12.30.2011

Loony Loesch: "Girl Scouts promote Soros/SEIU and Leftist Ideas"

The delusion of the insane loonytunes Big Journalism Editor-In-Chief Dana Loesch rolls on, as she continues on their site's War on Media Matters For America. In her article at Big Journalism, she misleadingly claims that the "Girl Scouts of America is promoting radical Leftist ideology and is Soros/SEIU/MMfA-funded."

Think twice before buying Girl Scout cookies next year. Fox and Friends discussed how the Girl Scouts of America is now promoting Media Matters, in addition to its affiliation with Planned Parenthood (more).


From the 12.28.2011 edition of FNC's Fox and Friends:

Get ‘em while they’re young, I guess? The Girl Scouts believe that an organization which took money from SEIU right about the time it began attacking black conservatives in the wake of the Gladney beating, a website which refuses to correct its errors and has been called a “core institution” of the Democrat party due to its hostile stance against Israel-supporters, this site “gets the word out about media misinformation?” A website which runs interference to blatantly protect Democrats? A website which makes false claims (and then plays “ignore” when proof of such claims is requested) against journalists? A website that attacked critics of a government program that used public funds to arm Mexican drug cartels so they could shoot Mexicans and Americans? The same Media Matters which worked with the DOJ to cover up the voter intimidation scandal?
By promoting Media Matters for America as a credible website, the Girl Scouts are endorsing the site’s unethical practices and stances.
The ongoing moral decline of the Girl Scouts has caused an exodus within its ranks and a decline in its formerly popular cookie sales. The absence of such a group has sparked the creation of others to take its place, most notable among them: the American Heritage Girls and the Frontier Girls.  
Next year, when the green sashes come by your home and ask you to buy cookies to help support their organization, know why your answer will be “no, thanks.”


We got even more proof that Loesch is pandering to social Conservatives, when she claims her organization(s) are all about the "free markets" and the "economy." She's whining about the "moral decay" of the Girl Scouts, as is typical from a Conservative bombthrowing loon. The only "moral decay" that's going on is the right-wing front groups' mission to destroy American freedoms. The Girl Scouts are not "radical Leftists" or "Soros/SEIU/MMfA-funded" like she claims.

Debunking Loesch's blatant lies is an article from TPM called "Right-Wing bloggers and Fox News's Fox and Friends Attack Girl Scouts Of America's 'Leftist Agenda.'"


Right-wing bloggers and Fox News have managed to squeeze in one more liberal conspiracy theory before the end of 2011.
The controversy is over a section in the Girl Scouts’ media guide that advises readers to use sites like snopes.com and MediaMatters to fact-check what they read on the Internet. Because, as Steve Doocy put it on Fox & Friends on Thursday, because MediaMatters is “clearly a lefty blog,” telling members to turn to them means the Girl Scouts must secretly be in the tank for the left.

Glenn Beck’s site The Blaze first wrote about the guide on Tuesday, and said that it was pointed out to them by a parent of Sydney Volankski, a fifteen-year old former Girl Scout who left the organization in 2010 when she says she realized the organization has a “clear liberal ideology.”
In response, she started a blog called “Speak Now: Girl Scouts,” and on Thursday she popped up on Fox News.

Doocy asked Volanski how she “started noticing, kind of, what you would feel is a liberal agenda” in the Girl Scouts.
“My sister and I started a website to help inform families of the more leftward leanings of Girl Scouts because they promise to be neutral politically and about certain social issues,” Volanski explained, “but when you examine the women that they promote and the websites and books that they refer girls to, there is a clear liberal ideology, like with the MediaMatters site.”
“For eight years we were in Girl Scouts and we didn’t realize that Girl Scouts was promoting such a liberal ideology,” she added.
Priscilla at Newshounds also reported the facts:

That Fox News is America's premier anti-abortion rights "news" network was underscored, once again, by this morning's Fox & Friends showcasing of a rabidly anti-abortion rights former Girl Scout, Sydney Volanski, who, accuses "the Girl Scouts of creating boot-stomping, sexualized radicals." Volanski's topic was the latest outrage in the right wing world; i.e. that Girl Scout literature referred readers to the evil, librul Media Matters for information on media bias. The Scouts have since removed the reference - something that both Volanski and the Daily Caller are taking credit for. But that topic only served for her soliloquy about the nefarious connections of the Girl Scouts to the ultra evil Planned Parenthood. But hey, the Fox War on Christmas is over for a year and Fox needs its culture wars which, in this case, is a war on Girl Scouts.  And this dovetails nicely with their war on Media Matters and Planned Parenthood!  Don't ya love the sweet smell of propaganda with your morning coffee.


As the chyron read "Turn to the Left, Media Matters Featured in Girl Scout Guide," Alysin Camerota set the agitprop by reporting that the Media Matters thing has been eliminated due to "a sharp Girl Scout" like the guest who "noticed the bias." Doocy reinforced the Fox message with the requisite "explanation" of how Volanski and her family noticed a "liberal agenda" in the national Girl Scout organization when they noticed the Media Matters reference. He described MMFA as "clearly a lefty blog." Volanski said that she and her sister formed a website to "inform" about the "leftward leanings" of the Scouts who claim neutrality but, according to Volanski, are promoting a "clear liberal ideology." Doocy said "uh-huh." In response to Camerota's question about the purpose of the "Speak Now Girl Scouts," Volanski responded that it is spreading awareness of the Girl Scout deceit about its "liberal ideology" of which she was initially unaware while a Scout.

