Tuesday on his radio program, Rush Limbaugh put forth his conspiracy theory that the release of the film The Dark Knight Rises was an orchestrated plot to undermine the Mitt Romney campaign. According to Rush, it's no coincidence the new Batman movie features a villain (Bane) with a name that sounds like the private equity firm which is causing Romney some problems (Bain Capital). Of course, that conspiracy theory falls apart when you consider two things: The character Bane was created back in the early 90s and the decision to use him as the villain in The Dark Knight Rises was made long before we knew Mitt Romney would be the presumptive GOP presidential nominee.
After being roundly mocked for his idiotic conspiracy, Rush attempted a rewrite on Wednesday. In addition to calling him out for it, Rachel Maddow also explains why it's important to keep an eye out on the nutty conspiracies coming from the right.
On July 19, Congressman Allen West (R-FL) sent an email to Democratic Representative and DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) in response to comments directed at him in a speech the Congresswoman made on the floor of the House of Representatives after West had departed the chamber. In the Young Turks' clip below, you can hear West's email as well as the comments by Wasserman Schultz which led to West's response.
As some of you can guess, I do not like Congressman West. However, it goes deeper than politics. Since bursting on the national scene, the Tea Party darling has shown himself to be a thin-skinned, bigoted bully with some anger issues.
You may be asking yourself why I'm blogging about the back and forth between West and Wasserman Schultz. It's just a disagreement between two politicians, right? One happens to be black and the other is white. Well, the reason I chose to write about this is because Rush Hudson Limbaugh III decided to weigh in with his "wit and wisdom":
Rush is truly one of a kind. It's amazing how many things he managed to get wrong in less than 7 minutes! Since this blog deals with race issues, I won't get into Rush's nonsense about death panels, decorum on the House floor, "left-wing women", etc.
In the "minds" of dittoheads like Rachel (the caller at the beginning of the clip), a white person is racist anytime they criticize a black conservative such as Congressman West. This is why I laugh when conservatives accuse liberals of playing the race card. Although Rush didn't come right out and accuse Wasserman Schultz of being a racist due to her comments toward West, it seems he agrees with the sentiment because he let Rachel completely off the hook when she threw out her baseless charge during her call.
I think Rush is dead wrong in saying there would be charges of racism if the situation was reversed. Black Democrats have been criticized without liberals crying out racism. For example, scores of white Republicans have directed criticism at President Obama. When they stick to policy issues in their disagreements with the president, I'm not hearing charges of racism from the left. It's only when the criticism resorts to race-baiting tactics like accusing him of racism, questioning his place of birth, insinuating that he's not "one of us", etc. that me and other liberals raise our eyebrows. Now we will refer to them as hypocritical partisan hacks in a second because that's what you call someone who keeps their mouth shut when their side does something, but cries foul when the opposition does the same thing.
Although the West and Wasserman-Schultz disagreements have gotten personal, I don't see race as a factor. I think West and Wasserman-Schultz simply don't like each other.
Update: As a guest on Mark Levin's show, Congressman West played the race card when discussing the incident involving him and Wasserman Schultz:
Recently, I contacted Mary (whose blog is titled Mary's World) and asked if she was interested in writing a guest post. She offered up the following about comments Neal Boortz recently made on his radio show:
Why is Neal Boortz Still Broadcasting on American Airwaves?
BOORTZ: You know what? I, for one, am tired of putting up with this crap. And you want to know why I moved out of Atlanta and only spend a couple of weeks a year in this town? That's one of the reasons. Carjackings, violence, people getting shot. It's ridiculous. This city harbors an urban culture of violence. And I want you to look around. You drive into the city. The railroad overpass is on the downtown connector covered with graffiti. And that-- That is just an advertisement for everybody coming into this town that we really don't give a damn about those who would screw up our quality of life around here. We really just don't care. We don't care enough to paint over graffiti on the overpasses that come into our city, advertising welcome to Atlanta, here's some of our finest graffiti, from some of our finest urban thugs and their little gang signs. And pick up the paper tomorrow morning. Read about all the carjackings. Read about the innocent people shot for the pure de-hell of it.
