September 6, 2010
The Wrong Kind of Terrorist
It's interesting that this AP article by Sarah Brumfield withholds until the last quarter the information that James Lee actually wanted more extreme environmentalist programming on the Discovery Channel:
A man who railed against the Discovery Channel's environmental programming for years burst into the company's headquarters with at least one explosive device strapped to his body yesterday and took three people hostage at gunpoint before police shot him to death, officials said.
To be fair, other versions of the article informs readers, right up front that Lee's complaint was against programming that arguably encourage population growth. But it does seem that the mainstream media, generally, doesn't find environmental terrorism quite as interesting as anything that might serve to paint the Tea Party as bigoted lunatics.
"Paint the Tea Party as bigoted lunatics"???
An angry group of right-wing Christians, carrying placards and yelling "Islam is a lie," angrily confronted worshippers outside a Fairfield Avenue mosque Friday.
"Jesus hates Muslims," they screamed at worshippers arriving at the Masjid An-Noor mosque to prepare for the holy week of Ramadan. One protester shoved a placard at a group of young children leaving the mosque. "Murderers," he shouted.
Flip Benham, of Dallas, Texas, organizer of the protest, was yelling at the worshipers with a bullhorn.
"This is a war in America and we are taking it to the mosques around the country," he said.
Mustafa Salahuddin, an Ansonia police officer and parishioner at the mosque, calmly watched the protesters from the mosque's parking area.
"This is unfortunate, but it's a free country," he commented on the protest
Flip Benham is the leader of "Operation Save America", which traces its lineage to the original "Operation Rescue", which dates back sometime to the mid 1980s, 20+ years before the concept of the "Tea Party" appeared. (Benham took over Operation Rescue in the 1990s, which would be 15+ years before the Tea Party appeared). Benham's "movement", however large or small, didn't have much influence on mainstream politics, while the Tea Party has; that is one clear sign that they are very different. But Benham isn't even trying to glom on to the coattails of the national-level version of the "Tea Party" at this stage; he opposes the message of the Restoring Honor rally last weekend, which he wrote about here.
In the spirit of the Projo's Politifact, we're going to have to rate the above comment as "More Spammy from Sammy", but that shouldn't prevent him from retracting the mistaken connection he tried to establish.
Tea Party Activsts To Use Dogs to Protest Mosque, Intimidate Worshipers
The Islamic Center of Temecula, California has been seeking permits to build a mosque for over a year and a half and its proposal is scheduled to come before the Temecula planning commissioners on Aug. 18.
And so Tea Party activists are planning to protest outside of the Islamic Center's existing facility and urging participants to bring dogs in order to intimidate worshipers because "Muslims hate dogs":
An e-mail alert sent to area newspapers last week announced that a one-hour "singing – praying – patriotic rally" will begin at 12:30 p.m. July 30 at the Islamic Center’s existing facility. The advisory – sent by a leader of a conservative coalition that has been active with Republican and Tea Party functions – recommended participants "bring your Bibles, flags, signs, dogs and singing voices."
"We will not be submissive," the notice proclaimed. "Our voices are going to be heard!" The alert went on to question what its authors described as Islamic beliefs. It suggested that participants sing during the rally because Muslim "women are forbidden to sing." It suggested that rally participants bring dogs because Muslims "hate dogs."
Posted by: Sammy at September 6, 2010 11:52 AMMay these dogs rise against their masters. Any dog owner with .065 of a brain would realize using their household pets (or guard dogs) in this manner is inhumane.
Posted by: rhody at September 6, 2010 2:24 PMActually, a coalition of Tea Party groups from Riverside County, CA issued a public statement to make clear they were not involved in the Mosque protest, and included a strong condemnation of "the use of dogs to harass anybody, anywhere". The group that did organize the mosque protest says that it's mission is "to return the local Tea Party Movement to the people", which means they don't like the direction that the movement which has successfully captured national attention, the mainstream Tea Party movement, is headed.
Once again, we have more spammy from Sammy -- but now he has two corrections he owes to the readers. Assuming he's interested in presenting accurate information, of course.
Correction
OK
The folks above only
call themselves Tea Party Members
sammy-I've yet to see a leftist admit they were wrong.It's just not in their political DNA,because whatever lie they need to use is always acceptable "in the people's interest".
Mr Bernstein
Your right, only right-wingnuts admit when they are wrong.
Lefties never do...never...ever
Sammy-that's right,even though I realize you're being sarcastic.
Not being a "wingnut'of any kind,I can let their actions speak for themselves,but I have noticed that leftists cling to a party line mantra,and have enormous trouble disengaging from it.
Leftists lack any sense of humility.