DOWNLOADS: (122)

PLAYS: (535)

Embed

They just can't stop themselves, can they? Fox will just find any excuse possible to continue their bogus New Black Panther fearmongering, the latest being the possible nomination of Thomas Perez for Labor Secretary: Fox Uses Labor Secretary News To Revive New Black Panthers Nonsense:

Fox News is using reports that Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez may be nominated as Secretary of Labor to revive their manufactured scandal that the Obama administration favored the New Black Panther Party in a 2008 voter intimidation case.

The right-wing media has spent years propping up the bogus charge that President Obama's Justice Department engaged in racially charged "corruption" in the New Black Panther Party case. The claims, promoted by GOP activist J. Christian Adams, fell apart given the fact that the Obama DOJ obtained judgment against one defendant, while the Bush DOJ declined to pursue similar allegations in 2006.

America Live anchor Megyn Kelly highlighted news of Perez's possible appointment and said that his "fingerprints are all over some rather significant controversies," including the New Black Panthers case, during the March 11 edition of America Live.

Kelly previously led Fox's charge to tar President Obama and the Justice Department with the unsubstantiated claims of former DOJ attorney and GOP activist J. Christian Adams, who claimed in a June 30, 2009 interview with Kelly that the DOJ decision not to pursue charges in the New Black Panthers case demonstrated unprecedented, racially charged corruption. Read on...

As Stephen Webster at Raw Story noted, Perez "is likely going to face some jaw-droppingly dumb questions in the Senate if he is nominated to become President Barack Obama’s next labor secretary." I can hardly wait for the hearings to begin.

DOWNLOADS: (177)

PLAYS: (1411)

Embed

This has to be one of the most pathetic things I've watched in a long time and given the crazy train that the Republican Party has become in recent years, that's saying a lot. Here's more from Ed Kilgore over at Washington Monthly: A Classic of Inversion:

If for some reason you can’t access this video, it’s an ad from famous African-American right-wingers Ken Blackwell and Herman Cain attacking Eric Holder for failing to protect the right to vote by refusing to pursue the hallucinatory New Black Panther Party voter intimidation “threat” and by persecuting poor Rick Scott, who’s just trying to protect the “integrity” of the ballot box. This rolls out after images from the civil rights movement and a pious statement from the duo about the hard-fought right to vote.

This ad is the most striking example yet of the peculiar psychological need of conservatives to convince themselves that when they are messing with minority folks they are actually warriors in the fight for civil rights, while the self-same minority folks are self-hating bigots and/or helpless pawns in the grip of white elites. I mean, really: they could just admit they want to discourage African-Americans from voting because they tend to vote for the wrong party, or that they’d oppose “welfare” whether or not a case could be made that it is victimizing its beneficiaries. All this bizarre self-righteousness and parading of minority spokespeople in communications clearly aimed at a virtually all-white audience is getting downright pathological.

Here's more from Wonkette: Herman Cain, Ken Blackwell Team Up For Most Ludicrous Video Ever:

Herman Cain and Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who STOLE THE 2004 ELECTION WITH MACHINES, have teamed up to produce this video about the Right to Vote. They do so by criticizing the Justice Department’s attempts to ensure black people can vote in the face of new laws that are clearly trying to suppress black turnout. And how could DoJ also refuse to pursue the New Black Panther Party scandal? Herman Cain and Ken Blackwell would have pursued it, for civil rights.

DOWNLOADS: (458)

PLAYS: (4624)

Embed

On this Friday's Real Time, Bill Maher highlighted another segment with his "Real Time reporter" Alexandra Pelosi, this time focusing on the media and their hyping of a potential race war in Sanford, Florida, because all of about the three members or so of the New Black Panther Party and a handful or so of Neo-Nazis decided to show up in town.

It was nice to see someone point out just how overblown the coverage on either has been, but it's too bad Maher did not also point out the fact that Fox has been flogging the New Black Panthers as though they're a group to take seriously and fearmongering over them for a lot longer than just this story. They've been hyping this tiny group for a lot longer than just their coverage of the Trayvon Martin shooting. I would hope he continues to go after them for their overblown coverage of that small fringe group and points that out in the future to his audience as well.

I'll settle for the him pointing out how horrid it is that the media looked like they were praying for a race war when it's fairly obvious there was not going to be one, so they'd have some ambulances to chase for now since sadly, he's one of the few I've seen doing it since this case finally got some national media attention.

