Merely "moderately" crazy right-wing crazies may
be more afraid of the ultra-crazies than we are

post from DownWithTyranny! on 04 March 2011 09:00:29 PM. © DownWithTyranny!

Hateful and loony as right-wing zealots like NOM's appalling Maggie Gallagher may be, they can still recognize that their side includes people just too crazy for public consumption.

When I was a child, my mother taught me that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. The first time I encountered the gay-bashing members of Westboro Baptist Church was in 1998, when they picketed the funeral of my close friend Matthew Shepard, who was beaten and left to die tied to a fence in rural Wyoming.

What most shocked me was that, even as I attended the funeral of someone who had been murdered in a hate crime, I hadn't realized how deeply some people hate.

It wasn't until I saw those neon-colored signs with their ugly words against the snowy Wyoming landscape that I understood what my community was up against. . . .
-- Romaine Patterson, the start of a Washington Post op-ed piece today, "Let Westboro Baptist have their hate speech. We'll smother it with peace"

by Ken

It pays to know smart people. Since I wrote last night about Justice Sammy "The Hammer" Alito's perhaps-surprising lone-dissenting stand against the First Amendment right of the Westboro Baptist-Scum Church's right to torment funeral mourners with their psychotic homophobia, a legal-eagle online pal has suggested a very different dynamic to the High Court's ruling in Snyder vs. Phelps.

Most of us, I suspect, at least those of us who take the First Amendment seriously, gnashed our teeth and agreed with the eight justices in the minority, that there's pretty much no other constitutional conclusion to be drawn. No matter how hateful the speech of the Irreverend Fred and his stooge-thugs, it has to be considered protected. After all, the purpose of the First Amendment isn't to protect popular speech. Popular speech doesn't need protecting. Where we test the free-speech guarantees limits is pretty much by definition going to be with awful speech. And so, the way I was thinking about it, the Phelpsians once again get away with their awfulness, now under the protection of the Constitution.

As my online wise man points out, though, we're hearing voice from the Right, including some of the most tireless and unrelenting homophobes, likee the founder of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), Maggie Gallagher, who are quite unhappy with the ruling, and wish Justice Sammy's viewpoint had found wider support on the Court. Of course it's easier for these people, since they're not great believers in free speech themselves, except for themselves. It takes a moment, though, to realize that slapping down Fred Phelps can be an approved extreme-righ position. (Justice Sammy must be breathing a sigh of relief.)

What my friend argues is that for the organized, merely crazed zealots of homophobia, off-the-chart fruitcakes like the Irreverend Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist-Scum Church loonies are something close to their worst nightmare if the country comes to seem them as the public face of homo-hating. It's practically a gift for those of us who believe in basic equal rights for all citizens. This is just a reminder that everything in the universe is relative, and yes indeed, it's possible for people as far gone as Maggie G, people who have learned to camouflage their bigotry and hatred in ways that are not only acceptable but often attractive or even compelling to ordinary folks to look at the Phelpsians and see that they're just plain nuts, and all too plainly so.

There's more to be said on the subject, in particular considering how the implications might be extended to the whole range of insanities now being shoved through the House of Representatives and state legislatures all over the country, but for now I want to -pick up with Romaine Patterson's WaPo op-ed piece at the point where we left off above.

When the Rev. Fred Phelps and his parishioners came back to Laramie the next year to protest at the trials of the men who murdered Matthew, they were in for a bit of a surprise. Several friends and I led a counter-protest, dressed as angels, silently encircling them, our huge outstretched wings blocking their vicious signs from view.

Having been face to face with the Phelps gang, my heart goes out to all the families, who, in their most vulnerable hour, have had to deal with this small band of cruel ranters.

After Laramie, it all changed. Westboro Baptist Church members realized that the more high-profile their protests, the bigger the response, so they started picketing at the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. This past week, the Supreme Court upheld their right to do so. But where they go, angels have appeared as well, to form a living shield.

When Westboro announced that it would come to Tucson to parade around the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Taylor Green, gunned down in January in the attack against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona Legislature hurriedly passed a law setting limits on how close protesters could be to mourners. What filled me with pride, though, was seeing another community take inspiration from our own Angel Action protest more than a decade ago, depicted in the play "The Laramie Project."

As others have across the country, people in Tucson hunted up the PVC pipe and sheets and online pattern to make the costumes, and spread their wings.

