the thought, okay?

BECK: Yeah go ahead, go ahead.

VIEIRA: Some things that you have said in the past, just to get them out there and you know this. That the…

BECK: Do you, wait, wait, do you really think that people really don't know the things that I say?

VIEIRA: I think some people do, some people don't A lot of people do.

BECK: Okay.

VIEIRA: I'm just, I'm ticking off a couple of them. That the President was a racist. You, you said, at one point, you were joking around, that you wanted to poison Nancy Pelosi. You wanted to beat Congressman Charlie Rangel to death with a shovel. In the spirit of this book-

BECK: Like eight years ago.

VIEIRA: In the – that doesn't matter. It's in the past. I understand that. But in the spirit of this book, do you regret that stuff now – having gone through this crisis – say you know what, that was dumb?

BECK: I regret that anything that I said – Let me, let me give you this. Anything that I said in jokes? No. Ask Jon Stewart, ask The Simpsons okay?

VIEIRA: You don't think that, that contributes at all to a climate of anger or hate?

BECK: No, I think. No, ask Jon Stewart that question. Ask The Simpsons-

VIEIRA: But I'm asking you that question.

BECK: But I'm saying if you ask that question, to those guys, I think you'll get the same answer. No. Comedy is comedy. When there is, and this is why the lines become very blurred and it's very, it's very difficult to do what I do. Anything that I've said, like with the President, I've apologized for and I've explained several times. That's not where we-

VIEIRA: Have you shifted your lines at all?

BECK: No! You know one thing the media doesn't seem to pick up on is, when I started the 9/12 Project what was it?

ABLOW: It was about honor. I mean the line has been the same. Honoring your principles and values.

BECK: Principles and values. It wasn't the Tea Party. 9/12 Project, which I started, was okay find out what you believe. Educate yourself. Go into your principles and values and make sure those principles and values are there to guide you. 8/28 – everyone said it was gonna be a hate fest. That I was just gonna be a monster. And what was it? It was about honor. There wasn't a word of politics.

VIEIRA: But let me just, again, because this book is about finding your truth and, and owning it do you feel, do you look back over and say, "Yeah I've, there are places where I've crossed the line and I have to readjust the way, the discourse?"

BECK: Absolutely, absolutely! Absolutely. You're not human if you don't look back and say that was a mistake, that was a mistake.

VIEIRA: Like what? What are the mistakes you've made that you think that you say, "Geesh I wish I hadn't done that."

BECK: Let me, let me answer it this way. Back – we, we have such an interesting view of history. Political discourse is sometimes really in your face. Telling somebody that you've got a real problem, sometimes you really get into their face.

ABLOW: You have to.

BECK: Just like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went back and forth. John Adams was called a hermaphrodite by Thomas Jefferson. Adams responded and said [about] Jefferson, "Your children will be raped and your towns will be burned if he becomes the President." Let's keep political discourse in context of history. Children weren't raped. Nobody killed each other. We have to fix the individual. The problem in Tucson was the individual. Look at the individual and be responsible for ourselves.

VIEIRA: So the controversy around Sarah Palin and when she used that term "Blood libel" what are your feelings about that?

BECK: I think, I think, again, political discourse is dicey sometimes. People don't like it. When the President said, what was it he said? "If the Republicans bring a knife I'm gonna bring a gun." Did he mean that or was that political discourse? He didn't mean that. Let's, let's put things in perspective. Let's stop dancing around the corners and, and looking at Republicans and Democrats and let's start to find real answers. And the real answers are the, are the principles that you will find in this book that will change you. Just change yourself. Don't worry about anybody else. Change you.

—Geoffrey Dickens is the Senior News Analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here

NewsBusters.org – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

Fox News host Glenn Beck showed up on Wednesday's Today show to promote his new book The 7: Seven Wonders That Will Change Your Life, but it was NBC's Meredith Vieira's misperceptions of him and conservatives as a whole that Beck was forced to try to change. After an initial discussion about Beck overcoming his personal struggles, Vieira, brought Beck into the debate over whether conservative talk caused the Tuscon shooting, as she charged: "You talk about spewing anger in your personal life but also in your professional life, Glenn. I mean there are people who've criticized you and said…you're part of the problem in terms of anger…you've added to this dialogue of hatred."

Beck deftly responded that anything he may have said was not any worse than what Vieira has heard from the likes of Jon Stewart and The Simpsons, as seen in this fiery exchange:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: You've said things like and this is, I guess, where the critics come into play and say you've added to this dialogue of hatred… Some things that you have said in the past, just to get them out there and you know this. That the…

BECK: Do you, wait, wait, do you really think that people really don't know the things that I say?

