Posts by Joshua Holland

Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.

Year in Review: 2009 Right-Wing Lie Machine Amped Up the Obama Madness (VIDEO)
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 18, 2009 at 8:51 AM.

Remember how this was supposed to be the dawn of a new era, with those hopey-changey feelings settling over a reunited America?

Yeah, well, as the year-end compilation from Media Matters in the video window to your right suggests, the conservative noise machine didn't adapt to a changing political climate -- it just turned its amp up to 11 (FYI: most only go up to 10).

Tea Party More Popular than Dems, Repubs... and Other Utterly Meaningless News
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 17, 2009 at 3:00 PM.

All indications suggest we've become a nation of hyper-polarized bickering lunatics, screaming at each other over issue after issue.

But many political reporters maintain the fantasy that there exists some vast, thoughtful ideological middle that punishes the two major parties whenever they veer too far from the center (as defined, of course, by the jackals of the WaPo editorial board).

And while it appears that most Americans would happily see a favored politician brutally disembowel an opponent on the floor of the Congress, that vast middle -- being above all reasonable and non-ideological -- is supposedly bothered first and foremost by "gridlock" in Washington. When Congress doesn't act quickly enough, they lash out at both the Dems and Repubs, and the emergence of a viable third party is always a possibility looming just over the horizon.

This poll everyone's talking about fits neatly into that narrative:

The loosely organized group made of up mostly conservative activists and independent voters that's come to be known as the Tea Party movement currently boasts higher favorability ratings than either the Democratic or Republican Parties, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll coming out later today.

More than four in 10, 41%, of respondents said they had a very or somewhat favorable view of the Tea Party movement, while 24% said they had a somewhat or very negative view of the group. The Tea Party movement gained notoriety over the summer following a series of protests in Washington, D.C. and other cities over government spending and other U.S. economic policies.

I just want to add my own to the chorus of voices calling bullshit on anyone drawing any serious conclusions from this stuff.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Alleged Police Cover-Up Adds Shocking Angle to the Racist Murder of Luis Ramirez
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 4:00 PM.

It was always difficult to comprehend how a jury could find the young Pennsylvania men who brutally murdered Luis Ramirez -- a Mexican immigrant and father of two young children -- during the hot summer months of 2008 not guilty. The six young men surrounded Ramirez, shouted racial slurs at him and beat him to death.

If federal charges bear out, the result should come as little surprise; justice was apparently not served in the case. As attorney Patrick Young writes, many in the community would have had you believe "that the racial epithets hurled at Ramirez did not make this killing a hate crime."

They also expect you to see no unfairness in the fact that the initial investigation into the crime was carried out by the partner of a cop who was sleeping with the mother of the young man accused of killing Ramirez. Or that the first person arrested in the incident was a Latino who tried to come to Ramirez's rescue.

And they would have you believe that the young assailants were acquitted of all major charges by an all white jury in a fair trial even though the prosecution failed to call significant witnesses, including a former Philly cop who responded to Ramirez's cries outside her window.

It turns out that the fix was allegedly in among members of the local police department, who tampered with witnesses, destroyed evidence and otherwise made sure a conviction was not forthcoming in the case. Federal prosecutors say the corruption tainting the case went all the way to the top.

But justice may yet be served for Luis Ramirez and his family, with a slew of indictments handed down yesterday against not only the young men who took Ramirez' life, but also several of the cops involved in the investigation which followed.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Can 'Whole Foods Conservatives' Make the GOP "Safe for Smarties Again"?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 16, 2009 at 5:00 AM.

There are, of course, still non-crazy and non-dumb conservatives among us. Some, like the Hoover institute's Michael Petrilli, live in places like suburban Maryland, where they shop at Whole Foods, presumably enjoy arugula and might even drive a Volvo or Prius.

