I predict that the battle to preserve religious liberty for all, in all areas of life, will likely become the civil rights movement of this decade. If it takes a popular movement to reign in overreaching government, then Hobby Lobby’s courageous stand, in the face of enormous pressure and fines, will likely be considered the Birmingham bus boycott, where good citizens finally got fed up with having their rights trampled on, and decided to challenge those who favor conformity over freedom.

Warren is speaking on a lawsuit brought by Hobby Lobby, an arts & crafts chain, to keep them from having to pay for healthcare that provides reproductive care to women. My first response is FUCK YOU, Rick Warren. I have to other point to make though:

1. The idea that a company already restricting women’s rights is at the forefront of any “new” civil rights movement is not infuriating, but extremely laughable. In the eyes of people like Rick Warren & Hobby Lobby’s owner, David Green the only person who’s right’s matter are the owner’s. Women, as usual, in these arguments are irrelevant. Their rights don’t even begin to matter.

2. I’m need people to immediately stop using the Civil Rights Movement (and MLK in particular) as some sort of leaping point for their hatred of the poor, women, & even minorities. That “content of character” quote doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Source.

Via Shadow and Act:

“‘All My Babies’ Mamas’ will be filled with outrageous and authentic over-the-top moments that our young, diverse female audience can tweet and gossip about.”

Django is the least of our media problems (if it’s a problem at all). I won’t be watching. Hopefully, neither will you.

“We’re taking back America” ~ Mitt Romney

Did I miss something? Was America stolen? If so, who stole it? Wait, I know. It must have been that Black guy (from the southside of Chicago no less) in the big White House in D.C. You know, the one with the militant wife. He’s shifty on the basketball court. He’s probably shifty off of it too.

Mitt Romney’s co-chair, John Sununu, is a man who has blown quite a few dog whistles in this campaign. Now he’s recycling one from the 2008 presidential elections: Colin Powell is going to vote for Obama because they’re both Black. Should I assume that Sununu is supporting Romney because they’re both white? Is he “proud” of Romney because he’s running for president, and he’s white?  Should I assume that the 57% of white men who voted against Obama in 2008 did so because he’s Black, and McCain is white? A Democrat hasn’t won the white vote since 1964. That was the year Lyndon Johnson won in a landslide against Goldwater. Interestingly enough, the Civil Rights Act passed that year. I wonder if that had anything to do with whites voting GOP for nearly half a decade? Nah, no way (#straightface).

Personally, I’m interested in any of Sununu’s apologies or retractions of his racist bullshit. I am interested in the fact that Romney has never rebuked any of Sununu’s remarks publicly. Instead Sununu continues to be on the frontlines for Romney’s campaign. Constantly sent to talk to the media. So I have to assume that, at worst, Romney agrees with his co-chair’s bigoted pronouncements or, at best, sees a political advantage to these kinds of statements. For some reason I’m very inclined to believe it’s the latter. Maybe it’s because Romney believes Black people just want free stuff from the government.

Lately, Romney wants the American public to see him as a moderate. But as I watched clips from his speech yesterday, and I heard that “taking back” line, and knew he was going to send out racist dog whistles right up to & on the day of the election. This is who Romney has decided he’s going to be. This is who the modern day GOP is. Blacks want free shit, Obama stole America, and Negroes vote for Obama because he’s Black.

Offered without comment:

All of which to say is there’s no need to parse the ethnic origins or political philosophies of Obama’s parents to understand the ideology of Barack Obama. He is a center-left Democrat who supports mainstream Democratic policies. But some conservatives don’t want to talk about policy. They are unable to engage in an argument with liberalism on substantive terms; they know only argument by epithet.  They want to talk about the fact that our blackety black president is blackety black. It has been two years since a black man was elected president of the United States, and for a group of conservatives clinging to their cultural superiority, this was a moment of apocalyptic existential crisis, a moment that refuted all they had come to know and understand about themselves, about black people, and about this country. D’Souza is writing for them, the same kind of audience he has always written for

More here.

Added:

This is a MUST read.

I don’t particularly care if Black folks say nigga. I use the word more than I’d like to (not as much as Aaron McGruder apparently), but the meme that it’s basically a term of endearment among Black people is flawed at best. If I say “fuck you nigga”, I’m not exactly you showing you love. The word gets used in this manner often.

I generally don’t care if you use it, but let’s drop the pretense that’s it’s always or even mostly used when showing love to another brown person.

BIG Shout out to WARN for this:

“Dolls can’t move. You retarded?”

My favorite thing is how he keeps saying that white people are outnumbered. I guess a 2/3 majority just ain’t what it used to be. Where’s the hate for the Mexicans? Aka all Latinos. Very disappointing.

