Loesch Cheers Soldiers Who Urinated On Corpses, Says She Would "Drop Trou" And Do It Herself

The public image of the United States has been damaged after video surfaced showing U.S. soldiers urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan. Military officials have all condemned the actions.

From CNN:

"I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement. "I condemn it in the strongest possible terms."

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said in a statement the behavior is "wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history."

Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of ISAF, called the actions on the video "disgusting."

"Any acts which treat the dead, enemy or friendly, with disrespect are utterly unacceptable and do not represent the standards we expect of coalition forces," Bradshaw said in a video statement. He said he was speaking on behalf of Allen, who is out of the country.

"It is difficult to say what long-term impacts this might have, and I would hesitate to get into speculation, but obviously any sort of footage, any sort of activity of this kind that is grossly against all the moral values that the coalition forces are standing for are very much working against our cause and against everything that we are standing for and that we are here for," said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a NATO ISAF spokesman.

CNN "political analyst" Dana Loesch, on the other hand, apparently doesn't care if these actions were directly working against the mission of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; instead, she cheered for it in order to fuel the unhinged Muslim hatred that has become a staple of modern day right-wing media. On her show, she gave the marines in question "one million cool points" and said that she would "drop trou" and "do it too." She ended by saying: "Do I have a problem with that as a citizen of the United States? No, I don't."



h/t @nicolegennette for noticing.

Transphobic RFT Reporter Strikes Again

At the beginning of this year, I posted about the criminal insensitivity of Riverfront Times reporter Chad Garrison.  Now he is at it again with this transphobic blog post.*

"Shemale" is an offensive term often used to describe transgender people.  The term is most frequently used in porn that fetishizes trans bodies.  Please comment on Mr. Garrison's post to let the RFT know that you do not appreciate transphobia in their publication.


UPDATE 12/21:  Thanks to your comments, Chad Garrison has changed the headline of his post.  I hope that he will continue to educate himself on issues relevant to the trans community, so that his writing for the RFT will be more sensitive in the future.


* Thanks to Anita Fitzwater for alerting me to this post.

Loesch Claims Gay Soldier Booed by GOP Crowd Was Asking a "Gotcha Question"

Dana Loesch, in full disconnected-from-reality spin mode, is denying that GOP crowds have consistently embarrassed themselves with inappropriate cheering and booing at the Republican primary debates. First a GOP crowd loudly cheered for the high number of executions in Texas, then they cheered for letting an uninsured man die, and most recently some in the crowd booed gay soldier Stephen Hill when he asked the candidates if they would prevent him from being allowed to serve openly.

Loesch, in a move reminiscent of the time she demanded that a woman should apologize for having her neck stomped on by a Rand Paul supporter, has declared that the solider was asking a "gotcha question" by wondering if he would be allowed to serve his country. Here's what Loesch ridiculously claimed:

An individual, via those in attendance, hollered at the health care story and the audience rebuked them. Two men booed the gotcha question posed by a gay soldier and they were so strongly rebuked for booing that the audience’s hisses and shushes overpowered the volume of the rude men’s outburst.

This is the question from Hill that Loesch called a "gotcha question:"

Do you intend to circumvent the progress that has been made for gay and lesbian soldiers in the military?

And in case you missed it the first time, you can watch the video and judge for yourself whether Loesch's claims have any plausibility here:


Also of interest, in light of Charles Johnson's documentation of the pattern of racist comments at Breitbart's sites, is that one of Breitbart's commenters immediately compared homosexuality to bestiality:

Tell us all, please: When did you last father a child on a member of the same sex? Okay, now tell us when you fathered a child with a member of another species.

We'll wait.

Wonder how Loesch will spin that one? Oh wait, she can't, because she's done the same thing.

Surprise! Gateway Pundit Was Completely Wrong On Attempted Smear of Rep. Ellison

First Jim "Gateway Pundit" Hoft made fun of Representative Keith Ellison's heartfelt testimony about a Muslim first responder killed during 9-11. Then he called Ellison a liar. His evidence? One of his knuckle-dragging right-wing buddies wasn't able to find anything about the story on the google. Unfortunately for Hoft, other people who actually know how to do basic research looked into the story, and found out that he got it compltely wrong.

