More quotes from that radical former NPR fundraiser, courtesy of Tucker Carlson’s vanity project:
On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”
What on earth is he talking about:
Brigitte Gabriel bounced to the stage at a Tea Party convention last fall. She greeted the crowd with a loud Texas “Yee-HAW,” then launched into the same gripping personal story she has told in hundreds of churches, synagogues and conference rooms across the United States:
As a child growing up a Maronite Christian in war-torn southern Lebanon in the 1970s, Ms. Gabriel said, she had been left lying injured in rubble after Muslims mercilessly bombed her village. She found refuge in Israel and then moved to the United States, only to find that the Islamic radicals who had terrorized her in Lebanon, she said, were now bent on taking over America.
“America has been infiltrated on all levels by radicals who wish to harm America,” she said. “They have infiltrated us at the C.I.A., at the F.B.I., at the Pentagon, at the State Department. They are being radicalized in radical mosques in our cities and communities within the United States.”
Through her books, media appearances and speeches, and her organization, ACT! for America, Ms. Gabriel has become one of the most visible personalities on a circuit of self-appointed terrorism detectors who warn that Muslims pose an enormous danger within United States borders.
Representative Peter T. King, Republican of Long Island, will conduct hearings Thursday in Washington on a similar theme: that the United States is infiltrated by Muslim radicals. Mr. King was the first guest last month on a new cable television show that Ms. Gabriel co-hosts with Guy Rodgers, the executive director of ACT! and a Republican consultant who helped build the Christian Coalition, once the most potent political organization on the Christian right.
Clearly Schiller is just engaging in crazy talk. There’s clearly no relationship between the tea party, Islamophobia, and the radical religious right. I have no idea where he got these ideas.
We are now to the point that you aren’t allowed to even speak the truth privately, lest you offend the delicate fee-fee’s of crazy people.
El Cid
So soon you forget Hezbollah’s shelling of the USA from their entrenched camps in Canada.
Hunter Gathers
Fixed.
El Cid
@Hunter Gathers: White people who aren’t right wingers don’t count.
Maude
@El Cid:
Cheney was afraid of Hez setting up camps in the US. No joke.
Maybe that’s why he was in so many undisclosed locations most of the time.
Ugh
Why isn’t she out junk-touching at Dulles?
trollhattan
Reminds me of Obama’s so-called “bittergate” sound bite. Everything he said was completely accurate, just not conveeeenient.
Who can’t handle the truth? We can’t handle the truth.
Mattminus
Fundraisers tell people holding big bags of money what they think they will want to hear?!?!?!?!?!?!!?? Somebody break out the siren graphic!
JPL
@Mattminus: NPR refused the donation according to TPM. That part was edited out of the tape.
cleek
none shall point out the emperor’s new racism
shawntos
@Mattminus: Right on, that was just what I was thinking when this broke.
soonergrunt
@trollhattan:
Who can’t handle the truth?
WeThey can’t handle the truth.Fixed for accuracy.
shawntos
Hmmmm I wonder how much this gets played on the MSM tonight compared to the prank Walker phone call a week ago.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
Thank Allah the wing nuts have found something to keep their panties twisted. Life is dull when they stop whining and yelling.
Rpx
Say what you want about the Aryan nation, but at least they’re up front about what they think. There’s none of this pretending they aren’t racist act the tea partiers like to do.
Gravenstone
So, “Muslim” is the new millenium’s version of “Communist”, i.e. “anyone not like me must be one of them”. Gotcha. Glad we cleared that up and, oh by the way, 1950 thanks you for finally loosening your stranglehold on their talking points.
kay
@JPL:
I’m still dumbfounded that people rely on edited tape.
That doesn’t seem like a hard concept to me. If Wal Mart produced a recording of a person in their store, and a big chunk was missing, it’s garbage. It goes in the trash. It doesn’t go out as “fact”.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
Representative Peter T. King, Republican of Long Island, will conduct hearings Thursday in Washington on a similar theme: that the United States is infiltrated by Muslim radicals
Are you now or have you ever been etc, etc..?
Mike in NC
Give him credit for knowing how to “pal around” with terrorists (AKA the IRA).
Next week Boehner will probably announce they’ve decided to bring back the House Un-American Activities Committee.
jibeaux
Isn’t “white, middle-American, gun-toting” what they expressly and overtly take pride in being? Yes, I know that if you are at a teabagger event and are at all swarthy, you are going to be in the video of the event more than once and likely more than twice, from different angles so it looks like you might even be two different people, but that’s really just an acknowledgement that the crowd is really, really white. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss any teabagger insisting that he was actually a poor ignorant hillbilly gun-confiscating pacifist.
Svensker
The mistake you’re making is in thinking these things are bad. It isn’t really “islamophobia”, it’s “islamo-reality” because those islamos really are trying to take over the country and almost succeeding and why can’t you see that, don’t you realize the danger we’re in? ! ? Also too, our God is better than that Allah guy, who isn’t really a god atall and is just a cult. Also also too too lowering taxes raises revenues!
Therefore, NPR shouldn’t get any government funding.
Why are you still drinking the Kool-Aid!?
MikeJ
Rumproast reports: Limbaugh upset that media paints Reagan as nutjob. Can’t wait for meejamatters post. Should be entertaining.
john b
i’d be happy if i never heard “fee-fees” again in my life.
Warren Terra
You left out the single scariest part of the article:
I can see her raking it in on the tent-revival and rubber-chicken circuits, going from Evangelical church to Winger Radio show, perhaps with a few speeches to the local chambers of commerce – but the “Joint Forces Staff College”? That’s just wildly inappropriate in so many ways.
