Month: July 2010

RNC Beverly Hills Fundraiser to Feature Race-Baiting Tea Bagger Andrew Breitbart

Jon Ponder

Beverly Wilshire Hotel, viewed from the north on Rodeo Drive
Beverly Wilshire Hotel, viewed looking south on Rodeo Drive
Talking Points Memo has obtained an invitation being circulated by Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele for a fundraising event in Beverly Hills next month that will feature Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing propagandist behind the doctored videos in the ACORN and Shirley Sherrod scandals:

invitation-rnc-breitbart-eventThe fundraising event, billed as an “Election Countdown,” will take place from August 12-14 in Beverly Hills, California, and will also feature other politicians such as California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, and Nevada Republican gubernatorial nominee Brian Sandoval. Steele and Breitbart are scheduled to co-headline a welcome reception on the first evening, August 12…

RNC spokesman Doug Heye confirmed to TPMDC that the event is going on, but declined to comment further on the nature of fundraising events…

The Four Seasons hotel company, which owns the Beverly Wilshire, has also confirmed to TPMDC that the event is booked for those days, but was unable to confirm a guest list.

I guess the RNC figures, what the heck, we weren’t going to get votes from blacks and others who oppose racism in California anyway, so why not bring out the David Duke of new media to raise money for the party in the heart of the Southern California liberal enclave.

(And it’s fitting somehow that the event will be held in the hotel that was the setting for “Pretty Woman,” the Disney movie that sent a powerful message to young girls that all they had to do to find fulfillment in life was become a street whore and and then fall in love with a wealthy john.)

It will be interesting to see how the city fathers and mothers of Beverly Hills deal with their city being tarred by association with an event featuring a notorious racist, not to mention the protest rally that is sure to be scheduled for the street in front of the hotel, at Wilshire Boulevard and Rodeo Drive, on August 12.

Verbatim

Jon Ponder

Will you tell those dumbasses at the Tea Party to stop asking questions about birth certificates while I’m on the camera?

– Ken Buck, Colorado GOP/Tea Bagger candidate for the U.S. Senate, caught on tape this week.

Because I don’t wear high heels.

– Buck responding last week when asked why Coloradans should vote for him in the primary instead of his GOP opponent, who is a woman.

Two New Polls Show Support for Gay Marriage Rising in California

Jon Ponder

San Franciso Chronicle:

Two new polls released this week seem to indicate that public opinion in California is slowly, slowly shifting towards an acceptance of gay marriage — despite the defeat of Proposition 8 two years ago.

A Field Poll on Tuesday showed that if a vote was held on Proposition 8 now, 51 percent of all Californians would vote it down. Then yesterday the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)released a survey showing, among other findings, that 51 percent of Californians would vote to approve same-sex marriages if given the chance and only 22 percent of Californians believe Proposition 8 has been a good thing for California.

[…]

Dean Goes on Fox to Attack Network’s Race Baiting

Jon Ponder

Huffington Post:

Former Vermont governor and chair of the Democratic National Committee HOWARD DEAN: The Tea Party called out their racist fringe and I think the Republican Party’s got to stop appealing to its racist fringe. And Fox News is what did that. You put that on. Continuing to cater to this theme of minority racism and stressing comments like this — some of which are taken out of context — does not help the country knit itself together…

[…]

Feds Collecting Evidence in C Street Capitol Hill Christian Cult Investigation

Jon Ponder

Politico.com:

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) has turned over e-mails to federal authorities investigating Sen. John Ensign’s extramarital affair with a campaign aide, the latest sign that the criminal probe into the embattled Nevada Republican is picking up steam.

Coburn told POLITICO that he is cooperating with the Justice Department in the investigation of Ensign, and says he’s willing to submit himself to an interview with the FBI or Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which is conducting a parallel investigation into whether Ensign broke Senate rules.

“We’ve given them everything they wanted,” Coburn said, referring to the Justice Department.

Coburn would not reveal what was in the e-mails he is sharing with federal authorities, but a Coburn aide said the Oklahoma Republican turned over more than 1,200 pages of documents to the Justice Department…

At the time of Ensign’s affair, Coburn and the Nevada Republican were roommates, sharing a townhome on Capitol Hill known as the “C Street” house, run by a Christian group.

There Has Been a Mosque Near Ground Zero Since 1970 – Same Year the World Trade Center Opened

Jon Ponder

Design concept for Cordoba House
Design concept for Park 51
I lived four blocks east of the World Trade Center in the 1980s, so I’ve followed the controversy about Park 51, formerly known as Cordoba House, the new Islamic center being built two blocks north of the trade center at Park Place, with insider-y interest.

I found an unexpected source for tapping into local attitudes about Park 51 on Andrew Sullivan’s site, the Daily Dish, where people from my old neighborhood have been posting comments about the project. The clincher was this factoid that, in hindsight, shouldn’t have been surprising: A mosque, Masjid Manhattan, has been holding services on Warren Street, four blocks north of the World Trade Center, for the last 40 years. (It’s about a block west of the Tweed Courthouse, if you know the area.) From the mosque’s website:

Our members are city, state and federal employees, as well as professional employees of the Financial [District] who come to our Masjid to perform their daily prayers. Masjid Manhattan and its members condemn any type of terrorist acts. In particular, the attacks of 9/11 where non-Muslims as well as Muslims lost their lives.

(UPDATE: Masjid Manhattan includes this disclaimer on its website: “Please be advised that we are by no means affiliated with any other organization trying to build anything new in the area of downtown Manhattan.”)

It is significant that Masjid Manhattan was started in 1970 because the World Trade Center also opened at the end of that year. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970; the South Tower opened a year later, in January 1972.

The fact that Muslims have been worshiping four blocks away from Ground Zero for so long makes it hard to argue that it’s a sacrilege to have an Islamic presence so close to the site of the attack by their fanatical coreligionists. (So should the fact that about 60 innocent Muslims died in the trade center on 9/11 — roughly 2 percent of all fatalities.)

[…]

Verbatim

Trish

I’ll have to look into it.

— Response by Florida governor candidate Rick Scott to a questioner on the campaign trail who asked what Scott would do about Pres. Obama’s birth certificate, and whether he feels that Obama’s name can legally be placed on the 2012 ballot. By indulging “birther” fantasies, Scott aligned himself with the most extreme rightwing elements. Scott was CEO of HCA/Columbia Healthcare until he was given a choice to resign or face criminal charges for his role in defrauding the government of millions of Medicare/Medicaid dollars. He now runs the Solantic chain of urgent care clinics, which serve mainly uninsured patients, and is one of the principle funding sources behind the anti-healthcare reform campaign.

Maddow Vs. O’Reilly: She Takes Apart His Assertion That Fox’s Ratings Justify Race Baiting

Jon Ponder

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Partial Transcript:

They are more watched than “The O’Reilly Factor,” my lord — which is totally immaterial to the discussion at hand, because when you got all kicked your network’s butt, and madam on me, you weren’t really trying to tout your network’s ratings. You were trying to take the attention off me saying that your network, FOX News, continually crusades on flagrantly bogus stories designed to make white Americans fear black Americans, which FOX News most certainly does for a political purpose even if it upends the lives of individuals like Shirley Sherrod, even as it frays the fabric of the nation, and even as it makes the American Dream more of a dream and less of a promise.

You can insult us all you want about television ratings, Mr. O’Reilly, and you’ll be right that yours are bigger for now and maybe forever. You are the undisputed champion. But even if no one watches us at all, except for my mom and my girlfriend and people who forgot to turn off the TV after Keith, you are still wrong on what really matters and that would be the facts, your highness.