50 First Controversies

[UPDATE]:

What Tom said.

——————————–

You know what kills me about these stupid, post-truth times we live in? There’s no fucking accountability. Invade a Middle Eastern country based on lies, distortions, and fearmongering? Kill tens of thousands and bust the national treasury? No problem! Off into the sunset with you, eight years later we’ll have forgotten it ever happened.

Monitor peoples’ phone calls and internet activity without a warrant? Don’t worry about it! Five years later people will have never heard of such a thing. And when we hear about it happening with warrants and judicial oversight? Hey, we can pretend it’s some new thing and get faux-outraged all over again.

I mean, shit. We can’t even have a national discussion about this surveillance with FISA courts and all that because everyone’s pretending this is the same extra-judicial overreach that Bush did. It’s like “50 First Dates,” every day the sun rises and memories are wiped clean. Every day we start back at square one. It’s annoying as hell.

I want to know some things about this, like how long the NSA keeps this information or if they’re required to dump it after a certain period of time. Also, who and what governments (or corporations) are they sharing this information with? And what legal recourse do those being surveilled have? What can you do if a mistake is made, which is bound to happen? What limits and restraints are there?

Now is the time to find out about this stuff but no, we can’t even get that far because we’re still in “OMG THE GOVERNMENT IS LISTENING TO MY PHONE CALLS” mode. C’mon, folks. We covered this ground, like, eight years ago. There are some serious, real issues that need to be addressed here, but we never get around to having the grown-up conversation because we’re in constant reaction-mode.

Look, pay attention, people. Hit the Google. Read a fucking newspaper or magazine instead of getting your information from the TV, which caters to the 30-second attention span. Hey, I’ve learned a lot from Harper’s but maybe The Economist is more your speed? Fine, whatever. Just fucking learn something, please. I’m tired of having the same conversations all over again.

What The Hell Is Wrong With Stacey Campfield

[UPDATE]:

Check out this hilarious exchange wherein Campfield (or someone posting as him) defends his “out the gay kids” part of his legislation.

———————————-

Fresh off his “suffer the little children” legislation, State Senator Stacey Campfield, R-Sociopath, has brought back his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation for the third time, this time with an extra helping of hate:

The bill, SB 234, still bars Tennessee teachers from discussing any facet of “non-heterosexual” sexuality with children in grades K-8. But the newest iteration also includes a provision requiring teachers or counselors to inform the parents of some students who identify themselves as LGBT.

What could possibly go wrong! Gee, I think if a kid felt safe talking to their parents about issues of sexual orientation, they wouldn’t be bringing it up with a school counselor in the first place, now would they? Dumbass.

Look, three things need to be said about Stacey Campfield:

1- What the hell is wrong with you, son? Did you not get enough titty when you were a baby? Were you born without a compassion gene? Are your shoes too tight?

2- The culture wars are over. Republicans lost. Give it up.

3- Finally, rumors about Campfield’s own orientation have been rampant for years. If they’re true, then dangit I sure wish someone would please just out Stacey Campfield already.

You know what? I’m only half joking here. Good grief, but I’ve never seen a straight man so obsessed with all things gay who didn’t eventually end up on the wrong end of a rentboy scandal. Certainly not these guys. There has to be a reason Campfield is focused like a laser on all things gay, and self-hate seems as good a reason as any.

Campfield’s hate is damaging GLBT kids. And no, teen suicide is not “a lark.” Just ask the family of Jadin Bell. If Campfield thinks it’s perfectly fine for the state to mandate outing gay or possibly gay or maybe not even gay but confused kids to their parents — to leave these kids with nowhere safe to go to talk about what’s happening in their lives — then I hope someone returns the favor.

Also, thank you very much New York. Campfield is yours, he’s from Binghamton and didn’t move to Tennessee until he was 25 years old. I’m tired of Tennessee getting blamed for his fuckery; we’ve got plenty of our own home-grown bigotry, please don’t saddle us with the blame for this asshat. I spent a summer in that part of the world and let me tell you, there are as many rednecks in upstate New York and Pennsylvania as in Tennessee.