MCA
I believe the word Schiller was looking for is “nativist.” That says it all more succinctly, I think.
If this gets anything beyond conservablog notice or exceeds mainstream coverage of the GOVERNOR OF WISCONSIN being taken in by a prank caller posing as a benefactor, well, you know, I’ll be shocked and outraged and stuff. For like five seconds, before I’ll be depressed again for knowing how well and truly f’ed our public discourse is.
Face
So now they gotta defund NPR and Planned Parenthood? Maybe they should wait 3 months, at which time that list will likely grow to a dozen, then do it all at once.
The Dangerman
Their focusing on the location of Obama’s birth is NOT racist. Their focusing on all Muslims in the search for Radical Islamists is NOT racist. The fact that Tea Partiers are almost exclusively White is…
Zifnab
@Mike in NC:
I’m honestly just counting the days at this point. Of course, Issa’s already got the Oversight and Accountability Committee, and at this point they’d function almost identically.
Captain Haddock
Who will be the first Democrat calling for his resignation?
Bob Loblaw
You’re just catching on to the notion of thoughtcrime?
This isn’t new. Why do you think every political actor under the sun worships at the alter of civility and collegiality at the expense of simple honesty? Reality is unpleasant, and therefore easily marginalized and whitewashed.
LGRooney
Damn it! This is going to cost me money. I enjoy NPR and now the GOP will scream bloody murder and insist on cutting off funding while Obama will get conciliatory and agree in the name of comity and compromise. I will now have to shell out to keep the programming going.
Redshirt
To the Countertops!
Uloborus
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
Yeah, that struck me as creepy, too. I have no idea if a new set of McCarthy hearings would go over with the population at large, but I don’t want to have to find out.
Chris
Oh my God, HER.
I only know her from her book “Because They Hate,” which is featured prominently in the Borders and Barnes & Noble Middle Eastern Politics section every time I go by. I’ve never been able to stomach reading it, the summary on the back was sickening enough.
And sure, I can sympathize with someone victimized by Hezbollah or their allies in the civil war. The problem is, there were children in Sabra and Shatila who went through the exact same thing, and I could just as easily ghostwrite a “Because They Hate” autobiography for them, with “they” here meaning every Christian and Jew on the planet Earth.
I do think “Because They Hate” would be a dead-on epitaph for the Tea Party Movement and most conservative activists these days, as it would for Hezbollah and the like.
Violet
@MikeJ:
Heard Limbaugh while I was just in the car a few minutes ago. Today’s talking points include the above, plus a thorough discussion as to whether or not people really like Obama. “How do we know this? People don’t really know him. Plus, no one’s taking him on like they took on Bush or like they took on me or Sarah Palin. If they took him on, then people wouldn’t like him. The left tries to destroy Sarah Palin and Sarah Palin has more courage in her little finger than do all the Republicans.” Etc.
I catch snippets of Limbaugh’s show once or twice a week maybe, and over the last few weeks I’ve heard him go on and on several times about “poor, poor Sarah Palin” and how mean liberals are to her. He included Bachmann this time, but only at the end. It was really all about Sarah Palin and how everyone is so mean to her and how strong and courageous she is.
This is not an accident, of course. I think he’s trying to prop her up for her run for President. I find that rather curious. What’s really going on with that?
hummbumm
As someone who was born and raised in lebanon through 1984, i can also safely say that she is talking crap. In the 1970s thoug hthe civil war was largely split between christian and muslim, it was not a religious conflict perse. The muslims who bombed christian villages in the south were likely PLO (secular palestinian nationalists), and the christians were largely linked to the lebanese forces, who began this whole thing by massacring palestinians traveling in a school bus in 1975. Massacres then took place on both sides, but Islamic jihad, hizbullah etc.. did not show up till after the 1982 Israel invasion. It must be noted that prior to the overthrow of the shah in 1979, islamic movements were largely non actors, and arab nationalism still prevailed, an arab nationalism that christians in lebanon largely rejected. Add on a dated power sharing agreement from 1943 that gave christians the presidency the head of the armed forces and a 6:5 majority in parliament at the onset of the civil war (since moved to a 50:50 split and greater power to PM and speaker of the house), add the destabilizing presence of the PLO and you have a civil war. No islamism…
Chris
@Gravenstone:
I’d say it’s the new “Catholic.” Remember how in the old days, every Mary-worshipper was a footsoldier in the Pope’s secret army to undermine and destroy America… and they had a backwards religion that was incompatible with modern free ideals… and some of them were in the Fenian Brotherhood and later the Mafia, so obviously they were ALL violent or at least all responsible for the violence… and of course they were all dirty foreigners with alien cultures and they should all go home, even if they were born in the U.S.
If there’s a heaven for them to be in, I imagine these guys feel just peachy looking down on America today and seeing how little things have changed.
mds
Hey, awesome! Mercilessly bombing villages full of children in southern Lebanon is something else “Muslims” have in common with Israel. Common ground! Also I wonder if Ms. Gabriel swung by to talk to any of her fellow Christians in the Occupied Territories while she was “taking refuge” in a country where extremist religious Jews still assault Christian missionaries.
Chris
@The Dangerman:
I think my all-time favorite argument is the endless drumbeat on the right that “Islam isn’t a RACE it’s a RELIGION so we’re not RACIST when we hate Islam, God you guys are so STUPID…”
Translation: it was wrong of the Ku Klux Klan to preach hate for black people. It was, however, perfectly alright and completely non-bigoted of them to preach hate for Catholics and Jews. Because those are religions, not races.
Good to know. Somebody tell AIPAC and the Catholic League that the people attacking them aren’t prejudiced after all.
