Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the talk radio host, apologized and decided to retire from her conservative radio program after using the N-word on the air 11 times in 5 minutes, while talking to a female black caller.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger announced Tuesday night that she would end her radio show following her N-word rant last week.
“My contract is up for my radio show at the end of the year and I’ve made the decision not to do radio anymore,” she told Larry King. “The reason is I want to regain my First Amendment rights. I want to be able to say what’s on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I’m sort of done with that.”
Dr. Laura emphasized that she is “not retiring” but rather just ending her radio show.
“I’m not retiring, I’m not quitting, I feel energized actually,” she said. “Stronger and freer to say the things that I believe need to be said for people in this country.”
On his Monday radio show, Glenn Beck highlighted claims that before he started targeting a little-known, left-leaning organization called the Tides Foundation on his Fox News TV show, “nobody knew” what the non-profit was.
Indeed, for more than a year Beck has been portraying the progressive organization as a central player in a larger, nefarious cabal of Marxist/socialist/Nazi Obama-loving outlets determined to destroy democracy in America. Beck has routinely smeared the low-profile entity for being staffed by “thugs” and “bullies” and involved in “the nasty of the nastiest,” like indoctrinating schoolchildren and creating a “mass organization to seize power.”
As Media Matters reported, the conspiratorial host had mentioned (read: attacked) the little-known progressive organization nearly 30 times on his Fox program alone since it premiered in 2009, including several mentions in the last month. (Beck’s the only TV talker who regularly references the foundation, according to our Nexis searches.)
So yes, Beck has done all he can to scare the hell out of people about the Tides Foundation and “turn the light of day” onto an organization that actually facilitates non-profit giving.
And guess what? Everybody in America would have found out about the Tides Foundation last week if Byron Williams had had his way. He’s the right-wing, government-hating, gun-toting nut who strapped on his body armor, stocked a pickup truck with guns and ammo, and set off up the California coast to San Francisco in order to start killing employees at the previously obscure Tides Foundation in hopes of sparking a political revolution.
AG Ken Cuccinelli loves to file law suits and briefs. He has several lawsuits against our country. Please someone tell me why he didn’t jump on the band wagon against the funeral protesters, Westboro Baptist Church, 48 states filed an amicus brief. 2 states did not: Virginia and Maine. WHAT? If there was ever a reason to file an amicus brief, WBC is it!
WASHINGTON — Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have submitted a brief to the Supreme Court in support of a father who sued anti-gay protesters over their demonstration at the 2006 funeral of his son, a Marine killed in Iraq.
Only Virginia and Maine declined to sign the brief by the Kansas attorney general.
Albert Snyder sued over protests by the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church at his son’s funeral in Maryland. The church pickets funerals because they believe war deaths are punishment for U.S. tolerance of homosexuality.
The Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether the protesters’ message is protected by the First Amendment.
In the brief filed Tuesday, the states argued they have a compelling interest in protecting the sanctity of funerals.
Mr. Snyder now owes WBC over $16,ooo because of a counter lawsuit. Americans are outraged that the father of a fallen hero would ever have to pay this horrible group a penny. Where is Virginia? Once again, Ken Cuccinelli shames us all. However, he now as one ally, according the the Richmond Times Dispatch–the ACLU.
Cuccinelli’s office announced that it is not joining 48 other states in filing a supporting legal brief on behalf of Albert Snyder, the father of a soldier killed in Iraq whose funeral in Maryland was picketed by Westboro Baptist Church of Kansas, a hate group.
Among other things, the church pickets funerals of American soldiers, claiming God has killed them for defending a nation of “sodomite hypocrites.”
Snyder is suing Westboro and its pastor, the Rev. Fred W. Phelps, for what he alleges was a disruption of the funeral for his son, Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq in 2006. Church members have become nationally known for heckling at military funerals and hoisting signs that berate mourners with slogans such as “You’re in hell” and “God hates you.”
After Snyder won a $5 million verdict in district court, an appeals court reversed the decision, saying the Westboro protestors were exercising their First Amendment right to free speech. The case is now moving to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Yesterday was the deadline for filing a “friend of the court” brief in support of Snyder’s case. Every state but Maine and Virginia lined up behind Snyder.
“The attorney general’s office deplores the absolutely vile and despicable acts of Fred Phelps and his followers,” spokesman Brian Gottstein said in a statement. “We also greatly sympathize with the Snyder family and all families who have experienced the hatefulness of these people.”
The statement said Cuccinelli’s office chose not to file a brief “because the case could set a precedent that could severely curtail certain valid exercises of free speech.”
