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Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of Michigan Citizens for Science and co-founder of The Panda's Thumb. He has written for such publications as The Bard, Skeptic and Reports of the National Center for Science Education, spoken in front of many organizations and conferences, and appeared on nationally syndicated radio shows and on C-SPAN. Ed is also a Fellow with the Center for Independent Media and the host of Declaring Independence, a one hour weekly political talk show on WPRR in Grand Rapids, Michigan.(static)
Ed Brayton also blogs at Positive Liberty and The Panda's Thumb
February 9, 2010
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Another one of those "which of these buffoons am I supposed to root for" situations, this time at the tea party convention over the weekend. Joseph Farah gave a speech, much of it about the birther nonsense, and Andrew Breitbart, who seems to have at least have a mildly less tenuous connection to reality than Farah, criticized him for it. Dave Weigel, who was at the event, reports on the ensuing confrontation:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:30 AM • 24 Comments
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Our old pal Gordon Klingenschmitt is back and he's got the outrage machine cranked up over a plan to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell. And how about this for dishonest framing in a fundraising appeal:
Tuesday the Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, repeating President Obama's demand to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) prohibition against open homosexual aggression within the ranks of the military. "We have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens," Admiral Mullen fibbed, revealing his personal belief that "allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do."
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:23 AM • 42 Comments
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The hold placed on all Obama administration nominees is already perhaps the worst example of unprincipled hypocrisy in recent memory, but it's actually worse than it seems at first blush. Marcy Wheeler points out that one of the contracts he's trying to get redone to benefit Alabama would also mean taking a potentially huge contract away from an American company to give to a European one.
Now I'm not usually one to jump on the "buy American" bandwagon, but since right wing hacks like Shelby are constantly wrapping themselves in the flag and putting on ostentatious displays of "country first" patriotism, the hypocrisy should certainly be noted.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:16 AM • 14 Comments
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The Utah legislature has once again demonstrated its utter ignorance of science by passing a bill allowing women to view the heartbeat of their fetus before an abortion -- at three weeks. Here comes the stupid:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:09 AM • 40 Comments
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The Thomas More Law Center looks to continue its perfect record of provoking amusement and exasperation on the part of judges by filing a bizarre lawsuit against Eric Holder for the passage of the hate crimes bill. Why would you sue an executive branch official for the passage of a bill by Congress? Good question. Don't hold your breath waiting for a good answer.
Like most TMLC lawsuits, the complaint (PDF) is little more than a recitation of political boilerplate language, the kind of thing that really tends to irritate judges. This case never makes it past a motion for summary judgment - and that's assuming it isn't dismissed before that point on standing grounds.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:02 AM • 20 Comments
February 8, 2010
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I don't know if you saw this, but I thought the response to the Tim Tebow ad was the best commercial during the Super Bowl. And it appears to star our friend Pat.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:30 AM • 90 Comments
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The Family Research Council has joined the American Family Association in recently coming out boldly in favor of criminalizing homosexuality, in response to the push to allow gays to openly serve in the military. On Hardball, one of their spokesmen had this exchange:
Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?Sprigg: Well, I think certainly..
Matthews: I'm just asking, should we outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: I think the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place in this country for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.
Matthews: So we should outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: YES!
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:23 AM • 67 Comments
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The latest religious right freakout seems to be over a pink toy that is apparently going to force little girls to worship Satan and infest them with demons. I mean, it would do those things if Satan and demons actually existed.
A pink version of the popular Ouija board game has some critics seeing red.The children's sleepover staple -- sold by Hasbro since 1967 -- now comes in hot pink, an edition released two years ago that gets tweens to call on "spirits" to spell out answers to life's pressing questions.
Which makes it the equivalent of a magic 8 ball, for crying out loud. But not to everyone:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:16 AM • 85 Comments
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Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama has managed to pull off a rare maneuver even by Washington standards, proving himself to be a hypocrite on two fronts simultaneously. Shelby has placed a "blanket hold" on all Obama nominees - an absolutely appalling practice that simply should not be allowed in the Senate but it is.
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has put an extraordinary "blanket hold" on at least 70 nominations President Obama has sent to the Senate, according to multiple reports this evening. The hold means no nominations can move forward unless Senate Democrats can secure a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until Shelby lifts the hold."While holds are frequent," CongressDaily's Dan Friedman and Megan Scully report (sub. req.), "Senate aides said a blanket hold represents a far more aggressive use of the power than is normal."
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:09 AM • 31 Comments
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My colleague Dave Weigel, who uncharacteristically finds himself as part of a story rather than reporting one, has written a post at the Washington Independent clarifying what he has said and what he remembers about James O'Keefe and his attendance at a debate between white supremacist Jared Taylor and Kevin Martin. That last part is important because Blumenthal's original accusation was that the event was a white nationalist conference. Weigel says:
As Epstein's August 28, 2006 post on the nativist site VDare.com makes clear, it was a two-hour debate, not a conference. I made this clear in my initial post. The only "white nationalist" onstage was Taylor. John Derbyshire has some controversial views on race, but co-panelist Kevin Martin is and was, as Andrew Breitbart's Big Journalism delights in pointing out, African-American.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:02 AM • 9 Comments
February 7, 2010
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The organization that I work for, the Center for Independent Media, has officially changed its name to the American Independent News Network. I think the primary reason for doing so was because the old name really made it sound like a think tank analyzing the media rather than a real news outlet, which is what it is. Here's the full press release on the name change:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:23 AM • 2 Comments
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This is a seriously weird one from Glenn Beck:
BECK: He chose to use his name, Barack, for a reason. To identify, not with America -- you don't take the name Barack to identify with America. You take the name Barack to identify with what? Your heritage? The heritage, maybe, of your father in Kenya, who is a radical?