After Camerota read the Girl Scout statement, in which they assert that the Media Matters reference will be taken out, she asked if Volanski is satisfied with the progress. Volanski said that this is only one example of the Scouts promotion of a liberal issue. She claimed that books with the MMFA reference are still being sold and alleged that Girl Scouts isn't concerned enough to pull the books. As the chyron read "Media Misinformation Girls Scout Guide References"(note present tense) "Liberal Blog," Doocy thanked her for her information (WTF?!) about "the media bias" and "the Planned Parenthoood" and said that "it turns out that Girl Scouts is more than just the cookies."

While Girl Scouts is supposedly promoting the agenda of Planned Parenthood, Fox & Friends is promoting the agenda of a conservative Catholic girl who is connected to anti-choice radicals such as Lila Rose, the hate group Family Research Council, Priests for Life, and the homophobic anti-choice Janet Parshall. Ever since the scouts took "God" out their pledge, the right wing anti-choicers have been gunning for them. Nice to see that Fox & Friends is taking up arms for a cause that demonizes Margaret Mead and Hillary Clinton. Right, Doocy, Scouts are more than cookies. They're about young women taking responsibility for themselves (and that includes sexuality). The women that they honor, who are role models for responsibility, are pro-choice. That Volansky and her fellow zealots demonize them is illustrative of the right wing war on women of which Fox "News"  is a well armed battalion!


In fact, to piss off Loesch and the righties, I'd recommend you buy Girl Scout cookies.

12.27.2011

Loesch misleadingly declares "Jesus and Christmas has been hijacked by the Left"

Gateway "Grassroots" Initiative (GGI) co-founder and Breitbart's Big "Journalism" EIC Dana Loesch wrote on Christmas Day at Big "Journalism" misleadingly declaring that "the Left wants to hijack The Story of Christmas to their own gain."

The American Spectator does a nice job of deconstructing this ridiculous piece from a progressive blogger over at the Progressive Christian Alliance. The gist of the piece is this: Jesus was an illegal immigrant baby, thus if you are against illegal immigration, you are against Jesus and the entire story of the nativity is one big political story.

This religious outfit dilutes God’s word with its hippified humanism. Their “about” section reads like a vague intro to a self-help book. The emphasis is based on inclusion (Jesus Himself said He did not come to bring peace, but a sword Matthew 10:34) and accepting people as they are, regardless whether or not God’s law is followed. They are situational Christians: they love the Bible when they think they can cherry pick the Word and support leftist beliefs but are suspiciously silent on Scripture where it concerns life, marriage, law, and worship.

Who's cherry-picking Bible verses now? It's Loesch and her bible-thumping kind of people, not us Liberal/Progressive Christians.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.  - Romans 13:1-3
If you’re going to condescend to preach to the flock, you must preach all the Bible for consistency, as even the Devil can quote Scripture. 

The article in question is even more proof that Loesch, like most Teabaggers, happen to be socially Conservative Christian religious nutcases.

Now, for the unimpeded truth that Loesch and the Christian Right won't tell you, but the Progressive Christian Alliance will:

This week, to inaugurate my new blog at Patheos, I am offering an in-depth, feature-length retelling of the story of Jesus’ birth. In this re-imagined story, you will find all the familiar scenes and characters — the Annunciation with Mary and the angel, Elizabeth, the birth — but reworked, turned-upside down and placed in a jarringly modern and political context. My hope is that readers will be able to see this well-worn story anew this season and perhaps even recapture a small ember of the searing affront that was the birth of Christ (check out the end of this post for an excerpt from part one “AnunciaciĆ³n” or download the four-page e-chapter by clicking on the logo at the top).

See, every Christmas, Christians around the world retell the story of the birth of Jesus. Many set up illuminated lawn ornaments of Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus. Some dust off the Nativity mantlepieces. Others, to remember the reason for the season, defend the virtues of Christmas. Then there is the yearly attempt to make the Christmas story relevant to teenagers, as demonstrated in this years offering, “A Social Network Christmas.” With all the noise and lights, it can be difficult to remember just how jarring the birth of Jesus should be to us. A few writers, like Kurt Willems and John Dominic Crossan, have reminded us of just how confrontational or unexpected it was for Jesus to be born in the way that he was.

Often, we Christians will call the birth of Jesus a humble one, when it reality it was a humiliating one. Giving birth in a barn is not quaint. It is an affront. Giving birth among the beasts is not, I would imagine, a joyful experience, but a degrading one. Giving birth as a member of an occupied nation, an oppressed people is not exactly what we think of as a history-changing event.

If Jesus were born today, it would have been undocumented and gallingly political, just as it was 2,000 years ago. He would have to be born to a minority people, an oppressed, exploited and mistreated people. He would have to be born in deprivation, in humiliation. He would have to be born in the context of kenosis, of self-emptying. Jesus would have to born in circumstances that would deprive him of his basic rights, his dignity. He would have to born in the most powerful Empire in the world, but in a way that would have been ignored by everyone who held power and important positions in our world.
Just more evidence that Loesch is indeed a Conservative Christian crackpot, as is the majority of her radio show listeners and her readers over at Big Journalism.