From TPM:

But it turns out there were multiple reports in newspapers and on television supporting the fact that there were rumors about Hamdani. In a Sept. 21, 2001 interview with CBS, Hamdani's mother said they were "having troubles coping with it because we can't go outside without having people give us looks and have this feeling that, 'Hey, you're to blame for this.' It's, like, we're being targeted for something we didn't even do."

As Shaffer points out, a Oct. 12, 2001 New York Post story titled "Missing -- or Hiding? Mystery of NYPD Cadet from Pakistan" (which no longer exists online) reports that "investigators for the FBI and NYPD have since questioned the family about which Internet chat rooms he visited and if he was political." (His mother called that article "slander" in an interview on Democracy Now following the hearing yesterday.)

Then the New York Daily News reported on April 6, 2002, that the "story of a Pakistani-born Muslim man living in Queens who was unexpectedly missing after Sept. 11 quickly took on sinister implications."

The New York Times reported on March 9, 2003, that "ugly rumors circulated: he was a Muslim and worked in a lab; he might have been connected to a terrorist group. Months later the truth came out.

Don't expect an apology from Hoft, though. He likes to keep his readers stupid, uninformed, and perpetually angry. Otherwise, how else could they stand to read his garbage?

RFT “Criminally Stupid” When Reporting on Mental Illness, Trans Issues

With all due gratitude to the Riverfront Times for featuring the Activist Hub as one of its favorite blogs and our beloved Adam Shriver as “Best Gadfly” of 2010, I feel the need to call them out on something. The RFT has been incredibly insensitive when reporting on people with mental illnesses and those who are transgender.

Take Chad Garrison’s recent article about a man—Trip Powers—shot by a police officer on Sunday after allegedly breaking into a Denny’s restaurant. The article is posted online in the blogs under the “Criminally Stupid” category. Garrison quips that the man was shot, “while seriously craving a Grand Slam omelette. Or maybe it was a Moons Over My Hammy?”

According to Powers’s mother, Teri Powers, a licensed clinical social worker, her son Trip is suffering from a mental illness, and he is not a criminal. “Everyone involved should recognize that keeping Trip jailed and without psychiatric treatment and medication is doing him an injustice,” Teri told me via Facebook message. Bill McClellan of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch is doing a respectful series on Trip Powers and his situation. So why the stigmatizing sarcasm from a reporter for the Riverfront Times?

This is not the first time that the RFT has ridiculed someone with a mental illness. Remember Susan Stone? She was also written about under the “Criminally Stupid” category.

Now, I’m not a psychiatrist, but I’m pretty familiar with mental illnesses. I saw Stone at the Metro East Pride vigil in October. It seemed pretty clear to me then, based on some of the things she said, that she was suffering from some kind of mental illness.

While other local media showed disrespect to Stone, using her legal (male) name and referencing her with pronouns that do not match her gender presentation, the RFT went one step further by nominating her as “Ass Clown of the Week,” calling her “he/rself,” and “s/he” in that article.

It sounds to me as though the RFT could use some sensitivity training.

Gina Loudon Changes Subject to Cover for Her Guest's Bigoted Remarks

I wrote previously about Gina Loudon's promotion of Angry White Dude, a blogger who says that white women should avoid black males and that black people hate white people. Loudon apparently got some complaints about this guy last week, so this week she tried to justify having him back by saying that she likes to promote discussion. And she suggested that the reason people were upset with the guy is because, get this, he has photos of women from Hooters on his website. Completely unmentioned by Loudon was the fact that he claims that black people hate white people, that white women should avoid black men, and that "hatred, violence, ignorance and laziness is the hallmark of the American black race in general." In other words, Loudon changed the subject and then defended him on tangential issues. My guess is that her P.R. firm is working on promoting his new book, so she's trying to come up with lame excuses to justify her profiting off of thinly disguised hate speech.

Relatedly, Angry White Dude stopped by my blog and left a whiny comment complaining about political correctness. Here's what he said:

Thanks for pushing maybe one or two new readers to my page (you have so few! Pity!). I fail to see the hatred you speak of. I don't hate black people and believe blacks can accomplish everything any other race can...by hard work, making quality life decisions and education. The same as it is with anyone else.

