Hilarious Right-Wing Strategy: Buying stuff at Whole Foods

Right-wing zealots will do anything as long as they think it will piss off liberals.  Sometimes, this can be used against them, as they would be willing to shoot themselves in the foot as long as they thought it would annoy Michael Moore enough.

A great example is their ridiculous "buycott" of Whole Foods Market.  Dana Loesch, Gateway Pundit, and Bill Hennessy are all excited about the prospects of buying food at Whole Food Markets to show "them damn hippies and unionists."  The back story is that Whole Food CEO John Mackey wrote a bizarre right-wing rant for the Wall Street Journal in which he argued that people shouldn't have a right to health care and that we can solve our health care crises, in part, by eating healthier foods, like the kind you find at Whole Foods Market!  Progressives who were already wary of Whole Foods due to their union-busting history have been boycotting and protesting Whole Foods ever since the editorial.  So naturally, the reactionary right wingers think that they can really piss off those durn hippies by going and spending a crapload of money at Whole Foods.

I'm pleased to say that this is one of the dumbest strategies I've seen in a long time.  Here are just a few reasons why:

1.  Whole Foods' bread and butter customers are progressives who actually care about things like the environment, animal welfare, and fair trade.  Conservatives who don't care at all about such things would never be able to sustain enough business to really threaten Whole Foods dependence on people who make ethical food decisions.

2.  Though Whole Foods anti-union stance is horrible, buying food from them is still in general better for most progressive causes than buying food at other places, like say a Super Wal-Mart. So right-wingers who blow their money at Whole Foods will probably be spending their money in a more socially responsible way than they normally would, which would actually make progressive people happy.  The more money they spend at Whole Food, the less money they have to donate to right-wing causes.

3.  Whole Foods is a public company, and probably quite a few of the stock owners are liberal.  Whole Foods is also very expensive, compared to other places like Trader Joes where you can still buy ethical food.  So while progressives can spend less money and still shop ethically at Trader Joes, conservatives will be throwing away their money at a faster rate, and quite a bit of that money will actually be going to progressives! 

Once again, the teabaggers burning desire to get revenge on progressives is thwarted primarily by their own amazing stupidity.

Jim Durbin thinks everyone should listen to the police...unless you're a teabagger

Jim Durbin of 24th State, the owner of marketing companies desperately trying to drive up traffic to his boring sites, posts a "shocking new video" of the arrest of Javonne Spitz. Durbin seems to think that Spitz is some kind of super ninja personally trained by U.S. Representative Russ Carnahan to assassinate teabaggers. He claims that she was, "causing problems," "making a nuisance of [herself]," and "looking for trouble." Funnily enough, in the video he shows of her "causing trouble," she is surrounded by teabaggers threatening to "tear her apart, limb from limb," verbally attacking her, and accusing her of being a Nazi snitch.

But it wouldn't be an official post about a right-wing blogger unless it included some blatant hypocrisy, and Durbin does not disappoint. After he shows the oh-so-exciting arrest video, he writes:

She is arrested after being told repeatedly to leave. When she finally does leave, she stops again and tries to take another picture of the police officer standing over Elston McCowan. The officer has had enough and runs over to put cuffs on her, and she refuses to do so. She struggles, fights back, and keeps saying she's not under arrest. When she refuses to comply, they threaten to spray her, and then spray her. Note they don't spray Brian Matthews, or Elston McCowan, who is sitting on the curb. They arrest and pepper spray a combative and unruly person who won't comply with lawful orders to move away.

Durbin naturally is a good law-abiding citizen, who thinks that everyone who doesn't obey the direct orders of the police should be immediately arrested. But then, of course, there's this video:


Skip to about the 2:22 mark, and you can see Adam Sharp of the blog Sharp Elbows repeatedly telling the angry teabagger crowd, "the police are saying back up." And, of course no one backs up, including Adam Sharp. In fact, Mr. Sharp moves forward! I am anxiously awaiting Jim Durbin's call for his teabagging buddy Adam Sharp to be arrested.

Gateway Pundit on Kennedy

Gateway Pundit, full of righteous indignation, claims:

Rush was right.`It took the Left less than 24 hours to push for "Kennedycare."

Oh that mean old left, always exploiting people's deaths by continuing to advocate for those people's "cause of my life." Maybe they should take some notes in "staying classy" from the gateway pundit, who took less than six hours to, in his first announcement on the subject, link to the following comment:

Ted Kennedy RIP - A champion of civil rights for everyone not inside his car. He'll be missed.