This is William Kristol’s last column.

No sentence with Kristol’s name has ever made me more joyous. I’d link to the piece directly but then I’d be linking to Bill Kristol op-ed. Here’s the Daily Beast piece by Scott Horton on why Kristol has been dropped.

Shoe hurler being tortured? Can’t say I’m shocked by the accusation or that it might actually be true:

The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody.

Muntadar al-Zaidi has allegedly suffered a broken arm, broken ribs and internal bleeding, his older brother, Dargham, told the BBC.

Mr Zaidi threw his shoes at Mr Bush at a news conference, calling him “a dog”.

A spokesperson for the Iraqi military says the journalist is in good health and said the allegations were untrue.

It is unclear whether the reporter may have been injured when he was wrestled to the floor at the news conference, or at a later point.

Italics mine. You would think since this made so many headlines that whoever has the man in custody would be handling him with kids gloves, but who knows. As this BBC story reports, there have been two days of demonstrations in Iraq on Zaidi’s behalf. The Iraqis should be charging this guy straight up with whatever they got & let the law take it’s course. I don’t think he deserves to be tortured but I also don’t think a beating in his future was unforeseeable after throwing his shoes at the POTUS. It was a dumb, reckless act committed against a man who deserves worse than a shoe upside the head, but is not worth risking bodily harm or worse over.

Shout out to dday

No not that one., this one:

“You look at the South,” Shelby said. “You take — not just Mercedes in my hometown — but BMW, Honda and all of them. These companies are flourishing with American workers made in America.”

But the flourishing of the transplants didn’t come without significant taxpayer help. Shelby’s Alabama, for example, secured construction of a Mercedes-Benz plant in 1993 by offering $253 million in state and local tax breaks, worker training and land improvement. For Honda, the state’s sweetener surrounding a 1999 deal to build a mini-van plant was $158 million in similar perks, adding $90 million in enticements when the company expanded the plant three years later. A 2001 deal with Toyota left the company with $29 million in taxpayer gifts.

Alabama is hardly alone. Corker’s Tennessee recently lured Volkswagen to build a manufacturing plant in Chattanooga, offering the German automaker tax breaks, training and land preparation that could total $577 million. In 2005, the state inspired Nissan to relocate its headquarters from southern California by offering $197 million in incentives, including $20 million in utility savings.

In 1992, South Carolina snagged a BMW plant for $150 million in giveaways. In Mississippi in 2003, Nissan was lured with $363 million. In Georgia, a still-under-construction Kia plant received breaks estimated to be $415 million. The list goes on.

Supporters of these deals contend that the economic activity spurred by the arrival of the automakers is worth the up-front costs. Yet some experts say that, considering the ever-growing size of the incentive packages, there’s little evidence to support that claim.

My question is to what end? Obviously these politicos will gain lots of electoral benefits by bringing business to their states but what does this do for the party nationally? Not much that I can see. The GOP is increasingly becoming a southern party. They torpedoed the auto bailout; seemingly to make a point about unions. They scream about free markets while trying to dictate wages at the Big Three. Where is this thinking taking them? Who are they representing? The Washington Independent story shows that doling out subsidies isn’t necessarily a win-win proposition for these states:

Others wonder if the incentive packages don’t go too far to divert taxpayer dollars from vital state services. When Tennessee courted Nissan in 2005, for example, its $197 million gift came about the same time the state was cutting 170,000 low-income adults from its Medicaid rolls. A 1998 Time magazine report found that an Alabama elementary school adjacent to the Mercedes plant was home to 540 kids in a building designed to hold 290.

“The Mercedes-Benz plant illustrates a fundamental principle of corporate welfare,” the article read. “Everyone else pays for economic incentives — either with higher taxes, fewer services or both.”

So what we have are GOP Senators potentially dealing a serious blow to the economy while trying to make things easier for foreign car companies in their home states. The same companies that already have a competitive advantage over our companies because they don’t have to worry about providing health insurance for their workers here, because they don’t have union employees, or back home, because their gov’ts pick up the tab. USA! USA! USA!

Shout out to Yglesias

Update:
Seems I’ve echoed Eugene Robinson on this one:

They have managed to position their party as being against unions, against America’s domestic industrial patrimony, against the blue-collar working class — and also, incredibly, against the Rust Belt states, such as Michigan and Ohio, that are home to UAW-represented auto plants and that also regularly tip the balance of presidential elections.

And for what? The Republican senators who voted to kill the bailout knew full well that the White House was determined to find some way to tide the automakers over. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves. Even lemmings must be shaking their heads in dismay.