UPDATE: Aunt B (did she “bless her heart” me?!) looks forward to seeing Mr. Blue Collar Republican on the TeeVee (while making me spit-take my coffee with a joke about one of music city’s finest):

I would just like to offer two bits of advice. In the future, you might want to refrain from premeditating your ‘civil disobedience’ on the internet. It’s going to make it harder for your lawyer to argue that you’re a good person who was just caught up in the emotions of the moment. Instead, you’re going to look like the kind of dude who planned and calculated whatever it is you’re going to do.

Premeditation usually means a longer sentence.

I mean, you didn’t forget about that part, did you? Where the cops come and they arrest you and you stand before a judge who doesn’t have much sympathy for brick throwing being “civil” and you go to jail? And, hell, if you’re an interesting enough target and this is y’all’s 60s, they audit you for the next decade?

And you forget the worst part. John Rich is the music of your movement. And, don’t get me wrong, he’s a talented song-writer, but he’s not the best singer in Nashville. Is that really the voice you want over the montage of your exploits in your biopic?

Anyway, I look forward to watching your perp walk on the news.

Supporters of blocking public access to the names and addresses of Tennesseans with handgun carry permits appear to have a hard time keeping their hands off the records.

An Associated Press records search has found copies of the state’s database of more than 257,000 handgun permit holders were recently requested by the National Rifle Association, the state Republican Party and a direct mail contractor that has done extensive work for the GOP’s legislative caucus.

Asked about those requests, House Republican Caucus Chairman Glen Casada says he opposes using the database for political purposes like campaign fundraising or get out the vote efforts.

(Fist bump: The Scene’s loveable curmudgeon.)

And, as Karl Frisch our new correspondent from Media Matters points out in his latest column, the people who produce the news at Fox just love it:

For the better part of a week, conservatives in the media have been on a witch hunt for Kevin Jennings, the director of the Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Led by Fox News, the right-wing media have claimed that 21 years ago, when Jennings was a 24-year-old teacher at Concord Academy in Massachusetts, he “cover[ed] up statutory rape” by not reporting to authorities a conversation he had with a student who told him about being involved with an “older man.”

The attacks on Jennings, the latest Obama administration official in the right’s crosshairs, have been disgusting, misleading, baseless, and at times pointedly anti-gay.

…

In addition to the right’s attacks aimed at Jennings’ sexual orientation, conservative media outlets sought to paint Jennings as complicit in covering up a crime — specifically “statutory rape.” A Washington Times editorial accused Jennings of “encourag[ing]” a relationship that amounted to “statutory rape.” Led by Hannity, Fox News also baselessly claimed that Jennings “cover[ed] up statutory rape” and violated Massachusetts law by not reporting to authorities his 1988 conversation with the student.

…

The conservative media made it abundantly clear that facts wouldn’t get in the way of their latest line of attack on the Obama administration. In a 2004 letter, Jennings’ attorney wrote that the student was 16 years old at the time of the incident, which is, and was at the time, the legal age of consent in Massachusetts.

Additionally, Media Matters exclusively confirmed the former student’s age was 16 at the time of his conversation with Jennings, posting a redacted copy of his current driver’s license, his Facebook message exchange with a FoxNews.com writer in which he said as much, and his statement on the matter.

If you’ve ever wondered what kind of folks regularly participate in polls sponsored by FoxNews.com, the answer is here. It’s two kinds of people: those who are comfortable forming a strong opinion on a subject before the facts are in, and people who get all of their news from Fox News. Ninety-eight percent of respondents to a FoxNews.com poll this week said that Jennings should resign due to his “actions” and “questionable past and experience.” I wonder where they could have gotten that idea. (After all, self-righteous indignation is what Sean Hannity does best.)