DOWNLOADS: (228)

PLAYS: (1131)

Embed

After a round of jokes on everything from James Cameron's deep sea exploration, to the new Dallas series, to the New Black Panther Party, Ted Turner's mustache and the Pope's visit to Mexico, Bill Maher again went after these "stand your ground" gun laws which encourage the type of vigilantism we saw from George Zimmerman in the murder of Trayvon Martin during his New Rules segment on Real Time this Friday evening.

Maher also repeated his criticism of the Democrats for ceding the fight on gun control as he did during his interview on CNN's HLN earlier this week.

Warning, the language is definitely not safe for work.

DOWNLOADS: (305)

PLAYS: (686)

Embed

Last week, in a fit of anger at the injustice of the Trayvon Martin case, director Spike Lee stupidly tweeted the address of a George Zimmerman of Sanford, Florida. The only problem was that it was NOT the George Zimmerman who shot Trayvon Martin. It was instead the address of an elderly couple whose son shared the same name. At universal condemning, Lee apologized to the couple and today, agreed to a settlement for their distress. I agree with Balloon Juice's John Cole's initial reaction: Spike Lee is an idiot and should not be encouraging vigilante "justice". Unfortunately, Lee also gave the likes of Sean Hannity all the ammunition he needed to run a segment like the one this Thursday.

That said, I do agree with Ellen over at Newshounds who pointed out Hannity's hypocrisy. If he wants appoint himself the campaign donor police for President Obama (as they've done and failed already with Bill Maher), he probably should avoid playing the "both sides are equally terrible" game with his statements, considering his own connections to a charity run by a slavery-justifying, misogynistic Jesse Peterson:

A few quotes from Peterson, via the above links:

“I’ve often said that, ‘Thank God for slavery,’ because, you know, had not, then the blacks over here would have been stuck in Africa… The ride over (in a slave ship) was pretty tough but you know, it’s like riding on a crowded airplane when you’re not in First Class. It’s a tough ride. But you’re happy when you get to your destination.”
“Women’s rights are “a trick from Satan.”
“One of the greatest mistakes that America made was to allow women the opportunity to vote.”
"N)ot all, but most (women) turned into little whores.”

Or the hours upon hours of hate and misogyny that Rush Limbaugh spews on his show daily and that he was still doing this week despite hemorrhaging sponsors, as Media Matters documented here -- Limbaugh: If Health Care Reform Law Is Overturned "College Co-Eds" Might Have To Pay "To Have Protected Sex".

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1317)

PLAYS: (21405)

Embed

Bill Maher took a shot at Republicans in his New Rules segment for showing us that they have absolutely no interest in governing and instead just trying to whip their base up into a frenzy fear mongering over the latest faux outrage of the day.

MAHER: New Rule – Fantasies are for sex, not public policy. When you go down the list of useless distractions that make up the Republican Party agenda; public unions and Sharia law, anchor babies and a mosque at ground zero, ACORN and National Public Radio, the war on Christmas, the New Black Panthers, Planned Parenthood, Michelle Obama’s war on desserts…

…you realize that one reason nothing gets done in America is that one of the political parties puts so much more into fantasy problems. Governing this country with Republicans is like rooming with a meth addict.

You want to address real life problems like when the rent is due and they’re saying “How can you even think of that stuff when there’s police scanner voices coming out of the air conditioning unit?”

DOWNLOADS: (907)

PLAYS: (352)

Embed

I think Tweety was drinking some Fox Kool Aid this afternoon while waiting for John Boehner to be sworn in as Speaker of the House.

DOWNLOADS: (538)

PLAYS: (2496)

Embed

Boy, this is getting ugly. Rachel Maddow talked with Eugene Robinson about the voter suppression and intimidation tactics coming from this group the King Street Patriots last night. Here's more on the latest turn of events from TPM Muckraker.

Voter Registration Group Targeted By TX Tea Party Group Received Threats:

A group trying to register voters in Houston received threats and emails containing racist slurs after being targeted by a local tea party group accusing it of "voter fraud."

In emails obtained by TPM, the group Houston Votes was accused of being "a bunch of white guilt ridden assholes, NIGGERS and greasy mexican spics," "fraudulent Marxist pigs," and "American hating A-holes."

"We received a couple of threats and several harassing e-mails," Maureen Haver of Houston Voters told TPMMuckraker. "There have been several efforts, I think, just trying to race-bait and stir racial tension and part of that I think is just based on what we've received in messaging from them."

"It's really had a chilling effect on our office," said Haver, adding that one of the e-mails was reported to the FBI.

You can read the emails at TPM's site. They're not safe for work.

As Digby noted:

And lest we think this is just some unaffiliated cranks:

King Street Patriots leader Catherine Engelbrecht even went as far to as to accuse the group of being the headquarters of the New Black Panther Party.