And finally, hope you’re enjoying your Republican super-majority, Tennesseeans. This is what you get when you vote Republican: a bunch of bullshit about gays, and constitutional amendments banning stuff we’ve already banned three times before, because Tennessee Republicans are too lazy to vote unless the General Assembly uses the ol’ carrot-and-stick approach. So much for the important stuff.

Black Friday Rant/Good News Friday

Is everyone excited about Black Friday? No? Neither are 82% of Americans.

Kai Ryssdall of NPR’s Marketplace made this discovery on yesterday’s show and it was hilarious. Kai was literally shocked — shocked! — to discover that “Black Friday” is a media-created myth utterly lacking any toehold on reality. Really! Here he interviews Frank Newport of Gallup and was told only 18% of people surveyed plan to do any “Black Friday” shopping.

Newport: Despite all of the media frenzy [...] on Friday significantly less than half of us wil be out there braving the crowds.

Ryssdal: I actually think that’s huge news, that we’re all going absolutely bonkers for 18% of the American public.

Yes, Kai. Better grab some gloves to handle this hot scoop. The media has created one of its cute little pet memes, reported on it incessantly, and then facts prove it to be utter bullshit. Let’s see, when has this ever happened in recent memory? Oh, how about Iraq has WMD and the Tea Party is a major grassroots thing and killer sharks roam American waters and white women mysteriously disappear from their homes and people actually liked Mitt Romney?

If only folks like Kai Ryssdal, one of the media’s consistently worst purveyors of the false narrative, were in a position to do something about this stuff.

/sarcasm

In fact, one of my local news stations has already devoted an entire section of its web page to reporting on Black Friday “news.” But I understand this, I really do. Our merchant class is desperate for Black Friday to become a thing. They want this to become a national event like Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, two other fake holidays they created out of thin air. Of course, I’m all for setting aside a day to honor your mother and father. Black Friday, on the other hand, is all about honoring greed, consumption, and some of humanity’s baser instincts, like shoving the little old lady in front of you out of the way to grab this season’s hot new toy. I’m not sure endless news stories of people getting trampled to death at Wal-mart are good for the brand, y’all. Maybe you ought to dial it back a notch.

I’m trying to think who buys the Black Friday bullshit. The only ones I know are the “nails ladies” at the Vietnamese sweatshop I visit for my pre-Thanksgiving manicure. Every year the nail tech asks if I’m going to go shopping on Friday; every year I tell her I’d rather stick pins in my eyes. Every year the person says, “Big savings! For Christmas!” Every year I have to tell her no, she’s been conned. The sales are no better on Black Friday than on Saturday, Sunday, or a week later. Those $25 flat screen TVs they advertise to get everyone through the door? Nobody gets those. Nobody. They aren’t real.

“Black Friday” is a narrative counterpunch to a day traditionally devoted to giving thanks for those things money can’t buy: family, friends, tradition, togetherness. These are things which have no price and can’t be turned into a commodity. Black Friday is its polar opposite, and to see it encroach on a holiday set aside for something pure offends me.

Thanks to supremely bad planning on my part, I’ve run out of dog food today. Breakfast this morning was scraping the last kibble from the bottom of the dog food bin. My quandary is that I buy my dog food at CostCo, it’s a store brand and it can’t be purchased anywhere else. But the absolute last place I want to be today is a big box retailer. And tomorrow is “small business Saturday,” another fake holiday the merchant class has created to pacify the mom-and-pop businesses Wal-Mart and Best Buy have crushed under their massive boot heels.

And this is what I hate about our consumer culture. When our best vote is the one we make with our wallets, then every action is a statement. I’d like to buy some damn dog food today, but now it appears doing so violates every principle I hold dear. It lumps me in with the 18% who want to stand in line in the pouring rain instead of enjoying breakfast with their families. It tells the merchant class that I support this stupid phony baloney crap they’ve shoved down our throats.

Le Sigh. Probably I will find a locally owned pet shop and buy a small bag of food, enough to last a couple days. It shouldn’t make any difference whether I buy my dog food today or Monday, it really shouldn’t. But thanks to the media magnifying glass placed on retailers today, it does. I really hate that for all of the many reasons I’ve outlined here.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled Friday programming. Hope y’all had a happy Thanksgiving with your loved ones. Time for some good news:

• The cease-fire is holding.