Gustopher
Why does Cole quote a reference to Rep. Peter King, without mentioning Rep. Peter King’s support for IRA terrorists?
meh
@Rpx:
whatever – go on free republic and see how many people there link to Stormfront…
catclub
@Warren Terra: Joint Forces Staff College?
Is that where Cheech and Chong got their start in porn?
Warren Terra
@mds:
I’m not condoning the violence, nor am I aware that it’s especially commonplace or serious, but anyone dumb enough to go to a country populated by the remnant survivors of 2000 years of Christianity-fueled apartheid, pogroms, and eventually industrial genocide and evangelize Christianity should probably be aware that their activities might inspire some heightened feelings.
JohnR
Amazing how clearly the train can be seen when it’s too late to get out of the way. But hey, at least we can sneer at the Brownshirts as they muster. As long as it’s not us that’s being stomped, it’s not so bad. Yet.
Redshirt
I also want to say: countertop contretemps.
Because it looks and sounds really nice.
Svensker
@mds:
I have relatives who are Maronites who fled Lebanon in the late 60s/early 70s. They all hate Muslims, too. Oddly, the family they left behind don’t. In fact, one of them was a big admirer of Arafat’s and even worked with Arafat on some joint Christian/Muslim projects.
People get warped by bad things that happen to them. It just never seems to dawn on these American nutjobs that the folks on the receiving end of our “freedom” might react the same way.
Also FYWP
karen marie
@Chris: She wasn’t “victimized” by Hezbollah. They weren’t operating in Lebanon at the time.
The problem that Schiller creates for NPR is not simply that he denounced teabaggers as racists, but he remained silent when aspersions were cast on Jews, and also remarked that NPR has plenty of money without government funding.
Does no one do any screening at all any more?
Brachiator
@jibeaux:
Here’s the extra crazy part. Have you seen photos of Brigitte Gabriel (born Nour Saman). She ain’t exactly white bread.
agrippa
Some people need enemies. People like King and Carlson need enemies/scapegoats. It is part of the US paranoid style.
Lebanon was in a multi sided civil war for almost 20 years; a war of all against all. It has not been actually settled, and a truce breaks at times.
ReReTheHitAndRunShockPuppet
@Warren Terra: And therein lay the problem my dear: dumb people are dumb because they are not aware.
Chyron HR
Why must the followers of the Kenyan Muslim Halfrican BOY, Hussein Obongo, always accuse the Tea Party Patriots of being racist?!
catclub
@Chyron HR: I larfed, I did.
Ash Can
@Violet #34: It strikes me as odd too, since I would have thought that, like last time, he’d be four-square behind Mitt Romney again, or whichever other big-business type he thinks has the best chance at the nomination. The only thing I can think of is that his audience is polling solidly pro-Palin and he doesn’t want to alienate any of them. And that could be because his less-batshit-insane audience has dumped him and he doesn’t want any further ratings erosion, or it could be because he knows his listeners are wackos and he’s afraid of crossing them, or it could be due to any number of reasons. Or maybe he’s stroking his audience now, and then will hit them with the big-business message once the campaign heats up for real. Who knows?
@hummbumm #35: Interesting insight. Thanks for posting.
El Cid
@Chris: When it comes to Obama, though there are many things wrapped together, but Muslim and Kenyan and maddrassah are also substitutes for n***** when the context dissuades the use of the latter term.
Shoemaker-Levy 9
Supposedly this guy said “appalling” things. So is there anything besides calling the Tea Party “racist” that’s appalling? I’ve read a couple summaries of the video this morning and that seems to be the most problematic statement. So is there any other there there? This is pretty weak tea, pardon the expression, compared with underage prostitutes getting abortions.
Brachiator
@hummbumm:
Thanks very much for this. Very illuminating.
Chris
@Svensker:
That’s been my experience too. The American Maronites I meet in college who’ve never been to the Middle East and retain little to no ties to it, fucking hate Muslims. The Christians who stay in the Middle East often have a much more nuanced view of who the bad guys are.
@karen marie:
I stand corrected.
Although of course, all these guys look alike, doncha know.
Joel
The teabaggers are who we thought they were!
Gratuitous link.
Chris
Also, thanks to HummBumm for the insights.
Tom Clancy, whom I rarely agree with on politics, seems to get it exactly right when it comes to sectarian conflicts: “Religion rarely causes war. Rather, it defines the team identities in wars that are always about economics.” (Or politics, or whatever. But you get the point).
Tuttle
The simple fact is that they are not, in the normal sense, racists. They’re xenophobes. They are not motivated by hate, they are motivated by sheer, unhinged terror. That it manifests itself as patent racism is lost on these thickheaded morons. So there’s not much that pisses them off more than being called for the racist effects of their moral and intellectual cowardice because when they have to say “I’m not a racist” they’re forced to contemplate what they actually are; Craven.
Sir Nose'D
I don’t find this anti-Muslim stuff any more offensive (or terrifying) than, say, something like this:
Chris
@Sir Nose’D:
This.
I say the same thing every time someone tries to posit a difference between the “mainstream” right and the supposedly crazy “far right” groups like the WBC or the Aryan Nations.
There isn’t any difference at all in what they say. “Far right” parties are simply people who didn’t get the memo to shift targets. The driving force is the same.
Svensker
@Sir Nose’D:
Yuh, well, smarty pants, the difference is that Muslims ARE bad and Jews aren’t. Answer that!
