Religious Leaders Fast In Protest Of Congress' Immoral Budget

The irony of American religious leaders protesting a Republican budget with a hunger strike is tremendous. I mean gosh, our national news media keeps telling us that all Christians are conservative, small-government, free-market Republicans! This certainly puts a kink in that CW, does it not?

Earlier this morning, religious leaders and anti-poverty advocates announced that they will begin fasting to protest budget cuts that they argue "balance the budget on the backs of poor people." Progressive evangelical leader Jim Wallis and David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World, joined former Democratic congressman Tony Hall in calling on others to join them in the fast and on Congress to restore funding for hunger programs and other anti-poverty initiatives.

[...]

Religious organizations from the National Association of Evangelicals to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have criticized proposed federal budgets to means-tested programs as immoral and unjust. And Wallis, Beckmann, and Hall are attracting support for their fast from an array of partners, including the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Islamic Relief USA, and Meals on Wheels. They haven't yet decided how long they'll continue the fast, but Wallis issued an additional challenge to members of Congress who support cuts in anti-poverty programs: be honest. "I want to hear just one of them say out loud that every line item of military spending is more important to the well-being of the country than child nutrition, than child health and vaccinations. They've crossed a line, but they want to keep pretending this is all about fiscal responsibility."

Good for them. You can read Tony Hall's powerful message "Why I Am Fasting (Again)" here.

I hate to be so cynical but I don’t look for the national news media to carry this story any further than a blog post. Jim Wallis and other social justice Christians have protested, been arrested over the Iraq War, and arrested over the 2006 budget, which raised nary an eyebrow from the national media. Who remembers this:

115 religious leaders were arrested in front of the Cannon House Office Building while kneeling in prayer to protest the immoral budget and tax agenda which slashes spending on the poor to finance tax breaks for the rich. Led by Jim Wallis of Call to Renewal, national faith leaders, clergy and faith-based providers of services to the poor held a press conference.

We never hear about this stuff, but some redneck with 10 followers in Bumfug, Tennessee wants to burn a Koran and it’s all the media can talk about.

Anyway, I’m posting this information for a couple of reasons. 1) Not all Christians are right-wing, intolerant assholes and 2) Budgets are moral documents which tell the world your priorities. Where your treasure is, so is your heart. And if your treasure is devoted to war, and torture, and bombs, instead of feeding poor children and funding schools and the rest, then you’re in deep trouble as a nation. You're failing your people. And when no one in power stands up and says "enough, this will not stand," then you no longer have the moral authority to tell anyone else in the world how to behave.

Bob Herbert penned his final column for the New York Times on Saturday, and it brought tears to my eyes. He wrote:

The U.S. has not just misplaced its priorities. When the most powerful country ever to inhabit the earth finds it so easy to plunge into the horror of warfare but almost impossible to find adequate work for its people or to properly educate its young, it has lost its way entirely.

Nearly 14 million Americans are jobless and the outlook for many of them is grim. Since there is just one job available for every five individuals looking for work, four of the five are out of luck. Instead of a land of opportunity, the U.S. is increasingly becoming a place of limited expectations. A college professor in Washington told me this week that graduates from his program were finding jobs, but they were not making very much money, certainly not enough to think about raising a family.

There is plenty of economic activity in the U.S., and plenty of wealth. But like greedy children, the folks at the top are seizing virtually all the marbles. Income and wealth inequality in the U.S. have reached stages that would make the third world blush. As the Economic Policy Institute has reported, the richest 10 percent of Americans received an unconscionable 100 percent of the average income growth in the years 2000 to 2007, the most recent extended period of economic expansion.

Yes that was the “Bush boom,” which was a big, fat bust for most people. This is Republican America, where the haves feel they’re entitled to their looted wealth, and the rest of us are told to stop whining.

It’s enough to make some folks lose their appetite.

Next Stop Indiana!

[UPDATE]:

Gov. Mitch Daniels now tells legislature to drop "right to work" legislation that forced Indiana Democrats to flee.

I'll bet someone is thinking of his 2012 presidential aspirations.