VIEIRA: I think some people do, some people don't. A lot of people do.

BECK: Okay.

VIEIRA: I'm just, I'm ticking off a couple of them. That the President was a racist. You, you said, at one point, you were joking around, that you wanted to poison Nancy Pelosi. You wanted to beat Congressman Charlie Rangel to death with a shovel. In the spirit of this book-

BECK: Like eight years ago.

VIEIRA: In the – that doesn't matter. It's in the past. I understand that. But in the spirit of this book, do you regret that stuff now – having gone through this crisis – say you know what, that was dumb?

BECK: I regret that anything that I said – Let me, let me give you this. Anything that I said in jokes? No. Ask Jon Stewart, ask The Simpsons okay?

VIEIRA: You don't think that, that contributes at all to a climate of anger or hate?

BECK: No, I think. No, ask Jon Stewart that question. Ask The Simpsons-

VIEIRA: But I'm asking you that question.

A little later Beck, appearing with his co-author Dr. Keith Ablow, gave the Today co-anchor a little history lesson on political discourse:

BECK: Just like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went back and forth. John Adams was called a hermaphrodite by Thomas Jefferson. Adams responded and said [about] Jefferson, "Your children will be raped and your towns will be burned if he becomes the President." Let's keep political discourse in context of history. Children weren't raped. Nobody killed each other. We have to fix the individual. The problem in Tucson was the individual. Look at the individual and be responsible for ourselves.

Vieira, undeterred from her line of questioning, then asked Beck to comment on Sarah Palin's "blood libel" comment, but Beck, again turned it around, saying the focus of blame in the Tuscon shooting should be on the one individual who actually did physical harm.

VIEIRA: So the controversy around Sarah Palin and when she used that term "Blood libel" what are your feelings about that?

BECK: I think, I think, again, political discourse is dicey sometimes. People don't like it. When the President said, what was it he said? "If the Republicans bring a knife I'm gonna bring a gun." Did he mean that or was that political discourse? He didn't mean that. Let's, let's put things in perspective. Let's stop dancing around the corners and, and looking at Republicans and Democrats and let's start to find real answers. And the real answers are the, are the principles that you will find in this book that will change you. Just change yourself. Don't worry about anybody else. Change you.

The following is a transcript of the relevant exchange as it was aired on the January 19 Today show:

MEREDITH VIEIRA: But you, you talk about spewing anger in your personal life but also in your professional life, Glenn. I mean there are people who've criticized you and said that you're, you're, part of the problem in terms of anger.

GLENN BECK: No, I know.

VIEIRA: Let me just finish the thought.

DR. KEITH ABLOW: You know what I have people in my office who tell me that too, by the way, Meredith. I think that there is a corollary, parallel here. If you're the therapist for a country you have to tell the truth and it can-

VIEIRA: But there's a difference between telling the truth-

ABLOW: -kind of set people back on their heels.

VIEIRA: Yeah but there's a difference-

ABLOW: You're an alcoholic, I say to someone-

VIEIRA: Right.

ABLOW: He says to the country "you're drunk."

VIEIRA: But, but you say more than that. You've said things like and this is, I guess, where the critics come into play and say you've added to this dialogue of hatred.

BECK: Meredith, I can tell you right now that-

VIEIRA: Let me just finish the thought, okay?

BECK: Yeah go ahead, go ahead.

VIEIRA: Some things that you have said in the past, just to get them out there and you know this. That the…

BECK: Do you, wait, wait, do you really think that people really don't know the things that I say?

VIEIRA: I think some people do, some people don't A lot of people do.

BECK: Okay.

VIEIRA: I'm just, I'm ticking off a couple of them. That the President was a racist. You, you said, at one point, you were joking around, that you wanted to poison Nancy Pelosi. You wanted to beat Congressman Charlie Rangel to death with a shovel. In the spirit of this book-

BECK: Like eight years ago.

VIEIRA: In the – that doesn't matter. It's in the past. I understand that. But in the spirit of this book, do you regret that stuff now – having gone through this crisis – say you know what, that was dumb?

BECK: I regret that anything that I said – Let me, let me give you this. Anything that I said in jokes? No. Ask Jon Stewart, ask The Simpsons okay?

VIEIRA: You don't think that, that contributes at all to a climate of anger or hate?

