Tolerance: Special Comment by my 72-year-old friend

By GottaLaff

My very caring, impassioned 72-year-old Twitter pal, who goes by the name 42bkdodgr, would like to share his feelings about the conservatives' hostile intrusion into what is left of the Republican party, and the resulting split. I am more than happy to oblige.

But first, a personal note from 42bkdodgr:

Many of you may wonder why I chose to use the “ 72 year old friend” as the introduction to my Special Comments. I selected the moniker so readers could see that from my age and life experiences I give a different perspective to the issues of today.

Now for his Special Comment:

Tolerance

In the last couple of month three events have taken place, which for me shows where the Republican Party is heading.

The first event is the New York State 23rd Congressional District election. The local Republican leadership chose Dede Scozzafava as their candidate, whose selection was endorsed by the Republican leadership in Congress and by National Republican Congressional Committee.

Dissatisfied with Ms. Scozzafava positions on abortion, same-sex marriage and taxation; the Conservative wing of the Republican Party led by Sarah Palin and Dick Armey decided to put up their own candidate to defeat the Republican candidate.

We all know how that turned out, the election of Democratic candidate Bill Owens, the first Democrat to hold that District’s seat in over 100 years.

The second event took place on Nov.7th during the voting on the HCR Bill. With all Republicans indicating they would all vote NO on the bill, I wondered if there was at least one representative who knew his constituents were in favor of having a health care reform bill passed.

Well I wasn’t disappointed, a courageous individual, Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-New Orleans), listening to the needs of his constituents, who were concerned about the rising costs of health care premiums, voted for the HCR Bill with a public option.

Rep Cao did what he was elected to do, represent interests of his constituents and not just support party ideology. I believe there where others who felt the same way but were afraid to go against their party leadership and the conservative wing of the party.

For actually representing the wishes of his constituents, Rep Cao received a lot of hateful words from the right wing of the party. He received such hateful remarks as “The face of an American traitor”, “I will go broke supporting a dog to run against this traitor”, “Go back to Saigon, Vietnam, where you f_ _ _ing belong G_ _K”. Some people even asked that their donations be returned.

The third event involves Sen. Lindsey Graham (R - SC). The Charleston County, S.C., Republican Party censured Sen. Graham for his work with Democrats and GOP moderates. They were upset that Sen. Graham worked with Sen. John Kerry ( D-Mass.) and Joseph Liberman (I-Conn.) on climate change legislation and for also working on a bipartisan basis with members of the Democratic party on immigration reform.

Now what do these three events have in common? Its that the Conservative wing (tea baggers/ Tea Party) of the Republican Party has little or no tolerance for those with different point of views.

The Conservative wing of the Party has indicated they will endorse those Republican candidates in the 2010 primaries who support their ideology (abortions, gay marriage, taxation) or they will select a candidate to oppose them.

When you take into account these three events along with the actions, dress, signs and posters displayed by the protesters at the Town Hall meetings, the 9/12 Rally and the Bachmann “Press Conference” rally, you can see that the Republican Party is slowly being taken over by the far right wing of the party.

When the intentions of a political party’s wing is to drum out those members who have different points of view and expects all followers to be in lock step-- or should I say goose step?-- with their ideology, then the political party that emerges looks no different from a Fascist or Communist Party.

Many thanks again for another timely, thoughtful piece, 42bkdodgr. You never fail to say what so many of us are thinking and feeling.

Treasury Department Denies it Tried to Exclude Fox News From Interviews

By GottaLaff

All day we've been going back and forth with anonymous quotes and denials about health care reform and whether the public option is a goner, or as strong as ever.

Now we're seeing a denial about someone Paddy posted about earlier, the subject of a huge media kerfuffle:

Now, Mediaite has learned exclusively that the Treasury Department, who set up the interviews, denies the story.

A Treasury Department spokesperson tells Mediaite the following:

There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing. [...]

Neither Fox News nor the Treasury Department has provided copies of the bulletins that were sent to the press pool, which Politico reports were missing Fox’s name. [...]

TV Newser points out, via an anonymous source, that a decision by the other nets to skip the interviews may have been more financial than principled:

The pool is paid for by and rotates between ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, and NBC, allowing each network to do quick interviews using the same camera crew. If the White House were to exclude one of the members, the other networks would have to provide their own crew for the interview.

Meanwhile, my pal Larisa has an interesting take on all of this, as always.

I report, you decide. And so far, I haven't excluded anyone.

We here at TPC have a big tent policy. If only the pole would stay up.

Arkansas, 5 Other States, Ban Atheists from Public Service. Seriously

By GottaLaff

How troglodytic of them:

Can it be constitutional to exclude from public service or service as a witness in a state court any and all atheists? [...] I was flabbergasted to find that Arkansas is one of a half-dozen states that does so. Read on and be flabbergasted (or not) yourself. But know in advance that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled illegal all such laws in 1961:

Hard to say what was more remarkable about the resolution that was read into the record and referred to committee Wednesday by a member of the 87th Arkansas General Assembly.

The resolution itself: HJR 1009: AMENDING THE ARKANSAS CONSTITUTION TO REPEAL THE PROHIBITION AGAINST AN ATHEIST HOLDING ANY OFFICE IN THE CIVIL DEPARTMENTS OF THE STATE OF ARKANSAS OR TESTIFYING AS A WITNESS IN ANY COURT.

Or the fact that it was submitted by the Green Party's highest-ranking elected official in America, state Rep. Richard Carroll of North Little Rock, who was elected in November winning more than 80 percent of the vote in his district.

Arkansas is one of half a dozen states that still exclude non-believers from public office. Article 19 Section 1 of the 1874 Arkansas Constitution states that "No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any court.

I guess I won't be holding public office or swearing in to a court of law in Arkansas any time soon. Does it count that I was raised Jewish? Good lord. What am I even thinking? That's a big ol' double whammy. With my background, they probably wouldn't even let me into the state.