One immigrant rights activist going by the name of Robert Erickson even tricked the anti-immigrant rally organizers into letting him speak at their rally. He began his speech with what sounded like the usual hateful anti-immigrant message. But as he continued, it became clear he was not criticizing Latin American immigrants coming across the Mexican border. Instead he was condemning the European colonizers who came here starting 500 years ago and stole the land from Native Americans while committing genocide against them. At first the anti-immigrant crowd cheered for him until they slowly realized he was not giving their message. Then they fell into silent confusion, as immigrant rights protesters shouted their approval.

“Is Christianity and banking compatible? Yes,” he said in an interview after the speech in the 283-year-old church. “And is Christianity and fair reward compatible? Yes.”

Senate Resolution 311, introduced by Senator Dick Lugar, would direct U.S.T.R. Ron Kirk to negotiate a free trade agreement with the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN).

HATCH: A step-by-step approach to socialized medicine. And if they get there, of course, you’re going to have a very rough time having a two-party system in this country, because almost everybody’s going to say, “All we ever were, all we ever are, all we ever hope to be depends on the Democratic Party.”

Last week, Vice President Dick Cheney attacked President Obama, saying he is “afraid to make a decision” on the war in Afghanistan and that he’s “dithering.” A number of conservatives, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and columnist George Will, disagreed with Cheney’s language. “I would never want to call my president ‘dithering,’” Hatch said.

The self-identifying conservative Republicans who make up the base of the Republican Party stand a world apart from the rest of America, according to focus groups conducted by Democracy Corps. These base Republican voters dislike Barack Obama to be sure – which is not very surprising as base Democrats had few positive things to say about George Bush – but these voters identify themselves as part of a ‘mocked’ minority with a set of shared beliefs and knowledge, and commitment to oppose Obama that sets them apart from the majority in the country. They believe Obama is ruthlessly advancing a ‘secret agenda’ to bankrupt the United States and dramatically expand government control to an extent nothing short of socialism. They overwhelmingly view a successful Obama presidency as the destruction of this country’s founding principles and are committed to seeing the president fail.

"You were born a Christian, not born gay. Religion is not a choice."

"Barack Hussein Obama has not yet proven he was born on this planet," said Minnesota Rep Michele Bachmann, "and without an earth birth certificate, he is not eligible for the prize." By R J Shulman 10 Oct 2009 Upon the news of the surprise announcement that President Barack Obama won this year's Nobel Peace Prize, Republicans began protesting like a mad tea party on steroids. "We need to begin a full scale investigation of how ACORN illegally helped Obama win," said House Minority Leader John Boehner. "We have to call a spade a spade and start calling him Obamacorn from now on," said Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell. (Satire)

By R J Shulman 05 Oct 2009 The Post Times Sun Dispatch has obtained a copy of the original manuscript of Sarah Palin's book, 'Going Rouge: An American Life.' The manuscript, originally titled, 'You Betcha I'm Qualified: How a Failed Weather Girl Almost Got Her Revenge,' apparently went through a major rewrite at the insistence of her publisher, HarperCollins. However, here are unedited selections from the original 'You Betcha' version... 'Times have changed in what is important in educating our youth. The traditional three Rs -- reading, writing and the other one -- are not enough. Now it's the three G's -- God, guns and gays.' (Satire)

As head of the Texas Nationalist Movement, Daniel Miller of Nederland believes it’s time for the Lone Star State to sever its bond with the United States and return to the days when Texas was an independent republic. "Independence. In our lifetime," Miller’s organization proclaims on its Web site. When Gov. Rick Perry suggested that some Texans might want to secede from the Union because they are fed up with the federal government, the remarks drew nationwide news coverage and became fodder for late-night comedians. But to Texas separatists like Miller and Republican gubernatorial candidate Larry Kilgore of Mansfield, secession is no laughing matter. Nor is it exclusive to the nation’s second-largest state. Fanned by angry contempt for Washington, secession movements have sprouted up in perhaps more than a dozen states in recent years. In Vermont, retired economics professor Thomas Naylor leads the Second Vermont Republic, a self-styled citizens network dedicated to extracting the sparsely populated New England state from "the American Empire." And on the other side of the continent, Northwestern separatists envision a "Republic of Cascadia" carved out of Oregon, Washington and the Canadian province of British Columbia. While most Americans dismiss the breakaway sentiments, sociologists and political experts say they are part of a larger anti-Washington wave that is rapidly spreading across the country.

Republicans from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence say that they will no longer participate in an investigation into the Bush administration's interrogation policies, arguing that they were all for investigations until Attorney General Eric Holder outrageously called for investigations. Investigations are one thing, but investigations are another matter entirely, a discombobulated Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO) told the Washington Post. "Had Mr. Holder honored the pledge made by the President to look forward, not backwards, we would still be active participants in the Committee's review." We'd be investigating right now if it wasn't for all this business about investigating! Someone, fetch me the Tylenol, or at least explain to the sophomoric Mr. Bond, a man who refers to CIA agents accused of torture as "terror fighters," that investigations inherently mean looking back at evidence, and cannot solely entail looking forward. "Looking forward" is a euphemism for covering up past crimes. Really, what are the limits of this hapless quest for bipartisanship? There has to be a point where the Democrats accept that they are the adults in the room, and move forward with their promises of reform and accountability. [Note: Licensed lunacy?]