• Wireless EV charging is coming.

• Alaska tribes go tobacco-free.

• School buses in Southern California are getting cleaner and greener.

• Otters make a comeback in Illinois.

• Are bombs raining down on your Israeli neighborhood? Yeah, there’s an app for that.

• Real Madrid soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has donated €1.5 million to Palestinian children in Gaza.

• Democrat Ron Barber has won Gabby Giffords’ House seat.

• Hate radio feels the pinch.

• The UN reports that the rate of new HIV/AIDs infections has fallen by half in 25 countries. More than half of them are in Africa, the continent most affected by HIV/AIDs.

• Grover Norquist faces some GOP push-back.

• Allen West surrenders.

• They taught an autonomous sub to speak whale.

Good News, Tennessee Edition:

• An injured Afghanistan veteran gets a new home custom-tailored to his needs.

• The TN Dept. of Environment & Conservation, Dept. of Transportation and the Tourist Development Dept. are joining forces to start recycling at all of the state’s welcome centers. Let me say, I’m kind of shocked they don’t recycle already, and I’m not sure why it takes three state agencies to do this. I’m going to guess (hope) that the program goes beyond the “throw your empty Coke can in this blue container” stuff.

This week’s cool video is personal. I’m an environmental science grad from Pitzer College, class of ’83. This week my alma mater announced it has joined forces with Robert Redford and the Pritzkers (of Hyatt Hotels fame and fortune) to launch the Robert Redford Conservancy For Southern California Sustainability. Learn more about it here:

Strange Endorsements

In what universe does the Salt Lake Tribune endorse President Obama while The Tennessean endorses Mitt Romney?

Seriously, WTF, Tennessean?

Explaining its endorsement, the Salt Lake Tribune editorial board writes in a piece headlined “Too Many Mitts”:

Sadly, it is not the only Romney, as his campaign for the White House has made abundantly clear, first in his servile courtship of the tea party in order to win the nomination, and now as the party’s shape-shifting nominee. From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: “Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?”

The evidence suggests no clear answer, or at least one that would survive Romney’s next speech or sound bite. Politicians routinely tailor their words to suit an audience. Romney, though, is shameless, lavishing vastly diverse audiences with words, any words, they would trade their votes to hear.

Ouch. Ironically, that’s pretty much the gist of the Tennessean‘s piece, too. The editors write:

Romney has famously flip-flopped on abortion rights, the need for Planned Parenthood, access to contraceptives and health care reform in general, which disproportionately affects single mothers and lower-income women. During his bruising primary campaign he veered to the right; in the debates, he has swung back to his moderate stances as governor of Massachusetts.

The Romney who was governor reflected the attitudes shared by a majority of Americans; this is where he should stay, if elected, and resist pressure from the “tea-vangelicals” in his party who want to take this country back to the repressed 1950s.

Again, WTF? Both editorial boards see Romney as a shameless political opportunist, yet they come to different conclusions. Why is that? I think The Tennessean‘s final sentence speaks volumes:

Be the man who governed Massachusetts, and you’ll reunite America.

Oh. Right, the guy who governed a strongly Democratic state with a strongly Democratic legislature. You think he’s going to show up when it’s time to move in to the White House? With the Tea Party and John Birchers controlling the Republican Party and Fox News and Drudge controlling the news cycle and the Koch boys controlling the purse strings? You guys seriously think there’s going to be a return to reason in this country? That “moderate Massachusetts Mitt” is who you’re gonna get? Really? That is some magical thinking right there.

This is what’s wrong with newspapers like The Tennessean and the mainstream media in general. They’re so completely, hilariously out of touch. Sure, we’d all love to go back to the days when Tip O’Neill had drinks with Ronald Reagan and everyone was nice and civil to each other and people didn’t draw Hitler mustaches on the president’s picture. But news flash: those days are gone and they won’t be back. Also, there is no Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny is a fraud.

Sorry.

So, to the folks who sit on The Tennessean editorial board, I have a news flash for you: There will be no reuniting of America, not under a Republican president or a Democratic one! Why? Because the failure is not in our leaders but our institutions. Until that is fixed, the foot-dragging and fillibustering and recalcitrance will continue.