No, you don't like my words but it doesn't mean they aren't true. I refuse to allow myself to be chained to political correctness. In your pitiful world, ANY criticism of blacks is hate or racism. I don't live in your world...I live in the real world.

And my response:

Um, wow. Not very good at reading comprehension, are you? What I actually did was point out very specific examples of objectionable content from you. For example, you claim that "Black people hate white people." And what, exactly, did you use to back up this claim? You based it on anecdotal evidence from "two acquaintances." So, according to you, you spoke to two whole people and then used that conversation to make a generalization about everyone with dark skin. In other words, you're willing to judge people you haven't met because of their skin color. What exactly do you think bigotry is other than making sweeping, negative generalizations about entire groups of people based only on selective evidence?

And your crybaby complaints about political correctness don't make your claim any more plausible or any less obnoxious. Maybe you and Gina Loudon believe that you both are the most persecuted people in the world, but I don't, and not many other people do either.

Hate Speech On Christian Radio: Gina Loudon Hosts Guest Who Says White Women Should Avoid Black Males

Gina Loudon hosted a blogger named Angry White Dude on her radio show yesterday:
And yes, he is as obnoxious as his name suggests. I don't have the interview from the show, but from his blog you can see that this is the kind of crap Loudon's guest says on a regular basis:

While it will chill the blood of liberals, AWD will break it down for you: Black people hate white people. Certainly, there are some who have broken the hate for whites that nearly every black person learns from an early age. But nearly every black person in America has an ingrained hatred for white people. Black people can be civil towards whites in work and at play but never let yourself believe your black acquaintances don’t really hate your white guts deep down.

He later said:

Hatred, violence, ignorance and laziness is the hallmark of the American black race in general.

In previous posts, he also called Kanye West, "stupidious negroidus rapperious," and said the following:

I don’t think it’s racism if white women avoid black males. I’d say it’s pretty damn good sense…according to crime data.

This type of hateful rhetoric is nothing new for Loudon, who in the past has claimed that she had reason to believe a reporter was gay because, according to her, he had "the psychological profile of person who attacks children" and compared gay marriage to marrying animals. On yesterday's show, she asked Pamela Geller how her children should interact with Muslim children "to assess their level of radicalism."

It is pretty sad, however, that a "Christian" radio station provides a platform for this kind of hate speech.

Words Can Break Our Hearts

http://www.nami.org/

Today, I want to talk about hate speech.

No, not “nigger,” “tranny,” or “faggot.” Not “God hates fags and Lady Gaga”—though these are indeed hateful words to direct towards another, and we cannot stand idly by as the body count continues to rise.

I want to talk about “crazy,” “psycho,” and “crackpot.” Or “wackadoodle” and “damaged goods.”

But why stop at “crazy”? How about “crazy bitch”? Or maybe even “batshit crazy”?

Is this not what you had in mind when I said that I wanted to talk about hate speech?

Now I want to talk about stigma. Mental illness is highly stigmatized. Stigma ensures that people with mental illnesses remain second-class citizens even though “disability” is a protected status under current nondiscrimination laws.

For privacy reasons, I’m not going to describe in detail the situation that prompted this post. I’ll just say that the lack of response from the community was highly disappointing to me. People who would never tolerate hate speech being directed towards someone like them remained silent when a person with a mental illness was being targeted. Community leaders either didn't notice, or stood by and said nothing as a woman who had likely been through hell was verbally attacked many times over, and even had her existence dismissed by one particularly cruel comment: "[G]irls like this make me sick. There is no reason for them to exist."

In my opinion, if you say something like that, you have blood on your hands. Hateful statements like the one above fall just short of a call for violence, and may, in fact, encourage someone who has been teetering on the edge to finally step over it and attempt suicide.*

And if you say nothing after hearing such a statement, you're complicit. As much as we value our illusory independence, we are actually interdependent beings. In spite of the rampant individualism in the U.S., we have a social responsibility to treat one another with kindness and respect, and to step in when someone is being mistreated.

If you want allies, you must be an ally. You must speak out against all forms of hate speech. It is not censorship to tell someone you think that they are doing harm.

