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Police in Winnsboro, Louisiana confirmed on Monday that a woman had been set on fire over the weekend and racial slurs were found scrawled on her car.

Sharmeka Moffitt told police that she was attacked and burned by three men wearing white hoodies at a park in Franklin Parish on Sunday, according to KNOE.

At a press conference on Monday, police said that the letters "KKK" were spray-painted on the hood of her car.

Winnsboro Police Chief Kevin Cobb said that the FBI was investigating whether the incident was a hate crime, but authorities declined to classify the attack as racially motivated on Monday. The Franklin Parish Sheriff, Louisiana State Police and the state fire Marshall's office were also participating in the investigation.

A friend of the Moffitt family told KNOE that the victim had burns on 90 percent of her body and was currently in stable condition at the LSU-Shreveport hospital.

The Facebook page "Prayers for Sharmeka Moffitt" was created on Sunday night to support the victim and encourage the media to cover the story. By Monday afternoon, that page had received over 8,000 "likes."

UPDATE: Investigators are now saying that the injuries and "attack" were self-inflicted:

Two days after multiple law enforcement agencies began an investigation into the attack and burning of a Winnsboro woman at Civitan Park, authorities now believe the wounds were self-inflicted.

According to Winnsboro Police Chief Lester Thomas, evidenced gathered at the scene of the incident shows 20-year-old Sharmeka Moffitt's initial claims that she was attacked and set on fire turned out to be false claims made up by Moffitt.

"This is a case in which the investigators had to pursue the facts that were presented," Thomas said. "It's been a very disturbing case for everyone involved."

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Televangelist Pat Robertson on Monday reviewed the case of a shooting at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin that left at least seven dead and came to the conclusion that places of worship were being attacked because "people who are atheists, they hate God."

Robertson opened Monday's 700 Club broadcast with the news that there had been a mass shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek.

"What is it?" the TV preacher wondered. "Is it satanic? Is it some spiritual thing, people who are atheists, they hate God, they hate the expression of God? And they are angry with the world, angry with themselves, angry with society and they take it out on innocent people who are worshiping God."

"And whether it's a Sikh temple or a Baptist church or a Catholic church or a Muslim mosque, whatever it is, I just abhor this kind of violence, and it's the the kind of thing that we should do something about," he added. "But what do you do? Well, you talk about the love of God and hope it has some impact."

U.S. Attorney James A. Santelle on Monday said that the man who murdered six people in Wisconsin before being shot himself was 40-year-old Army veteran Wade Michael Page. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) identified Page as a neo-Nazi who led a racist white-power band.

SPLC's Heidi Beirich told the Journal Sentinel that there was "no question" that the suspect was part of the white supremacist movement and had attended "hate events" around the country.

Reports also indicated that Page had a number of tattoos, including one that said "9/11" and a Celtic knot, which is commonly used a symbol of the Christian Holy Trinity. There is no evidence that Page was an atheist.

(h/t Right Wing Watch)

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Authorities in Port St. Joe, Florida say a man charged with a hate crime felt inconvenienced by his arrest because he had "only shot a n*gger."

Walton Henry Butler, 59, was arrested by Gulf County Sheriff's deputies on Monday night for shooting 32-year-old Everett Gant, who is black, in the head with a .22 caliber rifle.

According to a charging affidavit obtained by The Star, Butler had referred to Pamela Rogers' child and other children at his apartment complex with racial slurs.

Gant was shot between the eyes when he went to Butler's apartment to confront him over the remarks, the documents said. Butler allegedly closed his sliding glass door and left Gant bleeding on ground outside.

The suspect contacted 911 and had finished his dinner before Gulf County Sheriff Joe Nugent arrived.

Nugent recalled that Butler appeared "inconvenienced" by the arrest, saying that "he had only shot a n*gger."

"He was brought to the investigation unit where he was interviewed and basically admitted to shooting the victim and said he shot a, used a racial slur, and said that is what he shot and acted like it was not like a big deal or anything to him," Nugent told WJHG.

Butler was charged with attempted murder with a hate crime enhancement. He was being held in the Gulf County Jail after an appearance in court on Tuesday morning.

Gant was in stable condition at Bay Medical Center and is expected to survive.

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A person selling gun range targets modeled after slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin says that their "main motivation was to make money off the controversy."

WKMG's Mike DeForest reported on Friday that the unidentified seller told him that the targets "sold out in 2 days."

"The response is overwhelming," the seller said.

While the item appears to have been removed from GunBroker.com, a cached version of the page was still available at the time of publication.

Photos of the item, which was titled "10 Pack Trayvon Martin Targets," showed crosshairs over a hoodie similar to the one Trayvon Martin was wearing when he was shot by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in February. The figure has a bag of Skittle in his pocket and is holding what appears to be a can of iced tea, similar to what Martin had purchased before being gunned down. The pack of 10 targets was being sold for $8.

"Everyone knows the story of Zimmerman and Martin," a description on the targets reads. "Obviously we support Zimmerman and believe he is innocent and that he shot a thug. Each target is printed on thick, high quality poster paper with a matte finish! The dimensions are 12"x18" ( The same as Darkotic Zombie Targets) This is a Ten Pack of Targets."