Our government is corrupted by money — the “politico-industrial complex” I wrote about last week. These people need our country divided for their game to work. The money comes from flooding everyone’s inbox with hysterical e-mails about how that Scary Mooslim Kenyan Usurper Obama is going to ban Jesus and force abortions on teenage virgins while handing the White House over to the United Nations. That’s where the money is, and companies like Gannett are profiting from it because someone needs to broadcast the scary-voiced announcer dude spreading all of those lies about the candidates.

I mean, come on. These editorial boards are supposed to be filled with smart people. I can’t believe it takes a dang housewife in suburban Nashville to explain how the world works to these folks. Talk about your institutional failures!

And since I’m on the topic, let me point out that our weak-kneed, bottom-line-conscious media helped create this scenario in the first place. The Tennessean is the paper which opened its editorial pages to crackpots and crazies, because they wanted to present “both sides of the issue” (even though some issues really have only one side). They’re the ones who opened their editorial pages to professional astroturfers and corporate shills – repeatedly. It’s not like there’s much credibility left over there, anyway.

You guys mainstreamed the crazy. You gave it a microphone and normalized it. This partisan rancor is as much the media’s fault as anyone’s. Don’t whine about how the country needs to be “reunited” and we need a “return to civility.” For that to happen we need a grown-up to admit that one of our political parties is barking mad. The media had its chance to serve as truth arbiter but that ship sailed when they let “death panels” and “a bureaucrat coming between you and your doctor” substitute for factual policy discussions during the healthcare “debate.”

So don’t cry for me, Argentina. And by all means, don’t tell me Mitt Romney is the guy who’s gonna fix this mess. The very fact that The Tennessean would suggest Multiple Choice Mitt as the solution to this problem it created tells me everything I need to know about our dying newspaper industry.

All Local Is Politics

I’ve just come from a neighborhood meeting where I heard people I know to be staunch Tea Party supporters, “Constitutional conservatives,” “small government conservatives,” and what-have-you stand up and say the stupidest shit. Such as: why can’t the city council just wave a magic wand, pass a bill, issue an edict, whatever, and prevent a major institution from ever wanting to change anything in the neighborhood, forever? Why can’t the city prevent them from buying property from willing sellers? Why can’t the city make this institution stop wanting to build stuff with the massive endowments they get from the rich assholes who leave them bazillions of dollars?

Honestly, when people tell me I should run for city council — and believe it or not, they have — I just need to remember nights like tonight to know why that’s a colossally bad idea. Not that I have the slightest interest in holding office because trust me, I don’t. What I’m saying is, I know my limitations and one of them is my utter lack of patience.

So when I hear a Tea Partier demand to know why our councilmember can’t just sprinkle fairy dust and infringe on someone else’s property rights, my first inclination is to call her a fucking moron. Because what I really hear her saying is, please keep me from ever having to show up at another neighborhood meeting or worry my pretty little head over the designs this major institution has on my neighborhood. And you know what? It doesn’t work that way. Grow the fuck up, lady. This is America. Citizenship is not a spectator sport.

Far be it from me, the far-left Obamabot Democrat, from explaining how our system works to the Teanut “Constitutional conservative,” but there you have it. And don’t tell me this shit started when we stopped teaching civics in our schools, because some of these people are older than me, they’re senior citizens who should fucking know better.

Pardon Our Disruption

Phone line (and thus internet) is down. Blogging/comment moderation will be spotty as AT&T can only guarantee service will return by Wednesday. Also, AT&T needs to stop sucking. Maybe help America out and hire some of the thousands of unemployed to work your customer service lines (I waited on hold for 20 minutes this morning) and also maybe get some more service contractors out there. Just a thought.

This is the third time this year our service has been out. So, you know, whatever you guys are doing ain’t working.

Just Shoot Me Now

God, fucking liberals, you annoy the hell out of me. As you may have heard, a “reporter” with Tucker Carlson’s right-wing rag The Daily Caller heckled President Obama in the Rose Garden today. The response has been about what you’d expect, with the wingnuts going full-frontal to embrace their new hero and the left … ah, well, let’s turn it over to Chris Hayes, shall we?