It does get better. But it's not enough to tell people to "tough it out." We need to stop the bullying, of and by kids and adults alike. Whatever prejudice it's driven by, and whomever it's directed towards, we must step in and intervene whenever we witness hatred in action.

Words matter. Words can kill. As Robert Fulghum aptly said, “Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will break our hearts.”


* If you are thinking about suicide or you believe that someone you know may be at risk, you can get help by calling the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

Tea Party Attendee: "Wish Me Luck and No Muslims"

A member of the Dallas tea party flying in to St. Louis for the 9/12 rally had this to say today:


At his blog, which unfortunately is not satire (though the use of "Angry White Dude" is apparently used ironically), he explains what he means in more detail:

I know political correctness tells me I have to love and respect any and every culture, no matter how bassackwards it is compared to American culture. But I can’t. It just isn’t common sense to watch what passes for culture in the Islamic world and have any respect for it.

I must say I’m disappointed in the preacher in Florida for backing down from burning the Koran.

He continues:

Savage Islam cannot be calmed down. Nor reasoned with. It can only be destroyed. Pretending Islam is anything different than what it is will only end with the unnecessary deaths of many, many Americans.

And finally:

I believe America is the greatest country in the history of the world. I believe Islam has no place in America. I do not consider it a religion. It is a cult of violence and death.

Wish me luck and no Muslims on my flight tomorrow morning!

Apparently this guy thinks that any Muslims on his plane would automatically be plotting to crash it. Sounds like a classic conservative bed-wetter who doesn't understand that you can't make generalizations about 1,600,000,000 people based on the actions of a small group.

And lest you think Angry White Dude is alone in his anti-Islam bigotry, a brief search revealed several other 9/12 attendees expressing similar sentiment. AmerycanSaint is going to the rally:

And here's what he had to say:


And then St. Louis has its own home-grown bigotry:



Every one of these idiots is implying that all of Islam is evil. I have no idea how anyone could grow up in a population center like St. Louis or Dallas and be so completely ignorant about the fact that decent, hard-working, peaceful Muslims are integrated throughout American society. They have to be locking themselves in a basement 24 hours a day with a radio that only plays 97.1. And even that wouldn't work perfectly, since I heard Dave Glover on the radio making some reasonable comments as he guest hosted Glenn Beck's show. Honestly, I don't understand how people can be that clueless.

Anyway, if the tea party wants their claims to be "open-minded" and "tolerant" to be taken seriously, they need to condemn these types of comments at their rally.

Gina Loudon Somehow Manages to Be Even More Obnoxious

Just a couple weeks after comparing gay marriage to marrying animals, Gina Loudon has somehow managed to outdo even her own amazing propensity for obnoxiousness. FiredUp Missouri relates Loudon's recent rantings claiming that people who want to build an Islamic Community Center blocks away from Ground Zero are similar to Nazis. Yes, Nazis:

The land surrounding Ground Zero is a war memorial. The proposal of an Islamic mosque there is synonymous with a Nazi war memorial in downtown London. How would the world react to that proposal? Wouldn’t Western Europe just about leap off the map if that were proposed? Where is the outrage from our European “friends?”

She goes on to say that the only way Muslims can really prove that they are peaceful is to give up their freedom of religion:

If the Muslim world continues to fight for this mosque to be built at Ground Zero, they are not interested in peace, or religious dialogue. They are interested in war. They are using the Sharia law concept of lying in the best interest of Allah, and they will be further from the hearts of America than ever before.

This is a classic tactic of the Right: to try to tie all Muslims, or at least all Muslims that don't automatically go along with their right-wing ideology, to terrorists. Loudon is suggesting that the most peaceful, family-oriented, generous, loving Muslim is still "for war" if that person disagrees with Loudon about Park 51. Absolutely ridiculous.

Loudon's original post also linked directly to the truly despicable www.thereligionofpeace.com, a webiste with the tagline: "Islam: Making a True Difference in the World - One Body at a Time." The website says the following about Islam:

And so, our mission evolved from simply memorializing the victims of Islamic terror to trying to educate the open-minded on how Islam is so tragically different from other religion, including its incompatibility with secularism and Western liberal values.

Straight, unadulterated, unapologetic bigotry. That's all it is.