Thank you, Jim Hoft, for standing up for basic human decency.

Of Copyrights and Cowards

Anyone's who has read this blog (or is vaguely aware of reality) would of course never be intellectually surprised at the idea that right-wing bloggers exhibit a non-stop stream of hypocrisy. Even so, in some cases it is almost impossible not to be emotionally jarred when encountering these bloggers praising themselves for some imagined quality while at the same time exhibiting behavior that is directly at odds with the quality they claim to possess. Dana Loesch recently provided us with just such an instance.

Loesch apparently is upset that this site has been exposing her and her fellow teabaggers hypocrasy, and posted a message on her site warning about lawsuits if I didn't take down images that were orginally posted on her web site. I did not know about this law, but now that I do I have replaced all of the original images with screen shots in order to avoid any problems. What is truly hilarious, however is the following quote from Loesch:

I don’t have a problem with people who start dissenting blogs, I, unlike some people, love dissent! I think dissent is patriotic. What I don’t think is patriotic is when someone steals my copyrighted images for use, without credit, on their website.

.

OK, so first of all, in the post in question I am quite clear about the fact that the images are coming from Loesch's blog. In fact, the whole point of the post was to criticize Loesch for being painfully unaware of the hypocrasy presented in her pictures (she was blabbing about following the rules while showing pictures of teabaggers who violated the no sign rules at the event). So the idea that I was using her pictures without acknowledging that they were her pictures is ridiculous.

Furthermore, what legitimate motives can she have for doing this? Am I taking away some profit that she would have made from the photos? No, since she clearly wouldn't use them to show the world how stupid she is. Am I profiting off of the pictures? No, look at this site; there's no advertising going on. Is it because she has such a deep and abiding respect for rules? Well, I've already shown how hypocritical she is on that particular subject.

In other words, while she is bragging about how much she loves dissent, she is simultaneously threatening a law suit whose only purpose could be to prevent the sharing of information that she doesn't like. She's threatening a lawsuit not to protect herself, or to honor the rules, but purely to stifle dissent, literally while she presents herself as a champion of dissent.

So scared shitless are Loesch and the other right-wingers, that they are afraid to provide a link to this site or even mention any distinguishing feature about it because they know that their followers are entirely dependent upon living in an information vacuum. The ideas put forward by right-wing bloggers are like a mold that grows on the bottom of some rock; the minute they are exposed to sunlight or oxygen they start to wither and die. Thus, people like Loesch have to do everything they can to prevent their followers from actually being exposed to other points of views. Right-wing blogger Jim Durbin of 24th state attempted to link to other bloggers a while back and then stopped shortly after getting his ass kicked by STL Activist Hub. 

Yes, Dana Loesch, self-proclaimed champion of free speech.  She thinks that boycotts are a slap in the face of freedom, unless they're used against groups she doesn't like.  She thinks holding signs is patriotic, unless the person doing the holding isn't a teabagger.  And now she sings the praises of dissent, while doing everything in her power to prevent views that are opposed to hers from being seen.  Dana, I don't blame you for not linking here.  It's the only way your absurd talking points can survive.

Dana Loesch Analysis: Something seems to be missing...what could it be?

Oh, that's right, any shred of normal human emotion.

Loesch put up a post about Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn's recent townhall. She started by showing this video:



She then proceeded to go on a 380 word rant about how horrible the main stream media is. And 100% completely missing from her analysis is any acknowledgment whatsoever of the suffering this woman was going through. It's really quite amazing that the GOP toadies are so blinded by their ideological rage that they are incapable not just of listening to "libruls" but even to people whose life stories don't fit with their preferred narrative.

Sharp Elbows, Dull Wits II: A New Low in St. Louis Teabagging

No, I didn't say the lowest low, since teabaggers have done some pretty obnoxious things in recent weeks.  But it's a new low in that its a ridiculous anti-social personality disorder move that has not been seen in recent times.  Adam Sharp of the teabagger blog Sharp Elbows, last seen acting like a five-year-old at Senator McCaskill's forum, snuck into a press conference (included below) that was on private property meant only for members of the press.  When they asked for questions from the media (5:16), he asked a misinformed question anyway "as a private citizen" after whining about the term "teabagger" which rightwingers themselves coined (4:23), then acted offended when they repeated that they were looking first for questions from the media (something to the effect of "waaaah, I'm just a lowly citizen").  He later interrupted a pastor who was trying to explain an answer (1:00).