What would the Daily Caller say if a Nation reporter did this to an R Pres. I’m sure they’d stand w/ their colleagues, of course.

— Christopher Hayes (@chrislhayes) June 15, 2012

Yes, what would The Daily Caller say if a reporter with The Nation did this? Let’s ask The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel what happened the last time one of her reporters acted like a jackass to the president of the United States. OH WAIT. That never happened!

What is the fucking point of musing about what the “liberal media” would do if a similar thing happened, when both sides do NOT pull this shit. God. You’re killing me here. Just fucking stop it already.

But Katie Couric did ask Sarah Palin what newspapers she read and you’d think she’d asked her to explain thermonuclear physics.

Jesus. Fucking liberals, what the hell is wrong with you people? This is why we can’t have nice things. You act like jackasses.

Neil Munro is just this year’s Jeff Gannon, and Daily Caller is just the latest incarnation of Talon News. That some in the media are defending this tells us everything we need to know about the death of modern journalism.

Just, stop.

————–

[UPDATE]:

Everyone seems to think Hayes was being sarcastic, but I don’t read sarcasm in his remark. But the point is, he wasn’t the only one. Here’s another:

Had I yelled at a question at the President about screwing over workers, would lefties be criticizing me?

— Mike Elk (@MikeElk) June 15, 2012

When The U.S. Media Lost Its Collective Mind

[UPDATE]:

Connie Chung, serial offender.

—————————-

Glenn Greenwald has uncovered this 2002 interview which Connie Chung, then of CNN, did with tennis star/naturalized U.S. citizen Martina Navratilova.

It’s quite a thing to read, how our esteemed American “journalists” behaved in the aftermath of 9/11. It’s been 10 years and while I remember the U.S. media’s effective quashing of any voice that wasn’t full-bore flag-waving and Merka Fuck Yeah, reading this transcript brings it all back in stark relief:

NAVRATILOVA: Well, obviously, I’m not saying this is a communist system, but I think we’re having — after 9/11, there’s a big centralization of power. President Bush is having more and more power. John Ashcroft is having more and more power. Americans are losing their personal rights left and right. I mean, the ACLU is up in arms about all of the stuff that’s going on right now. . . .

CHUNG: Can I be honest with you? I can tell you that when I read this, I have to tell you that I thought it was un-American, unpatriotic. I wanted to say, go back to Czechoslovakia. You know, if you don’t like it here, this a country that gave you so much, gave you the freedom to do what you want.

NAVRATILOVA: And I’m giving it back. This is why I speak out. When I see something that I don’t like, I’m going to speak out because you can do that here. And again, I feel there are too many things happening that are taking our rights away.

CHUNG: But you know what? I think it is, OK, if you believe that, you know, then go ahead and think that at home. But why do you have to spill it out? You know, why do you have to talk about it as a celebrity so that people will write it down and talk about what you said?

NAVRATILOVA: I think athletes have a duty to speak out when there is something that’s not right, when they feel that perhaps social issues are not being paid attention to. As a woman, as a lesbian, as a woman athlete, there is a whole bunch of barriers that I’ve had to jump over, and we shouldn’t have to be jumping over them any more.

CHUNG: Got you. But sometimes, when you hear celebrities saying something, do you ever say to yourself, I don’t care what so and so thinks, you know. Yes, go ahead and say whatever you want to say. But you’re not a politician. You’re not in a position of government power or whatever.

NAVRATILOVA: No. And I just might do that. I may run for office one of these days and really do make a difference. But…

CHUNG: Are you kidding me?

NAVRATILOVA: No, I’m not. One of these days, hopefully. But when you say go back to Czech Republic, why are you sending me back there? I live here. I love this country. I’ve lived here 27 years. I’ve paid taxes here for 27 years. Do I not have a right to speak out? Why is that unpatriotic?

CHUNG: Well, you know the old line, love it or leave it.

Wow. Hey Connie Chung, why not tell Martina Navratilova to just keep her Commie yap shut and be done with it? What an astonishing breach of journalistic ethics. I’m sure Chung would just say she was playing Devil’s advocate.