----------------------------

Indiana statehouse fills with protestors as Indiana's Democrats leave the state to avoid vote against unions:



Here's a question I've asked: how come no one is mentioning ALEC in all of this? The industry-funded, free-market, limited-government, conservative anti-worker American Legislative Exchange Council? Through their "model legislation" they push industry's agenda at the state legislative level. I mean, it's no coincidence that so many states have similar anti-union legislation on the floor right now. This is all coordinated. And ALEC is funded by big corporations.

And here's another question: if industry can unite and push their agenda under the aegis of groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ALEC, the American Enterprise Institute, etc., then why can't workers unite and push their interests in the form of unions? I mean, if you're going to say unions are bad for democracy (though no one has ever adequately explained that one to me) then isn't the U.S. Chamber bad for democracy, too? If you want to get rid of one, shouldn't you get rid of the other?

It doesn't make sense unless your entire worldview is based on the idea that everything is peachy when workers are slaves to their employers, that all of the power should be handed up to big business and workers should be silent and take what lumps of coal they are given. You know, I get why billionaire corporate elites think this way, but I don't get why anyone else does.

It makes no sense.

Why We Scare Them

It's Always Okay If You're A White Conservatiave

I have wondered: what if the workers rallying in Wisconsin were armed? What if the Tea Party were black? Would the nation tolerate protestors wearing guns and waving threatening signs if those doing the protesting weren’t predominantly white conservatives?

The answer is simple: no. If even a small fraction of the tens of thousands descending on Madison, Wisconsin had brandished guns and signs about using violence to stop legislation, the National Guard would have been called out on day one. If the Tea Party were black we’d have seen water cannons and dogs, like in the '60s.

When the Tea Party was allowed to brandish guns and wave threatening signs at their rallies, it only proved how toothless and anemic their movement is. They are no threat to the status quo, no threat to the powerful interests that rule the country. They can wave all the guns they want, they are supporting the wealthy and powerful, those “fighter pilots of capitalism.” The powers that be will let them display their guns because it's no threat to them.

Workers rallying for their rights, however, upsets the status quo. Union members protesting in Wisconsin don’t need to wear guns -- their mere presence is threatening enough. Witness the fearful rhetoric out of Fox News and supporters of the status quo, folks like Michelle Malkin and Glenn Beck. These folks have called workers rallying for their rights “thugs” and “borderline violent” and “evil.”

I find this realization very profound. It’s not just the hypocrisy here, the IOKIYAR view that when Tea Partiers rally it’s all about “freedom loving Americans enjoying their constitutional rights” but when union workers do it it’s “thuggery” and “borderline violent.”

Conservatives are the party of the rich and powerful, and those people are scared. Let that one sink in for a moment, union activists: your mere presence frightens the wealthy and powerful.

This tells me that people like Gov. Scott Walker are on shakier ground than even they know.

Just a thought.

Failure To Seize The Moment

[UPDATE]:

Apparently Gov. Walker threatened to call out the National Guard if public employees strike. OMG he wouldn't dare. He's poking a stick at a sleeping bear.

-------------------------------------

I swear to God I am about to lose my shit.

Near as I can tell the only people covering the thousands of working people marching on the capitol in Madison, Wisconsin, are some liberal bloggers and Ed Schultz, who has been talking about this for three days. Well, that and liberal outfits like The Nation, which filed this report:

More than 10,000 Wisconsinites marched on the state Capitol Tuesday, as crowds rallied in cities around the state, students walked out of high schools and public employees lined roadways holding aloft banners declaring their determination to battle an attempt by Republican Governor Scott Walker to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights and pack state government positions with political patronage appointees.

Another huge crowd -- numbering perhaps 8,000 -- surrounded the Capitol for a Tuesday night rally. Protests spread to the Milwaukee area, where hundreds of workers massed outside Walker's suburban home.

The crowds in Madison will swell Wednesday. The city's schools are closing, as teachers take sick days to join the protests and buses packed with public employees roll into the city.

