Picture us going down on the Fourth of July,
and if you heard we were celebrating,
that's a worldwide lie.

Public Enemy

My soon to be husband and I live in Vallejo, California.  Bay Area Kos denizens can confirm that this isn't exactly a hot bed of progressive thought.  The journalistic standards in our local paper, The Times Herald, are not above reproach and I'm being very kind here.  They also have a relatively sad electronic version where you can leave comments. And here you will find our local neocons spewing their bitter together with relative impunity. The Letters to the Editor section has been particularly ugly lately what with me getting married and all.  I've been doing battle there along with an increasing number of other local progressives for many years.  It's my home turf and I give a damn.

Below is the response to the Obama smear email:
A Contradiction???
Malik Obama confirms his half-brother Barack grew up a Muslim
By Israel Insider staff  June 13, 2008

You will find a prepared email that you can send when you receive these types of emails at this url:  
http://www.dailykos.com/...

We can't just delete this stuff, we have to fight back!
Many times it is a friend or co-worker so we have to be a little diplomatic.
Check it out and spread the word.
Go to this link:

http://www.dailykos.com/...

The most recent attempt to paint Obama as a closet Muslim in based on a Jersualem Post article which reported on an interview Malik Obama gave to Israel Army radio.  The article has since disappeared from the Jersalem post website, but the Google cache is here.

Barack Obama's half brother Malik said Thursday that if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background.

In an interview with Army Radio he expressed a special salutation from the Obamas of Kenya.

Leaving aside the multiple interpretations of what constitutes a "Muslim background", there's still really nothing there. See below the fold for more.

It recently came to my attention that FOX News host Brit Hume said something absurd (maybe thats not news?) on last night's broadcast. I have included the video below so that people can watch the segment and make their own judgments.

In a nutshell, he summarizes how Obama's new website Fight The Smears states that he has never been a Muslim and has always been a Christian. However, Brit says, Obama's half brother Malik Obama is "not so sure" that this is the case. His half brother apparently stated that:  "if elected his brother will be a good president for the Jewish people, despite his Muslim background."

While it is unclear exactly what context that was said in, or what was implied - Brit's statement of his half brother being "not so sure" about Obama's Christian faith seems distorted unless it can be backed up with a substantive quote (it was not during the Special Report broadcast).

Watch the clip and weigh in with thoughts / opinions below:

[below: the video in question, with Pastor John Hagee's "god sent Hitler" /"Jews aren't spiritually alive" statements, from a sermon Hagee gave in late 2005]

Late last week, John McCain's former political endorser, likened by Senator Joseph Lieberman to Moses, Pastor John Hagee "apologized" to the Jewish Anti Defamation League [apology accepted] by claiming that the source of the controversy at hand was a 1999 sermon and issuing his regrets at hurt feelings the sermon may have caused but that's deceptive in the extreme.

I'm sure you all have read that Obama has released an aggressive Fight the Smears website that does a great job dispelling many of the incendiary myths perpetuated by many different sources, from Rush Limbaugh, to lying bloggers, to just plain stupid people (Rush actually fits this category but I digress).

The website fails in one major respect, while addressing the lies perpetrated to undercut Obama as a candidate, it fails to address what the meat of the smear is really about.

More after the break:

Cross-posted at The Left Anchor

My brother, whom I love dearly despite his conservatism and his religious worldview (for the record, I'm an agnostic leaning toward atheism, whereas he is a devout Christian), showed me this website, saying, "Some people will do anything to make a buck."  And I think he's right.  The name of the site is "You've Been Left Behind," and the service they offer is to retain certain personal letters of their clients, which are to be released six days after the Rapture.  They offer this service for the low price of only $40 a year. 

More - regrettably - below the fold...

Well, here's a shocker for all of us:

Clinton supporter Harriet Christian furious at Obama over Michigan, Florida delegates

This from the Fox website, with an oh so goodness filled video of the lady who was seen "losing her vote", not to mention her voice, at the DNC RBC meeting this past Sunday.

Crossposted at trueconservative.typepad.com.

The most compelling demographic analysis I've seen lately: Alan Abramowitz's "The Incredible Shrinking Republican Base" on Real Clear Politics.

Short story: White Married Christians--the combined demographic--is and has been the base of Republicans' victories. Ignore income. Ignore gender. Ignore age. If you're white, married, and Christian, the odds are six or seven in ten that you'll vote Republican.

More below.