Gottstein said Virginia has a law that balances free-speech rights but also protects people like the Snyder family by making it a crime to “willfully disrupt a funeral or memorial service to the point of preventing or interfering with the orderly conduct of the event.”
Albert Snyder said Cuccinelli will pay a price politically for not joining other attorneys general.
But the attorney general found an ally on the First Amendment issue from a frequent critic — the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
“We completely agree with the attorney general,” said ACLU Executive Director Kent Willis, who called the issue a “fundamental gut check” of the First Amendment.
“This kind of deplorable free speech must be protected in order to make sure all speech is protected.”
The speech of WBC far exceeds any speech deemed tolerable by a civilized society. Their speech should be treated like yelling fire in a crowded theater or using the F word during prime time TV. The behavior of Westboro Baptist Church (sic) is totally unacceptable to conservatives, liberals, and moderates. What is Cuccinelli thinking? He should pay the political price, as father Albert Snyder states. Who ever thought the Cooch would be cozied up with the ACLU? I suppose politics makes real strange bedfellows in this case. Or…perhaps the Cooch agrees with WBC.
It seems that an 18 year old Potomac student has been charged with plastering swastika stickers all over Potomac High School. Apparently this vandalism happened between April 15 and May 5 and were put on a resource police cruiser as well as exit doors to the building, lockers, doors and other conspicuous places.
The student, Joseph Barnes, was named since he is 18. It makes one wonder what possesses people to do something this stupid. Did he do it on a dare? Was he bored? Is he disturbed? Was it a senior prank? Or is this kid a Nazi sympathizer?
On Tuesday, police arrested 18-year-old Joseph William Barnes of 2493 Fraser Court in Woodbridge in class. He is charged with five counts of destructing and defacing property, said Hernandez.
He was released on $3,500 bond and is scheduled to appear in court June 24.
Police said he was not charged with a hate crime because the vandalism was not aimed at any single “race, religion or creed.”
In August, four teens were arrested after police found sod that had been formed into a swastika in the parking lot of Sinclair Elementary School near Manassas.
In addition to the swastika, sod was also used to form “KKK” and “white power.”
There were 263 incidents of hate crimes in the commonwealth that year, according to FBI crime statistics.
Nationwide, there were 7,783 reported cases of hate crimes in 2008, according to the FBI.
Regardless of his reason, this stunt seems like a very immature thing to do. It sounds more like something an 8 year old would do, not an 18 year old who can legally vote. Now there’s a scary thought!
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva closed his offices in Yuma and Tucson at noon on Friday because of the threatening phone calls. The Congressman says he opposed the legislation that has just been signed into law by Governor Brewer. He specifically says he opposes making it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally.
The Arizona Daily Star reports that Grijalva spokesman Adam Sarvana released a statement Friday saying that the congressman’s office received “some pretty scary calls,” including one from a man “who threatened to go down there and blow everyone’s brains out then go to the border to shoot Mexicans.”
According to the Daily Star:
Grijalva staffer Ruben Reyes said the office has been flooded with calls all week about Senate Bill 1070. About 25 percent are “very racist” in nature, Reyes said, characterizing some as “telling that tortilla-eating wetback to go back to Mexico.”
Has it really come to this? PWC sure dodged the bullet if this is the case. Again, there are just other ways to handle problems. I saw people out throwing stuff, not sure what at cops on TV. People doing that might want to do a little reseach about Kent State….it really isn’t a smart thing to do. I love Arizona. I would not go there now. The Grand Canyon State will have to be grand without me.
Was anyone at the 2nd Amendment Rally on the Mall on April 19, 2010? I need someone to explain to me why I should be comfortable with speech like this. I had no idea this nonsense had gone on. What I hear is very threatening speech.
Actually, I have never heard President Obama discuss gun control. Where is this hype coming from? Again, and I have said it before, talk and rhetoric like this pushes moderates, centrists, liberals and all sorts of people into a zone the gun folks probably don’t want to deal with.
I don’t know anything about these speakers but they sound like thugs to me. I don’t want thugs having guns. I suggest the gun folks chose more responsible speakers if you want to convince the rest of us gun owners without a cause to support you. Surely there is a logical explanation.
Long Island teen Jeffrey Conroy was convicted of man-slaughter as a racially motivated hate crime Monday. After 4 days of deliberations, Conroy was also found guilty of assault on 3 other hispanics. Marcelo Lucero, age 37 was killed by a gang of 6 whites and 1 hispanic. The defense rested on they didn’t intend to kill him. The trial has been fraught with irregularities. This trial has also been watched carefully by immigrants’ rights groups.