BECK: No, I think. No, ask Jon Stewart that question. Ask The Simpsons-

VIEIRA: But I'm asking you that question.

BECK: But I'm saying if you ask that question, to those guys, I think you'll get the same answer. No. Comedy is comedy. When there is, and this is why the lines become very blurred and it's very, it's very difficult to do what I do. Anything that I've said, like with the President, I've apologized for and I've explained several times. That's not where we-

VIEIRA: Have you shifted your lines at all?

BECK: No! You know one thing the media doesn't seem to pick up on is, when I started the 9/12 Project what was it?

ABLOW: It was about honor. I mean the line has been the same. Honoring your principles and values.

BECK: Principles and values. It wasn't the Tea Party. 9/12 Project, which I started, was okay find out what you believe. Educate yourself. Go into your principles and values and make sure those principles and values are there to guide you. 8/28 – everyone said it was gonna be a hate fest. That I was just gonna be a monster. And what was it? It was about honor. There wasn't a word of politics.

VIEIRA: But let me just, again, because this book is about finding your truth and, and owning it do you feel, do you look back over and say, "Yeah I've, there are places where I've crossed the line and I have to readjust the way, the discourse?"

BECK: Absolutely, absolutely! Absolutely. You're not human if you don't look back and say that was a mistake, that was a mistake.

VIEIRA: Like what? What are the mistakes you've made that you think that you say, "Geesh I wish I hadn't done that."

BECK: Let me, let me answer it this way. Back – we, we have such an interesting view of history. Political discourse is sometimes really in your face. Telling somebody that you've got a real problem, sometimes you really get into their face.

ABLOW: You have to.

BECK: Just like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went back and forth. John Adams was called a hermaphrodite by Thomas Jefferson. Adams responded and said [about] Jefferson, "Your children will be raped and your towns will be burned if he becomes the President." Let's keep political discourse in context of history. Children weren't raped. Nobody killed each other. We have to fix the individual. The problem in Tucson was the individual. Look at the individual and be responsible for ourselves.

VIEIRA: So the controversy around Sarah Palin and when she used that term "Blood libel" what are your feelings about that?

BECK: I think, I think, again, political discourse is dicey sometimes. People don't like it. When the President said, what was it he said? "If the Republicans bring a knife I'm gonna bring a gun." Did he mean that or was that political discourse? He didn't mean that. Let's, let's put things in perspective. Let's stop dancing around the corners and, and looking at Republicans and Democrats and let's start to find real answers. And the real answers are the, are the principles that you will find in this book that will change you. Just change yourself. Don't worry about anybody else. Change you.

NewsBusters.org blogs

Tucson massacre + Red Queen politics = Hate Speech Inquisition.

I noticed a new game the blamestream media is playing this week. It’s the same game they played with Sarah Palin last week: Blame the victim. After a slew of Democrat leaders issued open threats against talk radio, conservative radio hosts rose up to defend themselves. And now, the BSM is deriding those who work in talk radio for inserting themselves into the Tucson massacre story and for having a “persecution complex.” No, really.

This week’s column also spotlights the repeated attempts by Red Queen open-borders radicals to insert themselves into the Tucson shooting rampage that had no more to do with illegal immigration than it did with talk radio.

***

The Hate Speech Inquisition
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2010

There isn’t a shred of evidence that deranged Tucson massacre suspect Jared Loughner ever listened to talk radio or cared about illegal immigration. Indeed, after 300 exhaustive interviews, the feds “remain stumped” about his motives, according to Tuesday’s Washington Post. But that hasn’t stopped a coalition of power-grabbing politicians, progressive activists and open-borders lobbyists from plying their quack cure for the American body politic: government-sponsored speech suppression.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting rampage, Democratic leaders mused openly about reintroducing the Orwellian “Fairness Doctrine” – a legislative sledgehammer targeting conservative viewpoints on public airwaves. New York Democratic Rep. Louise Slaughter assailed the Federal Communications Commission for failing to police broadcast content and vowed to “look into” more aggressive language monitoring. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Ed Markey blamed “incendiary rhetoric” for triggering “unstable individuals to take violent action.” In his own manifesto calling for resurrection of the Fairness Doctrine, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn pressed public officials to “rethink parameters on free speech.”