The protests, unprecedented in recent Wisconsin history, are being organized by union—the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, the Wisconsin Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers-Wisconsin and others—in anticipation of a Thursday vote on whether to give the governor powers that the senior member of the state legislature describes as nothing short of dictatorial.

Hellooooo! News media! Y'all might want to cover this! Think of it like Cairo, but ya know, in English and not so Muslim-y. Now will you cover it?

I mean, yes, there’s a little New York Times piece, but no, I am not seeing the wall-to-wall TV coverage we get every time 500 Teanuts in knee britches and tricorn hats decide to wave a misspelled sign. This is worse than irresponsible. This is a failure of epic proportions. This is why the news media is not trusted by the left. This is why no one reads your shitty newspapers or watches your lame cable news programs where you ruminate over the need for reasonableness.

News is happening. Here. In America! Go cover it! It really shouldn't be that fucking hard.

I mean, shit. Just one year ago the news media descended on Nashville to cover the first Tea Party convention at a level of one reporter for every three participants. We’ve got 10,000 working people descending on a state capitol and where’s Anderson Cooper? Brian Williams? Katie Couric?

You know who’s there? Fox News. I just heard a clip on the Ed Show where some Fox bimbette opines that the protests are surely going to turn violent soon. Yes of course they are, because we liberals always turn violent when a big group of us rally to defend our rights, or try to stop a bogus war, or try to save the planet from nuclear annihilation. Even though your side is the one waltzing around with guns strapped to your legs carrying signs about “watering the tree of liberty” and whatnot. Fuck off, I don’t have time for you idiots.

No, I want to know where the serious coverage of this unprecedented event is? Why aren’t you there on the scene?

And where are the Democrats? Hello?! This is your base, thousands of them, rallying for the right to collectively bargain, a founding principle of the liberal movement, why aren’t you people there? Why isn’t Nancy Pelosi there? Howard Dean? Hell, Dennis Kucinich? Anyone? Why aren’t liberal leaders flocking to the site of a major liberal protest? This is called an opportunity, you idiots.

(A question: Are they not there because the TV cameras aren’t there? Or are the TV cameras not there because the political leaders aren’t there?)


This is why we suck on just so, so many levels.



Via Down With Tyranny, a picture of today's rally:

The Tim DeChristopher Case

This is a weird story.

Tim DeChristopher is a young environmental activist facing two felony counts which stem from an action he took in December 2008. In short, DeChristopher bid $1.7 million for 22,000 acres of federal land offered for sale at a public auction; a student at the University of Utah at the time, he didn't have the money to pay for his bid, but he took took the action to protect the land from oil and gas drilling and protest the country’s energy policy. He now faces 10 years in prison and a $75,000 fine.

DeChristopher accuses the oil and gas industry of being behind his prosecution. Said DeChristopher in a recent interview:

We were making the case for selective prosecution before the indictment because we had substantial evidence that the oil industry had played a strong role. One of my attorneys got a call from an AP reporter before I was informed what the charges against me were. The journalist told my attorney, these are going to be the charges. The reporter got that information from an oil industry lobbyist. So before I knew or my attorneys knew, the oil industry knew. Why did they know before my attorneys knew?  

And then, there were 25 people in the last 3 years that have won leases without being able to pay for them, who had a profit motive, and none of them have been prosecuted. It seems that they are coming down particularly hard on me.

I really hadn’t heard anything about this case; apparently Robert Redford, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben and some other prominent Lefties have come to his defense and are trying to raise awareness.

I’m just a little confused. I’ve never participated in an auction of public land before but don’t you have to show proof of assets or something before signing up? Is there a reason why we don’t require that? DeChristopher said a BLM staffer asked him if he’d like to bid on the auction, which seems strange, and he said it was “easier than signing up on eBay.”

There’s a web page set up to support DeChristopher, called Bidder70. A march and rally to support DeChristopher have been scheduled for the day his trial begins, Feb. 28 in Salt Lake City.

