Right wing hate, Obama and Clinton unite for racial justice

Workout notes Double yoga session today, followed by 10 minutes of running on a treadmill (1.1 miles), 12:30 of walking (1 mile) and 10 miles on the stationary bike (about 10:30 or so). Pathetic: sure, but one has to begin somewhere, and my piriformis didn’t hurt which was a blessing.

Politics
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton

Evidently both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama will be at an event to celebrated the famous Martin Luther King march across the bridge in Alabama

Bill Clinton will join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton at a commemoration of the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Ala., on Sunday, bringing his star power and popularity among African Americans to a weekend of events that had been shaping up as a showcase for the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama.

It will be the former president’s first major public appearance with his wife since she launched her campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination last month.

Obama (D-Ill.) announced several weeks ago that he would deliver the keynote speech at a service honoring the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, joining Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) and other veterans of the civil rights movement in marking the historic event. [...]
Lewis — an icon of “Bloody Sunday,” whose skull was bashed by Alabama police as he helped lead a peaceful march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7, 1965 — organizes a pilgrimage back each year, traditionally with a group of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress in attendance (though this year, few Republicans are expected to attend, in part because the event appears poised to become dominated by Democratic politics). Numerous other Democratic lawmakers are planning to join Lewis on his three-day pilgrimage, including Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who has close ties to the Clintons and Obama.

“I think it’s gratifying to see that two of the leading contenders for the Democratic nomination would want to come to Selma 42 years after Bloody Sunday, and I think it dramatizes the changes that have occurred in American politics and black politics in particular,” Lewis said in an interview.

Sounds good right? To me, it means that such matters are important to both of these Senators. What I don’t like is how this is being played in the media:

Reluctant to give any ground to Obama even at this stage of the campaign, Clinton (N.Y.) decided early last week that she, too, would go to Selma this weekend. She arranged a simultaneous appearance at a church just steps away from the one where Obama will speak Sunday morning, and she agreed to accept a civil rights award on behalf of her husband.

Late yesterday, after organizers initially said that the former president had not committed to attend, the Clinton campaign announced that he would be making the trip after all.

The convergence of the Clintons and Obama in the small Alabama town, which became the focus of national attention during a series of police beatings and civil rights demonstrations that ultimately helped pave the way for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, sets the stage for an extraordinary political showdown — and media circus.

See? Both people do something right, and the media turns it into a showdown. It is entirely believable to me that both of these Senators deeply care about this. Sure, they are going to milk this for political points, but why can’t this be billed as something both of these candidates care about?

Speaking of Barack Obama, here are a couple of nice editorials that talk about this nonsense of Obama not being black enough and of some African Americans being afraid to support him because they don’t think a Black person can win.

Obama’s blackness:

f folks don’t stop talking about how black or not Obama is I’m gonna scream. We just went through the same thing with Harold Ford, Jr. Sure, they both need more sunscreen than your average Sicilian but they’re black. Get over it. Black and white are social constructs, not scientific terms for degree of melanin per square inch of skin. Who cares if Obama’s mama’s folks owned slaves. What is newsworthy about that? Are you trying to say that he’s not only not black but now he’s a white supremacist? Last time I checked (Fox) he was a madrasa-studying Islamic radical terrorist. What’s next? That he’s a former Soviet spy? A homosexual Satanist? French?

Unlike the citizens of most any other nation, most Americans are a lot of things. Most African-Americans are even more. That’s one of the many things that makes us so damn fantastically and endlessly interesting.

On African American Fear of an Obama candicacy:

So, if I’ve got this right; segments of black American don’t want to elect a black man president because they think other segments of America aren’t ready.

Really?

If we check history real carefully I’m pretty sure America wasn’t ready when we as a people wanted to quit slavery and be free, when we wanted a full and complete Reconstruction. They weren’t ready when we were tired of Jim Crow or when my parents, among millions of others, spilled out into the streets demanding civil rights.

They weren’t ready for Jack Johnson or Fritz Pollard or Jackie Robinson or Muhammad Ali or Dr. King, Malcolm X, Shirley Chisholm, Oprah, Tiger, Kenneth Chenault and I’m sure they weren’t ready for Dick Parsons to be head of the world’s largest media organization, which makes CNN’s constant and beguiling racial stance so very odd.

The very fact that blacks aren’t going to automatically vote for a black is not news. Beyond the fact that we are intelligent individuals rather than a monolithic voting block should be obvious. But recent history alone is evidence of our singularity. In 2004, presidential candidate Al Sharpton ran second to Howard Dean in the Washington, DC primary. A district that is 70 percent minority and 60 percent black. In South Carolina only one in five blacks voted for Sharpton and he won just one of the state’s 55 eligible delegates.

But nobody took Al seriously, not even other blacks, so his dismissal passed with little notice.