And occasionally one among this group will take to the pages of a publication like the Wall Street Journal to decry the anti-scientific rural tea-party types that have made them so uncomfortable within the big tent of the Republican Party. It's gotten to the point where it's an embarrassment to toodle around Silver Springs with a Palin/McCain bumper-sticker, and the're here to urge the GOP to think about people like them once in a while, perhaps by not basing the entire party platform on inspiring the peasants to grab their pitchforks.

Here's Petrilli, picking up the tune during a riff on red-neck GOP identity politics ...

To be sure, playing to personal identity is hardly novel, nor is it crazy. Bill Bishop and other political analysts have noted that people's politics are as much about their lifestyle choices as their policy positions. Republicans live in exurbs and small towns, drive pick-up trucks or SUVs, go to church every Sunday, and listen to country music. Well-heeled Democrats live in cities and close-in suburbs, drive hybrids or Volvos, hang out at bookshops, and frequent farmers' markets. These are stereotypes, of course, but they also contain some truth.

Widening this cultural divide has long been part of the GOP playbook, going back to Nixon's attacks on "East Coast intellectuals" and forward to candidate Obama's arugula-eating tendencies.

The problem for Petrilli isn't so much that widening that divide represents a rather ugly, superficial brand of politics, or that those who appeal to right-populist sentiment are themselves usually well-heeled urban hypocrites just putting on the 'golly-gee' act for the rubes (think George W. and all that damn brush-clearing).

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Michelle Obama to Receive Christmas Gift, Wingnut Incensed
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 15, 2009 at 5:14 AM.

Roy Edroso reached deep into the primordial muck this week, and pulled out a bright, glittering gem of wingnuttery.

First, the wind-up, with a hint from the Obamas upcoming interview with Oprah Winfrey: 

During the joint interview with the Obamas — the first since they sat down together for The New York Times to discuss their marriage — Winfrey asks them about their gift giving. The couple riff for their pal:

OW: Is there a greater pressure to give a good gift when you’re the president or can you get away with a lesser gift if you’re the president?

First Lady: What are you gonna get me? You should feel pressure.

Innocuous enough banter. But not innocuous to a blogger known as "the narcissist" ...

Wow. Just…wow. The first two sentences uttered by the Klingon Princess sum up with elegant simplicity the mind of the Obama voter.

“What are you gonna get me?” I’m reminded of the various video and audio clips of delerious Obamabots exclaiming how they were looking forward to having their mortgages paid and their gas tanks filled; of jubilant paupers whose squalid lives would be changed by free money from “Obama’s stash.”

“You should feel pressure.” Nothin’ says lovin’ like a veiled threat from wifey, huh? Those four words words speak volumes about the psyche of the Klingon Princess and the nature of her relationship with the man who would be the first American dictator.

Remember Bush Derangement Syndrome? The supposedly pathological desire to hold Bush accountable for the disastrous series of failures -- and crimes -- that marked his term in the White House?

But, wait, this guy's just getting ramped up ...

For the longest time I have entertained an entirely unscientific theory that the dominant member in a marital union somehow determines the sex of the children.

You don't say.

"The Foolish Symbols of Christianity": Israel's Religious Right Discovers the War on Hanukkah
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 14, 2009 at 2:54 PM.

It makes them batty to hear it, but you can't tell me that, whatever their faith, the really hard-core religious conservatives aren't all cut from the same cloth. Only the deit(ies) they worship varies.

So here in the U.S., the FOX knuckleheads cooked up that pernicious "war on Christmas," supposedly launched by the liberals who run Wal-Mart, with their dastardly and generic "Happy holidays!' crap.

And in Israel? Well, the wicked secularists aren't exactly the problem ...

The "Lobby for Jewish values" this week began operating against restaurants and hotels that plan to put up Christmas trees and other Christian symbols ahead of Christmas and the civil New Year.

According to the lobby's Chairman, Ofer Cohen, they have received backing by the rabbis, "and we are even considering publishing the names of the businesses that put up Christian symbols ahead of the Christian holiday and call for a boycott against them."