The seller's ID was listed as "hillerarmco" from Virginia Beach, Virginia. A website by the same name is registered to Hiller Armament Company in Virginia Beach, but the associated phone number had been disconnected.

Zimmerman attorney Mark O'Mara told WKMG that this type of "hatred" just makes his client's defense even more problematic.

"This is the highest level of disgust and the lowest level of civility," O'Mara said. "It's this type of hatred -- that's what this is, it's hate-mongering -- that's going to make it more difficult to try this case."

"I hope there is a crime that we can charge that person who made that with," he added. "I'm not sure what it is, but we need to come up with one because that's disgusting."

(h/t: Gawker)

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Prosecutors in Jackson, Mississippii say that Deryl Dedmon, Jr. and John Aaron Rice were looking for a black person to hurt when they left a party on June 26.

"Let's go fuck with some niggers," Dedmon had reportedly said to friends.

Dedmon, Rice and several other teens drove from a white suburb to a prominently black part of town where they came across James Craig Anderson, a 49-year-old black auto plant worker.

Witnesses claimed that after beating and kicking Anderson, the teens yelled "White Power!" and other racial epithets.

When the beating was over, security footage showed Dedmon's Ford 250 truck driving over Anderson, killing him instantly.

"I ran that nigger over," Dedmon allegedly told the other teens in a phone call.

"He was not remorseful," Hinds County District Attorney Robert Shuler Smith told CNN's Drew Griffin. "He was laughing, laughing about the killing."

"This was a crime of hate. Dedmon murdered this man because he was black," Smith added.

Anderson family attorney Winston Thompson agreed, saying, "It appears there is no doubt that this was a racially motivated killing."

Dedmon has been charged with murder and faces a double life sentence. In July, Judge William Barnett reduced the murder charges against Rice to aggravated assault. He was released on $5,000 bond.

Other teens involved in the case have not been charged.

"Life sentences?" The Root's Nsenga Burton wondered. "Why not the death penalty? We're also wondering why Rice and Dedmon, Jr. are the only people being charged in this senseless murder? If multiple teens participated in the beatings and were in the car during the murder, shouldn't they also be charged?"

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Police in Colorado Springs are calling the Saturday beating of two gay soldiers a possible hate crime.

The men, who wished not to be identified, told 7 News that they went to Albert Tacos restaurant after leaving a nightclub.

"As soon as we walked in, there was a group of African American males that walked in," one of the men said. "And they started a confrontation with us because of the fact that one of our go-gos was still in his outfit."

"We walked in and immediately one black male started making remarks like, faggot," another of the men told KOAA.

When they returned to the parking lot, they were beaten by a group of about five men. Two women are also wanted in connection to the beating.

Both men were rushed to the hospital. One man's jaw was shattered and had to be wired shut.

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Bill Maher got his right-wing guests -- the National Review's Reihan Salam and Fox News' Margaret Hoover -- on this week's edition of Real Time worked up when he asked why all the recent political violence is coming from the right. Salam reminded me a bit of Howard Fineman on Hardball the other day when he couldn't name anyone on the left who equaled the violence we're seeing from the right either, and reached back to the Weather Underground as an example of a violent group on the left, which Maher pointed out existed before he was born. Fox's Margaret Hoover tried painting Joy Behar with the same brush as the Kentucky head-stomper for her comments on The View, which (as Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out) is completely ridiculous.

While I don't agree completely with Bill that if you looked hard enough you couldn't find some example of someone on the left behaving badly because there are a few out there, he's spot on that both sides are not equal and the craziness we've been seeing for the last several years is coming from the right, not the left. I'm surprised neither of them pulled out the faker Kenneth Gladney's story where pretended to get beaten up by members of the SEIU that Dave wrote about here -- Faking victimhood: Just how hurt was that supposed victim of SEIU 'thuggery'?.

The big difference between what's going on now, as I said in the post on Fineman's hackery (and it's a point Maher failed to make), is that this hatred that is being drummed up right now is coming from these astroturf groups funded by big business and from the Republican leadership itself and from right-wing hate-talk radio. These are not just isolated incidents, but ones that are being incited intentionally and drummed up by people who understand full well what they're doing and just don't care about the repercussions. Bill did point out some of the things that Tom Tancredo has said recently and Hoover tried writing him off by saying he's not a Republican any more. Uh-huh.

For a reminder of just how crazy things are getting on the right there are plenty of examples here and here and here and here. And of course there is also John and Dave's book -- Our 'Over the Cliff' website: A resource for progressives coping with insane right-wingers.

Partial transcript below the fold. Bill had me with him during the show until a bit later when he said he's alarmed by the number of babies being named Mohammed in Great Britian. Really Bill?

And one last note, this clip really illustrates a point that Driftglass and Bluegal made in their podcast this week which is that when you confront anyone on the right about how badly their side behaves, their heads explode.