Even more dangerous rhetoric from her:

She encouraged her listeners to buy a gun for Christmas.
From the 12.15.2011 edition of KFTK's The Dana Show:






She defended the Islamophobic crackpot caller who suggested that the "Prophet Muhmamad deserved to be executed for being a human scum."
From the 12.23.2011 edition of KFTK's The Dana Show:




12.21.2011

Degenerate Loesch fibs about The Nation's Food Stamps article from Ratner

Breitbart hack and shit disturber Dana Loesch has been making up lies to her braindead audience over at Big Journalism yet again, as she misleadingly accuses The Nation's Lizzy Ratner of "dog-whistling" about food stamps.

 
Here we go with dog whistle again.
The Nation’s Lizzy Ratner surmises that it’s racist to acknowledge that a record number of Americans are on the government dole.
The deep racism at the heart of conservative food stamp critiques offers at least one clue as to why the Obama administration has been unable or unwilling to champion SNAP as a valuable recession antidote: as the nation’s first African-American president, Obama is vulnerable to racist innuendo, which his opponents are only too happy to exploit. Just two months after Gingrich made his “food stamp president” comment, another would-be president, Rick Santorum, picked up the theme, accusing Obama, absurdly, of “pushing more people on food stamps.”
Is the below “deep racism?”
The CBO predicted that the US economy will be unsustainable by 2037 on its current path.
The IMF declared two weeks ago that the age of America will end in a decade.
One in six Americans now receive government helpUSA Today says more Americans are receiving federal aid than everInvestors’ Insight says more Americans than ever before are on the government dole.
Lastly, according to our own government statistics, more white Americans receive federal aid than blackAmericans, shattering the stereotype that led Walsh to immediately think “black people” when she heard the words “food stamps.”
Did Ratner bother to actually research welfare statistics before assuming that the critics were “racist” because she stereotypically believes that the majority of welfare recipients are black? Because the majority of welfare recipients are white.
So which is actually racist?
a) Criticizing dependance upon government for personal sustainability or;
b) assuming that all those who are dependent upon government are black?
This is a trend with progressives, this prejudiced association of welfare and black Americans.

All of this incessant howling about race is a distraction from the real epidemic: the growing number of Americans dependent upon the federal government. Ratner’s attention is best served there rather than making baseless accusations over race.

Who's doing the ":dog-whistling" and race-baiting now? The last time I checked, it ain't Ratner or The Nation, but Loesch that's doing it.

 Now, the real truth from The Nation's Ratner:

Just past Fifth Avenue, where the gourmet food shops shift into dollar stores and Fourteenth Street turns suddenly seedy, there is a squat, metal-sided building that looks like a relic from a half-familiar past. Coated in grime so thick it’s hard to tell whether the striped siding is green or blue, it still bears boxy traces of postwar optimism (it was built in 1946), but mostly it looks haggard, a smile snaggled with broken teeth.
This is the home of the Waverly Food Stamp Center, one of eighteen such centers in New York City. On a recent Monday morning, it was choked with visitors—men, women and kids in strollers—heading to appointments, picking up applications and pressing to get cases reopened. They came in waves, big and constant, which got sucked upward in two tin-can elevators and then spit out into a room that one applicant, Erica, described as “really hot,” “crowded” and “loud.” It was the kind of place where no one seemed to be in control, and where anyone who might be in control didn’t seem to care. And yet somehow, Erica said, the place functioned. Despite hoops and hurdles, visitors frequently walked out with the help they so desperately needed when they came in.
“They do assist you, they do,” said a middle-aged man who asked to be identified by his nickname, Mr. Monk, as he breezed out of the Waverly Center. Mr. Monk had lost his job, then his home, to the recession and had decided to apply for benefits because “I have to eat.” Still waiting to see if his welfare application would be accepted, he’d already received an emergency food stamp disbursement. “Every red penny goes to food.”
Welcome to the food stamp system: decaying, inundated and one of the most unexpectedly effective safety net programs still standing. Indeed, like the crumbling Waverly Center, the food stamp program, more formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, still stands, still works—remarkably well, all things considered. It may not look pretty, but while other social safety net programs, like public assistance (more commonly called welfare), public housing, Section 8 and even unemployment insurance, have been so thoroughly hobbled that they can no longer respond to the struggles of millions of Americans, the food stamp program has remained surprisingly sensitive to people’s needs. It is one of the defining reasons more Americans were not as immiserated by this recession as they were in eras past.
The statistics tell the story. On any given day, nearly 1.8 million New Yorkers participate in the program, using electronic benefit cards to buy bread, milk, cheese and other staples. Across the country, the number is 46.3 million, or one out of every seven people. And thanks to an infusion of $45.2 billion in stimulus money, SNAP has helped millions of unemployed and underemployed recession victims. In 2010 alone, food stamps lifted 3.9 million people above the poverty line, the Census Bureau reports. And it did this, continues to do it, despite decades of on-again, off-again neglect, budget cuts and Republican attacks.
“Food stamps are really the only functioning part of the safety net,” says Joel Berg, executive director of the New York Coalition Against Hunger. “It’s the only thing left.”
The question now is, how much longer can the food stamp program withstand the conservative assault on the nation’s safety net? And why haven’t Obama and the Democrats done more to defend such a vital program?