To me, the lasting legacy of our counter-protest so many years ago is the enduring power of drowning out noise with silence, of smothering hate with peace.

I understand why the father of a soldier killed in Iraq sued Westboro Baptist after members jeered at his son's funeral. It is natural to want to banish such an abhorrent spectacle so that no one else will have to endure what you did. But I agree with Wednesday's ruling by the Supreme Court, because I support free speech. I know that there were many who stood by when Phelps yelled "God hates fags" at the funerals of gays or those who died of AIDS, but who mobilized in outrage when his vitriol was spewed in the direction of our brave men and women in arms, who died protecting his freedom and ours.

Patterson has a lot more to say, and I hope you'll read the whole piece, but she's making the same basic point that my e-friend did. The whole deal about free speech is that we're supposed to counter the worst speech with better speech.

And what people like that ghastly hate-monger Maggie Gallagher grasp is that the very awfulness of the Westboro gang's speech makes the job a whole lot easier. Naturally I don't say that this was what Justice Sammy had in mind in dishing out a rare rebuke to right-wingers. But sometimes these things just work out.
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Read The Full Article:
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2011/03/merely-moderately-crazy-right-wing.ht
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Damage estimate at Wisconsin Capitol goes from
$7.5 million to ... uh ... $0

post from Daily Kos on 04 March 2011 08:30:03 PM. © Daily Kos

cleaningWI (Chode | Dreamstime.com)

Yesterday:

State officials said Thursday that damage to the marble inside and out the State Capitol would cost an estimated $7.5 million.
Cari Anne Renlund, chief legal counsel for the state Department of Administration, said in Dane County court that estimates of damage to marble includes $6 million to repair damaged marble inside the Capitol, $1 million for damage outside and $500,000 for costs to supervise the damage.

Today:

State officials charged with overseeing the state Capitol are now backing away from their estimate that demonstrators did more than $7 million in damage to the building.
Touring the Capitol Friday morning with state architect Dan Stephans, Plale said he had not immediately observed any damage from demonstrations over Gov. Scott Walker's budget-repair bill, though the pair was just starting their tour. Plale said that he didn't believe the state had had any experienced contractor provide the quote on the damages.

Amazing. In just one day, the estimate went from $7.5 million to $0. Now that's a budget repair bill.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/kfGI7QgpZCg/-Damage-estimate-at-Wi
sconsin-Capitol-goes-from-$75-million-to--uh--$0-

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Senate to Debate Spending Bill Next Week

post from Firedoglake on 04 March 2011 08:21:05 PM. © Firedoglake

The plan, apparently, is to bring this to the floor next week and allow amendments. It reflects what the White House offered yesterday, with the inclusion of an additional $6.5 billion in budget cuts.[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/aDDt91FjoVA/

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Would Georgetown Port Get Funds If It Were A
Resort

post from The Politics of Jamie Sanderson on 04 March 2011 08:01:06 PM. © The Politics of Jamie Sanderson

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

If the Georgetown port had condos and boat landings along with hotels, you think people like Kevin Ryan, Ray Cleary and Tim Scott would throw money at dredging? I do.

I believe if rich people inhabited the area - and were potential donors to political campaigns - they's rush right in and dredge the channel for private leisure.

It's being done for Cherry Grove. Those people are getting the public to finance their dredging. How about that? Where are the teabaggers and their protests? Wonder whether or not any protested today while Scott was in Myrtle Beach as they kissed ass with Eric Cantor.

It's pretty clear. The Georgetown port is seen as an eye sore. By the locals who think we are such a tourist town. By politicians who care more about elections and donations than doing their job. The industrial workers mean nothing. They are just a number.

Prove me wrong. I have yet to be.

Scott has already said earmarks are a "moot conversation" in efforts to gain funds for dredging. But I suppose it's just fine for Republicans to spend taxpayer dollars to dredge a channel for a private community that will create NO JOBS.

Hypocrisy.

Read The Full Article:
http://thepoliticsofjamiesanderson.blogspot.com/2011/03/would-georgetown-port-get
-funds-if-it.html

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Gov. Walker: Don't Make Me Do It!

post from Talking Points Memo on 04 March 2011 08:00:57 PM. © Talking Points Memo

Gov. Walker sends out special early lay-offs notices. They're not not lay-off notices per se because no one's actually laid off yet. They're special 'you're gonna be laid off soon if the Dems don't come back to Madison' notices[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/Ko5_hgROUqU/gov_walker_dont
_make_me_do_it.php

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Crisis in the Dairyland - For Richer and Poorer

post from Crooks and Liars on 04 March 2011 08:00:24 PM. © Crooks and Liars

For Richer and For Poorer

For Richer and Poorer - Teachers and Wall Street

When will America's teachers follow the lead of Wall Street and start making some sacrifices for the children?

