TNGOP: Petty Party

Tennessee Senate Republicans have just said no to locating statues honoring Al Gore and Cordell Hull on capitol grounds.

From Pith:

Senate Republicans have defeated a resolution urging the state to raise private money to build a statue of Al Gore and another famous Tennessee Democrat, Cordell Hull, on the Capitol grounds. Gore and Hull are Tennessee's only Nobel peace prize winners. So what? Republicans hate Gore. They didn't even take the trouble to explain why they're against the statues. The 15-14 vote in favor of the resolution fell two votes short of a majority. Does this make Senate Republicans look petty and ridiculously partisan? You bet.

Yup, sure does.

I say fuck ‘em. Let’s locate the statues somewhere else, say, off capitol grounds yet somewhere prominent, perhaps the new convention center roundabout. Take that, assholes.

Conservatives’ Silly Protest

Hey, Tea Partiers! I believe the David Letterman protest scheduled for New York today is still a go.

It’s all very funny to me. We have people in Tehran protesting their stolen election, a popular uprising to take their country back and bring about reform.

And in this country you have conservatives hitting the streets to protest David Letterman’s bad joke he made about Sarah Palin’s daughter.

Seeing the two side by side provides a rather stark contrast, don't you think?

I think some folks have been hitting the Faux Umbrage Concern Kit (Extra Dose) a little too hard:

TNDP Responds To Racist E-mail

TNDP Chair Chip Forrester is demanding Sen. Diane Black fire her staffer who sent the racist e-mail.

He says:

“Is this indicative of what Senate Republicans think about our Commander-in-Chief?” Forrester asked. “This email is reprehensible, insults the office of the President, and is embarrassing to all Tennesseans regardless of political party.”

[...]

“I am calling on Sen. Black to reject this racist smear and fire this staffer who, on state government time, on state government computers, using a state government email account, launched this bigoted attack on our president,” Forrester said. “Keeping her on the staff would send the message that this type of behavior is condoned by the House Republican Caucus.”

Here’s the kicker:

“We have hundreds of state employees facing the possibility of losing their jobs due to the budget deficit and no fault of their own. I think we could save at least one of those jobs by firing Sherri Goforth.”

Ouch.

At the same time the Tennessee GOP is dealing with a racism scandal, South Carolina Republicans are doing likewise. First there was the slur about Michelle Obama’s ancestors being gorillas; then we had this:

Green posted this, then deleted it some time later:

JUST HEARD OBAMA IS GOING TO IMPOSE A 40% TAX ON ASPIRIN BECAUSE IT'S WHITE AND IT WORKS.

I think it’s abundantly clear that the Republican Party has a race problem. As someone who lives in the South, these kinds of things reflect very poorly on the region. If I were an international corporation looking for a new U.S. headquarters, why would I choose a place that seems to be going out of its way to portray itself as an intolerant backwater?

Republicans are in charge of our state legislature. Turning a blind eye to these kinds of racist slurs further cements the impression that the Republican Party endorses intolerant views. This is bad for the state of Tennessee, it's bad for the Republican Party, and it's bad for the South.

The progressive blogosphere has spoken out against these attacks. The Tennessee Democratic Party has spoken out against these attacks.

I am still waiting to hear from the Republican Party.

Just STOP It Already!

[UPDATE]:

Apparently Goforth just “feels sick” about sending the e-mail to the wrong list:

When I asked her if she understood the controversial nature of the photo, Goforth would only say she felt very bad about accidentally sending it to the wrong list. When I gave her a second chance to address the controversial nature of the email, she again repeated that she only felt bad about sending it to the wrong list of people.

They just don't get it. And Goforth will keep her job. Figures.

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

I’m still fuming over Newscoma’s post.

That anyone thought e-mailing that photo was funny, cute, clever, or anything close to appropriate boggles the mind. That it was a staffer for State Senator Diane Black, chair of the Senate Republican Caucus, well, what can I say. Tennessee is the state of Chip “Barack the Magic Negro” Saltsman; it seems the problem is endemic to the TNGOP. I hope Sen. Black does the right thing and puts her house in order.

But it's not just Tennessee. Today I saw this news on CNN:

A South Carolina GOP state activist has apologized for calling a gorilla an "ancestor" of first lady Michelle Obama. Affiliate WIS reports.

WTF?!!

This shit matters, people. Frank Rich gave a rundown of some of the racist, inflammatory, offensive rhetoric that regularly passes for public discourse from conservatives toward President Obama and I have to say I’m shocked and ashamed:

But hyperbole from the usual suspects in the entertainment arena of TV and radio is not the whole story. What’s startling is the spillover of this poison into the conservative political establishment. Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan G.O.P. chairman who ran for the party’s national chairmanship this year, seriously suggested in April that Republicans should stop calling Obama a socialist because “it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.” Anuzis pushed “fascism” instead, because “everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.” He didn’t seem to grasp that “fascism” is nonsensical as a description of the Obama administration or that there might be a risk in slurring a president with a word that most find “bad” because it evokes a mass-murderer like Hitler.

[...]

Obama’s Cairo address, meanwhile, prompted over-the-top accusations reminiscent of those campaign rally cries of “Treason!” It was a prominent former Reagan defense official, Frank Gaffney, not some fringe crackpot, who accused Obama in The Washington Times of engaging “in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain.” He claimed that the president — a lifelong Christian — “may still be” a Muslim and is aligned with “the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood.” Gaffney linked Obama by innuendo with Islamic “charities” that “have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.”

If this isn’t a handy rationalization for another lone nutjob to take the law into his own hands against a supposed terrorism supporter, what is? Any such nutjob can easily grab a weapon. Gun enthusiasts have been on a shopping spree since the election, with some areas of our country reporting percentage sales increases in the mid-to-high double digits, recession be damned.

Indeed. There was a time when entertainers like Limbaugh, Savage and Coulter were seen as the circus sideshow to the national discourse; now the corporate media treats them like legitimate pundits, and their brand of vitriol spills over into the real world. Politicians now think nothing of saying the most outrageous things. Conservatives love to ridicule "political correctness" but some of y'all need some manners or you shouldn't be in office.

So stop it. Cut it out now. Do not emulate the yakkers who should be exiled to the far edges of the talk radio dial. And if someone on your staff sends this out under the banner "Historical Keepsake Photo," I hope you show them--and others--that it's inappropriate and there are consequences.

And the photo:

TNGOP Racism Alert

Newscoma has the goods.

And people wonder why right-wing extremism is on the rise. Come on, who thought this was even close to appropriate?

The person responsible should be fired.

More Vigilante Violence From Extreme Right

The fact that these people are armed to the teeth doesn’t make me feel safer:

Head of a minuteman group arrested for double homicide

TUCSON, AZ - Three people have been arrested in connection with last months deadly double homicide in Arivaca that left a nine-year-old and her father dead. One of the people arrested for the homicide is the National Executive Director of the Minuteman American Defense group (M.A.D.), a group known for patrolling the border, and is dedicated to "Defending America's Borders" according to their website - http://minutemenamericandefense.org/

Jason Eugene Bush, 38, Shawna Forde, 42 and Albert Robert Gaxiola, 43, were all taken into custody and charged in connection with the murders of 29-year-old Raul Flores and 8-year-old Brisenia Flores. Both were killed during an alleged home invasion.

M.A.D. is a separate group from the better-known Minuteman Project, but according to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s dossier on Forde, she has appeared at anti-immigration events with that group’s founder, Jim Gilchrist.

Writes the SPLC of Forde:

As head of Minutemen American Defense, or MAD, she straps on a yellow armband and carries a two-way radio to patrol the U.S.-Canadian border "against unlawful and unauthorized entry of all individuals, contraband, and foreign military." Acting on what she claims are "insider personnel tips," the group also has assigned members to patrol the Everett, Wash., main branch public library in search of suspicious-looking Middle Eastern men. Fortuitously, the library's windows overlook the Port of Everett, which MAD deems a high-profile terrorism target.

[...]

Forde's belief that in two years undocumented immigrants will "outnumber real Americans" is mild compared to other statements on MAD's website, such as a claim that Al Qaeda terrorists are recruiting U.S.-based members of the violent Latino street gang MS-13. A photo of the Ford Foundation's New York building is captioned, "This is where La Raza gets money to help destroy the U.S."

Lovely. Anti-immigrant and completely crazy. These wackos get nuttier by the day. And I do mean that in the clinical sense: According to the KVOA story:

"If you look at her history closely, and you know what we know, she is at best a pyschopath," says Sheriff Dupnik referring to Forde during a press conference Friday.

The Anti-Defamation League has its own dossier on Forde, and it’s even more alarming. It’s alleged she has fabricated claims about being violently attacked by Hispanic gangs, even alleged that her daughter has been targeted by Hispanic gangs.

And of course, Forde and her army of vigilantes are armed to the teeth:

One of Forde's activities has been coordinating vigilante border patrols in Arizona.  In an Internet radio interview in January 2009, Forde explained, "I have many weapons that I borrow when I go down on the border…All of our Minutemen all have weapons and long arms and all that kind of stuff."

The woman is clearly delusional, a wackadoodle just primed to go off with all guns blazing.

Would love to know why she was allowed to get within 10 feet of a gun.

Don’t answer that, I already know: she has a “right” to “defend herself” against the imaginary Hispanic gangs she is convinced have attacked her. Looks like she went too far and a young child was killed as a result.

I Think Bill-O Is Booked For The Wrong Awards Show

Bill O'Reilly's greatest hit, and it wasn't country. From the memory hole:

More Dishonesty From “Pro-Life” Republicans

Hey, Tennessee Republicans! You folks who claim to be “pro life,” who want to take away a woman’s right to an abortion because it’s immoral and that’s in the Bible and all that! Yoo hoo!

Let Southern Beale give you some advice, okay?

This shit really isn’t that hard. The most effective way to stop abortion is not to make it illegal since--news flash!--women have been having abortions for thousands of years! Here’s how you cut the number of abortions: You help women choose to deliver their babies, and deliver healthy babies, by supporting them. Not browbeating them, shaming them, criminalizing them and all the other things you seem to have a jones to do.

Support them. With services they need, like healthcare, education, and mentorship.

In other words, you don’t kill funding for programs like MIHOW.

I know it’s a lot more fun for you to browbeat, shame and criminalize women for getting knocked up to begin with. You know what? That’s self-indulgent crap. Take out your Freudian psychodrama on the therapist’s couch. If you want to stop abortion, and lord knows you keep telling us that you do, then maybe you should stick to what actually works.

Unless, of course, you don’t actually want to stop abortion. Which I’m starting to suspect, since you’re doing everything you can to make sure women are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Birth control kills! No healthcare! Let’s send all of our jobs to China and Mexico and Vietnam! Become a slave to banks by racking up huge amounts of debt! And if you get pregnant, tough!

Does this seem like a workable plan to you? Of course not. But you don’t care. You like the grandstanding that the abortion issue provides, the news headlines, the emotional impact of all those cute little babies ripped from their mothers wombs. Sure makes the donations flood in, doesn’t it?


C’mon, we’re onto you. You’re a fraud. And the way you want to kill the one program you should have embraced just proves it.

Those Wacky Kids & Their Ethernets

Bows in bars? The “Archery Foundation” demands 
equal rights:

The Archery Foundation is pleased to announce that next January Rep. Stacey Campfield (R‐Knoxville) and Rep. Brian Kelsey (R‐Germantown) will sponsor landmark legislation to allow law abiding archers the right to carry their bows and arrows into Tennessee’s fine eating establishments.

The “Bows in Bars” bill will ensure that all of Tennessee’s law‐abiding citizens are provided equality of protection throughout the state. Like current concealed handgun permit holders, Archers will be able to apply for a “carry” permit, though due to the size of most compound bows and arrows, it’s not practical to “conceal” them.

“The Archery Foundation is pleased with the leadership shown by these fine legislators and looks forward to working with them in the future to ensure the rights of law abiding archers”, said Johnathan Comlatly, Executive Director of The Archery Foundation of
Tennessee.

LOL. There’s a disclaimer at the bottom of the faux press release--I admit I missed it the first time, though it’s obvious this is a hoax.

Meanwhile, local folks on Twitter have been amused by the Tweets of someone named FakeTNGOP, who is mostly still pining for ex-TNGOP Communications Director Bill Hobbs.

Comedy gold.

TDOT: The Dept. Of Concrete Is Baaack!

I’m going to step away from my regularly scheduled programming for a moment to get all hyper-local and voice my disdain for the TN Dept. of Transportation’s Hillsboro Pike “fix.” I say “fix” because this project seems designed solely to fix TDOT’s reputation and make a lot of noises about being responsive to business owners in Green Hills, while pissing off the people who actually live here: namely, people like me.

