Looks Like Some Iowa Right Wingers Have Been Reading Too Many @ChuckGrassley Tweets

Someone vandalized an Obama campaign building in Des Moines by spray painting the words “Muslim Lier” on a large banner, police said. 

The word “liar” was misspelled on the sign, officers said. 

The blue banner is 16 by 8 feet and hangs on the south side of the building at 2307 Hubbell Ave. The words were written with red spray paint, police said. 

The vandalism occurred sometime between 11:30 p.m. Wednesday and 10 a.m. Thursday, when it was discovered, police reports show. 

The same message was reportedly spray painted near the Iowa State Fairgrounds earlier in the week. The damage was estimated at $500.

Dear Senator Grassley,

Your bastardization of the English language on Twitter is having an effect on your constituents. Please cease and desist dumbing down your voters, if that's even possible at this point.

Thank you,
The Educated Public


(Cross-posted on ABLC)

Same As It Ever Was

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — Word that NATO personnel had burned an undisclosed number of Korans and were preparing to dispose of many more by incineration set off an angry protest here on Tuesday. NATO officials rushed to apologize publicly and profusely, trying to head off what they feared could be a nationwide outburst of violence as news of the burning was gradually broadcast across the country.

This is why we'll never take the next step as a society of humans. When we realize that for some, this has all become some sick, goddamned crusade in the guise of a "war on terror" the sooner we will all be better for it. How often has religious descrimination and book burning worked? Answer: never.

The Land of Tolerance

Via Think Progress: ...two Muslim men were removed from a plane departing from Tennessee and set to arrive in Charlotte, North Carolina. Both the men were dressed in traditional Muslim garb, which made the pilot uncomfortable and caused him to refuse to fly them to their destination...

..The irony is, both men, as a local news affiliate reported, were on their way to Charlotte to attend “a conference of imams, where they would be discussing ‘Islamophobia,’ the fear of Islam.”

The pilot refused to fly these men. After they'd been screened. What is happening to this country?

Shameless

NY Post Amps Up Anti-Park51 Rhetoric With "Human Remains" Map



The Rupert Murdoch owned New York Post ratcheted up the fearmongering and Muslim hate with this story, conveniently covered by the Rupert Murdoch owned Fox show, Fox and Fiends that same morning.

But hell, if we're going to show the proximity of the Not-A-Mosque-Not-At-Ground-Zero Park51 project to the still empty these nine years later World Trade Center site, well two can play at that game.

Here's my version:



Not only was Gournd Zero and it's surroundings littered with human remains, but it is still surrounded by multiple adult entertainment spots. Sacred strip joints, anyone? And the kicker is what they plan on the actual center of the WTC site because God knows we can't go without shopping. (See "E")

That's right. The very hallowed Ground Zero everyone is defending against a Not-Mosque-At-Not-Ground-Zero is the new site for a proposed mall under whatever the Freedom Tower turns out to be. So while you reflect on the horrible loss of life on September 11th, you can also swing by Zabars for some hallowed bread and grab a latte at sacrosanct Starbucks.

And none this begins to broach the subject of the possibility that human remains were used to fill potholes.  In the haste of cleaning up the debris after the attacks, "America's Mayor" Rudy Giuliani didn't want to seem like the weak, pathetic man he is, and demanded that the clean up happen as quickly as possible.  Obviously, that meant that the careful search for remains wasn't so careful and some of the debris that was carted away to the Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island eventually became filler for potholes.

Hallowed ground indeed.

American Taliban

Every civilzation, society or people have terrorists. And news flash: you don't have to wear a turban or have dark skin to be a terrorist.

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Madera's Planned Parenthood clinic is closed Thursday after someone firebombed it with a Molotov cocktail. The FBI is investigating this case as it continues to search for clues in an attack on a mosque last week on the other side of town.