I’m sure our media will ignore this story as they do so much else that’s really important. It always amazes me how we have a 24/7 TV news media and yet I'm continually reading about news which never hits their radar. It seems if it doesn't involve tricorn hats or crazy-eyed Michelle Bachmann, they're just not interested.

The Revolution Won’t Be Twitterized

Seeing Egypt “turn off” the internet got me wondering: how? And could it happen here?

FastCompany has the goods:

Turns out, it's pretty easy, at least in Egypt. "At the end of the day, the Internet is a bunch of cables in dimly lit, pretty chilly rooms. A country like Egypt probably has a dozen of these," explains Craig Labovitz, chief scientist for Arbor Networks, an Internet security company. "It's as simple as literally unplugging these devices. From a practical standpoint, it's more likely a phone call and then making a few changes on the computer to change the configuration."

It's simple to make these changes in the country because there are only 10 Internet providers and a centralized government that can quickly order them to yank out the cables. If the providers refuse, they can lose their licenses from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.

On Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Egypt to restore communications, and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs reiterated the U.S. position that access to the Internet is a "basic human right."

Congress has contemplated implementing an Internet "kill switch" at home, for use in emergencies., but it would be more complicated to effect that here, or in Western Europe, where there are more fiber-optic cables and thousands of providers.

Really, the United States only seems to have a handful of providers, almost all of which have already shown themselves to be too happy to capitulate to the government on issues of warrantless wiretaps (ominously, the one who did not alleges NSA retaliation). So it seems to me that yes, it could happen here, easily.

On top of which, reading that Congress has contemplated an internet “kill switch” is very disturbing to me. Stick that in your tricorn hats, patriots!

You know, I’ve always been amused by right-wing fantasies about their beloved “Second Amendment solutions.” It’s like you guys are watching an old movie from 1950 or something. Everyone imagines they’ll be the hero in these teleplays, “Red Dawn”-style, but that’s just hilariously outdated. I once suggested that anyone wanting to take down the government will be writing computer code, not waltzing around guns a-blazing. That’s reality. And if you want to start a revolution, you’ll be doing it on your BlackBerry and your iPhone and YouTube.

Nothing makes that more abundantly clear than seeing how quickly Egyptian authorities pulled the communications plug. They had learned their lesson from last year’s Iran uprisings, after all. Future popular revolts around the world will see similar communications crackdowns, you can bank on that. So while a bunch of people pretend they are defending democracy by waltzing around outside presidential rallies with guns strapped to their legs, they might be better off paying attention to their internet access.

Just a thought.

Adding ... I just remembered I know some ham radio enthusiasts who have always considered themselves the "last defense" in case of an emergency, disaster or uprising ... Now I see why.

Veterans For Peace Get Their Message Out

The Irony & The Obscenity

The great irony of staging this action at D.C.'s Newseum is that I doubt few if any of our mainstream media will bother to cover it, certainly not in any meaningful way.

Now, if they’d hung a tea bag from the banner, then maybe ...

(h/t, Suburban Guerilla)

“Dude You HAVE No Koran!”

Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, and a skateboarder foil a plan to burn the Koran at Sam Houston Park in Amarillo, Texas:



(H/T, Talking Points Memo.)

We Are Better Than This

Seriously, liberals? Burn a Confederate Flag Day? Please tell me this is a joke. Please tell me this is satire (and if it is, it's very bad satire).

In case it's not, though, I think I’m going to sit this one out. Not because I have any love for the Confederate flag but because this kind of protest is a) inflammatory (no pun intended); and b) counterproductive.

Here’s a better way to annoy conservatives on Sept. 12:

• Register other liberals to vote. You know where to find them.
• Canvass for your favorite liberal candidate or cause.
• Host a house party, a letter-writing party, a fundraiser or a discussion group to support your favorite candidate or cause.
• Gather some friends, make anti-war signs, and stand on a prominent street corner.
• Organize a community teach-in about an issue you care about: healthcare, climate change, etc.
• Plant a peace garden or community vegetable garden.
• Organize friends, coworkers, or a church or community group for a service project: pick up trash in a park, hand out sandwiches and bottled water to the homeless, help your neighbors winterize their homes. Winter is just around the corner.