This town is starting to look like a garbage heap. And we got too damn many urban thugs, yo, ruining the quality of life for everybody. And I'll tell you what it's gonna take. You people, you are - you need to have a gun. You need to have training. You need to know how to use that gun. You need to get a permit to carry that gun. And you do in fact need to carry that gun and we need to see some dead thugs littering the landscape in Atlanta. We need to see the next guy that tries to carjack you shot dead right where he stands. We need more dead thugs in this city. And let their -- let their mommas -- let their mommas say, "He was a good boy. He just fell in with the good crowd." And then lock her ass up.
Neal Boortz has called for killing! He claims it is self defense, but he has taken law enforcement, the court system and the rule of law totally out of the picture.
He has put out a call for all his listeners, you know them, the 'good citizens of Atlanta' to pick up arms! Go get "trained" people, before you head out to do some "urban thug" hunting. Don't forget your permit, while you drive down that Atlanta street, sweaty palmed, just waiting for that "urban thug, Yo". Every stop light is a potential killing ground. If one of those "urban thugs" come near your precious car, the car you work every day to pay for, the car that is the life blood of your family, when that "urban thug" comes to take your car away, you will be ready to shoot him dead "right where he stands!" That car of yours is far more important than any "urban thug's" life, "yo."...but why wait until they get to your car, like the Bush doctrine taught us (get them before they get you) and "see some dead thugs littering the landscape" in the ATL!
I know I went a little overboard here, but seriously, why is this guy still on the air? I heard today that he is a lawyer so we can assume that he isn't a total idiot, but from a simple Google search he does have a history of being a racist. Why is this guy who put out a call for citizens to pick up arms and become vigilantes still on the radio? Have we become so desensitized by the "Right Wing Shock Jocks" of the world that this man's rhetoric is no longer shocking? I found it extremely disturbing and so does Ed Schultz and Joe Madison. Joe said on Ed's show this morning, "I think that skin heads are thugs, does that mean I can go out and shoot them too?" Could you imagine the outrage if "The Black Eagle" Joe Madison went on his show and said what Boortz did, only about skin heads? Both of these guys have called out Boortz on their radio shows and Ed has done so on his MSNBC show, but the big 4 networks have said nothing. I do remember a story about 3 New Black Panther members standing outside a predominantly Democratic polling place in Philly in 2008, on not just the nightly network news but my local news here in Wisconsin, but not a peep about this "more dead thugs in this city guy". I don't want this to just fade into another news cycle and neither does Joe Madison. He is telling his listeners to call the people responsible for putting this man on the air: Cox Communications/Cox Media Group. Several of his callers tried to call Cox directly, but they transferred them over to the Neal Boortz show producers. Cox put out a statement saying they were sorry for anyone who was offended, and providing links to Boortz's show.
One of the Mom things that I used to tell my little "urban thugs" before they went out to play with a ball or bat was, "That is your responsibility, if something gets broken because of your ball or bat, you are to blame, even if you weren't holding it at the time. You make the choice to take it outside or not." Knowing full well that if something got broken, my child would be the only one left stand there anyway, because the rest of the kids (non-urban thugs) would scatter. And things did get broken, and my kids did take responsibility and were often rewarded with not having to pay for the window. This is how Cox should be treated. You have to take responsibility for what you put on your air!
Cox Enterprises: http://www.cox.com
Corporate Headquarters:
Cox Media Group
6205 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd.
Atlanta, GA 30328
Phone: (678) 645-0000
Fax: (678) 645-5002 Links to the Radio: http://www.wsbradio.com/contact-us/
WSB-AM
1601 West Peachtree Street
Atlanta, GA 30309
Phone: (404) 897-7500
Fax: (404) 897-7363
You can't scream "fire" in a crowded theater and you can't call for the landscape of Atlanta to be littered with the bodies of dead "urban thugs, Yo!"