Ash Can
Not that I’m happy to see NPR roll over on this, but there is potentially something behind their hair-trigger apology for what Schiller said. Anyone who’s listening to public radio in recent weeks has heard the announcers do spots calling the listeners’ attention to the fact that a bill is being debated in Congress that could eliminate public radio’s funding, and urging listeners to contact their reps, sign a petition, etc. They’re already nervous about what the House Republicans are doing, so anything that gives the GOP ammo against NPR now is particularly rattling for them. Within this context of them already being on tenterhooks this way, their hair-trigger response is a little more understandable.
different church-lady
Man, that’s a hell of a thing for a seated governor to be saying.
Oh, wait…
burnspbesq
@LGRooney:
“I will now have to shell out to keep the programming going.”
Which you should have been doing all along.
I hate free riders.
Paul in KY
@Warren Terra: As a former USAF officer, that’s just embarassing. The military has changed alot from when I was in.
Corner Stone
@Ash Can:
Yeah, damned odd on the timing of this “reporting” by convicted felon O’Keefe, ain’t it?
burnspbesq
When is someone going to send O’Keefe to litigation hell?
cyntax
Just for the record, here’s more about how crazy some of the statements on the right are. Granted it’s coming from Daniel Larison responding to Conrad Black…
Larison’s response:
I guess Larison is shrill too these days.
Paul in KY
@Captain Haddock: I vote Ben Nelson (even though he’s a DINO).
Bubblegum Tate
@Violet:
Maybe he’s in on the grift with her? Of course, he’s got a fat contract, so he doesn’t need to grift, so we’d still be left with the question of why.
@Ash Can:
These are all good theories. I have trouble seeing Rush back up Romney–he’d probably call Mitt a RINO and all that–but let’s not forget that Rush makes his money by telling his audience what they want to here. I wouldn’t doubt that his audience has a pretty high pro-Palin quotient, and if that’s the case, he doesn’t have much choice other than to be pro-Palin as well.
catclub
I think NPR fucked up: “”The fraudulent organization represented in this video repeatedly pressed us to accept a $5 million check, with no strings attached, which we repeatedly refused to accept.”
They take the check and it bounces and that is felony number 2 for O’Keefe, while he is still on probation for number one.
If it does not bounce, I would be very surprised.
I should have linked to burnsbesq @ 68
liberal
@Svensker:
jayjaybear
@Brachiator: There is a very strong tradition of Tokenism on the part of the Right.
Unlike the strong tradition of Tolkienism on the part of the Geeks.
stuckinred
@jayjaybear: I used to enjoy toke-enism.
Stooleo
OT Another hypocrite
Ash Can
@Corner Stone: And how, it’s damned odd timing. It was one of the first things I thought of, in fact. Of course, everything O’Keefe does stinks to high heaven, so why should he bother hiding the fact that he’s trying to help the House Republicans wipe out public media? Another turd on a mountain of shit doesn’t make any difference to you when you’re downwind of the pig farm.
mds
@Warren Terra:
True, but I still give a smidgen of grudging credit to Jews for Jesus for doing it, because trying to convince their fellow Jews that Messiah has already come is truer to the tenets of their claimed faith than the Hagee “Fund the emigration of Jews to Israel to get the End Times running, when most of them will be exterminated by Jesus” mindset. Of course, Hagee and his ilk are nevertheless popular with Israeli right-wing extremists, given their financial and political support for blowing Muslim and Christian children into bloody rags.
martha
OT but I just read this slap-down of my pathetic Gov. Walker and it almost brought me to tears. Go WI State Senator Jauch! (He’s one of the Wisconsin Fab 14…take care of him in the Land of Lincoln you kind folks!)
http://thewheelerreport.com/releases/March11/0308/0308jauch.pdf
benintn
But but … how can you have ANY journalistic integrity if you don’t present both sides of the story? Like Wolf Blitzer – now that guy is a journalist.
Chris
@mds:
If I were in Israeli politics, I’d be laughing all the way to the bank with that one.
People like Hagee want to give me a complete get-out-of-jail-free card for anything and everything my country does, and finance 10% of my economy with foreign aid, and sell me all of their most advanced weapons, and always put me ahead of any other allies in the region no matter how much it harms their interest? And all I have to do in exchange is sit tight and wait for a mythical event that’s never going to happen anyway? Is this a trick question?
Donald Douglas
Linked: ‘Cantor Rips National Public Radio: “Taxpayer Dollars Should No Longer Be Appropriated to NPR”‘.
mds
Yes, because one tiny problem is, the Hagee / LaHaye timeline involves a massive multilateral attack on Israel immediately prior to the Rapture and the beginning of End Times: the Tribulating. This apparently irresistible attack will be miraculously thwarted by the Almighty. And they believe that it’s A-OK for US foreign policy to help provoke this attack. So if I were in Israeli politics, I’d be a little wary of gladhanding people who are eager to incite a massive military attack on Israel, unless I were certain about the divine intervention, too.
Chris
@mds:
… that part I don’t recall. Yes, that does cast a shadow on the whole thing…
A L
I throw this kind of crap in the face of Tea Partiers re: the now increasingly obvious racism flowing through the movement, and they respond with shrugs or “It’s not us, we’re not racist!” There’s a fundamental disconnect going on through the people who actually aren’t racist that the likes that showed up at Orange County the other night are by association making them look like cretins, and when called on it, they refuse to do anything about it.
The worst aspect of all of this is that the Tea Party infection is not just confined to the usual Bible-thumping areas of the country. And now that the budget isn’t getting any traction among the general populace, expect the GOP to keep ramping this crap up even moreso than usual.
For the first time in a while I’m getting legit concerned that Oklahoma City II is imminent.
ColleenSTL
Of course the chief wingnut is from Texas… surprise! Sign the petition!
jwest
After listening to the tape, I found it incredible that Schiller would lie to the would-be donors about republicans lacking education. Perhaps this is a typical NPR fundraising tactic, but it’s unethical.