 

Fliers and ads distributed among the public read, "The people of Israel have given their soul over the years in order to maintain the values of the Torah of Israel and the Jewish identity.

"You should also continue to follow this path of the Jewish people's tradition and not give in to the clownish atmosphere of the end of the civil year. And certainly not help those businesses that sell or put up the foolish symbols of Christianity."

How Easy it Is to Reinforce People's Conspiracy Paranoia
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 14, 2009 at 10:00 AM.

Over the weekend, I deleted a comment left by a 9/11 Truther.

It was typical of the genre: AlterNet is covering up the real crimes of 9/11 because we get a portion of our funding from liberal foundations, and liberal foundations are obviously natural supporters of a fascist coup attempt by Dick Cheney. So while we -- like the folks at The Nation and Democracy, Now! -- have the incontrovertible evidence that could wrap up this whole 9/11 controversy tucked away in a file-cabinet, we simply refuse to publish it (we don't want to rock the boat!).

Of course, that reader will now think that he or she is being "censored" by AlterNet because we have some terrible fear of this damning truth being revealed (the fact that I am myself repeating it on our blog is neither here nor there -- that's limited hang-out). He or she might even write a lengthy blog post about the injustice of it all. And the whole thing will only reinforce his or her self-image as an intrepid truth-seeker persevering against a murky but massively powerful machine that exists solely to obscure the real story behinds the events of that terrible day.

But here's the thing, and I swear this is just the plain, boring truth. It was the most benign, inoffensive comment in the world. In fact, it was exactly the same as thousands of others that have appeared, and remained, on this site over the years.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Lack of Access to Medical Pot Is the Poor's Greatest Problem Ever!
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 13, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

Because dumb people* also enjoy access to the information super-highway, I get comments like this one in response to my piece on today's front page:

Goddamn if you think the biggest problem with the working poor in California is a lack of access to marijuana, you are seriously stoned out of your mind.

To which I can only respond by happily announcing that nobody's even suggested it makes the top ten.

But having cleared up that messy controversy, I do want to flesh out the argument a bit.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Yes, Why Can't We Get the Health-Care Congress Enjoys?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 11, 2009 at 12:15 PM.

I'm not going to write a big wonky post about the Senate health-care compromise today. I just want to highlight a small point: the idea of having the Office of Personnel Management -- the federal government's HR department -- administer the program is really smart politics, but a pretty bizarre policy when you stop to think about it.

The Dems' health care plans are roughly modeled on the benefits program federal employees, including members of Congress, enjoy. There's a government-run exchange. Private insurers sell policies within that exchange, and they have to conform to certain rules and offer a set of minimum benefits. After that, they compete -- federal employees choose from a variety of plans. If the "public option" existed, it would just be one among several different insurance plans in the exchanges.

During this summer of brain-dead right-populism over health-care, folks at Town Halls would berate their representatives for not signing themselves up for the program they were creating.

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Alan Grayson to Dick Cheney: STFU
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 10, 2009 at 4:29 AM.

Entertaining political theater, courtesy of Tweety and Alan Grayson. Enjoy [ht: Oliver Willis] ...

Andrew Breitbart Raves: ACORN Pseudo-Scandal the "Abu Ghraib of Great Society"
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 9, 2009 at 1:29 PM.

Big Hollywood's Andrew Breitbart, mastermind of the ACORN "investigation" videos (for which he is being sued), took umbrage at the Village Voice's coverage of a report that cleared ACORN of any wrong-doing in the matter.

Roy Edroso managed to snag an interview with Breitbart. He says it was, "boiled down from what was pretty much a 45-minute harangue." The man who made hating Hollywood a career, was in fine form:

Throughout our interview, Breitbart railed against ACORN ("they don't help the poor, they keep them dependent on a completely corrupt system"), the "false standard" of mainstream media journalism that he finds unfairly applied to O'Keefe's reporting ("when Morley Safer does an investigation, do you see every minute, every second that they shot? They edit it for effect"), and the media's attempt to "whitewash" ACORN. He compared his reporters to Upton Sinclair, and called the ACORN scandal "the Abu Ghraib of the Great Society."