Jon Stewart & Company go to town on the blatant hypocrisy and utter foolishness of Wisconsin's class war on teachers.

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/scarce/crisis-dairyland-richer-and-poorer-0

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They stole their newborn babies and dropped the
moms in the river to die

post from AMERICAblog News on 04 March 2011 08:00:17 PM. © AMERICAblog News

This was during Argentina's military dictatorship in the late 70s and early 80s. I was working briefly in Argentina towards the end of the 1980s and heard about these stories from Argentine friends. Just horrific. Two of the former dictators have gone on trial. Good.

About 500 babies were stolen from their mothers during the dictatorship, according to the campaign group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

Pregnant female political dissidents were interned a
t secret maternity wards in centres used to torture opponents of the dictatorship.

The babies were handed to military officers or their relatives after birth while the mothers were simply killed, many of them dropped alive from military planes into the sea.

There's a wonderful (sad) movie about this chapter of Argentine history, called "The Official Story" (La historia oficial). Do watch it sometime.

Another horrific story and movie (based on a book) about the same era is "The Night of the Pencils" (La noche de los lápices"). Wikipedia explains the background:

The motion picture was based on the non-fiction book, La noche de los lápices, written by María Seoane and Héctor Ruiz Núñez. The book profiles seven high school student activists from La Plata, Argentina, including lone survivor Pablo Díaz, who gives the authors his testimony. The students were kidnapped by the government after protesting for cheaper bus fare.

Pablo Díaz was incarcerated for four years. The other six students became a part of the 236 Argentine teenagers who were kidnapped and disappeared during the military dictatorship.

I've mentioned this before - an Argentine friend, over dinner one night when I was still in Buenos Aires, late 1980s, was telling me about her friends who were killed by the junta during the dictatorship (called "the Dirty War"). I remember her crying in the restaurant, but don't really remember anything about the conversation, or what I said to elicit her next comment (I suspect it was my usual adamant exuberance about politics), but she said to me:

"You know, they'd have killed you if you were Argentine."

I asked her what she meant, and she told me that I was smart and impassioned. Had I been born in Argentina, the dictatorship would have killed me along with her friends, only a few years before our dinner. I still get chills telling that story.

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/Z7mQVf7NMdA/they-stole-their-newbor
n-babies-and.html

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Will Obama Get Tea Partied in 2012

I hope Obama is campaigning actively for re-election, because I'm getting daily messages from the Tea Party Express saying, that they are, for example,

"fighting against Barack Obama and the public employee unions."
The most right-wing Republicans, backed by the billionaire Koch brothers, are actively campaigning against Obama as if tomorrow were Election Day 2012. I get far more mail from the Tea Party than I get from Obama and his allies. Let's hope Obama doesn't sleep through this barrage of negative ads against him and then get his clock cleaned by the Republicans in 2012.

The Republicans snookered a lot of voters by not mentioning their hate for unions during their campaigns and then making unions the bugaboo of the current campaign against people who work for a living.

Francis L. Holland, Esq.

P.S. If it annoys you that I use the pompous "Esq." after my name, I hope you will tell others how annoying I am and link to this post for proof.

Read The Full Article:
http://francislholland.blogspot.com/2011/03/will-obama-get-tea-partied-in-2012.ht
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Late afternoon/early evening open thread

What's coming up on Sunday Kos ?.

Laurence Lewis will explain that what are sold as budget compromises aren't.
Chris Bowers will look at the demographic underpinnings of the Democratic coalition, and discusses the potential benefits for the rising cooperation between labor and the netroots.
Kaili Joy Gray will explain why the union-busting in Wisconsin isn't just a war on workers; it's part of the war on women.
See the exit sign over the door? brooklynbadboy will tell the story of the fire that put it there.
Mark Sumner will explain why it's ok to hate the ~~Irish~~, ~~Italians~~, ~~blacks~~, union workers.
Meteor Blades will discuss American exceptionalism. For all the talk about America being No. 1, it isn't in categories that count.