Obama, however, is for real. And he has a real chance, which is why it’s so painful to see other blacks turning on him for reasons other than pure politics. South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford recently said that if Obama won his party’s nomination, then “every
Democrat running on that ticket next year would lose – because he’s black and he’s top of the ticket. We’d lose the House and the Senate and the governors and everything.”

So, Obama is too black to help other candidates win, but not black enough for the likes of Ford, or Stanley Crouch or others who feel that if your family wasn’t directly descended from slaves you don’t get to be an African American even if you are an African American.

Is that really the message we want to send to young people of color: don’t bother trying because you’re going to fail anyway.

If it were up to self-haters like Ford the rest of us would still be living on the plantations.

Health Care: why change is needed.

The top Democratic candidates have made health care a big issue.

Barack Obama: plan calls for universal health care within 6 years

Hillary Clinton: also embraces universal health care.

John Edwards: he supports it too and has a detailed plan here.

Bill Richardson: though his plan is a bit more conservative than the others, this is an issue he tackled head on as Governor of New Mexico.

Why I think this issue is so big: nyceve from the Daily Kos writes lots of diaries on heath care issues; recently she wrote one which describes the plight many people are currently in. She even gives an example of someone who chose to stay in jail because while in jail, her cancer treatment was paid for, whereas it wouldn’t be had she been out of jail!

Car thief chooses jail for health benefits

TACOMA – A Pierce County car thief has decided to stay in jail for the medical benefits.

At the Pierce County Jail, there’s a young woman who has been convicted many times. She is getting her cancer treatment paid for.

But if it seems like Melissa never got a break, consider this: On Tuesday she pleaded guilty to her latest crimes: identity theft and possession of a stolen car. She could have gotten out of jail to pursue drug treatment, but she didn’t want to because she was diagnosed with cancer.

“If I’m in here in custody, then my procedure at the jail would be paid for,” she said.

Since Melissa was first arrested in November, a county-paid doctor diagnosed her with cervical cancer.

“Still to this day I would rather go outside, but I’d rather live than go outside,” she said.

“We believe scarce law enforcement services shouldn’t be used to subsidize someone’s health cost,” said Ed Troyer, Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman. “The fact that she is manipulating the system to get her health care costs paid for concerns us greatly.”

Melissa’s lawyer says the real culprit is not his client, but the healthcare system.

http://www.king5.com/…

She also blogs on the sorry story of an 8 year old who died because his family lacked the $80.00 to deal with a toothache.

he Washington Post is reporting this morning on the front page that a twelve year old child died within miles of the nation’s capitol because his mother had no insurance and her beloved child had a tooth infection.

For Want of a Dentist
Pr. George’s Boy Dies After Bacteria From Tooth Spread to Brain
Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.

A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

If Medicaid dentists weren’t so hard to find.

If his mother hadn’t been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Hat tip also to dude spellings who e-mailed many people this story.

Speaking of health care, liberal websites such as the Daily Kos have been all over the Walter Red issue

After last week’s revelations about the shocking treatment soldiers were receiving as out-patients at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said:

I’m grateful to reporters for bringing this problem to our attention, but very disappointed we did not identify it ourselves.

Yes, who could have imagined that the wounded men and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq were facing another war, this one against neglect and bureaucracy? Today we learn that the answer is, just about everybody:

Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army’s surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.

And last week, as damage control efforts kicked in, the Army’s surgeon general, Lieutenant General Kevin Kiley, was asked how high up the responsibility went. Kiley responded, “I really can’t say.” And today we learn why Kiley refused to assign blame:

But as far back as 2003, the commander of Walter Reed, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, who is now the Army’s top medical officer, was told that soldiers who were wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan were languishing and lost on the grounds, according to interviews.

…Kiley, his successive commanders at Walter Reed and various top noncommissioned officers in charge of soldiers’ lives have heard a stream of complaints about outpatient treatment over the past several years.

From the Army’s surgeon general, to Commanders at Walter Reed, to Inspector Generals, to Congressmen, conditions at the “crown jewel of military medicine” were long known. And since this scandal was made public, what actions has the Pentagon taken? A first sergeant has been relieved of duty and Secretary Gates appointed a review group to “inspect the current situation at Walter Reed.” More promising is a March 5th hearing scheduled by the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. And while fixing what is broken at Walter Reed (and military medical facilities across the country) must be their primary concern, hopefully they will also be asking, “what did they know and when did they know it?” And maybe they can start with Donald Rumsfeld.

Last October, Joyce Rumsfeld, the wife of then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, was taken to Walter Reed by a friend concerned about outpatient treatment. [...]

At the end of the meeting, Rumsfeld asked one of the staff members whether she thought that the soldiers her husband was meeting on his visits had been handpicked to paint a rosy picture of their time there. The answer was yes.

But perhaps she forgot to mention it to him.

So have liberal talk shows such as the Randi Rhodes Show.

The new temporary head of Walter Reed is the same ass that let soldiers sleep in their own urine.

Army to injured vets: Want to talk to the press? Then grab your prosthetic limbs and haul your ass down to Starbucks.