I see that Hotflash at Show Me Progress claimed that at least this guy, "didn't yell or interrupt anyone," but the video clearly shows that is not the case.  He interrupted a pastor, for crying out loud!  Leave it to the St. Louis teabagging bloggers to add a new level of classlessness to the discussions.

Here's the full video.

Party of Personal Responsibility...unless you're a teabagger!

The teabaggers fall firmly in the camp of personal responsibility, you can tell cause they get so angry about people who break rules about bringing signs into forums.  But sometimes the stress of Defending America from Socialistic Tyranny just gets to be too much, and they can't help but assault people they don't like.

Take the case of Maxine Johnson.  She's one of the horrible non-teabaggers who brought a sign to McCaskill's forum.  And a poor little teabagger in the audience just couldn't help himself from grabbing the sign.  24th State, Gateway Pundit, and Bill Hennessy all declared that Maxine Johnson was a fraud and a LIAR!, a LIAR! they tell you, because she suggested that she saw a sign at the forum the said "Ni***r Obama," and they just know that that couldn't be true.  Nevermind that she later said it was a sticker or that she was asked to unroll the sign by a reporter, cause she's a LIAR!  Gateway Pundit and Hennessy go on to mention that, "Later, the sign would so enrage a Jefferson County man that he snatched from her hand and tore it up" and say nothing more about the man caught on video ripping the sign from Johnson and charged with assault.  Poor little guy, he just couldn't help himself.  You see, they believe in personal responsibility...unless you're a teabagger.

Hennessy goes on to say, "Maxine Johnson has forfeited her right to be taken seriously ever again."  I guess by that standard, Hennessy had forfeited his right to ever be taken seriously again, considering that helped raise over $1,1000 for Kenneth Gladney's health care bills even though Gladney has insurance.  Oh wait, I forgot, Hennessy's a teabagger.

Dana Loesch: Companies should be punished for making ethical decisions.

Glen Beck has crossed a lot of moral and professional lines in his brief career as a Fox News host, from fantasizing about poisoning Nancy Pelosi on air, to insulting a non-partisan group of people who volunteer a year of their life to improve the country, to suggesting the people need to start training to fight the government from putting them in FEMA camps.  But the thing that really got him in trouble are his comments that President Obama is a "racist" with a "deep seated hatred for white people or the white culture." Colorofchange.org led a petition for advertisers to drop Beck due to his racially-charged hate-speech, and so far over 20 companies including such moral stalwarts as Wal-Mart and Proctor and Gamble have complied. 

Well, local right-wing ideologue and talk show host Dana Loesch is horrified at this assault on poor Beck.  She apparently thinks companies should be forced to advertise on this program, whether they want to or not.  Since launching a boycott is so clearly an "attack on free speech," she naturally proposes, get this, a boycott of the companies who stopped advertising on Beck's program!  It makes perfect sense, at least according to the It's OK if You're a Teabagger code of ethics that Loesch lives by.  

Still, it is sad to hear that Loesch won't be able to shop at Wal-Mart anymore.  I'd assume, since she is a person of such moral fortitude, that she will also make sure that none of these companies advertise during her radio program.

The Freak Show Continues: Brown Protests NAACP for Not Investigating Even Though Brown Never Filed a Complaint!

Attorney David Brown took his ridiculous antics to a new level today, holding a press conference outside of the NAACP to protest the fact that the NAACP wasn't immediately rushing to aid his client even though significant questions have been raised about Brown's story and the police report for the incident has not been released.  The protest is completely ridiculous, as Brown and Gladney never even filed a complaint with the NAACP!  Said Claude Brown Sr. the President of the NAACP:

"The NAACP will and does accept and investigate all written complaints filled with us regardless of the complainant's ideology."

If there could ever be better evidence that this campaign for the right-wing is all about generating publicity rather than actually "pursuing justice," I don't know what it could be.  Furthermore, these classless protesters decided to have their event on a day where the NAACP offices were closed in remembrance of recently deceased civil rights leader Margaret Bush Wilson.  So the people who are oh-so-concerned about how the NAACP operates don't even have the most basic knowledge of how the NAACP works and are not even be aware that one of the most important leaders of the organization had passed away.  Shocking.

It's worth noting that Brown was caught in a blatant lie this weekend, that centered around the claim that he was selling buttons with pictures of President Obama in blackface and smoking marijuana.  Quite a civil rights leader, this guy.