Even the most remote Bedouins and members of the Muslim Brotherhood know that more educated people vote republican than democrat. The statistics are very easy to find:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2750401/presidential_politics_more_educated_pg3.html?cat=7
Perhaps Schiller was conflating the truth somewhat to cover up for the fact that democrat voters are a conglomeration with a large percentage never having completed high school. Although there is a segment of post-graduate level adults who vote overwhelmingly democrat, this is attributed to their dependence on public funds.
Ash Can
@Stooleo #76: I’d feel sorry for these guys except that they insist upon making so many other people besides themselves miserable. It’s fucked up beyond all comprehension.
@martha #79: Hats off to the state legislator who comes right out and says Walker’s lying. Bravo. And my offer of free beer at my house for all on-the-lam WI state senators still stands. :)
Sir Nose'D
@Svensker: Well, you got me there!
soonergrunt
@Donald Douglas: Oh, look, everybody, community college Assistant Associate Professor Donald Douglas has come by. A legend in his own pants, Dougie is.
I thought I recognized a foul stench, but that might simply be the wind shifting over the base sewage treatment plant across the way.
someguy
The references to the Muslim Brotherhood were straight race baiting to play to the teabaggers, nothing more. What was Schiller supposed to do, exercise NPR Executive Arrast Power on the criminal fraud O’Keefe’s buddies? Not like it matters anyhow, the MB is non-violent.
Chyron HR
@jwest:
How elitist of you.
ed drone
I, too, wondered why they didn’t take the check, find out it’s bogus, and arrest the son of a bitch muy pronto. The fooferaw from that would out-weigh the “Tea Party is racist” problem anyway.
Ed
singfoom
@jwest: Seriously?
A)That link is to a community sourced “study”. I can put a website with a “study” as well that comes to whatever conclusions I want.
B)This is discourse? “Nah nah, my tribe is smarter than your tribe and your tribe is dumb?”
Grow the fuck up.
Mnemosyne
Is it just me, or has the current run of Islamophobia turned into the new “satanic abuse” circuit for grifters? First I saw this story on Washington Monthly where it sounds like cops are being sent to “counterterrorism” seminars not much different than the “satanic abuse” seminars they used to be sent to. Now we have people like Brigitte Gabriel, who remind me of Mike Warnke and his ilk, selling their stories about the horrors of Islam the same way they sold stories about the horrors of Satan worshippers in the 1990s.
jwest
Singfoom,
That study is good enough to keep you up all night trying to find some opposing research to link to. Until then, you’re just another liberal with an unsupported opinion.
MattR
FYWP!! It will not let me post today.
Elizabelle
Haven’t read the thread, BUT
NPR is a public service that should be publicly funded. It’s often the only source of reliable, long format news you can find on the radio dial.
That said, I’m concerned that dependence on public funding is causing timidity in its reporting. It’s still got to answer to mammon, and in this case it’s endangered by conservative ideologues with razor thin skins.
Is there any way to get around this? Another source of community-based funding?
Why do we have to pretend that the Tea Party is comprised solely fiscally responsible patriots, and overlook the freak show it includes?
Not a fig leaf big enough.
This latest “gotcha” is just one too many.
MattR
@MattR: Unbelievable. It lets that through but not any comment about how I am looking forward to m_c’s replies to jwest.
hummbumm
#73. Aoun is aligned with Hizbullah, though my take is he is the token christian in their camp. He wants to be president. The vast majority of the christians in lebanon are with the March 14 crowd which came together post the hariri assassination, including the patriarch etc… However christians are obviously leery as they really don’t want to be stuck in the middle of a sunni-shiite feud. Christians have emigrated in greater numbers so their demographic share is shrinking which is another problem. Interestingly, reincarnated as a moderate and one of the leaders of the March 14th group is Samir Geagea, the head of the lebanese forces who has as ton of blood on his hands (sabra shatilla etc..). Aoun has tons of blood on his hand with his ludicrous war of liberation that destroyed half the country. Of course Jumblatt, the head of the druze waffles bakc and forth between both sides and has blood on his hand. Hariri is the only person who does not have blood on his hands, namely becuase the father was busy making billions in Saudi during the war. So there you have it, now you know why me and my whole family live in the States. Of course my mother is American so I am a “natural” born citizen, but don’t worry I don’t plan on running for office.
Mnemosyne
@jwest:
Or, you know, 30 seconds. You really need to learn how to use the Google if it takes you all night to find things.
ETA: Here’s another link for you. Really, you’ve got to join the 21st century and learn how to use these newfangled computer thingys.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@MattR: No m_c today, dog.
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/03/08/no-way-someone-thinks-republicans-are-nuts/#comment-2464809
cleek
@singfoom:
if the study is to be believed, it proves that Republicans are more average than Democrats (since Dems get more HS dropouts and more people with advanced degrees).
singfoom
@jwest: Unless it’s peer reviewed, it’s not science, and if it’s not science, it’s opinion. So yeah, I won’t take any time looking for something to refute that.
IOKIYAR in action.
Regardless of the poor content of that study, your point is still meaningless. Exactly what is gained by either side, whether it be liberals or conservatives by saying “nyah nyah, we’re more educated so there….”
I might believe it if I saw Conservatives actually dealing with problems rather than trying to get re-elected based on the politics of resentment.
You might not want to go around all high and mighty when you throw absolute bullshit like this out there:
You got some evidence for that flaming pile of shit? You might just be a conservative with a completely unsupported opinion…
Shocking.