Proving yet again that a certain famous phrase isn't necessarily true, Glenn Beck let his buffoonery shine as only he can. On his 2/4/10 radio program, Beck gave his theory (which you can hear in the clip below) as to why President Obama decided to start going by Barack instead of Barry during his collegiate years.
First, the suggestion that one can't have a name such as Barack and still identify themselves as American completely misses a key aspect which makes this country great: the U.S. is inclusive and one doesn't need to have an Anglicized name to be an American. I wonder what fellow Fox employees Bill O'Reilly, Greta Van Susteren, and Alisyn Camerota think of Beck's assessment. I guess Beck would be happier if President Obama was named Jack Armstrong.
Beck also foolishly plays a portion of the audio version of Obama's bestselling memoir Dreams From My Father to suggest that when Obama started going by the name Barack, he began to seek out fellow college students who were radicals. Although Obama doesn't really address the reasons why he chose to go by Barack instead of Barry in Dreams From My Father, he did offer the following explanation in a 2008 Newsweek story:
"It was not some assertion of my African roots … not a racial assertion. It was much more of an assertion that I was coming of age. An assertion of being comfortable with the fact that I was different and that I didn't need to try to fit in in a certain way."
A real bright 3rd grader could have looked this explanation up, but not Glenn Beck.
Note: Although Barack is his birth name, I'm going to let Beck's "he changed his name from Barry to Barack" business slide because that could just be a question of semantics.
When referring to Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann often uses the name Lonesome Rhodes. I wonder if there is a Marcia Jeffries in Beck's life with the ability to expose him for all the world to see. Sadly, even if it's proven that Beck is the maniacal fraud that many think he is, there would probably still be people in his audience who will refuse to believe it.
And the buffoonery continues! During the December 8 edition of his radio program, Glenn Beck (in regards to the medical emergency that happened at the home of Tiger Woods earlier that morning) does a bit of schtick where he compares the troubled golfer to O.J. Simpson! I'm sure the Glenn Beck lovers will defend him by saying it was just a joke. Whatever. Since Beck is fond of telling his fan base to ask questions, I have one for him. Why make the Tiger/O.J. comparison?! Whether or not it's a joke, his linking of the two athletes may provide a window into how Beck's mind works. Could he be implying that a black man in a relationship with a white woman= violence? Let's say that all of the events surrounding the Tiger Woods controversy were the same... but instead of Tiger Woods being at the center, it was white golfer Phil Mickelson. Do you think Beck would have compared Phil to O.J. Simpson?
The next thing you know, Beck will have his followers believing that Tiger Woods was behind the wheel of that white Ford Bronco during the infamous low-speed chase back in 1994. I can see the crazy chalkboard conspiracy now...
On Thursday April 30th, Boston radio station WTKK-FM announced that it had suspended right-wing talk show host Jay Severin indefinitely over derogatory comments he made on the air against Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, and Mexico in general. In a discussion about illegal immigration, Severin referred to Mexicans as “the world's lowest of primitives”, accused them of bringing the Swine flu to the U.S., and stated that "they are ruining the schools, the hospitals, and a lot of life in America" among other things. You can read the story, as reported in the Boston Globe, by clicking the WTKK Suspends Jay Severin link.
Severin's comments feed into that "they are trying to take what belongs to us" mentality that can be very dangerous. It'll be interesting to see if WTKK brings Severin back after the suspension or decides to fire him instead. Unless they want people to say they should take out the "T" in their call letters and replace it with a "K", I have a feeling that Severin won't be returning to the station except to clean out his office.
The You Tube player below contains Jay Severin's racist comments followed by a lively and insightful discussion by Cenk Uygur and Ben Mankiewicz on the liberal talk show The Young Turks.
Update: Jay Severin returned to the airwaves of WTKK on Tuesday June 2, 2009. Here is a clip of him offering an on-air apology for the anti-Mexican remarks he made which earned him the suspension:
