Monday Open Thread
Welcome to your Monday open thread. Share what’s on your mind with the rest of us. Don’t be shy!
Once again Sarah Palin is responsible for another round of ugliness. Conservatives are still up in arms that the 1st amendment covers everyone, including people they don’t like. This weekend an anti-Park51 (Cordoba House) protest was held in NYC. One man found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, looking too foreign.
At an anti-Islam rally yesterday at Ground Zero, a person of color wearing a skull cap and wandering through the crowd was targeted with insults and nearly attacked by protesters for the offense of looking vaguely Muslim. The videographer summarized the episode this way:
A man walks through the crowd at the Ground Zero protest and is mistaken as a Muslim. The crowd turns on him and confronts him. The man in the blue hard hat calls him a coward and tries to fight him. The tall man who I think was one of the organizers tried to get between the two men. Later I caught up with the man who’s name is Kenny. He is a Union carpenter who works at Ground Zero. We discussed what a scary moment that was for him.
These are the same people who told us they were exercising their Constitutional rights by acting like asses at townhall meetings and waving guns around in crowds. I guess the 1st amendment only applies to them, huh?
Finally, a good news story for the day. Corporations can donate unlimited money to political campaigns, but should they?
Target still finds itself facing a backlash:
After weeks of public protest over its financial support of an organization that backed a GOP gubernatorial candidate opposed to gay rights, Target Corp. now faces a new form of pressure: demands from institutional shareholders that it revamp its donation process to avoid the chance of additional backfires.
…
Imprudent donations can potentially have a major negative impact on company reputations and business if they don’t carefully and fully assess a candidate’s positions,” said Tim Smith, a senior vice president at Walden Asset Management, one of three asset management firms that this week filed a resolution asking the retail giant to overhaul its campaign donation policies. He cautioned that funding ballot initiatives, as many corporations have done, “can similarly backfire.”
The three management firms sponsoring the resolution — Calvert Asset Management, Trillium Asset Management and Walden — together hold $57.5 million of Target stock. Other institutional investors, including the giant New York state pension fund and union investment managers, are considering co-signing the resolution, which calls on Target’s independent directors to review the criteria and risks in making donations to organizations active in political campaigns.
“Target should have carefully considered the implications that direct political contributions can have toward shareholder value,” said Ola Fadahunsi, spokesman for New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the pension fund’s sole trustee. “It’s troubling to think that they can fund controversial candidates without properly assessing the risks and rewards involved.”
This country is divided enough without turning into “red” companies and “blue” companies
Tags: Open Thread
There used to be an organization called Buy Blue, about six years ago. They listed corporate donations and ranked companies by who they sent their money to. I haven’t bought anything from Amazon for six years. Also Wal-Mart. It is a little less convenient but I feel better.
What a scary bit of video. But you know What I learned from that? That the protestations that they don’t object to the freedom of religion for Muslims — they just want to make an appeal to decency is Pure.Bullshit. That crowd confronting a guy *just because he looked Muslim to them* is exactly what the bigotry that we’ve been calling this looks just like. And how about those signs about the mosque being associated with Hamas or the Sharia signs? Nothing there that has a damn thing to do with decency or *what’s right*. It is the usual anti-Muslim propaganda.
Bigotry pure and simple. Part of the standard GOP playbook. I’m sending off a letter to Harry Reid asking him if he is proud of having joined the cowardly and the bigoted.
One more — I hate traffic jams or anything else that slows down my travel. Especially since many of these traffic issues are the fault of planners who never ask for more road capacity when they are busily trying to add property to the tax rolls. In any event — the traffic jam of my nightmares — a 62-mile, 9-day long traffic jam getting into Beijing. Somebody get those people personal jetpacks stat!
John McCain shows Democrats how to deal with teabaggers:
On the other hand, it is discouraging that it takes $20 million to remind voters that teabaggers are fraudulent morons.
Urquhart’s novelty check is bigger than Mike Castle’s novelty check.
More Teabonics
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/ron-paul-supports-cordoba-house/unexpected/?cid=cs:headline6
i wonder how much THAT will blow the minds of his mindless followers. i also wonder if RandyNoZe will follow in the footsteps of dear old dad on this one, or if this will be his W moment. Either way, he is still a fraud.
Rand Paul does not support Park51.
Kids are now asked to bring their own toilet paper to school.
Debates tonight!
There’s an Urquhart-Rollins debate tonight in Hockessin at 5 PM.
WDEL is hosting a NCCo sheriff debate tonight at 6 PM.
LOL.. you beat Urk’s communications director to the announcement.
Are these debates being broadcast anywhere? I didn’t see anything about it on the WDEL web page.