Breitbart promises more ACORN coverage, and that it will not be pretty: "The L.A. [ACORN] guy didn't help [Hannah and James]. Didn't kick them out, but he wasn't very helpful. That's the closest thing to an exculpatory video. There will be no more exculpatory video. The rest is just like the rest."

I may be mistaken, but that last bit seems like Andrew Breitbart promising less balanced reporting on ACORN's nefarious plots in the future. Which is about the funniest thing I've heard all day.

Are Wealthier, Better Educated Neighbors More Likely to Return a Wallet Full of Cash than Poorer Ones?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 1:17 PM.

This is an odd question, on a number of levels:

Is community trust a luxury in America? Gallup data offer some support for that idea -- 82% of those making $90,000 per year or more say they would expect a neighbor who found a lost wallet or purse containing $200 to return it. In contrast, 50% of those making less than $24,000 per year expressed this kind of trust in their neighbors.

I think the poll's informational value is close to zero for a simple reason: by maintaining a constant number of dollars in the wallet, neighbors in wealthier communities have relatively less incentive to pocket the cash. $200 represents 1 percent of annual income for someone making $20K, but just 0.2 percent of the yearly take of someone making $100K. $200 simply doesn't mean the same thing to those two hypothetical individuals. Money doesn't even have the same value for a single individual over the course of his or her life -- I can tell you $20 means a Hell of a lot less to me today than it did when I was going to school and scraping by working part-time jobs. Even if Bill Gates found a lost wallet stuffed with $100,000 in cash, what economic incentive would he have to not have his driver go return it.

It's not a minor quibble. The pollsters specified $200 for a reason. It's substantial enough to tempt people to pocket it, but not such a large sum that just about anyone would. They should have established income first, then asked people making $20k about a wallet with $200, and upped the amount of cash on a sliding scale so those making $100K would have to consider whether their neighbors would return a wallet with $1,000.

Let's also consider this proxy they've come up with. Gallup defines "community trust" as the belief that one's neighbors would be likely to return a wallet with $200 in cash. That's a rather arbitrary marker. What if we defined it as, say, "believing the community will rally around a family in crisis"? What would the results look like then?

One could argue that "not snitching out members of the community to the cops" is a sign of trust in one's neighbors, and the results of this poll would probably look very different if one asked that question. Would those making $90K trust their neighbors not to drop a dime on them if they committed a crime?

Gallup's results also offer an ideological Rorschach Test of sorts. 

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Conservative Family Values, Beating the Crap Out of Defenseless People Edition
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 8, 2009 at 9:50 AM.

Here are two stories that appeared just inches apart on John Cole's blog.

Item one:

In an incident in which the perpetrator should have considered that he would become a household name on Wonkette before going through with it, former Missouri House Speaker Rod Jetton is facing assault charges for allegedly beating the shit out of his mistress while having sex. His ladyfriend had not uttered the “safe word,” probably because Jetton was beating her unconscious. [link]

Wonkette notes, "Rod Jetton is married with three children and attends Methodist church regularly. He is affiliated with the Republican Party. He is a Real American, the end."

Item two:

Former Congressman (and C Streeter) Chip Pickering is reportedly under police investigation for his involvement in a brawl with a rival youth league soccer coach.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

UPDATED: Defense Contractor Makes Up Wild Islamic Terrorism Fantasy; Right-Wingers Act Like it's 9/11 All Over Again
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 6, 2009 at 11:34 AM.

True story. A right-winger who obviously reads too many of those really hard-core Islamophobic blogs emailed around a detailed account of how he had heroically thwarted a terrorist attack on a flight from Atlanta to Houston.