This week’s fashionable new media meme is to deride talk radio hosts for taking these speech-squelching threats seriously. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Jay Bookman sneered at the “persecution complex” of conservative broadcasters who reacted to Slaughter and company. Politico’s Keach Hagey dismissed concerns about the Democrats’ chilling campaign against right-leaning media outlets and knocked conservative talkers’ “defensive posture.” (Sound familiar? This is the same tactic they used against Sarah Palin and all those on the right falsely accused of being accessories to the Tucson massacre: Attack ‘em. Attack ‘em for responding. Accuse the smear victims of playing the victim card. Repeat.)

Make no mistake: The Hate Speech Inquisition is real. And it’s being fought on all fronts. Last week, using the non-radio-inspired Tucson massacre as fuel, the National Hispanic Media Coalition called on the FCC to gather evidence for the left’s preconceived conclusion that conservative talk radio “hate speech” causes violence. It’s Red Queen science — sentence first, research validation later.

The head of the NHMC is Alex Nogales, who has filed more than 50 petitions to deny broadcast licenses and has led anti-corporate crusades to “force” broadcast stations across the country “to hire Latino reporters and anchors” and adopt “diversity initiatives.” Grabbing the Tucson shooting limelight, Nogales told Broadcasting and Cable magazine last week:

“We can’t stand there with our arms crossed and make like there isn’t a reason why this is happening. … We started this dialog(ue) in the last immigration debate four years ago. We could see that it was just out of control. It started with just an issue of immigration, then every pundit on radio and TV who wanted an audience started talking about it and started using the worst of language, and now it has spilled out into mainstream.”

Loughner’s wild Internet rants and creepy campus meltdowns clearly demonstrate that crazy doesn’t need a motive. But progressive censors need their bogeymen, and Nogales isn’t about to give them up for reality’s sake. The NHMC first filed a petition in October 2009 demanding that the FCC collect data, seek public comment and “explore options” for combating “hate speech” from staunch critics of illegal immigration. The petition followed on National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguia’s call for media outlets to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves “even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights.”

Nogales’ group is part of a larger “media justice” coalition dedicated to curtailing and redistributing conservatives’ political speech under the guise of diversity and decency. As left-wing philanthropists at the Media Justice Fund put it: The movement “is grounded in the belief that social and economic justice will not be realized without the equitable redistribution and control of media and communication technologies.” But, hey, we better just ignore these communications control freaks lest we be accused of suffering a “persecution complex.”

The Praetorian Guards of civility keep telling us that “words matter.” Threats should be taken seriously, they insist. Except, of course, when those words and threats are uttered by those hell-bent on regulating their opponents’ discourse out of existence.

Michelle Malkin

This is a first hand report on how widely the climate of hate has spread…even to President Obama’s home city. I will leave it to Donald Sensing to provide the horrific details. Ask yourselves, do we really want this happening in America?:

Climate of hate in the Windy City

You should have known something like this was going to happen. The vitriol and anger in our nation’s sports talk has never been harsher – and we may as well face it: most of it is coming from Chicago Bears Fans.

So today a squad of violent men, emboldened by the climate of hate in Chicago towards any of “Da Bears’” opponents, committed murder. Murder most foul. They killed the Seattle Seahawks’ chances of playing in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks were sent to their football grave. The Bears beat them – beat them, mind you – 35-24.

The Bears, urged to their lethal deeds by radio commentators and fans, were merciless. With quarterback Jay Cutler at the helm, the mayhem they committed upon the hapless Seahawks was relentless. This is what sports has come to, fellow Americans: open combat instead of friendly competition.

Seattle tight end John Carlson was so badly mauled by a Chicago defender that he had to leave the game after being beaten nearly senseless. He was diagnosed with a concussion. So was teammate Marcus Trufant.

Chicago’s climate of hate instigators

“I heard some Chicago fans yelling, ‘Hurt him!’” Carlson told reporters afterward. “”They were shouting, “Kill ‘em’ and ‘get him, get him!’ It was clear to me that the Bears were simply doing what their fans told them to do. They even had uniformed women on the sidelines actually helping people cheer the Bears on to more violence.”

Trufant added, “Yeah.” Both men were admitted to the hospital where they will remain overnight. Seattle Coach Pete Carroll was very upset at the brutality meted upon his players.

“There has been a climate of hate building here in Chicago against us all week long,” he said after the game. “It started with that sports talk radio figure – you all know who I mean – saying that he hoped the Bears would just destroy us. A caller said the Bears should show us no mercy. Another said he wanted the Bears to crush us. Now I’ve got two men in the hospital. With all the harsh language and vitriol in this city, it’s no surprise that things turned out the way they did.”