I’m sure you can think of plenty of others. Look, folks. I know you’re angry but that’s no reason to stoop to the Tea Baggers’ level here. The one thing that characterizes the Teanuts is that they stand for nothing save anger. They have no ideas, no policy, no platform save anger.

We’re better than that. While they rally with their misspelled signs and vent their hate, we can turn our anger into action.

You know how to annoy a conservative? Make sure they lose the next election.

What If The Tea Party Was Black?

... holding guns, like the Black Panther party was back? It’s the question we’ve all been wondering.

Via Oliver Willis:



One might also ask, what if the Tea Party were Hispanic, like those huge rallies back in 2006? Ah yes, I remember the classic right wing response.

Hands Across The Sand

Beautiful. Already seeing pictures from today's event like this one:



The video from February’s event made me cry:

Sending BP A Message

Folks around the world are not happy with BP and they are spreading the word in a variety of interesting ways. National news media has done a piss-poor job of covering what’s happening on the grassroots level, so I've compiled a list of stuff you won’t see on CNN.

• On Tybee Island, Georgia, protestors staged a mock oil spill.

• A market in New Orleans bakes a cake:



• At BP’s London, England HQ, Greenpeace protestors re-style the BP logo:



You can watch video here:



People have staged protests in cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, Palm Beach and St. Petersburg, while in New Orleans there are calls for a more organized march.

Meanwhile, on the Wall Street end of things:

(Reuters) - A BP Plc shareholder in Alaska on Thursday sued the corporation's chairman and board members, alleging the officials' mismanagement led to the disastrous Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and spill and have devalued BP stock.

That should be interesting.

Anyway, I'm sure there's lots more stuff happening at the grassroots level. Keep your eyes and ears open.

MORE:

They are donating campaign contributions (albeit small ones):

May 18, 2010 (Chula Vistas)– Assemblymember Mary Salas, Democratic candidate for State Senate in the 40th District, donated a $500 contribution she received from British Petroleum (BP) to the San Diego League of Conservation Voters in protest of the company’s response to the massive Gulf Oil spill.She also accused her primary opponent, Juan Vargas, of being "in the pocket" of big oil companies.

Where Was The Media?

Look at this big crowd of pro-healthcare reform activists rallying outside a meeting of health insurance executives in Washington D.C. this week:



Here’s another video of the same rally:



Where was the mainstream media? Where were all of those reporters who descended on Nashville at a ratio of one reporter for every three Tea Baggers? Where was the wall-to-wall news coverage that we get whenever the nincompoops on the right drag their misspelled signs and their racism and homophobia out of the attic and parade them out in public?

The only news coverage I saw on this event was on The Daily Show. And that just figures.

Maybe next time pro-healthcare reform folks rally, they should remember to wear tri-corner hats. Seems to be the only thing that gets our news media’s attention.

The Anti War Movement Is Still Alive

Karl Rove spoke at UC Santa Barbara Thursday night, hawking his new book and sparking an anti-war protest. You can see video of the protest here:



I have to say I'm very encouraged to see the anti-war movement is still active. I had my doubts. President Obama didn't start the Iraq War but he hasn't done enough to end it, and he's escalated the Afghanistan War, resulting in escalated bloodshed among civilians. This is wrong, people.

We're coming up on the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. As they are every year, protests are being planned all across the country. Ask the Great Gazoogle for the one nearest you and make your voice heard.

More American Morans

From yesterday's Michelle Bachmann/Fox News-led "tea party" in Washington. You'd think after six months of protests they'd have figured out how to use spell-check:



One would also think that they'd have figured out there is no government run healthcare in anyone's future. But that's the low information voter for you: rallying to protest something that doesn't exist.

Morans.

Let's Hear It For The AHIP Singers

Billionaires For Wealthcare, those brave activist souls with some pretty good singing pipes, literally let their voices be heard at a recent AHIP meeting. Watch it:



**applause**applause**applause**applause**applause**!!

Suffer The Children Redux

You know your movement has reached rock bottom when you have to protest elementary school kids:

Protesters gather outside Burlington Co. school that sang Obama praises

BURLINGTON TOWNSHIP -- About 60 people converged Monday morning on a Burlington Township elementary school that drew controversy--and nationwide attention--for a video posted on YouTube of its students singing songs praising President Barack Obama.