Even more astonishing: do you even remember this interview? I don’t. Did all of this just happen and there was no push-back?

This was CNN. Not Fox News, not Glenn Beck TV, not Breitbart’s Big TV or whatever they call it. And people wonder how this nation got dragged into the war in Iraq? People wonder how the Dixie Chicks got destroyed? When this was how the “real” “journalists” behaved?

But, ya know, ask Sarah Palin what magazines she reads and that’s a “gotcha” question. Riiight.

You know what else? We on the left have always said the media bears a huge amount of responsibility for pulling us into an unjust war, and this is a perfect example of what we’re talking about. Few in the media have acknowledged it.

It wasn’t just Connie Chung on CNN, it was every fucking day, an endless stream of “shut up you dirty hippie WHY DON’T YOU LOVE AMERICA!” from our esteemed members of the press. It went on for months — years. The nation is still waiting for its apology too, I might add.

I’m glad Glenn Greenwald dug this bit up because even though I remembered it was bad, I’d forgotten exactly how bad.

Nerves Have Been Struck

[UPDATE] 2:

Memory Hole:

The nation’s first Homeland Security secretary is airing some dirty laundry from the Bush administration: He says he was pushed to raise the terror alert level on the eve of the 2004 presidential election.

Hey, Ed Gillepsie: shut your pie-hole.

————————————

[UPDATE]:

Republicans are the problem.

This:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional.

[...]

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

Nice of the Villagers to finally notice. This column didn’t get near the attention it should have.

————————————

Oh, how dare he! How dare President Obama steal the Republicans’ hook on which they have always hung their political hopes! How dare the Democrats claim ownership of a longstanding Republican campaign message!

You know a nerve has been struck when Republicans howl in protest over shit like this. John McCain says for shame! For shame! And all of the Villagers immediately fall in line.

Because really what he’s saying is, how dare they. And how dare he.

Yes, such things have always, always, been the perogative of Republican presidents.

Like this:

And this:

And this:

And oh yes, this:

Messages of bravado and machismo — such things have always been for Republicans exclusively! Most especially since the Vietnam War years, after which Democrats were portrayed as weak-kneed surrender monkeys, a lovely little piece of framing that the GOP successfully attached to the left for a generation. Every election we hear the same stories repeating that line, too: Democrats will get you killed. Democrats can’t be trusted to keep the nation safe. Only Republicans know how to do that. Only Republicans are muscular enough to have the support of the military. Only Republicans have a big enough dick. Look, here are the pictures to prove it.

That’s why Bush’s team photoshopped soldiers into his campaign ads and supporters spent millions to smear his rival, an actual decorated war hero, as a DFH who betrayed his country. Speaking of Photoshop: remember this?

And then they inflicted the Iraq War disaster on us all, turning that meme on its head. Along comes President Obama to take out the person Americans had been told was Public Enemy Number One. Obama did it, not Bush. And here we are nearly one year later and Republicans are crying into their hankies about it? Telling the Democrats they can’t brag about it? After all of the Republican grandstanding, flag waving, and fearmongering?

Fuck that shit. Trying to take away the Democrats’ bumper sticker?

Not on your life.

In Honor Of International Women’s Day

Via Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice, I’d like to call everyone’s attention to this most delightful and satisfying piece of satire from Gene Weingarten related to the Rush Limbaugh affair.

The whole thing is awesome so give it a read, but I especially call your attention to this bit, which has gotten completely lost in all of the haranguing that followed:

All of this bile followed from his assertion that she testified about her own extremely active sex life.

Here’s the thing: She didn’t. She said nothing whatsoever about her own sex life. She did not mention her own contraceptive needs at all: She spoke passionately and eloquently, and respectfully, about several friends of hers, Georgetown students who she said were diagnosed with medical conditions requiring the birth control pill, but who could not get it because they could not afford it. That was it. Here is the transcript of her testimony.

