Some semblance of sanity is knocking on WashDC’s door~~!

No wonder the thugs are screamin’!
Great post, BT.
You’re in fast competition as my fav FDL poster.
s

Michele Bachmann. The gift that keeps on giving, as they say. Out of her mouth tumbles unending garbage. Think Meghan in “The Exorcist.”

AND!
Could everyone please go HERE and have a say???
FDLer’s are the sharpest pencils on the web. This group needs us NOW!
thx

jail time for Carrie Prejean.

I’ll betcha she’s not related to this stellar woman.

Great writing, BT. I suspect that Boehner throws up because he drinks too much. Just my thought.

Boehner is absolutely correct that we should only prosecute people for what they do and we should ignore what they think.

This is why Boehner and I do not buy the idea that the torturers shouldn’t be prosecuted because of what they thought; all that matters is what they did.

siri, could be wrong, but this looks like a really old site.

Unfortunately, I live in Virginia Foxx’s district. Called her office today and instead of the usual defensive wordplay her staff has fed me in the past, today they are actually acknowledging her remarks on the floor were a mistake and said she has apologized for them. When asked to whom and where she made her apology, they couldn’t say. Of course, McHenry is the rep in my neighboring district – man, I’m so sick of the idiocy.

Pretty good stretch comparing torture to crimes motivated by prejudice. Could you provide an analysis comparing acts of torture to the murder of Emmett Till?

I got an e-mail from them this morning. They are putting together a PAC to run ads and such against Bachmann.

Yet the bill only applies if the individuals ACT upon their beliefs. And there are already large sets of “special groups” protected by law. My understanding is that Congressmen and elected officials have “special protections” from those that might have “beliefs” about targetting THEM (assassination). We don’t give the same sentence in that case, we take into account the MOTIVES of the individual.

In fact, the wingnuts do this on a regular basis when they start screaming about terrorism. They justify torture on the basis of what “those people think”…rather than what they are actually convicted for in Court. And it’s rarely the act itself that is their major concern…it’s the ideology. After all, look at how they never compare the murderer of an abortion clinic doctor to someone sitting in Gitmo, who was only a chauffeur.

So Boehner, Bachmann, and others apparently benefit from a “special class” law. So do military and law enforcement officials (although perhaps Bachmann would want those laws removed in the case of “jack-booted thugs”).

But when it comes to protecting hospital workers, or gays, or blacks, or Muslims, or Sikh’s (if someone thinks they are Muslim) these wing nuts freak out! And they then throw in a whole set of amendments to EXCLUDE other groups that might fall into the criteria established by the law.

So rather than be INCLUSIVE, they actually are EXCLUSIVE.

Furthermore, look at how many of these folks use the “state of mind” to justify right-wing actions. Scooter Libby’s outing of Natalie Plame…justified because it was “in defense” of Bush. Cheney’s and Yoo’s torture approvals…because they “feared” al Qaida MIGHT attack again, and “thought” that the detainees MIGHT have knowledge of a plot.

“Thought” (not evidence) justifies the deed, no matter how heinous.

i dunno, but just got an email today asking me to go there and participate.
which i did.
old or no, i LIKE THEM!

Twain at 5 — well, as unfair as it is to stereotype folks on their looks, as a former problem drinker, I’ve often felt that Boner and I were kinfolk in terms of boozing abuse. He’s got that look, imho, the same one I used to sport. Just sayin’…..

I suspect that Boehner throws up because he drinks too much.

or it could just be part of that new republican “purging” plan….

Michele Bachman on the House floor…

I think it also, we could say, denies equal protection under the law. If you have an individual going through a crosswalk and a person is in their car and they hit that person in the crosswalk, it is up to the person who is hit to file the charge if it was a hate crime or not. So if the person is gay, and that is the status that is being protected, and the person driving the car is straight, would it be a hate crime if the person driving the car who is straight hit the person who is gay in the crosswalk? So does it say, then, that that life that was hit in the crosswalk is more valuable because it was a gay life versus if the person who was in the car, who is gay, who hits the person in the crosswalk, who is straight, does that mean that the straight person in the crosswalk doesn’t have a cause of action against the person who is gay who is driving that car? It raises the question of whose life is valuable and whose isn’t.