This reporter contacted the White House to get Chicago native President Obama’s reaction.

“They brought a knife to the fight,” the president responded through a spokesman. “We brought a gun. It’s the Chicago way.”

Once the game ended, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas tweeted, “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin.”

(read the rest here)

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J O S H U A P U N D I T

You should have known something like this was going to happen. The vitriol and anger in our nation's sports talk has never been harsher – and we may as well face it: most of it is coming from Chicago Bears Fans.

So today a squad of violent men, emboldened by the climate of hate in Chicago towards any of "Da Bears'" opponents, committed murder. Murder most foul. They killed the Seattle Seahawks' chances of playing in the Super Bowl. The Seahawks were sent to their football grave. The Bears beat them – beat them, mind you – 35-24.

The Bears, urged to their lethal deeds by radio commentators and fans, were merciless. With quarterback Jay Cutler at the helm, the mayhem they committed upon the hapless Seahawks was relentless. This is what sports has come to, fellow Americans: open combat instead of friendly competition.

Read Donald Sensing's entire fabulous piece (h/t Glenn Reynolds).

NewsBusters.org blogs

An update on this story:

NEW YORK, Jan. 17, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A prominent national human rights and advocacy organization is again asking the Defense Department to resist efforts by the Hamas-linked Islamic supremacist hate group the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to dictate the nature and content of anti-terror training for military personnel.

That renewed request by Stop Islamization of America (SIOA) comes after Hamas-linked CAIR, one of the nation’s most notorious Islamic supremacist hate groups, demanded that the Defense Department not invite the noted Islam scholar Robert Spencer to offer training to military intelligence personnel. SIOA respectfully requests that the Defense Department repudiate this attempt by Hamas-linked CAIR to hinder national security by interfering with and impeding counterterrorism training.

SIOA Executive Director Pamela Geller declared: “It’s outrageous that a subversive group linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated goal, according to a captured internal document, is ‘eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within,’ would presume to dictate to the military who they can and cannot have as a speaker. Their agenda is obvious and should be repudiated by the military and all Americans. Lives are at stake and the future of Western civilization hangs in the balance.”

The Associate Director of SIOA, Robert Spencer is a highly sought-after expert on Islam and Sharia, the director of Jihad Watch, a program of the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the author of ten books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Truth About Muhammad and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (both Regnery). He is also the author of Islam Unveiled (Encounter); The Myth of Islamic Tolerance (Prometheus); Onward Muslim Soldiers; Religion of Peace?; Stealth Jihad; and The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran (all Regnery).

Spencer is a weekly columnist for Human Events and FrontPage Magazine, and has led seminars on Islam and jihad for the United States Central Command, United States Army Command and General Staff College, the U.S. Army’s Asymmetric Warfare Group, the U.S. intelligence community, and the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force on previous occasions.

Spencer is the coauthor of Pamela Geller’s acclaimed The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War On America (Simon & Schuster).

Bat Ye’or, the pioneering historian of dhimmitude, the institutionalized mistreatment of non-Muslims in Islamic societies, said: “Robert Spencer incarnates intellectual courage when, all over the world, governments, intellectuals, churches, universities and media crawl under a hegemonic Universal Caliphate’s New Order. His achievement in the battle for the survival of free speech and dignity of man will remain as a fundamental monument to the love of, and the self-sacrifice for, liberty.”

Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy, a Senior Fellow at National Review Institute, called Spencer “America’s most informed, fearless, and compelling voice on modern jihadism.” The New York Times noted that Spencer’s work is “widely read in conservative foreign policy circles.”

CAIR, by contrast, is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department during the trial of the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation.

CAIR has previously attempted to intimidate numerous government agencies and citizens’ groups into dropping events featuring foes of international jihad activity, including SIOA’s Executive Director Pamela Geller, ACT for America’s Brigitte Gabriel, and others. In the summer of 2010 it has embarked upon a concerted campaign of intimidation and defamation to silence public figures who speak out against jihad and Islamic terrorism, including Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), the Rev. Franklin Graham, Florida Congressional candidate Dan Fanelli, and Connecticut Congressional candidate Rick Torres.

CAIR’s attempt to intimidate the Defense Department and dictate the military’s choice of speakers contained numerous false charges, defamation, distortions, and outright lies about Spencer, SIOA, and Geller.

CAIR has a long record of duplicity and deception. Although it has received millions of dollars in donations from foreign Islamic entities, it has not registered as a foreign agent as required by the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), despite spreading Islamic supremacist propaganda within the United States.