Can the fundamentalist Christians that were obviously involved in the latest terrorist attack against a Planned Parenthood clinic because of their religious ideological beliefs be called terrorists now? How are they different than any other terrorist? It's time we start calling out these "Christians" for what there are, because blowing up a clinic in retaliation for a completely legal medical procedure that doesn't jibe with their religious ideology isn't the Christian thing to do. It's terrorism. And they may as well be categorized as the American Taliban.

(H/T Oliver Willis)

Too Close To Ground Zero?

Ben Goodwin of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Department confirmed to CBS Affiliate WTVF that the fire, which burned construction equipment at the future site of the Islamic Center of Murfreesboro, is being ruled as arson.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee. 700 miles away from Ground Zero.

...Still too close?

Cartoon of the Day

Quote of the Week

So virulent is the Islamophobic hysteria of the neocon and Fox News right — abetted by the useful idiocy of the Anti-Defamation League, Harry Reid and other cowed Democrats — that it has also rendered Gen. David Petraeus’s last-ditch counterinsurgency strategy for fighting the war inoperative. How do you win Muslim hearts and minds in Kandahar when you are calling Muslims every filthy name in the book in New York?

~ Frank Rich

Presidential

President Obama: "As a citizen, and as President, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. And our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakeable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure."

Greg Sargent: Obama's speech transcends the politics of the moment, and will go down as a defining and perhaps even a breakthrough performance. Obama recognized that this dispute is a seminal one that goes to the core of our running argument about pluralism and minority rights and to the core of who we are. He understood that the gravity of the moment required an equally large and momentous response. And he delivered.

Of course, those who say they are trying to help elect politicians that "know the Constitution" have a different take. Sometimes I wish that those who say they support the Constitution and want to protect it, actually read the damned thing once in a while.

Stewart and the Ground Zero Mosque

Funny that I would comment on the compromisers and nutbags of the sort-of-near-Ground-Zero-Mosque-but-not really-at-Ground-Zero ridiculousness and the Daily Show would cover it just minutes later. I've got my finger on the pulse, people!

Anyway, they do it a lot better.

Stop Catering to the Crazies

I knew New York Governor David Paterson was blind, but I didn't know he was dumb too.

Paterson agreed that there is "no reason" why the Cordoba House shouldn't be built at the site known as Park51. But in light of political response from conservatives, the governor is open to state intervention to help explore alternatives. "Frankly, if the sponsors were looking for property anywhere at a distance that would be such that it would accommodate a better feeling among the people who are frustrated," Paterson said, "I would look into trying to provide them with the state property they would need."

What the fuck, Dave? I know you're having a "can't we all get along" moment, but for fuck's sake, the argument against building Cordoba House is based on rage, bigotry, religious intolerance and irrational fear.

And where is this proposed property you'd look to provide? North of 14th Street? The Upper East Side? The Bronx? ...Buffalo? How far away from Ground Zero is far enough? Because the fact of the matter is that those you are trying to appease with your good intentioned idea will never be satisfied. They range from the politically opportunistic to the irrational to the just plain crazy. They will never agree to any cultural center or any mosque, anywhere. And to think that the overall problem of their intolerance will go away if only the site for the proposed center were further away from where hundreds of American Muslims tragically died at the World Trade Center along with the rest of the 9/11 victims is astonishingly naive.

The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Fear Mongering, Profiling, Flight 297 Viral E-Mail

I received a forwarded e-mail (the worst kind) today from a friend's mother who usually sends me these kinds of e-mails in order to debunk them. Being as she's a reasonably liberal older person in a conservative town, she's more often than not a target for such fear mongering, smear e-mails. This one was a great read, complete with heroic feats and amazing courage. It's almost a shame it wasn't true.

It seems that a man named Theodore Petruna took it upon himself to tell the real tale of the reason Air Tran Flight 297 from Atlanta to Houston was delayed on November 17th, 2009; the full story that the media wouldn't tell (that "media" being Fox News).  And the proof is in the brown-skin hating pudding because Mr. Petruna says he was on the flight.

The real reason the flight was delayed? Muslim terrorists on a dry run!

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