But don’t hold your breath hoping for any consistency from Hannity. After The Washington Times established a completely false equivalency between Jennings and former Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) (who, if you’ll recall, personally pursued young congressional pages), Media Matters went back and checked the record. It turns out that in 2006, while Dennis Hastert was on his way to being criticized by the House Ethics Committee for his failure to stop Foley’s actions, Hannity and his Fox News cohorts were among the then-speaker’s staunchest defenders. “The only thing that Hastert knew about was that there was an e-mail,” Hannity said at the time.

…

When it comes to media conservatives, integrity may be dead, but irony certainly is not.

Lost in these right-wing caricatures of Jennings is the simple fact that education officials and others have spoken highly of the Obama administration official, who has received numerous awards and was an appointee of former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld, a Republican.

With this, the latest conservative media witch hunt debunked and put to bed, the timer starts anew. When will the next witch hunt begin? Who’s next on the list?

It’s OK though. We really needs Fox News to balance reality, which “has a well-known liberal bias.”

President Obama in Denmark to advocate for the Olympics in Chicago can’t be compared to President Bush on vacation in Crawford.

President Obama in Denmark to advocate for the Olympics in Chicago can be compared to President Bush on a four day tourist visit to the Olympics in Beijing during an economic crisis.

You’re right about one thing though, it doesn’t matter where you govern from because it’s the results that matter. Where we are at the end of one Obama term can be compared to where we were at the end of one W. term. Can’t wait for those results.

(H/T: A Kleinheider Joint)

Stable Christian conservative Martin Kennedy on WWTN’s irresponsible lie and fear-spreading conservative talk show host Michael DelGiorno:

Been rather out-of-it regarding news and commentary but was driving around today and heard just the strangest snippet from local radio talker Michael Delgiorno. He was talking about what the polls would look like after the so-called “Rapture,” or during the “Rapture,” or however that loony theological concept is understood by dime-store theologians.

According to Delgiorno there would be like 100% approval for Obama and his policies. Everyone would hate Israel and want all Jews killed. I mean this was just crazy talk.

It is possible to favor limited-government, to believe that the family is the foundation of society, and that we ought to avoid entangling alliances without being a religious loon. In fact it is possible to be devout and god-fearing without being a loon. Michael Delgiorno is a loon and his ilk is hurting true conservatism.

It’s also possible to disagree with the President’s policies without stirring up fear and hatred in the minds and hearts of your listeners. Just sayin’.

Alexander the Not-So-Great

Last week, Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander claimed that cap-and-trade will cost consumer $1,761 a year – a little tidbit of info he got from Beck who got it from Drudge who got it from lyin’ right wing blogger who got it from a fuzzy-math fueled right-wing “think tank.”

Politifact took a look at the claim the Senator sent out in a press release and said, “you lie!”

His [Alexander's] statement that households will pay $1,761 in new taxes every year is based on a blogger’s incorrect assumptions and overly simple math. The estimate does not account for revenue that will be returned to consumers in the form of rebates and other efficiency measures. Furthermore, the number is based on old numbers; the Treasury estimate was written on the premise that all permits would be sold, which, ultimately, is not the form that the Waxman-Markey legislation has taken. Finally, both Alexander and McCullagh portray money raised by selling these permits as a tax. We rate Alexander’s claim False.

And while doing so, they also note that Alexander “is relying not on a study by an economist, but on an estimate from a blogger.”

Which makes me wonder, does Senator Alexander have staff that can fact-check his assertions before they are sent out in a press release or is he so caught up in taking his marching orders from radical right-wing cable news hosts and bloggers that he can’t be bothered with silly concepts like “truth?”

Not taking it anymore.

What’s the difference between the loud white guys on the radio yelling me that “it’s not about race, we just hate his policies” and this loud white guy telling me that, in the words of Jimmy Carter, the “intensely demonstrated animosity towards Barack Obama” certainly is about race?

This loud white guy backs up his assertion with, you know, actual facts put into context:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

If you listened to the radio or watched the cable yesterday you were hit with the false equivalency Olbermann outlines: if you say that anything critical of President Obama is racial then your words will be twisted into, “all criticism of Obama is racial.” Then if the deniers find one instance that isn’t racial, they will exaggerate that lone proof into proof that all criticism isn’t racial.