TGL has been following the devolution of political discourse into fear-mongering and apparent race-baiting since Van Jones, the former adviser to the Council on Environmental Quality, first got entangled in it. Like many commentators, this blogger has felt that the level of disrespect shown for Obama, and indeed the office of the president, of late was fueled by racism. At least as far as Rush Limbaugh goes, the nagging question has been answered. In Obama's America, the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering, 'Yay, right on, right on, right on, right on.' I wonder if Obama's going to come to come to the defense of the assailants the way he did his friend Skip Gates up there at Harvard... Frankly, it's hard to make sense of Limbaugh's rant, but in what appears to be a continued attempt by the right to redefine racism as blacks' alleged hatred of whites, with what appeared to be sarcasm, Limbaugh made reference to how racism should be socially acceptable because (according to a study cited in Newsweek), it's inborn like homosexuality. [Note: This is an example of the poverty in leadership in this country...Rush Limbaugh, a stupid, stupid man who is trying to incite racism once again. Sorry Rush, we have more intelligent people out there than that today, even if you cannot find it on your side of the aisle.]

One of the strangest figures in the universe of Barack Obama conspiracy theories is Lawrence Sinclair, a 47-year old man with a long criminal record who, as Ben Smith notes, has made “outlandish allegations … that began with sex and drugs and moved on to murder.” It’s not worth repeating the allegations that Sinclair made in a January 2008 YouTube video, now deleted, but they have made the cover of multiple editions of the Globe tabloid and been turned into a self-published book with the libel-dodging title “Barack Obama & Larry Sinclair: Cocaine, Sex, Lies & Murder?” It’s hard to overstate how strange Sinclair’s campaign has been. He held a June 2008 event at the National Press Club after which he was arrested on an outstanding Delaware warrant. He has uploaded videos of himself eating in undisclosed locations and singing “America, the Beautiful.” In an old, now-deleted YouTube account, he uploaded phone calls he’d made to the DNC, the Obama campaign, and even Obama’s grandmother in Hawaii.The punchline? He’s taking on Orly Taitz and accusing her of trying to give false testimony for one of her “birther” lawsuits.

"Technology, the competition, and the times have passed him"

Birthers Want to See Obama's Penis By Kay Steiger 25 Aug 2009 Birthers have now decided that what makes a person a true, blue, red-blooded American is not the color of your complexion but how much foreskin you have. Commenters (and circumcised Americans) over at Free Republic struck on a revelation yesterday: if Barack Obama has not been circumcised, then he must not have been born in the United States. Why? Because all of their boys were circumcised. [We all know Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are dying to see it, even if they weren't birthers.]

By R J Shulman 06 Sep 2009 After a week of expressing outrage that President Barack Obama planned to speak to American school children, in an attempt to build an Obama Youth Corp in the model of Hitler Youth, Republicans have expanded this campaign to stop Obama's speeches altogether. "No American should have to listen socialized fascist propaganda if they don't want to," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. "Of course, it's too late for the traitorous liberal Democrat socialists, but what about the true patriot who is in a car when his dial breaks and he is forced to listen to that Communist Nazi?" (Satire)

In the aftermath of the Lucero murder, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) sent a Spanish-speaking researcher to Suffolk County to interview Latino residents, both documented and undocumented, over a period of months. What SPLC found was frightening. The Lucero murder, while the worst of the violence so far, was hardly an isolated incident. Latino immigrants in Suffolk County are regularly harassed, taunted, and pelted with objects hurled from cars. They are frequently run off the road while riding bicycles, and many report being beaten with baseball bats and other objects. Others have been shot with BB guns or pepper-sprayed. Most will not walk alone after dark; parents often refuse to let their children play outside. A few have been the targets of arson attacks and worse.

In a recent radio interview, Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) made the seemingly-innocuous statement that the federal highway system, as well as federal laws ensuring safe drugs and safe airplanes, are constitutional. Nevertheless, Shea-Porter is now under attack by “tenther” activists who believe that virtually everything the federal government does is unconstitutional:

There was a time when the worst political rhetoric was reserved for the internet forums. There is a segment of society, those who have the lowest acumen for political discourse, and the most appetite for it, will troll every political sight and offer such dignified debate as "Commie." That’s OK though, because you know what they are, ignorant wannabes who have the capacity to learn of an oxygenated gerbil. They’ll believe anything ugly they want to and spew it back with all the force of knowledge they can muster, yet without the slightest realization they are ignorant. As long as they stay where they are it’s easy enough to click "ignore" and simply avoid their spewing rants. Still there was something there was a tendency to retain civility in person. Since Obama was running the hate gradually became "acceptable" in public, and now it’s shamelessly exhibited publically, with utter disdain for anything like knowledge, sense or good taste.

The Obama administration is not only maintaining the Bush administration’s policies, which seek to promote confrontation with the progressive bloc of Latin American nations, but is actually hearkening back to the past imperialistic policies of the administration of Richard Nixon. During the Nixon administration, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was also national security adviser, oversaw the bloody overthrow of Chilean Socialist President Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973 (which in Chile is a much more important “9/11” than what occurred in the United States in 2001 -- although both can be considered rightist putsch coups d’etat). After penning an agreement with Colombia’s narco-fascist government that will see the establishment of seven new U.S. air and naval bases in Colombia, the Obama administration now stands ready to see the election of a right-wing candidate to succeed Chilean Socialist President Michelle Bachelet in December’s presidential election. [see add'l excerpts in comments section...]