MattR
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Thanks. Missed that (and that might explain why WordPress was eating my comments with her full handle in it)
Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.
jwest
Mnemosyne,
You do realize that the link you provided to the Quantum Pontiff demonstrates my point, don’t you? Go to the fifth comment down on that link for a simple summary of the chart.
Thank you for backing me up.
The other link you provided doesn’t have anything to do with the subject.
Mark D
Well, everyone, jwest has us!
After all, the info he/she posted is on Associated Content, and there’s no better site to find unbiased, well-researched, and factual information than that place!
/snark
Also, too: Funny that the group that always calls liberals pointy-headed, over-educated elites is now going around trying to prove it’s the party of educated people.
You can’t have it both ways, fuckhole. You’re either Real Americans who don’t need no book learnin’, or the party of the educated elites who know better than everyone else. Pick one.
Granted, given your party’s disdain for things like science, stats, and reality, it seems as though most on the right have already made the choice, but still …
djheru
@Violet: Limbaugh knows that he’s more popular and powerful when Dems are in power. What better way to make sure his gravy train doesn’t get derailed than putting Sarah up as the nominee?
Tonal Crow
Why would the Tealiban dislike the Taliban? Both:
1. Hate gays and would torture them to death if they could;
2. Argue that the state should be based upon their religion, as interpreted by them;
3. Want to subjugate women;
4. Advocate summary criminal procedure and very harsh criminal penalties;
5. Hate science but like its products;
6. Love guns; and
7. Hate and fear love-guns.
Really, it seems like Tealiban and Taliban should get along famously.
Oh, that’s right:
— Masterdevil Screwtape, from C.S. Lewis, “The Screwtape Letters”
Chris- The Fold
I’d be obliged if you checked out the list of 5 things you must say to win a Republican primary.
Mnemosyne
@jwest:
Now you’re going to add your inability to read charts to your already embarrassing performance?
Really, you should quit now rather than continue to make a fool of yourself.
jwest
Singfoom,
“Unless it’s peer reviewed, it’s not science…”
I don’t believe I’ve received this much support on Balloon Juice ever! Thanks. Of course you are correct, which is why conservatives keep pressuring Michael Mann and Phil Jones to release the base data they destroyed or hid concerning the “hockey stick” chart that purports to show global warming.
Junk science is not science at all.
jwest
Mark D,
Speaking of having it both ways, are republicans toothless hicks or greedy rich masters of the universe?
Dennis SGMM
@Elizabelle:
I did read the thread. I’m coming around to the notion that I’d rather kip in a bit more than I do now to have NPR cut the apron strings. Sooner or later we’ll again have a Republican president and Republican majorities in Congress. Now that the R’s are scaling the dizzy heights of wingnuttery I’d prefer that the gov’s influence over NPR ceased before NPR becomes even more neutered than it is.
cleek
the troll is getting fatter and fatter
jl
@jwest: Whatever. The apparently non peer reviewed, self published, poorly documented study you cited is not convincing.
One problem is that it is an ecological study, that is, it finds correlations between aggregate statistics describing groups and then makes an inference about the individuals in those groups. This is OK in some cases, but one case where it is in general not OK, is when you are talking about correlations between proportions of people in populations.
Ecological studies of this type have gotten very mixed and contradictory results about education and party identification.
The studies that other commenters linked to that use data on individuals are far more reliable.
The second link at comment 101 above is from a Gallup poll, and also shows that the relationship between education and party ID has been changing, so it is a moving target.
The Wikipedia article on the Democratic Party has a good summary of the relationship between social class, income and education and identification with the Democratic Party. Though, check the references in each section and follow those for more reliable sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Party_%28United_States%29
The Democratic Party has significant support from the most and least educated classes in the US. Hightly educated voters are increasingly supporting the Democratic Party.
There is another issue, which is the role of education in reducing any party identification at all, which results in more educated people becoming independents. I don’t have time to search for anything on that now, but I think the consensus is that independents are more likely to have post HS education.
singfoom
@jwest: Strawman troll uses strawmen. I have no desire to engage you on climate science. You want to concern troll climate scientists, go do elsewhere.
You do not actually respond to anything I’ve brought up, over several comments.
Good day to you troll, may you die in a fire started by your own strawmen.
jl
I am not an angry liberal, and like to see some trolls fat from being stuffed full of info that contradicts their hobby horse of the moment. I also will leave this troll alone on climate change. Unless the troll makes a donation to the blog at the Paypal button.
soonergrunt
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): Damnit!
How come all the cool stuff happens when I’m busy?
Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason (formerly frosty)
@jwest: OK, here’s everything I need to know about jwest:
That’s Democratic with a capital D and an ic. Jeebus, you’d think you guys would figure out a new way to slam the opposition party. You’re repeating crap that’s been going on since Tom Dewey and Joe McCarthy, schmuck.
Or, in the words of Chris Matthews to Darrell Issa:
Tonal Crow
And your evidence for this defamatory charge is?
Which is why the denialist community’s rantings are not science, but politics in paper-mache “scientific” drag.
Tonal Crow
@Dennis SGMM: I’d contribute $1000/year to an independent NPR, and put it in my will.
soonergrunt
@jwest: You need to work on your reading comprehension if you think that post remotely supports your earlier claim. Which situation would fit, because as a conservative* you are one dumb motherfucker.
*five will get you ten that he copy/pastes this 4-syllable word every time he has to use it.
Mnemosyne
@Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason (formerly frosty):
Because Republicans have the emotional maturity of 13-year-olds. We keep hoping that someday they will act like adults, but that hope grows fainter every year.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@soonergrunt: I don’t know if it happened on that thread or was the result of the mclaren/m_c clash of the titans last night.
Cole is kinda bummed out, maybe he thought it would lift his spirits?