The modern-day food stamp system is, in many ways, a model entitlement program—far from perfect, but as good as it gets in social welfare–wary America. Born of the Food Stamp Act of 1977, which in turn was born of the anti-hunger movement of the 1970s, it is accessible, far-reaching, resilient and lean, with an overhead that consumes less than 10 percent of its budget. True, its benefit levels are so stingy that many recipients are forced to survive on little more than $1 a meal. True as well that it fails to reach three of every ten people who are eligible, helping explain how some 14.5 percent of this country’s households experienced food insecurity in 2010. Among those denied: a desperate mother of two who walked into a Texas food stamp center earlier this month and took a supervisor hostage, ultimately killing herself and two kids.
And yet, for all these stunning and starved beast failings, SNAP remains the best of the bunch, a program whose essential effectiveness has enabled it not only to stave off food insecurity for millions but to catch the overflow of need caused by the attack on other entitlement programs. Call it the safety net’s safety net.
“In terms of food security in this country, food stamps really are the foundational component of the safety net,” says Triada Stampas, director of government relations and public education for the Food Bank for New York City. “It is a program that by and large works.”

The fact that the program remains as successful as it does is remarkable given the beatings it has taken since Ronald Reagan began sweeping away the buttresses of the welfare state. Since the Reagan revolution, funding has regularly been slashed, eligibility tightened and, during the Gingrich years, most immigrants banned from the program. And yet, even amid these attacks, food stamps have enjoyed enough bipartisan support to avoid the radical disemboweling experienced by, say, the welfare system. The reason, at least in part, is the way the program has historically been framed: as a voucher (always Republican-friendly) supporting the working (and hence “deserving”) poor. As a result, funding has often been restored, some categories of documented immigrants have been readmitted to the rolls, and the program has retained sufficient flexibility to respond quickly when the need is greatest.

Today’s food stamp legions are a diverse group, a cross-section of ages, ethnicities and biographies. They include recession casualties like Rosalinde Block, 59, a middle-class single mother in Manhattan, who lost nearly half her piano students as well as her freelance gigs and medical coverage at almost the same moment in 2008 when her son became seriously ill. They are double-barreled hardship victims like Carmen Perez-Lopez, who suffered a stroke followed almost immediately by a breast cancer diagnosis in the fall of 2009 and quickly ran through her savings as she slogged through treatment. They are disproportionately women; roughly half of them are children. And for many of them, food stamps have made all the difference.

 Given the program’s popularity, to say nothing of its strengths as an anti-poverty program and recession-buster, one could be forgiven for assuming that food stamps are enjoying widespread government support right now: that Congress would be debating funding increases, not cuts, and that the administration would be working hard to bolster and even boost one of its more effective stimulus initiatives.

Ryan’s proposal, and the House budget that grew out of it, were defeated, but not without winning the support of almost every Republican in the House. And now there’s the sudden surge of Republican presidential front-runner Newt Gingrich, which can only portend ill for food stamps. Gingrich has been lobbing anti-SNAP bombs for months, but his most infamous, issued in May and repeated in December, was his slam calling Obama the “food stamp president”—a declaration of barely coded racism that harked back to decades of racially inspired attacks on food stamps, most notably Reagan’s slur about “strapping young bucks” dining out on T-bone steaks. Equally troubling, Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican with a record of racebaiting, led a charge in the Senate this past fall to “reform” food stamps by restricting eligibility and undoing a planned $9 billion budget increase, supposedly to crack down on fraud and government excess. (Notably, food stamp errors have reached record lows in recent years: only 2.7 percent of program costs in 2009, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported.)

The deep racism at the heart of conservative food stamp critiques offers at least one clue as to why the Obama administration has been unable or unwilling to champion SNAP as a valuable recession antidote: as the nation’s first African-American president, Obama is vulnerable to racist innuendo, which his opponents are only too happy to exploit. Just two months after Gingrich made his “food stamp president” comment, another would-be president, Rick Santorum, picked up the theme, accusing Obama, absurdly, of “pushing more people on food stamps.”
Moreover, and in fairness, it’s not easy to sell the positive side of skyrocketing food stamp enrollment. That food stamps have performed admirably during the recession, catching those in need and stimulating the economy, is small consolation when the economy continues to stagnate and unemployment hovers at just under 9 percent. Certainly we can agree that living-wage jobs would be far preferable to an economy so broken that 46 million people need food stamps.


And yet, none of this exactly explains the Obama administration’s failure to defend a clear policy success. And it certainly doesn’t explain why the administration along with Congressional Democrats bargained away some $14 billion in food stamp funding in 2010, hacking more from the program than George W. Bush ever did. Or why the Democrats on the Agriculture Committee agreed to recommend $4 billion worth of SNAP cuts to the mercifully failed “supercommittee.” Or why Democratic leaders like Dick Durbin, Charles Schumer and Patrick Leahy failed to sign on to a passionate letter by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand imploring the supercommittee to protect SNAP.

“Who are the liberal lions anymore?” one advocate laments.
Liberal lions do seem woefully scarce these days. More precisely, full-throated defenders of a common, socially contracted good seem woefully scarce. Obama does seem to have some kind of social contract vision, but it is based largely on compromise, on the social contract as process, not values. This is all well and good until you’re forced to go up against a pack of social Darwinists who have no values or belief in process. No wonder he’s had a hard time defending even the most basic, necessary and successful programs.
The post tells the truth on the food stamp issue and Loesch's race-baiting attempts have been called out.