Got that?

Yep. I recognize the look, too. Had many of those in my family.

Would you like this analysis to be tongue in cheek, like my first post?

You mean Reagan, right?

I thought it was a lovely name for a girl until that out-of-work actor ruined it for me.

Ah, ya forgot the snark tag. Fooled me, obviously. *g*

Isn’t it kind of funny that the Thugs insist that we can’t know what a criminal was thinking for purposes of prosecuting a hate crime, but they know damned well what was going on in Saddam Hussein’s head when they conquered Iraq to “stop” him from possibly embarking on a path that might someday lead to the development of WMDs?

Just sayin’.

The picture scares me. It looks like Walter Pidgeon with a hitler mustache. Not as bad as the idiot from MN.

Just whose idea was it to raise Bachmann’s profile as a Republican spokesperson anyway? She’s quoted somewhere everyday.

The GOP has gone from the party of supposed grownups to what one of Tbogg’s commenters might say is the party of “fucking retarded fucking fucks.”

Both stupid and fruitier than a nutcake…that’s our Bachmann!

The GOP has gone from the party of supposed grownups to what one of Tbogg’s commenters might say is the party of “fucking retarded fucking fucks.”

maybe Michael Steele could work that into a campaign-rap ….

I’ve never really understood the necessity of hate-crimes laws as a means of differentiating degree of insidiousness.

Wouldn’t lumping racism, sexism, etc. into the existing category of pre-meditated adequately do the trick without the political games surrounding making the distinction more explicit?

Wouldn’t lumping racism, sexism, etc. into the existing category of pre-meditated adequately do the trick without the political games surrounding making the distinction more explicit?

Yes.

And I’ve spent entire threads here in the past going on record, all by my lonesome, with my own opposition to this legislation. Unfortunately, I’ve gotta split right now and can’t stick around for the argument this time.

In the past it seems that neither the police nor the courts have taken crimes against gays very seriously. I believe that it’s time that they did and this law closes the gap – IMO. They can’t just brush it off now.

Oh, wow. She’s is part of a video study class I just took at church, Questions of Faith. Helen Prejean! and she is awsome. I think there are clips on utube.

Bachmann certainly has a knack for making statements that go well beyond stupid. I’m still shaking my head over “Hoot-Smauley” from KO yesterday. I don’t think she managed to get any significant detail correct in that spew!

Can they? be prosecuted for what they thought they did and does this include Vitter’s back door action, or stink or whatever?

The right wing talk radio host Brian Sussman in San Francisco at KSFO like to turn this into a “They are coming after the Christians next!” We can’t read from the bible or we will be arrested for Hate Crimes.

As often as we’re supposed to be “coming after the Christians next,” you’d think that at some point we’d actually go after Christians.

I sure hope I didn’t kill the thread because I said the word church.

Ooooh, me. Pick me! I’m right here.
(love you EvilDrPuma)
Just teasing.

Actually, I think it was the word “study.”

Seems like an admission that they are using the bible to propogate hate.

Hmmm…

Democrats are making it illegal to think certain things.

…

Current federal hate-crimes law already covers the use or threat of force based on race, color, religion or national origin.

So where are all the arrests for people thinking racist or bigoted thoughts? Or making racist remarks?

I know, I know, trying to apply logic to wingnut scare tactics is a recipe for a migraine…

Hee hee he.. (whew!)

Yeah, why isn’t Fred Phelps in jail?

Yeah they LOVE to be the victims. What really gets me is that between worrying about someone charging the Christians for hate speech he is talking about how he would torture people (and how waterboarding is not torture.)

I wrote to Mark Sottosanti, Senior Vice President of New Business Initiatives and Marketing, at Provide Commerce the parent of ProFlowers, one of his advertisers, ProFlowers and asked if they were ProTorture because they use Sussman to read their ads. I haven’t heard back from them.

Truly. And, he is the antithisis of Sister Prejean.

I agree and guess what else? It’s even worse when preached live in your face from the pulpit.

Fred Phelps is a swine flu virus in the Christian population. Thank God he doesn’t seem to be spreading rapidly.