Yes, Hillsboro Pike, which happens to be a state highway, is a major clusterfuck, but I don’t see how adding a center turn lane south of Woodmont is going to solve anything. For one thing, there already exists a center turn lane--and traffic lights!--through the most congested part, which is from the Starbucks strip mall, past the Green Hills Mall, all the way down to the Hill Center. In short, the busy retail areas and Hillsboro High School, which is the destination of most of this traffic.

I live in this neighborhood and I have to say, rare is the time I’m stuck behind some clueless left-turner. The problem is simply too much traffic for too little road. Exacerbating this problem is commercial vehicle traffic like delivery trucks traveling in peak hours, and hundreds of Hillsboro High School students who all leave campus at the same time. Adding center turn lanes won’t do diddly to solve those problems because for one thing, as I already mentioned, we already have center turn lanes!

The most problematic clusterfuck is the double-light intersection on Hillsboro at Glen Echo and Crestmoor which, let me repeat, has a left turn lane but it’s too short to be useful, the lights aren’t timed properly, and the whole thing is a giant mess.

Meanwhile, the proposed “fix” could have a devastating impact on the surrounding residential neighborhoods, since it won’t actually solve the problem but could make it easier for frustrated drivers to turn onto residential streets in an effort to avoid the ever worsening clusterfuck. As if we don’t have a bad enough cut-through problem as it is.

I’m not being a NIMBY here, I’m just saying, I live in this neighborhood and I know what the problems are and what it’s going to take to fix it. TDOT would know it too if they had bothered to ask us, but they didn’t. There wasn’t one neighborhood meeting about it, though there were plenty of meetings for the business community which just figures, doesn’t it? Kinda puts the whole charade into perspective.

I called TDOT and asked how they come up with this cockamamie idea to begin with and was told the name of some consultant (of course) who had worked really hard to come up with a totally awesome plan, though again, they never bothered to speak to all of the constituents in the area, just the business ones. So in other words, the state paid someone a few hundred grand to pull something out of their ass, which they did while chuckling about what a bunch of suckers the folks at TDOT are.

Of course, I suspect TDOT and Metro aren’t interested in fixing any real problems. That would require either 1) widening the road (a hugely expensive and unfeasable solution) and 2) restricting the amount of traffic, by such means as building bike lanes and sidewalks, restricting commercial traffic to certain times of the day, and getting the high school to stagger its schedule so hundreds of kids aren’t all descending on Hillsboro Pike at the same time.

TDOT has already said bike lanes and sidewalks are not gonna happen, which is really too bad since as the new owner of an old bicycle, I’d love to bike to the grocery store but I value my life too much and those soccer moms in their Chevy Subdivisions can’t drive for shit. Seriously people, you know I’m right.

This plan appears to be a bunch of smoke and mirrors to appease the ever-growing chorus of developers, business owners and, yes, residents wondering why the city and state haven't done anything about the traffic mess that is Green Hills. And yes, they are right, it is a mess, it's a horrible mess, and anyone who lives in the neighborhood knows to use the back roads and avoid Hillsboro Pike at all costs because if you don't, good lord you'll regret it. That fact alone has got to strike fear in the hearts of those whose livelihood depends on bringing people into town, not turning them away.

I get that but let me repeat: TDOT's brilliant plan will not solve the problem. All it will do is give the appearance of solving the problem. And maybe that is the point.

The person I spoke to at TDOT said there were “traffic studies” and “accident reports” that verified the need for this center lane (which, did I mention, already exists where the worst of the traffic is!). But when I asked to see a copy she grew vague, said it wasn’t online, didn’t know where there was a copy, in fact, even she hadn’t seen a copy, yada yada.

I’m pretty good at smelling bullshit and I think I was just handed a pile of it.

In the past TDOT has been criticized for basically paving over every perceived problem and guess what, that’s what they seem to be doing here. They’re treating Green Hills like it’s I-40 and it’s not, it’s a mixed neighborhood of residential, retail, and institutional uses. At least one of those constituents was forgotten in this equation.

So TDOT and everyone involved in this waste of taxpayer money, including Mayor Karl Dean, you get a middle finger from Southern Beale today.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled rants against Republicans.