According to the story, which proliferated on conservative blogs and rose as high up the wingnut food chain as Glenn Beck's website, Ted Petruna was on the AirTrans flight waiting to taxi when he saw a bunch of "Muslims" acting suspiciously. They spoke to each other covertly on their cell phones from different locations within the plane. In Arabic, of course. They refused the crew's orders to turn off the phones; instead, they started watching pornographic films (this is what religious fundamentalists tend to do before launching suicide attacks, according to Petruna). When the group stood up and started walking towards the flight deck, Petruna and a brave fellow Texan who had also noted the suspicious doings of the men took action. They manhandled the outclassed young Muslims into compliance and secured them until Air Marshals boarded the plane and took the group into custody.

Then, shockingly, the airline -- no doubt entirely staffed by PC liberals -- tried to allow the men to board again and resume their journey. But Petruna and a bunch of other fine upstanding Americans had had enough. They threatened airline personnel with violence if they weren't re-booked on other flights. The airline relented, and the flight was canceled.

All of this was of course covered up, as usual, by the terror-loving liberal media.

BradBlog offers a sampling of that feverish meme from Debbie Schlussel, who, when referred to at all, is almost ubiquitously dubbed the "poor man's Ann Coulter":

... she notes that she's spoken to Petruna, so she now knows that [her bold] "it's all true. WAKE. UP. AMERICA. We are under siege."

"As we know," the delightful Schlussel informs us, "authorities think we shouldn’t know about these things. They don’t want us to panic or to be suspicious of Muslims, when they’re busy doing outreach over shawarmeh at 'Ahmed’s Falafel Hut.'"

You know where this is all going, right?

Petruna was never on the airplane in question. He had had a reservation, but missed a connection and couldn't make the flight. There was in fact a group of brown people on the flight Petruna missed. But they were speaking Spanish. One of them didn't understand the crew's instructions to turn off his cell-phone. Crew members asked him and a companion to step off the plane and speak to security personnel, which they did without fuss. There was no altercation. No other passengers had to get involved. No air marshals boarded the plane.

Everything got straightened out, the men got back on and the flight continued to Texas without incident after a 2-hour delay.

Detailed story here, here and here.

It's a typically funny tale of conservative bravery! And I want to highlight a couple of what I think are key chunks  ...

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

So, How Much Do You Have to Pay Someone to Kill Off a Basketful of Cute Little Puppies?
Posted by Joshua Holland, AlterNet on December 4, 2009 at 9:30 AM.

This is my new girl, who, at present, is going by the working-title "Daisy":

Cute, huh? 10 weeks old, and she's pretty much got me wrapped around her little paw -- just forget about resisting the Power of the Puppy!

I hadn't planned on getting a baby, but a local animal rescue group came up with a brilliant strategy to get Daisy and her 6 sisters and brothers placed. They invited me to come down to a pet store where they were having an "adoption fair" to meet a 2 year-old mutt who needed a good home. When I got there, I was told that the dog "couldn't come out" that day for some reason. But there was a play-pen brimming with puppies.

The rescue people listened patiently as I went on about how at this point in my life it would be utterly impossible -- foolish, even -- for me to even consider trying to raise a puppy on my own.

Then they asked me if I wanted to sit with them for just a minute -- and they plopped me down in the middle of this mass of wriggling little bundles of fur.

I can't be sure, but it's possible a rainbow appeared at that moment. The serotonin levels spiked. And needless to say I've been cleaning up puppy-poop ever since.

At 6 weeks, Daisy and her litter-mates were rescued from a high-volume shelter just 4 hours before they were going to be put down. As Liliana wrote back in April, animal shelters have seen a surge in new arrivals resulting from the economic crash, and Daisy was among them.

You have to wonder what it says about our society that we have both the puppy-mill, and also an equally horrific industrial process to dispose of our "best friends" by the litter.

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