In short — though Limbaugh doesn’t address this in his mealy-mouthed, backhanded “apology” — Limbaugh just made it all up, then went hog-wild, oinker-frenzy-wild, elaborating on it so he could call her names. Calling people names is bad, but calling people names based on your own invented calumny is the textbook definition of slander. The First Amendment does not protect you from that, nor should it. Even on an issue of public debate, and even if the victim is a public figure, as Ms. Fluke was here, “fair comment” is not a defense if you made up the central fact, and the central fact is wrong and is damaging and if your intent was to injure. I’m no lawyer, but as I see it: Check, check, check, check. I hope Ms. Fluke knows a good lawyer; if she doesn’t, one will find her, I suspect: The pockets here are really deep, though constricted and attenuated a bit: A LOT of flibbity-flabbity belly fat there, Rush. You really should do something about that, in your well-merited retirement.

Rush, in internet-speak, you are about to be pwned. By a woman.

Indeed. Rush lied about what Sandra Fluke said, then badgered and berated her for three days based on the lie he created! I fail to see how that’s any different from what Andrew Breitbart did to Shirley Sherrod: selectively editing a videotape to completely twist her words and meaning, then hold it up to the world to say “look at this horrible thing this person said.” Sherrod’s lawsuit has cleared its first hurdles and it’s speculated that Breitbart’s death will not affect its progress. It seems to me that Sandra Fluke has an equally valid slander case against Rush. I really hope she does sue, because a lawsuit is the only thing that will keep these blowhards from using lies and character assassination as political weapons.

And let me point out: this case also illustrates the huge difference between conservatives and liberal figures like Bill Maher. Rush Limbaugh is a right-wing talking point factory. His deceitful take on an issue ricochets around the right-wing echo factory — sometimes even percolating up to the mainstream media. Limbaugh said Fluke’s testimony was about demanding taxpayers pay for birth control, a lie that was repeated by Fox News yakkers like Bill O’Reilly and Megyn Kelley, columnist and talk show host Ed Morissey, even conservative cartoonists like Gary McCoy. The entire conservative media picked up and repeated Rush’s completely erroneous take on Fluke’s testimony, and they’ve been doing it for over a week solid.

Maybe they hope if the lie is repeated often enough it will become truth, or maybe they’re really just taking their information from Rush but the truth is, in no way is this issue about taxpayers paying for women’s birth control — Sandra Fluke’s or anyone else’s. It’s about private insurance companies offering contraception as part of the prescription benefit in your employer-based insurance plan. You know, the one that is part of your benefits package at work.

(As I write this I think I’ve realized why this issue has become so confusing for some conservatives: lots of really big words! “Contraception coverage” and “prescription benefit” and “insurance” — oh my!)

Now, Bill Maher may say something that crosses the line but I’ve yet to see any comment of his get repeated across the “liberal media.” Nor have I ever seen Maher misconstrue an issue, and then watch as his erroneous framing is repeated by Democratic politicians, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, the New York Times and the like. There simply is no equivalency here. None.

And here’s another thing. To paraphrase Adlai Stevenson, if conservatives stop telling lies about liberals, maybe we’ll stop telling the truth about them. But they won’t stop telling those lies until they start being held accountable for them. That’s just reality.

I don’t know why we’re supposed to just be polite and sit back and take it all the time. If someone tells a lie about you for political reasons, and that lie is turned into a hammer and you’re beaten over the head with it for days, and then that hammer is turned into a mallet and you’re beaten over the head with it some more, all because you spoke out on an issue? Fuck yeah, you should sue.

So in honor of International Women’s Day I hope women around America rise up and fight back against these lies and attacks on us. I don’t know Sandra Fluke but I sure hope she sues. Not just for her own justice, but to prevent future intimidation campaigns the next time a woman tries to speak out on an issue. We should not be subjected to character assassination by the right wing smear machine just because we testified before some members of Congress on healthcare.

I want women to speak out to their employers and their legislators about this, and International Women’s Day is as good a day as any. Hell, talk to your priests and pastors. Tell them it’s not okay that women using birth control are characterized as sluts and whores. Tell them it’s not okay for any state government to force women who are fully aware of what’s up in there to submit to vaginal probes before receiving an abortion. It’s insulting! And demeaning!

Tell them it’s not okay to tell us to press an aspirin between our knees instead of enjoying healthy sex lives. It’s not okay to tell women serving in our armed forces that they should expect to be raped.

This stuff is not okay.