Monday Open Thread
Welcome to your Monday open thread. Even though it’s Monday I’m still on a post-PPP high. Can you believe it? Dayum.
I’d rather have 24/7 coverage of this skater dude than the hateful Koran-burning pastor:
A planned Quran burning Saturday in Amarillo was thwarted by a 23-year-old carrying a skateboard and wearing a T-shirt with “I’m in Repent Amarillo No Joke” scrawled by hand on the back.
Jacob Isom, 23, grabbed David Grisham’s Quran when he became distracted while arguing with several residents at Sam Houston Park about the merits of burning the Islamic holy book.
“You’re just trying to start Holy Wars,” Isom said of Grisham after he gave the book to a religious leader from the Islamic Center of Amarillo.
Thanks news media for making Pastor Terry Jones, with a congregation of 50, into a worldwide name. You gave him exactly what he wanted – attention.
Check out these pictures from the 9/12 rally in DC. Those Tea Partiers are just regular folks who dream about armed revolution, amIright?
Mark Sumner at Daily Kos wrote an exceptional essay “Your rights should not be flat.”
None of these things should be read, as conservatives now seem prone to do, as a signal that we are too weak, too tolerant, too clingy when it comes to those old fashioned ideas of rights. “They do it too” has never been, and should not be, the standard for our behavior as individuals or as a nation. It’s not just a little thing called laws. It’s something simpler. We’re supposed to be better than that.
This nation wasn’t founded by people who conducted an international search for the least common denominator in morality. It wasn’t modeled after the ugliest, most restrictive, most brutal regime they could locate. Long before Reagan could appropriate the term, those who came to America (especially those who fled from some country where they didn’t have the freedom to build their own place of worship) looked to these shores as a site for that “city on a hill.”
All people are created equal. All laws are not. Our Constitution, with its guarantees of liberty enshrined as right, not privilege, is a proclamation of noble intent. It’s both inspirational and aspirational — something we should struggle to live up to every day, and a banner we should be proud to wave before the world. These are the rights we should want for everyone, not just ourselves. Only the same people who are the first to champion the cause of American exceptionalism, are crowding to the front of the line to attack the very things that make America exceptional.
Whether or not Saudi Arabia has Christian churches should not matter to so-called “Constitutional Conservatives” if they really believed in the Constitution.
Tags: Open Thread
Republicans filibustering middle-class tax cuts! it doesn’t get any better than this. And Boehner is for it – Republicans in disarray!
And this after they already voted against the $288 billion ARRA tax cuts. Any Dem who can’t mount a relentless campaign of ads on this deserves to lose.
Buh-bye, Robin Carnahan, don’t let the door hit you.
Serious question: Based on where I live (and that I’m a registered D), it appears I can vote in exactly 3 primaries tomorrow: State Treasurer, State Auditor, & NCC sheriff.
Given that I have kind of a busy day tomorrow, are any of these races close / important enough that I should bother trying to squeeze in a trip to the polls?
Delaware Liberal got name-dropped in Slate re the left-right team bashing of Christine O’Donnell.
Well all of those races have been quite contentious Johnny. Check through our archives.
More on the Tom Ross death threat. He’s temporarily moved out of his home.
Given who’s working on O’Donnell’s campaign, I’d take the threat seriously, as well.
Ross isn’t getting paid???? Weird. Burris et al closed up shop because of these loonies threats. Ross is kicking himself for supporting these nut jobs in 2008.
This news will be all over MSNBC tonight but will FOX cover it? Hope so.
The skateboarder should be arrested. I don’t think that stealing somebody’s property to deny them their freedom of expression is anything for people to celebrate.
Nancy – Party chairman is never a paid position. Executive director is.
I’d GLADLY get taken away in handcuffs for stealing the Quran from that SLUG.
Just like the PIGS put me and a bunch of fellow hippies on a bus and took us to jail for THROWING frisbees at VALLEY GARDEN PARK in ’71.[Disorderly conduct-tossing frisbees?]My mom raised so much HELL when I called her they bussed us right back!
Burris et al closed up shop because of these loonies threats
Really? My impression was he was just being a good Establishment Republican and shutting down so as not to give the loonies a platform, which they were abusing with glee.