He was acquitted of the most serious of the 20 charges against him which was second-degree murder as a hate crime. Had he been convicted he could have received life in prison as a sentence. Conroy, 19, now faces a minimum of eight years and a maximum of 25 years in prison. He is to be sentenced on May 26.
Lucero died of stab wounds to his chest. I expect no one is satisfied with this verdict. 8 years doesn’t seem like a lot of time for stabbing someone in the chest until they are dead.
People like congresswoman Michele Bachman and Andrew Breitbart, ‘proprietor’ of the far right blog site biggovernment.org, just keep digging themselves in deeper and deeper. They need to take a page out of the Bill Clinton book and stop digging. According to Yahoo News: (highlighting mine)
Three Democratic congressmen — all black — say they heard racial slurs as they walked through thousands of angry protesters outside the U.S. Capitol. A white lawmaker says he heard the epithets too. Conservative activists say the lawmakers are lying.
Fighting Hate West Virginia Style. Westboro descending on Charleston, WV to inform the good people in the state capital that the Montcoal mining disaster happened because God hates …who even knows…oh ….they got a threatening note from West Virginia.
Westboro had mentioned deceased Morgan Harrington on their website. The VT student was murdered last fall after disappearing from a Metallica concert at UVA. Students organized and simply outnumbered qnd out performed Westboro in only the way United VT can do! Morgan’s parents were on hand to express their displeasure at having their daughter’s name dragged through the mud after her horrible fate.
BLACKSBURG, Va., (WIBW)_ Members of Topeka-based Westboro Baptist Church turned up at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia on Friday morning.
They were there for a protest following the mine disaster which claimed the lives of at least 25 miners. Rescue teams continue to search for four more miners whose fate is still unknown.
The church claims the explosion was a result of a threatening memo that the church said was sent from West Virginia, the New York Times reported.
According to the Charleston Gazette, more than 300 counter-protesters were on hand for a counter demonstration against the six church members who showed up.
Nearby, larger numbers of church members fanned out across three locations in Blacksburg, Virginia nearly two years after the shootings at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people.
They too were met by counter protesters, including the father of Morgan Harrington, a Virginia Tech student who disappeared last October. Harrington said he couldn’t believe the Westboro Church was including Morgan’s memory in their protests.
What, if anything can be done to stop these vile people? They are using the very laws that make us tolerant Americans against us. Hopefully the Supreme Court case will castrate their efforts. I would contribute to any plan to legally put these disgusting wretches in their places. I think jail time sounds real good.
And when you thought they couldn’t go any lower, check out the parting shot. This sign was from the Sago mine disaster in 2006. However, they arrived at Montcoal, WV today with similar tactics. The poor people of Montcoal are trying to mourn their dead and recover their lost. They just don’t need this crap.
Hopefully Phoebe Prince’s life was not in vain. Bullying has been around since the caveman. However, never has the emphasis been so keen as now. It seems that the death of Phoebe Prince has become the Columbine of school bullying.
As more is being told about this tragic event, we find out that that the root of the problem was because Phoebe caught the eye of one of the star football players. The statutory rape charge resulted from the fact that he was 18 and she was 15. He was also one of her harassers. His girlfriend and her buddies then got into the act of persecuting Phoebe for going out with her boyfriend. You know, that all too familiar case where it is all the girl’s fault and the boy is off the hook for any wrong doing. At any rate, on the last day of her life, Phoebe was hit with an energy drink can thrown from a car when she was walking home from school. She went into her house and hanged herself with a scarf given to her on her birthday.
Westboro Baptists (sic), the cretins who go to the funerals of our dead troops and protest American not killing gays or something akin to that perhaps serve a purpose. They are a group who are universally hated and despised by both the right, left and middle. They are right up there with 9-11 in that they are a great unifier.
Bullying is a serious problem in the United States. It has always been around on playgrounds, at schools, and in the neighborhood. However, with the widespread use of the Internet, bullying has become more pervasive and yes, virulent. Verbal taunts and physical threats became a way of life for one young immigrant girl.
15-year-old Phoebe Prince was the victim of extreme bullying from her peers. Phoebe, who recently moved South Hadley, MA from Ireland, was bullied by classmates until she hanged herself in January. The bullying was described as relentless and happened in the halls, at school, in the library, in class, via cell phone messages and on the Internet. Nine teenagers have been indicted for the death of this young girl.
According to the New York Times:
The prosecutor brought charges Monday against nine teenagers, saying their taunting and physical threats were beyond the pale and led the freshman, Phoebe Prince, to hang herself from a stairwell in January.