Villago Delenda Est
You know the scene where William Shatner (as Captain Kirk) kicks Christopher Lloyd (as Captain Kruge) in the face while saying “I…have had..enough…of YOU!” and in doing so Kruge loses his grip and falls into a firey chasm?
That’s what should happen to Tucker Carlson.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@soonergrunt: “con-serv-a-tive” or “moth-er-fuck-er?”
soonergrunt
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel):
mclaren/m_c–what’s the over/under on them being the same person with different lithium titres?
soonergrunt
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): As my grandmother used to say, “six of one, half a dozen of the other…”
jwest
Jl,
You make some good points. I have to agree completely that the democrat party owns that portion of the population that is uneducated, the functional illiterates and lower percentile IQs. On the other end of the scale, democrats attract those with post-graduate degrees with positions in education, government and publicly funded professions.
The dependence on government seems to be the common factor.
Bubblegum Tate
@A L:
Just like how, as Matt Taibbi found, they are ALL that mythical Republican who protested Bush’s spending. Uh-huh.
@djheru:
Now that’s a pretty solid theory–especially seeing as how he can go on autopilot for months after Sarah loses, blathering about how she was “slandered” and “victimized” and liberal nazis blah blah blah. That’s win-win for him.
Villago Delenda Est
Ah, the tell that the idiot is too stupid to realize he’s given us.
DIAF, Rethug twit.
Mark D
@jwest: The GOP is a bunch of dumb hicks controlled by wealthy masters of the universe.
That’s how they convince a bunch of people who just got a tax cut that their taxes have been raised … or a bunch of Christians that they should deny access to health care to their fellow citizens … or that every Muslim is out to kill us … or that cutting taxes for the wealthiest 1% will magically result in everyone having more money … or that poor people caused the financial crisis … or that Medicare isn’t a government program … or …
Well, I’d type “You get the point,” but I’m not sure you’d get the point if it were repeatedly jabbed into your eyeballs for the next year and a half.
I’m done with you, as you are failing to amuse me as most trolls do (which says a lot more about your lack of game than it does my boredom).
Makewi
It is racist to investigate radical Islamists within the borders of the United States as:
1) There is no such thing as radical Islam
2) There are no radicalized Islamists in the US
3) Radical Islamists do not commit acts of violence
Omnes Omnibus
@MattR: She has been given more time in the penalty box.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
So you agree with Ms. Gabriel’s statement that:
You must live in a small, frightened world if you really believe the CIA is being run by radical Islamists.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
Weak. An inability to address what I did say causes you to pretend agreement with the words of another.
How sad.
Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)
@soonergrunt: They might both be DougJ too. Hell, it might all be DougJ except for me and thee.
Omnes Omnibus
@Makewi: Polar bears are dangerous as they have been known to hunt humans for food. We should investigate whether polar bears are infiltrating the government.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Please point out the differences between your insane paranoia that Muslims are coming to kill us all and Ms. Gabriel’s insane paranoia that Muslims are coming to kill us all. It’s pretty difficult for those of us who don’t actually view every single Muslim as a terrorist to understand where your insane paranoia comes from. Is it because you don’t yet think they’ve infiltrated the CIA, but they’re still waiting around every corner to kill you?
singfoom
@Makewi:
1) There is no such thing as radical Islam – There is such a thing.
2) There are no radicalized Islamists in the US – There might be.
3) Radical Islamists do not commit acts of violence – They do commit acts of violence.
It’s the automatic conclusion that Muslim = terrorist that is racist. While some members of a community may become radicalized and commit acts of violence, the entire community is not radical.
In fact, moderate Muslims should be well regarded and well treated by us as a protection against radicalization.
However, there seems to be an attempt to make that non-logical leap that Muslim = terrorist OR Muslim = Possible terrorist.
The crowd yelling “Go Home” and all other kinds of hate at the Muslim meeting the other week are fucking racists. I don’t care what they’re afraid of, they’ve demonized an entire community, hell an entire religion…
Mark D
@Makewi:
Strawman Troll is building strawmen.
Makewi
@Omnes Omnibus:
No no, quite right. I much prefer your version of never discussing anything which the right sort has determined to be “off limits”. Not that I’m accusing you of being a mindless follower or anything. Or making ridiculous comparisons because you lack the basic abilities required to argue a position.
Interesting how you have made the super smart mental leap that the hearings involve determining whether their has been government infiltration. Way to have a grasp on the basic facts of the issue.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
Seriously, you are too stupid to talk to. You can’t even argue against MY words. I give you points for being a foot soldier in using straw arguments to advance the received wisdom though. You go big thinker.
Makewi
@singfoom:
Interestingly enough, the only one making the argument that muslim = terrorist is you. Perhaps because you lack the basic requirements to understand the issue you seek to discuss.
I will give you that once you have decided on a false premise to argue you can put forth a good deal of words in it’s support.
Sadly you might as well not bother since it’s all a fantasy you have built in your head in order to pretend that you are arguing for the cause.
Mark D
@singfoom: C’mon, singfoam. This clown isn’t interested in actual debate.
He’s the type of troll who, after seeing factual information that paints conservatives in a bad light, decides to yank out of his ass something no liberal has ever said or believed.
That way they can pull the “Well, your side is/said/does X” rebuttal usually reserved for an elementary school playground, and whether or not it’s true or even makes any sense.
I guess they’ve decided that reality is too liberal and, thus, have decided to construct a fantasy land in which liberals are the real fascists, every Muslim is a terrorist out to kill us all, tax cuts for the top 1% make us all rich, and any plan to help the less fortunate is a plot to control our lives.
It’s a pathetic and sad world, but the one they’ve created for themselves.