Ross leaving his home “because of threats” is actually a great publicity stunt, nothing more. He has probably been reading Alinsky.
I don’t see it that way, A1. Given the videos we’ve seen of O’Donnell supporters getting in people’s faces, and one even pushing someone, I’d leave my house as well. It only takes one lone wolf.
Maybe, pandora, but call me skeptical. The e-mail was forwarded to DL (why?), the repub officials commenting about it are un-named, apparently the e-mail is easily traceable, and the publicity can only help Castle and hurt Christine.
Finally, I don’t trust any of ’em. 🙂
The British press says the Christine O’Donnell phenomena indicates the “parlous state of American electoral politics.”
” the best hope for the Democrats in November’s midterm elections is for Republicans to select candidates so ridiculous and reactionary that voters have no choice but to vote Democrat”
In other words, the fate of the Democratic party is no longer in it’s own hands.
The email was not forwarded to DL. I was made known about it through a friend. I took the threat seriously, and posted on it – as I have posted on all sorts of threats in the past. This is hardly a new topic for me.
I don’t disagree that it was intended as a threat; I just thought that it was odd that the first place for the text to show up publicly was on DL, however it arrived there.
By the way, do you know the name of the person who sent the e-mail? Or was it redacted from the copy you received?
It was redacted.
A1,
If the crazy right threatens the right, my concern is that the middle, left and beyond won’t get such a heads up. Stay anonymous.
Words to live by, delacrat…
This is why it is so hard to parady the left:
PETA targets Biden over hot dogs
Politico ^
PETA targets Biden over hot dogs
By: Patrick Gavin September 13,
Remember when Vice President Joe Biden pretended to be a hot dog vendor on Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report”? PETA — well-known for dogging politicians with various protests — didn’t see the humor in that. The animal rights group has sent a letter to Biden “urging him to stop feeding returning U.S. troops fat- and cholesterol-laden hot dogs and to give them lean, nutritious veggie dogs or other vegan food instead,” according to a release.
how do you exagerate the kookyness of the left? you guys are killing The Onion.
What is so left about PETA?
Is Ishy threatening me?
OOOOOOO MMMYYYYYY GOOOODDDDD! DELAWARE LIBERAL WAS JUST ON RACHEL MADDOW!!!!!!!!!
SQUEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!
I just saw that, too, a. price! So exciting!!!!!
I have to add our blue & yellow banner looked really crisp & clear on TV.
It did jump off the screen!
I am recording the repeat at 11. I didn’t get to see it. Did anyone record it?
How awesome! What was the content? Good job, guys.
Ok, so we have been linked to or mentioned in stories today by CNN, MSNBC, Slate, Talking Points Memo and the Huffington Post. Good work Pandora.
I didn’t record it. It appears in the last segment of the show. I nearly fell out of my chair when it appeared on the screen.
Really? My impression was he was just being a good Establishment Republican and shutting down so as not to give the loonies a platform, which they were abusing with glee.
*
Yes really. he was getting threats of the ‘we know where you live’ variety. But the move to shutter DE Tomorrow was mostly about the contributor who was a lawyer with a young family whose day job was overtly threatened by the O’Donnell nuts (I forget his name). Wanda’s O’Donnell research got pretty deeply under the skins of a few bullies and their threats were taken seriously.
Congrats on getting the DL on TRMS ! I will have to catch it at 11.
DL did break the story of the Tom Ross death threats.
Take the threats seriously…and look on DP – there are more:
here posted underDe GOP spreads lie – here is the post;
mrowe
David, the solution after tomorrow night will be to get rid of the party leadership. They, and anyone who supports them have no principles and have no respect for someone who doesn’t “tow the party line”. The only way to beat socialism is to elect principled conservatives who will take a stand, live by the Constitution and listen to their constituents.
Mike
http://www.delawarepolitics.net/delaware-gop-spreads-lies-in-a-last-minute-waste-of-money/#comments
BE Careful if you go up against these loonies and have a family – they really are unhinged and I have known this since the SCCOR days and they are armed…
I jumped off the bed when I saw it – scared the dog and the cat. And it the logo looked very clear. Woo hoo!
I dare any conservative to try to threaten or harm me or my family. Just try it.
Since I designed the logo, I will take credit for that. LOL.
Someone try to get a screen capture of DL on Maddow!