12.17.2011

Loesch falsely paints Media Matters as "anti-Semitic"

Earlier this week, CNN "Contributor" and Big Journalism's fartknocker-in-chief (er, Editor-in-Chief) Dana Loesch baselessly implied that Media Matters For America (and Eric Boehlert especially) were "anti-Christian." Today, on her lie-infested blog at Breitfart's Big Journalism, Loesch misleadingly portrayed Media Matters for America as an "anti-Semitic leftist organization," when it's anything but an "anti-Semitic organization."

 Media Matters for America has had a bad year, with declining traffic and regular knocks from more notable media outlets. This week alone, MMfA was slammed by Politico and the Simon Wiesenthal Center for antisemitism, so they are eager to deflect by trumping up an attack on Big Journalism.

On Dec. 15, 2011, at 10:02 p.m. EST, Media Matters for America’s Kevin Zieber posted a blog criticizing the use of a graphic in a post at Big Journalism that, Zieber argued, was reminiscent of a cartoon that appeared in antisemitic propaganda in the 1930s.
Approximately seven hours before that–well before we had received any complaints, but after Big Journalism post was published–Breitbart editor-in-chief Joel Pollak noticed the graphic, and alerted me that he suspected it was a recycled anti-Jewish cartoon. (He’s an Orthodox Jew with a degree in Jewish Studies, so he tends to pick up on these things.) He hadn’t seen the image before, but he had suspicions, and asked that we take the image down and stop using it in future. It had been used innocently, without knowledge of the provenance of the image. Nevertheless, it was replaced in the article almost immediately.
Again, all of that was proactive, done hours before Media Matters or anyone else had even noticed. There was no antisemitic intent in the use of the cartoon, nothing like what one can find on the pages of MMfA daily (for which they refuse to apologize, retract, or explain). We removed it anyway, as soon as humanly possible. Let’s see MMfA do the same to Rosenberg.

Loesch lied about Media Matters For America as she always does, and earlier this year on her radio show, she erroneously stated  that "Obama was siding with the Terrorists, and not with the Israelis."

Jeff Dunetz, a Conservative blogger who blogs at yidwithlid.blogspot.com and on Breitbart's sites, misleadingly claims that "MJ Rosenburg and a few other people at MMFA are 'Jew-bashers.'" He also attacked the Center for American Progress, or CAP, for alleged anti-Semitism.

Media Matters for America’s Senior Fellow MJ Rosenberg has become infamous for accusing any American Jews who support Israel of dual loyalty (he calls them Israel-firsters). He also has claimed the evil Israel lobby” controls both the media and the U.S. foreign policy. He also uses the term “neo-con” as a slang pejorative term for Jews who are politically conservative.  Rosenberg is not the only Jew-Basher at Media Matters, just the most vocal.


Rosenberg and his fellow progressives at MMFA and Center for American Progress have finally picked on the wrong Jews: The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC). Formed by the famous Nazi-hunter, the SWC’s only purpose is to preach tolerance. Unlike groups such as the ADL and the AJC, which often lean left, the Wiesenthal Center is non-political. Also unlike those groups, the Center will criticize and/or praise people on either side of the political aisle.






Media Matters for America busted the Breitbart hate machine machine for using an image that was connected to a Nazi Germany-era magazine called Kladderdatsch.

 In at least three instances, Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism website has used an image connected to a Nazi-era German magazine noted for anti-Semitic cartoons and pro-Hitler leanings.

Heidelberg University in Germany maintains an online archive of Kladderadatsch. From the magazine's March 29, 1942, edition:
cartoon3

In his book The Offensive Art, Leonard Freedman, professor emeritus of political science at UCLA, wrote that the periodical, which "burst into print in 1848," came to "serve the Nazi regime docilely." Calvin College professor Randall Bytwerk, an expert on Nazi and East German propaganda, has noted Kladderadatsch's shift toward using its cartoons to express support for the Nazis:
These cartoons all come from 1934 issues of Kladderadatsch, a leading German satirical weekly that quickly adopted to National Socialism. These cartoons reflect the Nazi propaganda line at the time: Germany wanted peace, whereas the rest of the world was preparing for war.       
Heidelberg University explained that the magazine became increasingly anti-Semitic after Hitler's rise.

Ben Armbruster at ThinkProgress Security had this revealing report on the Pro-Israeli AIPAC shills on the right demonizing ThinkProgress for its alleged "anti-Semitism" and "anti-Israeli" viewpoints:


Yesterday, Politico published an article written by Ben Smith purporting to highlight a divide on the left on Middle East policy. The story quoted sources — including former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block — saying that bloggers here at the Center for American Progress are “borderline anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” In the process, Politico also cherry-picked a few posts out of hundreds ThinkProgress has written on Middle East issues to back up its case. Yet Politico misrepresented the posts in question and CAP’s wider Middle East positions.
Salon’s Justin Elliott reports today that Block sent out an email to a neoconservative journalist list-serv called “The Freedom Community” urging members to read and “amplify” Politico’s story, promoting it because in his view it shows that CAP bloggers are “anti-Israel” and vilify “pro-Israel Americans, Jews, Members of Congress, and pretty much anyone who thinks Iran with nuke is a problem, or supports a strong US-Israe [sic] relationship.” He said of our writing, “These are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players.” Block also said in the email — without offering any evidence — that we engage in “hate speech.” (CAP and its affiliated bloggers are pro-Israel, support a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship, believe Iran with a nuclear weapon is a serious problem and do not vilify Jews). While it’s unclear who is on this list-serv, Jen Rubin at the Washington Post, Commentary and the Weekly Standard amplified the Politico article shortly after it was published.