The charges were an unusually sharp legal response to the problem of adolescent bullying, which is increasingly conducted in cyberspace as well as in the schoolyard and has drawn growing concern from parents, educators and lawmakers
Of course the tormentors bear the main responsibility for the girl’s death. But are others culpable? How about the parents of those kids? How about the school? How about her friends? Was anyone aware that this was going on? Didn’t some teacher notice that a child was being tortured? How do parents help their children when they are being bullied? This tragedy seems so avoidable.
Rep. Perriello from the Charlottesville area voted for the Health Care Reform bill. Today officials and the FBI are looking in to how the propane gas line at his brother’s house got cut. Political opponents had posted his brother’s address on a website, thinking the address was the congressman’s. According to msnbc.com:
From NBC’s Pete Williams
Virginia officials, aided by the FBI, are looking into how a residential propane feeder line was cut at the home of the brother of a Virginia congressman.
Investigators have reached no conclusions about how or why it happened. But the line was cut after the home’s address was posted on a blog and a Facebook page, both maintained by members of a local Tea Party group who thought it was the home of Rep. Tom Perriello, a Virginia Democrat who voted in favor of the health-care bill.
One said, “This is Rep. Thomas Stuart Price Perriello’s home address,” and added, “I ain’t holding back anymore!!” The other urged readers to “drop by” the home and “express their thanks” for the vote.
The cut in the gas line, which runs from a propane tank to a gas grill on a screened-in porch, was discovered Tuesday, the day after the address was posted. When they realized that it was incorrect, the operators of the blog and Faceboook page took the address off.
The chairman of the Lynchburg, VA, Tea Party, Mark Lloyd, told NBC News, “I learned what happened after the fact. We made an official statement on our Web site,” saying that that his group “did not request, sanction, or endorse” posting the address, which appeared on a different Web site.
Tea Party member Nigel Coleman, who wrote one of the Internet posts, told the Charlottesville Daily Progress that he was shocked when he heard about the incident.
Rep. Steny Hoyer reports that threats have been made to around ten Congressmen and women who voted yes to HCR legislation. Shepherd Smith reports that he is waiting for an update from Capitol Police.
Please note that the material for this post comes from both MSNBC and from Fox News. Unfortunately incendiary rhetoric meant to gather the troops sometimes sends some of them off the deep end. All of us, regardless of party affiliation or ideology must be mindful of our audience and what we say. Civil debate becomes increasingly more important. Shepherd Smith gave one of his fierce admonitions about settling political unhappiness and discontent at the ballot box. I feel certain there will be footage of his remarks. I will post them. One bad apple can give many black eyes.
It goes without saying that any remarks like that would be removed from this blog. However, no one here would post like that either. The blogosphere does have the responsibility to maintain civil discussion.
Authorities in Wichita and some other cities across the country are investigating vandalism against Democratic offices, apparently in response to health care reform.
And on Monday, a former Alabama militia leader took credit for instigating the actions.
Mike Vanderboegh of Pinson, Ala., former leader of the Alabama Constitutional Militia, put out a call on Friday for modern “Sons of Liberty” to break the windows of Democratic Party offices nationwide in opposition to health care reform. Since then, vandals have struck several offices, including the Sedgwick County Democratic Party headquarters in Wichita.
“There’s glass everywhere,” said Lyndsay Stauble, executive director of the Sedgwick County Democratic Party. “A brick took out the whole floor-to-ceiling window and put a gouge in my desk.”
Stauble said the brick, hurled through the window between Friday night and Saturday morning, had “some anti-Obama rhetoric” written on it.
COVINGTON, La. – A Louisiana man accused of helping his father hide the body of a Ku Klux Klan recruit pleaded guilty Thursday to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to three years in prison, according to a prosecutor’s spokesman.
Prosecutors believe Shane Foster, 21, also helped his father clean the camp site in rural St. Tammany Parish in southeastern Louisiana where Cynthia Lynch, 43, was shot to death in November 2008, district attorney’s office spokesman Rick Wood said.
Foster’s father, Raymond Foster, 45, is set for trial April 5 on a second-degree murder charge.
What on earth? What year is this? Cynthia Lynch, 43, was shot to death in November of 2008. Her crime? She was trying to leave an initiation ritual and head for home. She had hooked up with the Louisiana KKK group run by Raymond Foster via the Internet. She was described as a troubled woman who was trying to fit in somewhere. That probably fits the description of many people who are attracked to the KKK. Just a group of misfits.