In his syndicated column "Between the Lines" World News Daily founder and editor Joseph Farah challenges Barack Obama's Christian faith. In an article titled, "Barack Obama: One mixed-up spirit" the confused comprehension challenged cretin chooses to interpret Christianity in the usual myopic, literal fashion of the rabid freaks on the religious right.

"One mixed-up spirit" is obviously an underhanded reference to Obama's mixed ethnicity and reveals Farah for the bigot he is.

World News Daily claims to be

an independent news company dedicated to uncompromising journalism, seeking truth and justice and revitalizing the role of the free press as a guardian of liberty. We remain faithful to the traditional and central role of a free press in a free society – as a light exposing wrongdoing, corruption and abuse of power. About Us page

Uh huh! More below the fold.

Tonight, in his smackdown response to McCain, Barack Obama stated, "You're entitled to your own opinions but you're not entitled to your own facts." He could very well have been referring to Joseph Farah.

There is nothing as good in America as a Whiteman that speaks the truth, even when it will not benefit him directly and temporarily.  That is not only a man and a true Christian, but also a true American soldier for the war that brings genuine racial reconciliation to America.  

Bill O’Reilly, Geraldine Ferrero, and other Catholic are mad at him and are calling for his head from the church.  If half of White Americans were as bold as Pfleger in the areas of fairness and truth, racism would have long been removed from the fabric of our great nation.  Instead, we pretend to act like racism is long dead and forgotten.  Are the Clintons and Fox News not playing the race card to make Obama look un-presidential?  Even at a time when McClellan is claiming that Bush and the White house made him lie, racist O’Reilly and Ferrero are still focusing on Obama’s Church instead of questioning the Republicans and McCain’s dream of continuing this Bush agenda.

I consider this election to be one of the most important in my lifetime.  So, why should I or anyone else cast a vote for McCain in November?  I'll just report and you decide--just like some cable news channel I don't care to mention.

I got another "Obama is a Muslim", "The Bible says the Anti-Christ is a Muslim", "Obama is the Anti-Christ", e-mail today and it just really pissed me off.  It contained a list of offenses by Muslim males 18-47 (notice the arbitrary 47 because Obama is 46) over some period of history, and so we can't possibly vote someone who meets that demographic in as our President.    I have provided my response below.

Unless you've been living in a hole the last ten days you know by know that the California Supreme Court legalized Gay Marriage on Thursday. You should also know that the Religious Right is gearing up to pass a Constitutional Amendment that will permanently enshrine discrimination against gay couples into the California Constitution.

The Ballot Initiative that will put this Constitutional Amendment on the ballot in November has not been certified by the California Secretary of State yet.  Unless something remarkable happens there is every expectation that this ballot initiative will be certified and the Christian Culture Terrorists led by James Dobson will flood into California to spread their vile bigotry across the state and pass this amendment.

And we will all forget to pose the simple process questions: How where all those signatures collected?

Will Obama be the next Holier than thou President?  What about Gay Rights, Choice, Freedom of Religion, Equality for all.  Help!  Tell me his faith will not interfear with his position as President.  Please, Please, Obama Supporters tell me he is not going to rule as the next GW Bush - Religious Leader-n-Chief.  Help!!!  My biggest fear is the thought of another President and his story about how JESUS came to him.

From: http://www.cbn.com/...

This is a little personal for me.

I'm a homosexual, and when I was younger I was (forced) to go to some Baptist churches.

Now let me give a disclaimer, I haven't ever been to a black church, but what I saw in those (probably 95%) white churches was a plethora of hate.

Hate against people like me.  I'll be honest and say that I struggled with my sexuality when I was a young teen, and eventually I did turn away from the church, now I think of myself as agnostic.  Oh course, I was never really conservative, so now that I look back on it, it was an easy break.

While we debate endlessly about the race card in the Dem primaries, it's alive and well on other fronts: There is an anti-Semitism already strong in this country that now targets Arabs instead of Jews.  

Debbie Almontaser dreamed of starting a public school like no other in New York City. Children of Arab descent would join students of other ethnicities, learning Arabic together. By graduation, they would be fluent in the language and groomed for the country’s elite colleges. They would be ready, in Ms. Almontaser’s words, to become “ambassadors of peace and hope.”

Yesterday's New York Times shows how Arab educator Almontaser and the Kahlil Gibran International Academy were sabotaged by the Sun and the Post, and, yes, the Department of Education. The future of our world, and our hopes for peace and understanding, rest with our seeing other people as people, and not as inherently worse than we are. This kind of racism is affecting all of us. read the article, substitute "Jew" for "Arab," and you'll see what I mean.

Critics Cost Muslim Educator Her Dream School

More below the fold.