Salon’s Elliott notes that Block is a go-to for reporters looking for a right-wing view on the Middle East and that he now is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and also a partner in a lobbying and PR firm, Davis-Block. “It’s not clear,” Elliott adds, “whether Block is shopping the oppo trove on progressive bloggers as a personal project or as part of work for a client.”

So the moral of the story is if a Liberal-leaning person even slightly criticizes Israel in any way, shape, or form, they get derided as "anti-Semitic", "Jew haters," or even "Palestinian Terrorist Sympathizers" by the Right-Wing Pro-Israel Lobby. In contrast, left-leaning pro-Israel/pro-peace group J Street, is a advocate of the "two-state solution", anti-Ahmadinejad, and anti-Hamas. It has led to accusations that J Street is "anti-Israel" to the Pro-Israel apologists on the Right, mostly due to its support for rights for Palestinians.

12.14.2011

Loesch falsely accuses MMFA of "Christian-bashing"

The delusional Biblethumping editor-in-chief of Big Journalism Dana Loesch falsely accuses Media Matters for America of "Christian-bashing" and blames the Obama Administration and the Democratic Party for the decline of our economy, when it's the Republican Party's fault.


Only Media Matters can bury the lede of their latest Christian-bashing missive five graphs down into a story. After starting one story on Tim Tebow, the article plunges headfirst off the cliff into insanity by switching gears and blaming poverty in America on … Christians:
… but as the network exaggerates the threat to Christianity in America, it simultaneously downplays — even mocks — the very real plight facing those whom Christian teachings demand be shown compassion: the poor.
Poverty in the U.S. is on the rise. Incomes are decreasing. According to the Census Bureau, right now there are over 46 million Americans in poverty, more than there have been at any time since they started publishing poverty estimates. Fifteen percent of U.S. households are “food insecure,” meaning they lack money to properly feed themselves on a daily basis. They face a host of problems, both quantifiable and not: lack of access to health care, chronic underemployment, disrupted family life, and so on.
But to hear Fox News tell it, the poor don’t have it so bad. Earlier this year, the conservative Heritage Foundation released a report on how the ownership of household appliances demonstrates that “most of the persons whom the government defines as ‘in poverty’ are not poor in any ordinary sense of the term.” Seizing on Heritage’s laughably superficial assessment of poverty, Bill O’Reilly asked: “How can you be so poor and have all this stuff?”
I love when progressives pause their Bible-bashing long enough to pose as sudden experts on Scripture. Oh please, let’s do this. (You’ll see my reason why at the end.)
1) “Poverty in the U.S. is on the rise. Incomes are decreasing. According to the Census Bureau, right now there are over 46 million Americans in poverty, more than there have been at any time since they started publishing poverty estimates.”
And  when did this start exactly? The answer: with this administration. Remember when Newt Gingrich called Obama the “food stamp president?” While the Dixified minds of dog whistle progressives are certain that “food stamps” is code for “black people,” the reality is that more white Americans are on food stamps–in fact, more Americans, period, are receiving government assistance now than ever:
A record 18.3% of the nation’s total personal income was a payment from the government for Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, unemployment benefits and other programs in 2010. Wages accounted for the lowest share of income — 51.0% — since the government began keeping track in 1929.
The income data show how fragile and government-dependent the recovery is after a recession that officially ended in June 2009.
More:
Americans on the government dole received an average of $7,427 each in benefits in 2010, up from an inflation-adjusted $4,763 in 2000 and $3,686 in 1990. Thus, benefits have more than doubled in the last 20 years! Keep in mind that the federal government pays about 90% of these benefits.
How can this be? Under the Obama administration, families have watched jobs disappear, incomes shrink, food and gas prices rise, and the economy downgraded for the first time in a century.

While Media Matters is approaching Scripture from a petty and uneducated perspective (and attempting to use the spectre of knowledge to shame conservatives for not following a Marxist and decidedly anti-Christian ideology) I sincerely hope it turns into a genuine curiosity. If they must first mock it just to step a foot over the threshold, I’ll accept that, too, but I consider the issue a victory simply because they’re even discussing it.
For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: “The one who is unwilling to work shall not eat.
- 2 Thessalonians 3:10

As expected, Loesch baselessly accused "Liberals of practicing an anti-Christian ideology." Last time I checked, Dana, Liberals/Progressives like me are far from anti-Christian.

The REAL truth by MMFA's Simon Maloy:

"WAR ON TEBOW" declared Fox News' The Five on Tuesday as the panel of four conservatives and Bob Beckel launched into a discussion of Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow and his frequent public declarations of his Christian faith. "What do you think scares the media most?" asked Eric Bolling. "The clean-cut, the conservative, or the Christian aspect of Tim Tebow?" GOP strategist Andrea Tantaros opined that "it's ridiculous to go after Tim Tebow. He can express whatever he wants and it takes a lot of courage to put Bible verses on your face."