Mark D
@Makewi:
Irony: You’re soaking in it!
singfoom
@Mark D: Yeah, I didn’t notice the trollery.
@Makewi: Go eat a flaming bag of dicks.
Makewi
@Mark D:
Ostrich.
Omnes Omnibus
@Makewi: How about expanding the hearings to see whether the bears are coming to kill us all. I wanted a limited scope originally because of the budget issues, but, hell, I am liberal, so lets go big or go home. “Are you now or have you ever been a bear?” We can’t ask the military though.
Makewi
Typical Balloon Juice commentary. When called out on a basic inability to argue a position, ignore it and pretend you win!
Argue against any position so long as it is not the one being presented. Genius winners the lot of you.
El Cid
The strongest factors determining voting patterns for Republicans are if the race is white, the gender is male, and church attendance is high.
Working class white males vote Republican quite strongly. Working class non-whites vote very strongly Democratic. Race can be connected to interesting contexts — for example, the percentage of white votes for Obama goes down as the percentage of non-whites in the county increases. Or when the state is covered by the monitoring in the Voting Rights Act. (PDF)
Region is a large factor, too, with white Southerners overwhelmingly Republican voters, but the difference between other variables and regions of the country is shrinking.
Regarding the correlation between post-graduate education and voting Democrat, it’s not as some idiot would bark about about ‘gubmit subsidy’, but because in wealthier states whites vote for Democrats in higher percentages and you find more post-graduates in wealthier states.
The most heavily gubmit subsidized states being, of course, overwhelmingly Republican Southern and Western states. And the fewest post-graduates needed in such weaker, subsidized economies, and the fewer produced by their weaker, smaller university systems.
Makewi
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m glad you are sticking with this. Have you paid Colbert his royalty for doing your thinking?
Omnes Omnibus
@Makewi: Are you in favor of investigating violent, extremist right-wing groups? So that we can be safe?
ETA: Or would you prefer to investigate Muslims?
Makewi
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m curious what one thing has to do with the other? Are you suggesting that all possible threats must be investigated at the same time in order to, what, create some insane semblance of balance?
Perhaps you just want to continuously try to change the subject back to one in your comfort zone.
Omnes Omnibus
@Makewi: I am just asking a question. Some people say that right-wing, violent extremists are a danger and I just want to know what you think of investigating this pressing threat. I mean, it is out there in the public discourse.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Your words are that Islamist radicals exist and they have sometimes killed people. Well, no shit, Sherlock. We’d better stop the presses to get that newsflash out to the people of America, because I’m sure none of them have heard it yet.
Here, let’s continue with your “logic”:
Serial killers exist, and they have sometimes killed people.
White supremacists exist, and they have sometimes killed people.
Serial killers and white supremacists are, overwhelmingly, white men between 20 and 40 years old.
Therefore, we need to make sure we keep tabs on all white men between 20 and 40 years old at all times to make sure they’re not serial killers or white supremacists.
Of course, that would be silly, because the vast majority of white men are neither serial killers nor white supremacists. We should probably just keep an eye on the ones who are actually doing suspicious things rather than lumping all white men into a single group and claiming they’re all equally dangerous.
But, please, continue to explain to us that your logic about radical Muslims and my logic about white male serial killers is totally different because arglebargle Islamofascism!
opie_jeanne
@Violet: I think he’s just trying to get into her pants.
Makewi
@Mnemosyne:
As it happens, I am not the one making the leap from radicalized Islamists being a threat to ALL muslims being a threat. But do continue to pretend otherwise.
Seriously, this is much like the inability to differentiate between illegal immigration and all immigration.
soonergrunt
I had noted a foul stench earlier, and almost immediately aftwerwards Makewi shows up. Coincidence? I think not.
Hmmm. Donald Douglas is Makewi.
Not so much with the tactical elan for which he fancies himself.
Fuzz
The problem with this woman is that she has a lot of ties to the SLA from back during the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and she never discloses it, and the articles about her rarely mention it. When you are affiliated with an army that was formed by Israeli soldiers deployed to southern Lebanon, the leaders of which were almost entirely Christian, with the express purpose of fighting the locals, that may cause some problems with the Muslims in that area. Also, fwiw, the SLA had a horrific record of prisoner abuse, including gouging out captured Hezbollah foot soldiers’ eyes. They were so ruthless they made a terrorist group that mainstreamed suicide bombings look tame by comparison.
It’s like the journalist Michael Totten, for years he wrote about Lebanon and claimed he was an independent journalist working on donations and his own money, when in reality he was there being paid by pro-Israel groups to write articles about Hezbollah.
opie_jeanne
@jwest: Better trolling needed. That article was based on one single district.
El Cid
@jwest:
soonergrunt
@Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel): There’s a thought, but once he decamps to Boboland, it’s going to get pretty boring for you around here.
DPirate
Meanwhile, yet another Israeli shill denounces Islam on CNN…
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Really? Because this is what you said:
So your claim is that liberals oppose investigating Muslims with ties to violent radical groups because, uh, because shut up, that’s why?
Yes, we’re all just so stupid for not understanding your brilliant argumentation skills, aren’t we? Don’t worry, I’m sure your mommy will pat you on the head and tell you those kids on Balloon Juice are just being mean and you’re way smarter than they are.
Perhaps you should learn to formulate an actual argument rather than stomping around pouting about how we hurt your feelings. Contrary to a belief common among conservatives, stating your emotional reaction to something is not actually a fact-based argument.
bob h
What I see on the TV every night are Muslims exhibiting incredible courage as they fight for the rights we hold so dear. Isn’t Muslim extremism really yesterday’s story?