So, I am sure that all of the right wing websites are all over this too; after all, they are the “patriots” that “support the troops”, right?

Maybe not, as O’brien points out: he quotes a survey of 14 rightwing nutjob blogs (e. g. Little Green Footballs, Captain’s Quarters, Instapundit, etc.) and finds exactly 4 posts on this topic.

A typical wingnut response:

This post at Blackfive is representative of the few posts I found:

One thing about the military almost completely misunderstood by civilians, but a fundamental part of life in uniform is that things will always suck.

Perhaps that is why so many of these chickenhawks don’t bother to serve themselves?
I am still waiting for the Bush twins to sign up.
Yes, the family of Senator McCain (who was a POW in Vietnam for many years) is serving.

Right Wing Hate: So, the right wing isn’t sticking up for our troops (though the President did make a welcome statement; but what took so long?). So what are the wingers speaking out about?

Well, some are saying things like this: Limbaugh was evidently upset that a few people who don’t like Vice President Cheney seemed to wish that the assassination attempt failed. Of course, the mainstream liberal blogs denounced the assassination attempt:

We 100% Condemn the Attempted Assassination on Cheney Hotlist
by davefromqueens [Subscribe]
Tue Feb 27, 2007 at 08:26:24 PM PST

I think I’m speaking for almost everybody here when I say that I unequivocally condemn the attempted assassination of Vice President Cheney in Afghanistan and that any person responsible for this cowardly act should be jailed for life at a minimum.

Notwithstanding my condemnation, there is an organized attempt by Republicans and their talk show minions to try and portray “The Left” (Defined as anyone who disagrees with a conservative at least 10% of the time.) as wild eyed radicals who wish Cheney had been assassinated. That’s bullshit!

We are not the people who call for killing innocent people. The Right has a monopoly on that.

Limbaugh said:

On the February 27 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed, “I do not recall anybody actively wishing, and I don’t recall any movies, nor do I recall any books devoted to the subject of assassinating Bill Clinton, or Hillary, or the Vice President Al Gore.” Earlier, Limbaugh — while discussing comments posted on The Huffington Post weblog about a recent bombing attack on a military base in Afghanistan while Vice President Dick Cheney was there — had stated that such hostility “is sick, and it resides exclusively on the left.”

However, as Media Matters for America has documented, in her 1998 book High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case against Bill Clinton (Regnery, 1998), right-wing pundit Ann Coulter suggested that a presidential assassination might be an acceptable response to political controversy. In the book, Coulter wrote that the national debate during the Monica Lewinsky uproar should not have focused on whether President Bill Clinton “did it,” but rather “whether to impeach or assassinate” him. Coulter’s book was published by Regnery Publishing, which describes itself as “the nation’s leading conservative publisher.”

Note when Ms. Coulter made the remark (1998) and that she wasn’t fired from the National Review until 2001 (when she made her infamous “kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” remark).

To see more of Coulter’s gems, check out Bob Geiger’s blog:

Hannity and Malkin are familiar blowhards and their hateful rhetoric is well know — including Malkin referring to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and former California gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante, who are both Hispanic, as “Latino supremacists” in a 2006 column.

But they’re both pikers compared to Coulter, who’s sure to be the rock star of this unsavory gathering. Here’s just a few of the charming things we’ve heard from Coulter over the last few years:

* On 9/11 Widows: “These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief-arazzis… These self-obsessed women seemed genuinely unaware that 9/11 was an attack on our nation and acted as if the terrorist attacks happened only to them… I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much.” — From her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism

* On Affirmative action (and California Congresswoman Maxine Waters): “Congresswoman Maxine Waters had parachuted into Connecticut earlier in the week to campaign against [Sen. Joseph I.] Lieberman because he once expressed reservations about affirmative action, without which she would not have a job that didn’t involve wearing a paper hat.” — August 9, 2006

* On Canada: “[Canadians] better hope the United States does not roll over one night and crush them. They are lucky we allow them to exist on the same continent.” — November 30, 2004

* On Freedom of Speech: “They’re [Democrats] always accusing us of repressing their speech. I say let’s do it. Let’s repress them. Frankly, I’m not a big fan of the First Amendment.” — October 20, 2005.

* On Islam: “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.” — September 12, 2001

* On The New York Times: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.” — August 26, 2002.

* On Aging Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens: “We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens’s crème brulee.” — January 26, 2006

* On The Role of Women: “I think [women] should be armed but should not vote…women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it…it’s always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care.” — February 26, 2001.

* More on women: “It would be a much better country if women did not vote. — May 17, 2003.

There’s a bizarre double standard in place — and the corporate media plays dutifully along — whereby Democrats can be stained by the most remote association or petty, inconsequential reference, but Republicans could host a KKK cross-burning festival and not be taken to task.

(Liberal Media????)

For Coulter’s latest gem; well see it for yourself (it is very short):

Ok.

Blueollie “Moran” Award

To those who were at that meeting that applauded Coulter.