The protesters stood across from Bernice B. Young Elementary School, holding placards and chanting "Shame on you." The Obama song was first staged "in recognition of Black History Month" during an eight-skit program on Feb. 27 at the school, said Christopher Manno, Burlington Township's superintendent of schools.

You yelled “shame on you” at elementary school kids who sang a song for America’s first black president during Black History Month?

Are you people nuts?

Don’t answer that. You know, this shit is not going to end well. You start protesting someone’s kids, and someone’s mom or dad takes offense and then it’s just all downhill. And I honestly don’t understand someone who would attack children this way. If you have a problem with it, go protest the school board or something.

To paraphrase that old entertainment biz crack, the Tea Partiers would protest the opening of envelope if it had Obama’s name on it. Seriously, you folks need some therapy or something.

But it’s only going to get worse. I read in the New York Times this weekend that anti-choicers are going to pay “tribute” to their fallen hero James Pouillon by greeting school kids with pictures of abortions:

Anti-abortion groups are calling on protesters to stand outside schools with signs that depict abortion on Nov. 24 in 40 to 50 cities nationwide.

They love children and life so, so very much! that they are willing to traumatize your kids to save them.

Or something.

Any time I see one of these crackpots with their abortion pictures, most of which are completely fabricated, I think: how about if we all stand around with pictures of open heart surgery? Dental surgery? Nose jobs? You know, that stuff looks really icky in Technicolor, too.

Anyway, I’m not sure when it became okay on the right for kids’ schools to be the new battleground for their fringe ideas. I’m still waiting for someone with sense in the Republican Party to step up and tell these folks they’ve gone too far.

Hasn’t happened yet.

Civil War

It seems back-to-back outbursts by Rep. Joe Wilson, Serena Williams, and Kanye West have given our news media pause. They wonder: is civility dead?

Individually, any of the events might have faded quickly into the global noise of Tweets, blogs and other digital gossip. But their back-to-back-to-back nature, as well as their high-profile forums, raise the question: Are we a nation of boors — or just keeping things real?

Oh, for crying out loud. Three incidents capture your attention in one week and it’s a national crisis. As if we aren’t assaulted with a lack of civility on a daily basis. As if all summer long we haven’t had people shouting over each other. As if it hasn’t been this way for years.

Have you folks not been paying attention?

Anyone remember back in 2004 when Vice President Dick Cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to "go fuck yourself” on the Senate floor? Cheney was angry because Leahy had criticized war profiteering by Halliburton. When asked about it by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Cheney not only admitted it but defended it. Criticize corporate war profiteering, get an expletive hurled in your face as a result. We haven’t had a civil discourse in this country for a long time.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the incident in Gulfport, Ms., in which a doctor spoiled Cheney’s post-Katrina photo op by yelling “go fuck yourself!” at him as the cameras rolled. He got arrested.

Anyone remember last July when Texas Republican Phil Gramm said we were a nation of whiners as the economy collapsed around us? Remember when John McCain referred to Obama as "that one" at a televised debate?

Closer to home, this morning Mr. Beale and I were nearly run over by a woman who couldn’t be bothered to brake for a two pedestrians with dogs crossing the street--at an intersection. She just plowed right on through, and when we hollered at her she never bothered to look our way. I guess where she was going was more important than the safety of people walking in a residential neighborhood.

Civil? We’re not civil anymore. We’re too self-absorbed to be civil.

Glenn Beck was right about one thing: On 9/12 I remember everyone being a little nicer to each other. We didn’t just donate blood by the gallon, we were nicer in other ways. Cars yielded, people stopped for pedestrians, we slowed down and looked at one another and talked to each other a little more. There was a little less huffing and puffing in the grocery store line. People had more patience for one another. A little more--dare I say it?--tolerance.