Although it presents itself as a civil rights group, CAIR actually has numerous links to Islamic supremacist and jihad groups. CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Niwad Awad (who still serves as CAIR’s executive director) were present at a Hamas planning meeting in Philadelphia in 1993 where they and other Hamas operatives conspired to raise funds for Hamas and to promote jihad in the Middle East. CAIR has steadfastly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups.

Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror:

* Ghassan Elashi, founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter, in 2009 received a 65-year prison sentence for funneling over $ 12 million from the Islamic charity known as the Holy Land Foundation to the jihad terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for murdering hundreds of Israeli civilians
* Mousa Abu Marzook, a former CAIR official, was in 1995 designated by the U.S. government in 1995 as a “terrorist and Hamas leader.” He now is a Hamas leader in Syria.
* Randall Royer, CAIR’s former civil rights coordinator, in 2004 began serving a 20-year prison sentence for aiding al-Qaida and the Taliban against American troops in Afghanistan and recruiting for Lashkar e-Taiba, the jihadist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai jihad massacres.
* Bassem Khafagi, CAIR’s former community relations director, was arrested for involvement with the Islamic Assembly of North America, which was linked to al-Qaida. After pleading guilty to visa and bank fraud charges, Khafagi was deported.
* Rabih Haddad, a former CAIR fundraiser, was deported for his work with the Global Relief Foundation (which he co-founded), a terror-financing organization.

In 1998 Omar Ahmad, CAIR’s co-founder and longtime Board Chairman, said: “Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant. The Koran should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”

After he received unwelcome publicity as a result of this statement, Ahmad denied saying it, several years after the fact. However, the original reporter, Lisa Gardiner of the Fremont Argus, stands by her story.

CAIR’s spokesman Ibrahim Hooper once said: “I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future.”

SIOA is one of America’s foremost organizations defending human rights, religious liberty, and the freedom of speech against Islamic supremacist intimidation and attempts to bring elements of Sharia to the United States.

Jihad Watch

Evidently the letter he sent to the mosque wasn’t as threatening as it was originally made out to be. There are still questionable freedom of speech issues about this case, but anyway Harrison is free. An update on this story. “DA drops Tulsa man’s hate-crime charges,” by Jerry Wofford for the Tulsa World, January 15:

The district attorney dropped hate-crime charges against a Tulsa man Friday afternoon after a jury decided the evening before that the defendant did not need involuntary mental-health treatment.

Jesse Quinn Harrison was charged Dec. 28 with transmitting a threatening letter and with malicious intimidation or harassment.

The charges were based on a package he had sent to the Peace Academy at the Islamic Society of Tulsa. The package included a letter and a video he had made of himself smearing a Quran and an image of an Islamic religious figure with pork chops and grilling those items.

A mental-health hearing ended Thursday with a jury’s deciding that Harrison was not “in need of treatment,” according to the verdict.

Because Harrison – who had been a patient at the Tulsa Center for Behavioral Health – still faced the criminal charges, he was arrested and booked into the Tulsa Jail after the verdict. After the charges were dismissed, he was released from jail Friday, records show.

Tulsa County District Attorney Tim Harris sat in on much of Harrison’s mental-health hearing Wednesday and Thursday and said it was a kind of preview of what would be presented in a criminal case. He said he could see how the evidence would be presented and heard Harrison’s explanation of the video and letter submitted as evidence for the first time.

“After listening to him – though I don’t agree with the jury’s decision – it does give you some insight into where he was coming from,” Harris said Friday.

Harrison testified Thursday that by posting the video – which he acknowledged was “horribly offensive” – to YouTube and Facebook, he hoped to show that Islam was a peaceful religion despite a prevailing stereotype to the contrary.

“I created this horribly offensive video, yet what so many people expected was for Muslims to act violent to me,” Harrison testified. “Despite this horrible offense, they continue to be a law-abiding, peaceful people.”

Harris said that although Harrison is “going about it in a way I don’t concur with,” it would be difficult to prove that he intended violence toward anyone but possibly himself.

“The issues to be litigated in the criminal case were addressed in the mental-health case,” Harris said.

He added that before he decided to drop the charges, he spoke with Islamic Society of Tulsa leaders, two of whom testified Wednesday.

“They did not believe Mr. Harrison’s incarceration would serve long-term purposes,” Harris said….

I.e., it would reveal too much about our war against the freedom of speech, so let the poor devil go.

Jihad Watch