Fox wrongly blames increased health care costs on health care reform: Fox & Friends falsely suggested that a projected 12 percent increase in out-of-pocket health care costs for the coming year was due to provisions of health care reform. In fact, as the Chicago Tribune reported, the increase of costs is primarily due to advances in medical technology and changes in the workforce demographics due to the economic downturn. [ READ MORE ]
Shrum on The Ed Show: Fox “create[s] an alternate universe” where “the debate is about non-existent things“
Hume falsely claims that the stimulus failed [ READ MORE ]
Fox whopper: DOJ said Voting Rights Act wasn’t violated in New Black Panthers case [ READ MORE ]
Occidental College’s Heldman pushes back on Hannity’s “absolutely fictitious” stimulus talking points
Huffington Post: From anti-lynching and civil rights bills in the 50s and 60s, it was “the party of Lincoln” that used the rhetorical cover of “states rights” to hold minorities down. Of course a rare species then known as Southern Democratic senators joined in, but as any student of the 1957, 1964 and 1965 civil rights laws knows, a large majority of Democrats voted yes and a large majority of Republicans voted no.
The consequent rise of minority voting and representation — and laws against discrimination in the workplace, coupled with affirmative action — have changed the face of America…to the point that even President George W. Bush had to support extending the 1965 voting rights Act in 2005. [ READ MORE ]
The Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968 — encompassed opposition to the Voting Rights Act, has been a central piece in “keeping the racist south” for decades
In an interview in 1981, Lee Atwater spelled out the intricacies of the strategy.
Atwater: ‘You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger“–that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me–because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger.“‘
As part of its Southern strategy, the G.O.P has, since the sixties, aggressively courted the bigots who fled the Democratic Party because the Democrats had become insufficiently hostile to blacks, and were actively involved in the Civil Rights Movement. [ HOWLS OF A FADING SPECIES ]
In their deathbeds, both Atwater and Dent confessed their racism:
“When I look back, my biggest regret now is anything I did that stood in the way of the rights of black people,” Dent said. “Or any people.”
Atwater, once dubbed the “most evil man in America,” had this to say: “I was wrong to follow the meanness of Conservatism. I should have been trying to help people instead of take advantage of them. I don’t hate anyone anymore. For the first time in my life I don’t hate somebody. I have nothing but good feelings toward people. I’ve found Jesus Christ — It’s that simple. He’s made a difference.”
….and now Michael Steele, the black Uncle-Tom chairman of the RNC — has said exactly the same thing.
Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause — Especially in Indiana and Pennsylvania, states which harbor numerous hate groups, and have beenKu Klux Klanstrongholds for many years.
For all the hope and excitement Obama’s candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed — and unreported — this election season.
Doors have been slammed in their faces. They’ve been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they’ve endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can’t fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.
The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.
Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: “It wasn’t pretty.” She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn’t possibly vote for Obama and concluded: “Hang that darky from a tree!“…..[more]