The trials of Tebow have been well-covered by the Murdoch network. Yesterday, Fox News' unofficial culture war correspondent Todd Starnes wrote that Tebow "will always be a lightning rod for anti-Christian bigots," and expanded the narrative to declare that "it's become something of a sport to attack Christians in this nation," what with the "reprehensible anti-Christian propaganda" coming from Hollywood and the almost-beyond-parody "War on Christmas." Starnes even went so far as to compare the Tebow situation to Jim Crow.
The position of Fox News is clear: Christians in America are relentlessly persecuted and need Fox News as an advocate. The hitch, of course, is that Christianity remains the overwhelmingly dominant faith not just of the nation at large but also of the people elected to lead it. But the culture war needs to be fought, so insults aimed at a football player, store clerks saying "Happy Holidays," and similarly minor (or imagined) slights are embellished into organized campaigns of anti-Christian persecution.
That in and of itself is disingenuous, but as the network exaggerates the threat to Christianity in America, it simultaneously downplays -- even mocks -- the very real plight facing those whom Christian teachings demand be shown compassion: the poor.
Poverty in the U.S. is on the rise. Incomes are decreasing. According to the Census Bureau, right now there are over 46 million Americans in poverty, more than there have been at any time since they started publishing poverty estimates. Fifteen percent of U.S. households are "food insecure," meaning they lack money to properly feed themselves on a daily basis. They face a host of problems, both quantifiable and not: lack of access to health care, chronic underemployment, disrupted family life, and so on.
But to hear Fox News tell it, the poor don't have it so bad. Earlier this year, the conservative Heritage Foundation released a report on how the ownership of household appliances demonstrates that "most of the persons whom the government defines as 'in poverty' are not poor in any ordinary sense of the term." Seizing on Heritage's laughably superficial assessment of poverty, Bill O'Reilly asked: "How can you be so poor and have all this stuff?"

 It's a striking contrast. One day Fox News will defend Christians from the faith-killing scourge of Rhode Island "Holiday Trees," and the next they'll mock those in need for having refrigerators but lacking "spirit." They'll insist on protecting the right to say Christian prayers in public, and attack a poor person for spending all their money at Wal-Mart. It's a clash of faith and politics that does double harm by hyping illusory threats to an empowered majority while obfuscating real problems plaguing the millions of Americans most in need of a little Christian charity.

The Wingnuts' "War on Christmas" screed (aided by Fixed Noise and the Christian Right, such as the American ChristoFascist Association) has gone on for the past few years, demonizing any store or person who does not toe the "Merry Christmas"-only folks viewpoint-- for example: says or puts the words "Happy Holidays," "Season's Greetings," "Holiday Trees," and basically anything other than "Merry Christmas" in ads.

For example, Fox and Friends host and serial liar Gretchen Carlson misleadingly stated "that she won't be able to light Christmas decorations at my own home." This is coming from the same person who infamously said that "I'm all for free speech and free rights, just not on Christmas Day."


From the 12.09.2011 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:




12.08.2011

A look at Dana Loesch and the STLTP split-up

The St. Louis Activist Hub has reported extensively on Dana Loesch and Jim Hoft's exit from the astroturfed St. Louis Tea Party group. And now, RFT's Chad Garrison broke this news yesterday:
The co-founder of the St. Louis Tea Party has officially left the organization.

In a tweet this morning Dana Loesch writes: "Yes, I am finished with the St. Louis Tea Party. Not keen on grassroots organizing under a candidate, even unofficially. Never will be."

The St. Louis Tea Party this morning issued its own press release this morning, confirming the split. "The St. Louis Tea Party certainly benefited from Dana's rising stardom and talent," wrote St. Louis Tea Party board president, Bill Hennessy, who founded the organization along with Loesch in 2009. "And we can't help but think our energetic and effective grass roots have propelled Dana's career."

 Since helping to found the Tea Party, Loesch has had a meteoric rise on the political landscape, getting a job as a CNN pundit and editor of the right-wing website Big Journalism.

Daily RFT has messages out with Hennessy and Loesch for comment. At this point it's unclear exactly why Loesch left the organization, but Hennessy suggests in today's press release that the two leaders had different opinions on conservative candidates.


 Progressive blogger Adam Shriver, who often chronicles the goings-on the Tea Party, reported yesterday that Loesch and Hennessy disagreed on which Republican to support in Missouri's Second Congressional District, with Loesch backing the establishment candidate of Ann Wagner and Hennessy favoring Ed Martin.

Shriver also reported yesterday that Loesch's husband, Chris Loesch, demanded that the St. Louis Tea Party quit using the logo that he designed. That logo (right) no longer appears on the Tea Party site.

Loesch will do anything to further her career, even if that means abandoning her principles and throwing her friends under the bus. She is a GOP shill, while supposedly pretending to "hate all political parties equally." For this reason, she's known as Dana The Diva.