Continue reading »

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As I already noted in my post about David Brooks recent white washing of the increase in Islamophobia, the Southern Poverty Law Center has a report out on the recent wave of hate crimes directed towards Muslims in the United States. Their spokesman and director of publications and information Mark Potok went on CNN to discuss that article.

He didn't get a chance to do it until near the end of the interview but he rightfully called out the Republican Party and the right wing of their party for fanning the flames on this issue and for their part in "pouring gasoline on this fire."

He's absolutely right and I'm wondering just how badly they and Fox News are going to be willing to keep this up in order to win the mid-term elections this year before they over-play their hand or if they already have. One of my co-workers is deeply religious and involved in his church and he's been following this stuff and is worried that it's going to reflect badly on his church since this wingnut in Florida is so over the top and made sure to point out to me that this pastor didn't represent all Christians.

I tried to explain to him that this was nothing but part of an ongoing strategy by Republicans and our corporate media to fan the flames of racism and hatred and to make sure everyone is afraid of the scary black man in the White House and that it's disgusting and of course doesn't mean that all religious groups or Christians should be tagged with this one crazy person's extremism.

The fact that he's viewing this from that stand point makes me wonder if they have indeed overplayed how the electorate is responding to this nonsense, and I'd love to know if anyone else has had any similar reactions from friends or family as well. People who are middle of the road, non-political and just very religious don't want to be painted as raving wingnuts who hate Muslims. I hope to hell there are a lot of others out there like my co-worker who are watching this stuff and feel like he does as well where it doesn't make him feel like he wants to go vote for Republicans because he's afraid of the scary Muslims, but is embarrassed by what's going on and worried that he or his church is going to get tagged with the extremism instead.

And for anyone that wants to pretend like Fox hasn't been ginning this up to help the Republicans make electoral gains for a long time now, Media Matters has this report.

TIMELINE: Nine months of the right's anti-Muslim bigotry:

Cheered on by Fox News and the rest of the right-wing media, conservative activists spent the past year engaged in an anti-Muslim campaign that included efforts to block the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan and demonize the imam spearheading the project. The bigotry has culminated in a Florida pastor's now-"suspended" plans to burn Qurans on September 11 -- plans that the pastor has explicitly linked to the controversy over the Islamic center.

Go read the rest and share with anyone that thinks Fox is a credible "news" organization.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

Continue reading »

Good grief this man has some anger management problems.

From The Senate Democrats:

Senator Carl Levin attempted to set a time to bring up the Defense Authorization bill post-August recess today. Senator John McCain, however, had other plans. He objected to setting a time for floor debate for the bill, citing his displeasure with the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy being a part of the legislation.

Joe at Americablog has more:

And, he's wrong about hate crimes. There was no secrecy around it. In fact, there were two recent Senate votes amending hate crimes to the Defense Authorization bill. In 2007, the hate crimes amendment broke the filibuster by vote of 60 - 39 (McCain was absent.) In 2009, the hate crimes amendment broke the filibuster by a vote of 63 - 28. McCain was there. The debate lasted a couple hours, not weeks. Clearly, McCain is easily confused, especially when he's being homophobic.

This is just an early indicator of what the battle will be like in the Senate to pass the compromise DADT repeal bill. It's going to get ugly.

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President Obama vows to sign the hate crimes bill during his speech at the Human Rights Campaign's annual dinner. While this and other parts of his speech were not enough to satisfy the folks over at AmericaBlog, it is at least a step in the right direction, and a far cry from the likes of Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert and his disgusting rant demonizing the gay community on the House floor this past week.

President Obama also vowed to "repeal both Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the Defense of Marriage Act" and stood by his LGBT Nominees under attack from the right as reported by Think Progress.

President Obama: So I know you want me working on jobs and the economy and all the other issues that we’re dealing with, but my commitment to you is unwavering even as we wrestle with these enormous problems. And while progress may be taking longer than you’d like as a result of all that we face, and that’s the truth, do not doubt the direction that we are heading and the destination we will reach.

My expectation is that when you look back on these years you will see a time when we put a stop to discrimination against gays and lesbians, whether in the office or on the battlefield.

You will see a time in which we as a nation finally recognize relationships between two men or two women as just real and admirable as relationships between a man and a woman.

You will see a nation that’s valuing and cherishing these families as we build a more perfect union—a union in which gay Americans are an important part. I am committed to these goals and my administration will continue fighting to achieve them.

And there’s no more poignant or painful reminder of how important it is that we do so than the loss experienced by Dennis and Judy Shepard whose son Matthew was stolen in a terrible act of violence eleven years ago.

In May I met with Judy who is here tonight with her husband. I met her in the Oval Office and I promised her that we were going to pass an inclusive hate crimes bill—a bill named for her son. This struggle has been long. Time and again we faced opposition. Time and again the measure was defeated or delayed, but the Shepards never gave up.

They turned tragedy into an unshakable commitment. Countless activists and organizers never gave up. You held vigils. You spoke out year after year, Congress after Congress. The House passed the bill again this week and I can announce that after more than a decade this bill is set to pass and I will sign it into law.