Update:
http://www.wdel.com/election/
I wonder how many of those protesters noticed that the necklace he had on was not some sort of Islamic talisman, but the Puerto Rican flag.
and then the one guy yelling that he was mad that the media (and apparently that guy for walking around where he works) were DELIBERATELY trying to make them look racist. How dare that guy cut through the crowd near his workplace. He should have taken a longer, more sensitive route so that they couldn’t yell at him and look bad.
There’s an Urquhart-Rollins debate tonight in Hockessin at 5 PM.
Where in Hockessin? I might be able to go.
Be sure to wear your tiara and Miss Jamaica sash!
Hockessin Memorial Hall tonight. The News Journal says it starts at 6 PM and Urquhart’s Facebook page says 5 PM so I’m not sure the actual time.
Anyone have a clue why Walsh’s campaign finance report hasn’t posted yet?
He’s desperately trying to raise $33K to match Navarro?
Is Memorial Hall near the estates of all the rich whiny fucktard DuPont heirs who were fawningly profiled in Sunday’s TNJ blowjob of a front-page story?
Flowers and Potter are debating tonight in Hockessin as well. I just hope Velda actually shows up. Everyone come check it out.
“Kids are now asked to bring their own toilet paper to school.”
UI, i remember elementary school in Brandywine SD bringing TP to school at the beginning of the year.
Memorial Hall is the fire company hall, at route 41 and Yorklyn Road.
Tp, tissues, and hand sanitzer have been part of the “list” for as long as my kids have been in school. My oldest is 17.
I went.Rollins wants National I.D.’s for everyone so we know who’s an illegal and some other nonsense about lining up behind legal immigrants and then she lost me.
Where were all you guys?
I WORE a SKIPPERTEEE name-tag,for god’s sake,hoping someone would slink up to me and identify themselves as a comrade.
But NOOOOOOO,I’ve got to stand there and keep my mouth shut and not have ONE PERSON to WISECRACK to sotto vocce.
You were there skippertee? I’m interested in your thoughts about the debate.
Hell what do we need a card for
lately in this country if you are brown or speak with an accent you are considered illegal
I was there. Sorry I didn’t see you skippertee, I was up front sketching.
I’m working on ideas now for my cartoon, which is a hoot since the debate seem to be devoid of any serious ones, other than “repeal ObamaCare” and the level to which Obama’s policies were Nazi-like.
Oh, and apparently Al Gore is getting rich off of carbon credits.
Rollins did mention support for a national ID card, which Urquhart turned into a referendum on installing info chips into our bodies, much to the crowd’s delight.
Unfortunately, the event was short, and having O’Donnell there sucking out some oxygen meant more pertinent questions couldn’t be asked, like why her compensation from Wilmington Trust soared from $20,470 in 2008 to over $90,000 in 2009, even as the bank was holding $330 million in government TARP money.
But at least now I know that the country was founded on judeo-christian principles.
The free market is great unless liberals make money off of it. Then it means the liberal is corrupt or something.
My vote for the best political ad so far this year (and Chris Cillizza likes it, too) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yv_g7ZyADM.
Hick ran other quirky ads when he first ran for mayor of Denver (skydiving, handing out quarters for parking meters).
Well,let’s see.
First off,in person,,Urquhart look’s like Jimmy Durante with just a little more hair.Put a pork-pie hat on him and he’d have an act.What a STIFF!How the fuck did this guy make money in real estate? Was it monopoly money?He DID seem to have the most supporters in the crowd.Wearing RED,URQUHART for CONGRESS T-shirts.
NOTE TO US:If he wins the primary and supporters continue wearing and handing out these RED T-shirts we should hammer [haha]them hard about the fact that they are in the exact SAME COLOR the COMMUNIST FLAG with the HAMMER and SICKLE once flew.
Instead of skippertee,let me be frank.
I was once Michelle Rollins “pool boy”.I owe her for the many things she taught me.As I’ve traveled through life,her lessons allowed me to acheive success beyond my wildest dreams.
Unfortunately,she didn’t give me one clue about business.They were only lessons in lovemaking.
I only left when she started dropping hints about offing old Ed.I liked him.So what if he had a thing for sheep.Most guys who grow up on farms seem to use these domestic animals instead of their hands.Who am I to judge?
My main reason for attending was to see if Michelle had turned into a GILF.Hey,times are tough and so is Michelle’s skin.
All three want to return the country to the “FREE ENTERPRISE” system we had before “BIG GOVERNMENT” OBAMA and the demon PELOSI took over and led our fair maiden into DEFECITS.
Hockessin and the surrounding Pike Creek Valley was once a pristine and bucolic wonderland for a young lad such as me.I spent many a summer day exploring throughout this area before,as Joni Mitchell puts it so succinctly,”They paved Paradise,and put up a parking lot”.
I’d love to go back.
There’s NO WAY I want to go back to the FREE ENTERPRISE system that has brought us this current debacle!