 The St. Louis Tea Party put out a press release today confirming what I reported yesterday: they broke up with Dana Loesch. Loesch, naturally, is convinced this proves how heroically principled she is:

 And, of course, there's the fact that the St. Louis tea party appeared to have violated their 501(c)4 by using their money to support Ed Martin's candidacy with advertisements. Oh, and by systematically putting their logos on "Taypayers for Ed Martin" signs. Did Loesch complain then about organizing for a candidate? Sure didn't.

It's funny. Loesch threw the St. Louis Bloggers Guild under the bus when she no longer needed them. She threw her former website designer under the bus when she no longer needed him. She pushed Gina Loudon out of the tea party. And now she's throwing the tea party under the bus cause they're a drag on her minor celebrity status. Amazingly, it's always someone else's fault.
 Dr. Gina Loudon still has a radio show on KJSL from 4-6 in St. Louis, and is a big-time Evangelical Conservative homophobic racist bigoted buttmunch kook.

Back to Loesch. Proof that she will do anything to gain influence in the conservative movement at large:
 This was a result of a fight between two different factions in the St. Louis Tea Party. One group (the Loeschs, Gateway Pundit, and Jen Ennenbach) supported GOP establishment candidate Ann Wagner (a candidate for the head of the RNC and the campaign chairman for Roy Blunt) and another group (John Burns, Ben Evans, Michelle Moore, Bill Hennessy, and Darin Morley) supporting nutty Ed Martin.

 For the record:
  • Dana Loesch voted for Mitt Romney in the 2008 Republican primary.
  • She explicitly said that she liked RomneyCare.
  • She supported Roy Blunt over the more conservative Chuck Purgason for the U.S. Senate.
  • She supported Ed Martin over John Wayne Tucker, and in fact attacked Tucker on her show after Ed Martin paid her husband to make a commercial for him.
  • Now's she's supporting the ultimate GOP establishment candidate Ann Wagner over the comparably more conservative Ed Martin.
  • Oh, and she's "edgy" for some reason.
 Her BFF, Jim Hoft, also decided to side with the establishment.
 Obviously, I have no love for Ed Martin. And I'm on record as being critical of the St. Louis Tea Party for claiming to be principled while supporting Roy Blunt over Chuck Purgason and Ed Martin over John Wayne Tucker. But I have to say I actually do have some sympathy for the core group that, unlike Dana Loesch and Jim Hoft, is at least attempting to move forward by holding true to their ideals and opposing the GOP establishment. Though I think they're wrong in believing that Ed Martin is a principled conservative, it is at least clear that they felt like voting for Blunt was merely an imperfect step towards their ultimate goal, and that they would have to try to more actively oppose the crony capitalism of the modern Republican party in the future if they really wanted to live up to their ideals.

On the other hand, Dana Loesch, who voted for Mitt Romney in the 2008 primary and explicitly said that she liked RomneyCare before realizing that it was more profitable to be a "tea party spokesperson" on national television, is unsurprisingly abandoning Ed Martin in favor of Roy Blunt's 2010 campaign manager, GOP insider Ann Wagner. And Jim "Gateway Pundit" Hoft, writing on Loesch's website Big Journalism, also recently launched an attack on Ed Martin. However, members of the St. Louis tea party leadership Michelle Moore, John Burns, and Ben Evans wrote a recent post dismantling Hoft's attacks on Martin. You can read the full post here, but I'll share a few highlights:
  • First, they point out that Martin didn't turn the race ugly; he was actually the target of an attack from Dan Riehl earlier in the year on Breitbart's Big sites (where Loesch is an editor).
  • They reiterate Darin Morley's point that it was ridiculous for Hoft to try to imply that Ed Martin is more connected to Roy Blunt than is Ann Wagner.
  • They criticized Hoft's attempts to pretend that Wagner's husband is no longer involved in advocating on behalf of Enterprise Rent-a-Car:
    As everyone in the Tea Party knows Ray delisted himself in preparation for Ann’s campaign; however, he is still Enterprise's Government & Public Affairs Vice-President. In that capacity, he oversees Enterprise's lobbying and he helps determine where their campaign funds go. Again, Jim knows this, but deliberately ignores it in the post.
  • They point out that Chip Gerdes, a familiar creepy scuzzbucket for readers of this blog, said that he wrote Dan Riehl's original attack on Ed Martin as a "warning shot:"
    As mentioned at the top, Hoft was quoted in the first hit piece against Ed Martin that came out last August on Big Government. That piece, supposedly written by Dan Riehl, sparked a firestorm among Tea Party conservatives in Missouri. Upon questioning, Chip Gerdes, another paid political consultant, stated that he wrote the piece as a “warning shot” to Ed Martin because of comments that Martin made on a Christian AM radio station.
  • They also question where Hoft got his data and whether he even did his own writing:
    If Gerdes is writing hit pieces for Ann Wagner and publishing them under Dan Riehl’s name, what else has he written?...We ask: Where did those figures come from? Dan Riehl and Dana Loesch have written on Twitter and in Tea Party emails that hundreds of thousands of dollars were given to Ed Martin by Ann Wagner’s Enterprise connections. This has been proven false. Who gave Jim the data and where is it? Let’s see some research.

Could this be the beginning of the end of the Loesch Crime Mafia's (aka the Breitbart/Loesch/Hoft Axis of Evil) influence on St. Louis politics or will be the beginning of national prominence for her cronies? There might've been signs of this happening back in
 September 2010.


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