And especially when kids are present.

Thanks, you two. Hate crimes legislation is one of a very short list of issues where I part company from my progressive compatriots, on civil liberties grounds.

Gotta pick up miniralphbon from preschool…will finish my thought later.

That’s true too. And, it’s kind to be thankful for the good stuff.
Minute by minute by minute, I keep holding on.

Fortunately, I wasn’t abused by that as a child. I just finished a year underground at an extremely fundamentalist church. Wanted to see what the hell they were thinking. It’s a long story and I’m starting to write a book about it.

reminding everyone that when Ginny Tar Baby Foxx spewed her vicious, hateful shit about Matthew Shepherd yesterday, Matthew’s mother was in the chamber.

pigs!

I think it a pluralistic, multi-cultural society, violent crimes motivated by race/religion/sexual orientation are particularly corrosive to a functioning democracy.

But I understand your point.

No kidding? Talk about your Instant Karma.

!!! Have you seen my comments about just how much I Do Not Like Her?

Foxx? I would have been very surprised if you did like her. I’d be very surprised to read any regular here supporting her and her bushwa-laden diatribes.

One of my gripes is also the concept and use of the term “enemies”. To often people or groups are defined as enemies instead of when we merely have a difference of opinion. This perception then creates barriers to resolution and increases hatreds.

Now, what would you have liked to have seen if that happened? How about Matthews Mother standing up and saying. “Excuse me. I’m Matthew Sheppard’s mother and what you just said is wrong and a lie. I want you right now to correct your statement. Matthew was NOT involved in a robbery. This was not a hoax.”

Now that would be some good Cspan!

Too true. I think the reason we were given the lesson of loving our enemies is that we have to let go of the enemy mentality. And, it was a very interesting year. I did lean a lot and it actually strengthened my personal beliefs. I’ve left and am due back at my home church. The one with the Intellectual and politically correct view, even a pony tail! Ha.

They also like to turn anything into hate speech Brian Sussman said that his claim that global warming is not caused by humans will become hate speech. It’s nonsense, but it keeps whipping up the victim mode. It is also one of the reasons I rarely if ever used the phrase hate speech to describe what they were saying at KSFO. Hate speech has a very specific legal connotation and I didn’t want to water it down.

They like to water down the definition of hate speech so I didn’t play in their definitional sand box.

I completely agree. And I believe that bigotry is one of many potential motivating factors that can properly be taken into judicial account in determining sentencing…on an individual discretionary basis. But by far, it is behavior and behavior only that should be subject to codified criminal penalties. “Hate” is just too slippery and subjective an entity to try to cram into labeled buckets.

By no means, I should make clear, do I hold any brief for the standard, disgusting Republican talk points on this matter.

You hadn’t noticed the power vacuum at the top of the GOP? Nature abhors a vacuum… but perforce must work with the materials at hand.

Not coincidentally this is also related to the Peter Principle.

Interesting.

That is my essential position on it as well. It doesn’t make any sense to me to codify the discretionary in terms of hate-crimes. It makes a lot more sense to use existing means of degree (pre-meditated, already the metric of intent), and move the discretionary aspect to the sentencing within that framework.

Constructing specific legislation just seems onerous, and is definitely the grounds for crafting a political bludgeon. Something we need fewer of; not more.

Considering that it doesn’t seem to really supply any additional benefit to the alternative of labeling them as “pre-meditated”, my cynicism starts asking what the real point is, and the political circus that arises gives me an answer.

I have to say that I have a problem with “hate crimes” laws both because they indeed criminalize thought and because they institutionalize a sort of legal apartheid for persecuted minorities.

Whether the murdered teenager in Greeley Colorado was a young woman, a young man, a lover of one or the other, brown-skinned, pink-skinned, or a Young Republican is none of our business–especially in the context of the law. Killing her was vile and wicked. The killer deserves nothing but to be thrown in a hole forever. Which is what the jury did–even in a pretty conservative town.

I think the idea that they “criminalize thought” is silly.

Once homosexuals become a special class protected by hate-crime legislation, the back door is open to prosecuting those who speak out against homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

This from the side of the aisle that is always trying to sneak creationism in the back door…