All too often groups like this are blown off. Do-gooders try to tell us that the KKK is irrelevant nowadays and that any concerns about this organizaton are simply an over-reaction. This killing doesn’t sound like an over-reaction to me.
Do these sentences sound a little on the lean side? If you shoot someone to death, why is that second degree murder? Another female, Danielle Jones, pleaded guilty to being an accessory. She spent a year in jail. Is Louisiana soft on crime or is it just soft on KKK krime? How much a part of the south is the KKK in 2010?
Just in case anyone forgets who the Klan hates, here is a pretty good reminder.
Creative Loafing Atlanta presents: The Georgia Knight Riders and Knights of the Ku Klux Klan rallied for a crowd of more than 500 on Feb. 20 in the town of Nahunta, Ga.
These good ole boys are all pleased with themselves.
Having a big mouth just doesn’t pay sometimes. Powell stupidly shot off his mouth in a letter to Commonwealth Attorney Paul Ebert and confessed to raping and brutally killing Stacie Reed, thinking that he couldn’t be tried twice. It didn’t work out so well for him. He got a stay of execution at the last minute back in July and his case headed for the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court will not stop his execution. The wheels of justice sometimes grind very slowly.
The United States Supreme Court will not stop the execution of a man charged with killing a 16-year-old girl at her Yorkshire home in 1999.
Paul Warner Powell was set to be executed for the murder of Stacie Reed in July but the Supreme Court postponed the execution, saying they needed more time to decide if they would review the case.
The Supreme Court decided this week not to intervene.
A new execution date has not yet been set.
Powell was convicted of capital murder for killing and attempting to rape Stacie at the family’s Yorkshire home on Jan. 29, 1999. He was also convicted of raping and attempting to kill Kristie, who survived.
Powell said he killed Stacie because she was dating a black man. He is a self avowed white supremacist.
Now Powell only has 2 things to ponder: Old Sparky or the Big Drip in the Sky. I hope he choses to ride the lightning bolt out of here. It should be painful to be both evil and stupid. The links below include an interview with News and Messenger reporter Uriah Kiser when he thought the Powell execution was a go. The News and Messenger has an excellent timeline.
ARRRGGHHHH! Rush Limbaugh again puts his feet in his mouth. Now is is trying to stir up something between Obama and Jewish Americans on his radio show.
Most of us don’t assume all bankers are Jewish. Shame on Rush, again. Most people after all the years of warped opinion, don’t expect much better out of Rush. However, he has recenty been a topic of conversation here. He stutters and stammers as he tried to make logic out of illogic. What’s next? That Obama hates buzz saws? It makes about as much sense. Mr. Limbaugh will go to any lengths to bash any Democrat, especially if that Democrat is a President.
Nothing will bring Luis Ramirez back to his family, but the wheels of justice have finally begun to turn in the correct direction. I was truly shocked to hear of charges levied against the very people who are suppose to uphold the law. As reported by CNN:
Washington (CNN) — Five people, including three police officers, have been indicted on charges related to the beating death of a Latino man in rural Pennsylvania in July 2008, the Justice Department said Tuesday.
Two indictments charge the five with federal hate crimes, obstruction of justice and conspiracy in what authorities are calling a racially motivated attack.
How low can they go? Westboro Baptist ‘Church’ tries for a new low as they now are demonstrating outside Sidwell Friends, the Obama children’s school. Westboro Baptist is run by Fred Phelps and family and is well know for attending the funerals of our fallen military troops while screaming vitriol and hate at the family and friends.
Their website refers to the Obama children as ‘Satanic Spawn of a murderious bastard.’ This church is also protesting outside the White House, the World War II Memorial, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission field office. They recently have demonstrated outside of Jewish Temples and other Washington area schools. Tomorrow they plan to target Sasha’s school in Bethesda.
Staff Sergeant Mike Wenrick, who has been blogging from Iraq has started a letter writing campaign to help deter the emotional damage inflicted by these trecherous people. He wants national legislation that keeps Westboro Baptist and other demonstrators 500 feet away and also keeps the from the scene and hour before and an hour afterwards. Works for me.
Until I found out about Westboro Baptist Church, I never quite understood the expression ‘lower than a snakes’s belly.’ Now I do.
[Editor's Note: Apologies for the consistent use of the wrong church name. In each case it should have read WestBORO Baptist Church.]
Bullying is a serious problem in the United States. It has always been around on playgrounds, at schools, and in the neighborhood. However, with the widespread use of the Internet, bullying has become more pervasive and yes, virulent. Verbal taunts and physical threats became a way of life for one young immigrant girl. 