Not, as Glenn and the Tea Pot Army like to think, because everyone suddenly remembered they love America--something I guess they think we'd inexplicably forgotten until the World Trade Center fell. Not because we were all so overwhelmed with patriotism and love of country. But because everyone was shell-shocked.

We were shell-shocked because for the first time we realized we were vulnerable. And when you’re vulnerable, you’re a little less self-absorbed. You’re a little more aware that we’re all in this together. You’re a little nicer to your neighbors and fellow citizens.

Being vulnerable is a feeling easily forgotten, especially when you are told to go “live your lives.” We weren’t asked to sacrifice anything at all; we wanted to give, as evidenced by the lines at the Red Cross to donate blood. But we were told to go shopping instead. Kleinheider was 100% right when he said we squandered an opportunity.

So no, we aren’t civil. We haven’t been civil in a long time because it hasn't been asked of us. We're thinking about ourselves now. We’re self-absorbed and selfish. We’re like the lady protesting the public option in Max Blumenthal’s 9/12 video: she doesn’t have insurance but isn’t worried because “I have physicians in my family.”

OH, okay! Screw the public option, then. As long as you're okay, that's all that matters.

We’re supposed to be a Christian nation but we forgot that whole “love thy neighbor” stuff. We not only don’t care how someone without physicians in their family is supposed to afford healthcare, but woe be it to the person who speaks out on their behalf. They are, according to the 9/12ers, the “enemy within.”

Joe Conason wrote that Republican politicans have no empathy. I'm not really seeing much from the followers of Glenn Beck and the rest either. And you know what happens when you have no empathy? You lose your civility.

American Morans, Tea Party Edition

Too many American Morans to count on Saturday, judging by the pictures and video I've seen. But this one made me laugh:

A Picture Worth A Thousand E-Mails

Oh, dear. It seems tea baggers are a little red-faced today, after some outlets (like PowerLine) promoted this picture of D.C. crowds claiming it was from Saturday’s 9/12 rally.

PolitiFact called bullshit:

There's another big problem with the photograph: it doesn't include the National Museum of the American Indian, a building located at the corner of Fourth St. and Independence Ave. that opened on Sept. 14, 2004. (Looking at the photograph, the building should be in the upper right hand corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum.) That means the picture was taken before the museum opened exactly five years ago. So clearly the photo doesn't show the "tea party" crowd from the Sept. 12 protest.

Also worth noting are the cranes in front of the Natural History Museum (the second building from the lower left of the National Mall). According to Randall Kremer, the museum's Director of Public Affairs, "The last time cranes were in front was in the 1990s when the IMAX theater was being built."

That makes the picture at least a decade old. (We'll update this item if we find out when exactly it was taken.)

Even the Freepers are now admitting that the photo was taken at a different event--they claim it was the “Promise Keepers” rally in the late ‘90s.

Wonkette has another idea:

HILARITY: Would-be teabaggers and and other easily duped dingbats are proudly emailing each other wonderful pictures of a million teabaggers crowding the National Mall, but these pictures are actually from the Million Man March of 1997, an event attended by, ahem, colored people.

Not only did the Million Man March actually attract a million people, it was led by wingnuts’ second-most-hated negro person, Louis Farrakhan, a real black Muslim.

Oh, my. Now that would be funny! Last spring right wing nut jobs like Debbie Schlussel tried to claim Obama had both organized and marched in the Million Man March. Which would be hilarious if it were true because apparently he did a lot better job of it than all the tea baggers with their Koch Industries money funneled through FreedomWorks.

Anyway, it really shouldn’t be too hard to figure out where this picture comes from, since the web has given us access to comprehensive photo archives going back a decade or more. Whether it’s the Promise Keepers rally in 1997, which drew 700,000 or the 1995 Million Man March which drew 850,000, it shouldn’t be too hard for someone to dig through the archive and find out.

My money is on Promise Keeper’s only because I’ve been Googling around and seen this photo on other Promise Keepers-related websites. But my heart’s with the Million Man March just for the schadenfreude.