The good news is that the Tea partiers don't have a racist bone in their bodies. Just ask them They'll tell you so. (It's just the "bad ones" they don't like.)

And from TPM:

True The Vote also put together a video raising the threat of voter fraud which features soaring music. "Think it can't happen in your town? Think again!" reads one message. "Our elections are being manipulated. By the RADICAL LEFT," the video says.

The video originally featured a doctored photo of an African-American voter holding a poorly photoshopped sign -- featuring Comic Sans font -- that read "I only got to vote once." That part of the video has since been edited out.

DOWNLOADS: (627)

PLAYS: (862)

Embed

Now that Fox has been pushing this race baiting non-story on the New Black Panthers for the last month or so or longer and now that all seven Republicans on the Judiciary Committee have decided that ClusterFox witch hunting is now in season, Chris Matthews allows radio talk show host Michael Smerconish to come on his show and rant breathlessly about how he thinks there needs to be some investigations of this case even though he can't cite any proof that the Justice Department was wrong in not pursuing the it for lack of evidence.

I still haven't decided what's more annoying about this interview; the fact that Matthews is basically repeating Fox's spin but putting a kinder, gentler face on it with Smerconish, or that every time he asks E. Steven Collins a question he talks over him before he's allowed to answer him and that he treats him like some hostile witness in a criminal trial with the manner in which he asks him to defend the decisions of the Attorney General's office, like he's responsible for them or might know the answers to his questions.

If Matthews was doing his job he would not be hammering a radio host to explain things that his staff could find out for themselves by picking up the phone and making a few calls to the Attorney General's office.

I also have to wonder if he even wanted to cover this story or if his producers forced him to cover it given he ends the segment with this.

MATTHEWS: I hope we don`t have to revisit this. I hope something gets done. Well, maybe it shouldn`t get done, but I hope we don`t have to talk about this one again!

I'll just say I agree with that sentiment completely. I hope you don't cover it again either since you seem to desperate to give some "balance" to the story that you're willing to overlook facts and talk over your guests that are attempting to give them to you.

Transcript via LexisNexis below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (740)

PLAYS: (1818)

Embed

Fox News has gone too far in hyping 2008 case of alleged voter intimidation, according to one New York Times columnist.

The conservative news network has recently produced a flurry of reports about a case where a member of the New Black Panther Party is accused of wielding a billy club outside of a polling place in Philadelphia. Appearing on MSNBC Monday, The New York Times' Charles Blow called out the network for exploiting the case.

"I think that the media, depending on what you call the media, some parts of the media, I think have exploited this to a degree that the president of the New Black Panther Party is on Fox on a regular basis now, it seems," Blow told MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski.

"You have a tough case here, because, to my understanding, we still don't have any person who has come forward to make an official complaint that they have been -- they were intimidated. You have a voter intimidation case with no intimidated voters," he said.

No on-air personality has promoted the story more than Fox News' Megyn Kelly.

Writing for The Atlantic, Dave Weigel accused Kelly's reports of inciting a crowd at a town hall event hosted by California Democrat:

Watch her broadcasts and you become convinced that the New Black Panthers are a powerful group that hate white people and operate under the protection of Eric Holder's DOJ. That "Megyn Kelly DESTROYS Kirsten Powers" video that I mentioned begins with her introducing a clip of a town hall meeting with Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Ca.) in which he gets an angry question about whether the DOJ has a policy of not prosecuting African-Americans.

"I am extremely sure that we do not have a policy at the Department of Justice of never prosecuting a black defendent."

The crowd rises up. "Yes you do!" shouts one voter. When Sherman says he doesn't know much about the Panther case, the crowd erupts in boos. They've been driven to fear and distrust of their DOJ by round-the-clock videos of one racist idiot brandishing a nightstick for a couple hours in 2008.

Congratulations, Megyn.

Also appearing on MSNBC Monday, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) suggested that the Obama administration may have a political motivation in ignoring the case.

"Congressman, what is your suspicion about why they are fearful to look into it?" asked MSNBC's Willie Geist. "What are you suggesting?"

"I don't know that I really ought to comment what it is," replied Wolf. "I think there is politics involved, but I think until we see, it's really hard -- very difficult to say."

But Blow disagreed. "The idea that the Obama administration, which is what is happening here which is people are trying to tie the Obama administration to black radicalism and that has been happening since the campaign and it continues to happen," said Blow.

"It strains logic to think that this tiny group, [Obama] somehow benefits politically from protecting them," Blow continued. "There's nothing to gain. In fact, there's everything to gain in prosecuting them."