That’s how the screaming tightie righties roll. Twisted. And so you got to ask, which of the President’s policies do comments like Glen Beck’s “Obama is a racist” and Rush Limbaugh’s “Barack the Magic Negro” and Michael DelGiorno’s “Obama is the antichrist” address? Which policies are they arguments for or against?

LEMON: OK. So we are going to continue our discussion now over the health care rallies and the tone of what’s going on in the country. Tim Wise joins us. He’s frequent here on the show. The author of “Between Barack and a Hard Place” and among the most prominent anti- racist activist in the country. Thank you, sir. Always good to see you.

TIM WISE, AUTHOR “BETWEEN Barack AND A HARD PLACE”: You, too.

LEMON: You heard the chairman from Florida say no, it is not race.

WISE: I did.

LEMON: It does a disservice. You heard David Sirota say it is the elephant in the room.

WISE: Right. Well like I said in the show before, it is the background noise of a lot of the opposition, not all of it but a lot of it. You know, when you have someone like Glen Beck saying as he did about a month ago that the health care debate isn’t really about that. It is just reparations for black people, where you have Rush Limbaugh yesterday on the air saying first that community service is the first step towards fascism, which is bizarre even for him.

And then almost immediately after that saying one of the problems with America is too much multi culturalism [This is one of local talker Michael DelGiorno's favorite lines!]. You wouldn’t say that unless you are trying to stoke white racial resentment. And so when you say those things, I want to know when are Republican leaders going to condemn that kind of rhetoric because that is where race is being interjected. It is interjected by us, it’s interested by the leading talk show hosts in this country.

Read the rest of the transcript.

Hat tip: Crooks and Liars

“Revolution.” “Succession.” “A New Civil War.” It’s all part of a days work (cha-ching!) for the sponsors of the march. And, apparently, for Blackburn.

Frankly, I’m not surprised. Congressman Blackburn was more than willing to appear on the local mouthpiece of the most extreme wing of her party, Michael DelGiorno, who every day demonstrates how irresponsible he is as a broadcaster by insinuating that the President is a very scary man who is working towards a dictatorship, trying to indoctrinate your children, and using the tactics of imperial Japan and Nazi Germany to overthrow the government. Oh, and Harry Reid is coming to kill you and Barack Obama is the antichrist.

Frankly, Congressman Blackburn is exactly where I would expect her to be today – cozying up to the most extreme members of her party who are so afraid of Barack Obama’s “otherness” that they bring guns to his public events and scream “You lie” to his face in very inappropriate settings.

Download audio file (mdg-2009-09-04-marsha-blackburn.mp3)

Here’s more from Rachel Maddow:

Summary: Guest Peter Cunningham, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Communications and Outreach at the Department of Education, and our Celebration of Labor!

Celebration of Labor – Part 1 A brief history of Labor Day, advice from Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and stories of labor from our listeners and Freddie’s Moms. And Peter Cunningham, Assistant Secretary of the Office of Communications and Outreach at the Department of Education, joins us to discuss the real meaning behind President Obama’s Back to School address to the kids. Hint: It’s about personal responsibility and staying in school. Plus, why our public school kids need a boost and why it’s important to not just roll your eyes at irresponsible broadcasters, but to hold them accountable. [24MB download mp3]
Download audio file (liberadio20090907part1.mp3)

Celebration of Labor – Part 2 Will the Republican leadership – not to mention elected officials – continue to allow radical cable news and talk radio hosts to control their party? If not, then where is the push back against the mounds of inflammatory misinformation foisted upon the American people in their name? And why are some leaders actually joining in the fray? Chuck Grassley promoting Glen Beck’s book? Really? Plus, what the President has to say about health security for all when he addresses the joint session of Congress on Wednesday and all we are saying is the “give’em enough rope” theory is back! [24MB download mp3]
Download audio file (liberadio20090907part2.mp3)