He's really not this fucking insane, is he? He's just manipulating his really, really stupid followers, right?
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:16 AM • 52 Comments
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"Depending on the government to protect your privacy is like asking a peeping tom to install your window blinds."
John Perry Barlow
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:09 AM • 7 Comments
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A reader sent along a fundraising letter from Faith and Action, a religious right group that seeks to evangelize the political leaders in Washington DC, that I found quite amusing.
Please let me confide in you as I get right to the point-we just got sucker-punched and now we need your help to recover from the blow!You know Faith and Action is the only Christian missionary outreach to our top-government officials located across the street from the Supreme Court, one block from the US Capitol and ten minutes from the White House. That also puts us directly in the crosshairs of the enemies of the work of God like the ACLU, the American Atheists and current leaders in Congress that sympathize with them. We've learned over the years there's nothing they won't stop short of doing to shut down Faith and Action.
Before I go into detail about what just happened, let me remind you (and them, if they're reading this) that we resolved before God long ago that we will never let intimidation or force of any kind drive us out of this critical mission field. By God's grace and with his help we have stood up to these bullies before and we will do it again!
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:02 AM • 23 Comments
February 6, 2010
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Gawker has an account of what the Scientologists are doing in Haiti and the answer seems to be mostly "getting in the way." There's a fairly long letter from a guy who traveled on a plane with about 50 Scientologists in their yellow shirts, on their way to Haiti without a clue what they were doing. Like these people:
I knew we were traveling with doctors and EMTs, but I didn't expect to see 50 scientologists, in their yellow shirts with Volunteer Minister on them. They were completely unprepared for going to a third world country, let alone a disaster zone. One girl was in designer cowboy boots. I asked her if she'd brought any sturdier footwear."Oh no, these'll be fine."
I asked another guy what he'd packed and he said he hadn't bothered to bring soap or toilet paper or food, but that he'd just "buy whatever I need at Port-au-Prince airport." I couldn't break it to him.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:23 AM • 44 Comments
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Here's one of the dumbest lawsuits you'll ever see:
An Oregon man is seeking $25,000 in damages over the opening of his Native American medicine bag during a drunken-driving arrest last summer.Craig Clark Show contends the medicine bag's mystical qualities were destroyed when the bag was opened. Show said the bag, which imparted protection, had been blessed by a medicine woman and sealed since 1995.
Well obviously the protection didn't work very well - it didn't keep you from getting arrested for drunk driving. Hell, it couldn't even protect itself. So much for your magic bag.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:16 AM • 71 Comments
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From allegedly moderate and reasonable Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine:
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaking during the GOP's weekly radio and Internet address, criticized the Obama administration for treating terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as "an ordinary criminal" rather than as an enemy combatant, thus showing "a blind spot when it comes to the war on terrorism.""Because of that blindness, this administration cannot see a foreign terrorist even when he stands right in front of them, fresh from an attempt to blow a plane out of the sky on Christmas Day," she said. "There's no other way to explain the irresponsible, indeed dangerous, decision on Abdulmutallab's interrogation. There's no other way to explain the inconceivable treatment of him as if he were a common criminal."
Yes, it was so "inconceivable" that George W. Bush did the same thing with the last airplane bomber, Richard Reid. And with 288 other terror suspects. You keep using that word - I do not think it means what you think it means.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:09 AM • 13 Comments
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Has there ever been an alleged news entity that was so brazenly just a marketing scheme than the Worldnutdaily? It seems every other "article" there is really just a thinly disguised ad for a book they're selling. A perfect example is this article about blowhard Larry Klayman, which breathlessly announces that he has "launched a probe" of Attorney General Eric Holder.
Since Klayman is a private citizen only, what does "launched a probe" mean? It means he filed a FOIA request. Boy, that's news. And then I got to the bottom and realized that it was just an ad for Klayman's new book, which is being sold by the Worldnutdaily. And as usual, Klayman is spouting nonsense:
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:02 AM • 4 Comments
February 5, 2010
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Chuck Norris uses a very strange new right wing meme about Dawn Johnsen, Obama's nominee to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the DOJ. Try to parse this weird sentence:
Despite the victory of U.S. Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts, President Obama re-nominated pro-abortion activist and former NARAL attorney Dawn Johnsen to head the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:30 AM • 34 Comments
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I've done more than my fair share of bashing conservatives for their blatant hypocrisy when it comes to judicial nominees, filibusters and fair hearings. How about a little liberal bashing for the very same offense? Nan Aron is the president of the Alliance for Justice, one of the two most prominent liberal interest groups that work on judicial nominations (People for the American Way being the other one). And she's being just as hypocritical as conservatives are when she writes an op-ed for Politico decrying the fact that Republicans have been blocking Obama's judicial nominees.
Posted by Ed Brayton at 9:23 AM • 32 Comments
