Weekend Open Thread
Welcome to the weekend edition of your open thread. I hope you’re enjoying the wonderful weather!
We told you the Tea Party isn’t really a movement. You can’t have an organization of paranoid crazy people.
Something weird is happening with the tea party in Maine. In the past few days, tea party websites in the Pine Tree State have offered glimpses of what some are calling a coup at the one of the state’s largest tea party groups, The Maine Patriots.
On Tuesday night, Amy Hale — one of the leaders of the Patriots group — posted an odd message to the group’s website, suggesting that she’d been forced to give up control of the site, according to media reports (the post has since been removed):
I was cornered in the parking lot by 10+ people and told that bad things would happen to me if I did not give them the password and hand over Maine Patriots. Therefore, I no longer have control of Maine Patriots. Amy
…
Over at Maine Refounders, another tea party site, one tea partier offered up some more detail on what allegedly happened Tuesday night:
“Yesterday, a group of members of Maine Patriots extorted the passwword [sic] and took control of Maine Patriots’ website. Amy is working with the parent site Ning to correct this. A police report is being filed.”
Down in the comments to that post, other tea partiers offered their opinions on what happened. “We are clearly succeeding at restoring sanity to our country or hidden plants wouldn’t be so desperate to disrupt our communications openly and chance blowing their cover,” one wrote.
Apparently Amy Hale isn’t conservative enough for some of the Maine teabaggers. They accused her of being a liberal plant.
All I can say about this is good for Fareed Zakaria. He returned an award (including the cash award) to the ADL. Here’s the letter he wrote:
Five years ago, the ADL honored me with its Hubert Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize. I was delighted and moved to have been chosen for it in good measure because of the high esteem in which I hold the ADL. I have always been impressed by the fact that your mission is broad – “to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens” – and you have interpreted it broadly over the decades. You have fought discrimination against all religions, races, and creeds and have built a well-deserved reputation.
That is why I was stunned at your decision to publicly side with those urging the relocation of the planned Islamic center in lower Manhattan. You are choosing to use your immense prestige to take a side that is utterly opposed to the animating purpose of your organization. Your own statements subsequently, asserting that we must honor the feelings of victims even if irrational or bigoted, made matters worse.
This is not the place to debate the press release or your statements. Many have done this and I have written about it in Newsweek and on my television show – both of which will be out over the weekend. The purpose of this letter is more straightforward. I cannot in good conscience hold onto the award or the honorarium that came with it and am returning both. I hope that it might add to the many voices that have urged you to reconsider and reverse your position on this issue. This decision will haunt the ADL for years if not decades to come. Whether or not the center is built, what is at stake here is the integrity of the ADL and its fidelity to its mission. Admitting an error is a small price to pay to regain your reputation.
I doubt the Sarah Palins and Newt Gingrichs of the world care that innocent American Muslims also died in the 9/11 attacks. I thought the ADL and the anti-defamation league knew better. I guess not, and that’s disappointing.
Tags: Open Thread
Elena Kagan was sworn in today as a Supreme Court justice.
The Log Cabin Republicans (self-loathing gay confederates) are having their summer retreat in RB this weekend. Guess they found the only hotel that had 2 rooms available.
Comment by Unstable Isotope on 7 August 2010 at 7:33 pm:
Elena Kagan was sworn in today as a Supreme Court justice.
* * *
And Obama went golfing instead of being there.
maybe he should have been clearing brush… or picking cotton. which one would you prefer, Mr. Confed?
Beautiful day for golf.
Obama is 8th among the top 15 most golf-playing Presidents.
Bush however remains the unchallenged vacation king.
Have you seen this yet? Whoa…
LOVE IT – can someone do that for Christine O’donnell?
and Eric Bodenweiser and all the rest of them???
of course….not so quick – coz Sharron Angle has been Harry Reid’s savior in that race
and provided Rachel Maddow, and Keith Oblerman may snippets for us to enjoy
Angle is why Reid is now ahead… so these Tea Bag Primaries can be a gift in disguise…….
but great video
I’d have preferred him be at the swearing-in ceremony. But if you think he should have been picking cotton, a.price, that clearly indicates the level of racism that is acceptable among progressives. Personally, such a thing had never crossed my mind.
By the way, never forget that Barack Obama has played more golf in less than half a term as president than Dubya did in 8 years.
that is you’re argument?
why dont you idiots get your outrage right?
HE IS DOING EVERYTHING! HE IS CHANGING EVERY THING! OBAMA WONT STOP DOING STUFF
HES PLAYING GOLF INSTEAD OF DOING HIS JOB! WHY IS HE NEVER DOING ANYTHING?!?!?!
dont you see how transparent you are?
it is like in 2008 when the only thing you could come up with was “who is barack obama FOR REAL!?!?!” you all willfully ignored shit and acted shocked when the policy started. morons.
By the way, folks — 44 golf outings since January 20, 2009. Compare that to Dubya’s 24 visit to the links in eight years in office, and the criticism he got from the Left. Just holding the man to the standard YOU PEOPLE held his predecessor, a.price. Or is it RAAAAACIST for me to treat Barack Obama like a white man?
And by the way, I’m not making either of your two strawman arguments, a.price. I’m arguing that he is f*cking up the country with his lousy policies and general incompetence. It isn’t that he is doing too much or not enough — it is that he is doing the wrong stuff. But that’s what you get when the lap-dog media didn’t fully vet the least experienced and least qualified candidate for the presidency in the last hundred years.
Michele Rollins BS Story
http://bit.ly/cEJ921
Observer, lets talk about vetting,shall we?
The bitch in heat from Alaska to start. Thoroughly vetted, eh? And her cute little bastard grandchild. Is god happy about that? Seems there might some scripture agin’ it.
St.Christine OD, your bedtime dream girl (i hope you change your sheets). And she was vetted oh so well, right?
You are so far from a patriotic American. You border treason, fella. And remember, I go to your rallies too. I’m the big white guy. See you in Seaford!
Well, plenty of atheist misogyny from Cyclone Ranger, I see.
I mentioned nothing about Sarah Palin — who was much better vetted by the media than Barry Hussein ever was — but you decided to bring in the terms “bitch in heat”, “little bastard grandchild”, as well as trying to impose a Scripture based religious test.
And then the sexist comment about a candidate I do not back for office, and an accusation of treason.
Want to try again about who the hatemongers are?