Witchhunters, gerrymanders, hate-groups and hacks

Witchhunters, gerrymanders, hate-groups and hacks December 17, 2011

Here is some helpful news for those who: 1) care about justice for workers, and 2) tend to procrastinate when it comes to Christmas shopping.

Labor organization American Rights at Work released its holiday gift buying guide this week, spotlighting gifts and holiday supplies from union companies who manufacture products made in America. …

I’m glad to see this, but here’s hoping that the 2012 guide comes out before Black Friday, not two weeks before Christmas.

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Problem No. 1: Children are being exploited to grow cotton.

Part of the solution to this problem is to create and enforce standards and certification for fairly traded goods.

Problem No. 2: Children are being exploited to grow cotton that is then certified as “Fair Trade.”

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The Mitt Romney campaign emphatically denies that former Massachusetts governor ever said “keep America American.”

That’s a vile and heinous phrase that dates back to the Know-Nothing Party and, later, the Ku Klux Klan and Romney is deeply, deeply offended that anyone would think he would say such a thing.

The campaign demanded, and received, retractions and apologies from news agencies inaccurately attributing that horrid phrase to Romney. What he actually said, the campaign emphasized, was “keep America America.”

So shame on everyone who thought Romney was accidentally alluding to a hideous slogan of the KKK when what he was really doing was accidentally alluding to the inspiring poetry of a radical black socialist.

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If the gerrymandering scheme proposed by Pennsylvania Republicans passes, then I’m not sure if I will be voting in the 6th, the 7th, or possibly the 16th congressional district. Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District seems designed as the solution to some Math Olympiad problem in which the challenge was to enclose the smallest possible area in the longest possible boundary.

Real Clear Politics says this just might be the Gerrymander of the Decade, marveling at the “Rorschach-inkblot districts in southeastern Pennsylvania.” It’s a dazzling, almost beautiful piece of political corruption.

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A slippery slope from light rail to hard-core pornography?

Religious bigot David Caton — the man behind the crusade against TLC’s All-American Muslim show — explains the link between public transportation and Satanic kiddie-porn snuff films.

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E. Calvin Beisner still makes his living by saying things that aren’t true. His latest assignment: defending mercury poisoning.

Q: If E. Calvin Beisner said that the atomic number of aluminum was 13, would you believe him?

A: That’s a trick question. Exxon/Mobil wouldn’t pay Beisner to say that.

We’ve always had hacks for hire willing to say anything for a paycheck. I just wish they’d leave God out of it. Corrupt dishonesty is bad enough without bringing blasphemy into it.

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Speaking of blasphemous hacks, the Family Research Council, disgraced for its “propagation of known falsehoods,” is still regularly invited to comment on news stories on Fox, CNN and MSNBC.

In November of 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center listed the Family Research Council as an anti-gay hate group due to its “propagation of known falsehoods” about the LGBT community. Since being listed, however, FRC spokespersons have been invited 52 times to discuss issues ranging from the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” to the 2012 presidential campaign. Despite FRC’s long history of producing anti-gay propaganda, every major news network has invited the group on national television while failing to acknowledge its hate group designation.

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Foreign Policy’s Uri Friedman asks, “How Do You Prove Someone’s a Witch in Saudi Arabia?

That’s a misleading headline. It implies that the Saudi witchhunters are interested in proof or evidence. Witchhunters never are.

As Friedman’s article shows, the way you prove someone’s “a witch” in Saudi Arabia is the same way you proved it in Salem. Accuse someone. Force them to confess. Execute them. That’s all the proof witchhunters ever seek.


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