MOPNS: Taking "Breaking News" to a new level

Got a facebook message from the #1 site for right-wing news done sloppily, the Missouri Political News Service (MOPNS).  Here's where the link took me (click on the image to see the exciting news):

Wow, it's so "breaking," they didn't even have time to form a sentence yet.  I guess they were trying to get the scoop, but if so, they failed, because the Post-Dispatch and Beacon already had stories up.

Local Teaparty Leader Hates Frivolous Lawsuits, Unless They Target His Opponent

At Senator McCaskill's recent townhall, one of the tea party activists in the crowd asked why she wasn't talking about tort reform. Naturally the teabaggers, spoon fed talking points from the insurance industry, believe that the entire reason that health insurance prices are going up is because of all those mean people frivolously suing their doctors and insurance companies. McCaskill pointed out how insurance costs continued to rise even in states that have passed tort reform laws, and that malpractice costs account for only 2 percent of health care spending. I should also note that it's quite an amazing psychological fact that the crowd thinks that malpractice suits are wholly responsible for health care costs spiraling out of control, but also believe that health care costs are not spiraling out of control.

Anyhow, that doesn't stop Bill Hennessy, local leader of the tea party movement, and self-described "hater of ambulance chasers" (those who pursue lawsuits against the health care industry), from suggesting that we use frivolous lawsuits to target companies he doesn't like. Hennessy is mad that Geico and Progressive decided to boycott Glenn Beck for declaring that "Obama hates white people." You see, Hennessy believes in free speech, and if you believe in free speech it means that anyone should be able to publicly state any falsehoods and race-baiting comments they want and companies should be forced to still advertise with them anyway. That's what America's all about. And Hennessy's solution to this horrible injustice:

I hope no one reading this get into an accident. But if you do have an accident, and if the other party is a Geicoor Progressive customer, sue like crazy. Sue for the maximum coverage their insurance allows. You won’t be hurting the other driver–you’ll be hurting Geico. I can’t stand ambulance chaser law suits, but Geico and Progressive need to be financially destroyed.

Yup, those frivolous lawsuits are destroying America. But it's OK to destroy America if it's also harming someone that you hate.

Speaker at NAACP Protest is "Birther," says Obama loves terrorists and hates America

I saw on the MOPNS site that a group called Move-On-Up.org is going to be holding a rally outside of the NAACP next Monday to protest , "the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) silence regarding the unprovoked and senseless beating of African American conservative Kenneth Gladney." As I've written before, the story being told by the right-wing media about the fight Gladney got into outside Representative Carnahan's townhall is extremely questionable. Conservative hacks like Gateway Pundit keep claiming that X, Y, or Z not speaking out on the issue shows that there is some kind of bias going on, but the obvious explanation as to why there has not been more noise about the issue is that at best the details of what happened are not known. I would go further and say the the details that we do know are inonsistent with the Gladney/right-wing blogosphere story.

Anway, I recognized one of the speakers of the rally, Kevin Jackson, as the guy who was aggressively arguing with some counterprotesters at the teabagger rally outside of the SEIU offices (it starts around the 1:00 mark):



I decided to do a little research on Jackson (from his blog The Black Sphere), and found some amazing stuff in a short amount of time. Hopefully I'll have a chance to look for more, but in the meantime here's what I found:

1. Jackson is a "birther." That is, he questions whether Obama was born in the United States. See especially this amazing comment from him:

The Black Sphere said...

Wilson, you got it. And for the record, who doesn't just "present" his birth certificate, when asked. That is not even a matter of principle. This is just our Constitution being laughed at, as it will be for the next 4 years. And when the real truth comes out, the liberals will say, "Oh now anybody can be president of the US". Maybe then they will elect Ahmednijad as our first Iranian president? He has charisma too!

2. He says of Obama, "Since I consider Obama a Black racist, and a terrorist-loving, America-hating, resume-building, no talent hack..."

3. He calls Obama a "House Negro."

4. He questions whether Obama really cared when his Grandmother died.

5. He regularly shows pictures of Obama as Hitler, or as a terrorist.

6. He shows pictures of Michelle Obama with hyper masculine features, following the GOP playbook of suggesting that Clinton must be "secretely male" just because she is a strong woman.

7. Finally, he plays into the Obama is a "secret Muslim" game.

And this is the guy who's going to make the case that the NAACP hasn't spoken out because the NAACP has a political agenda??? Wow.

One last quote from Jackson. After the 2008 elections, he wrote:

We are the dang Brits, people! We must stop fighting with rules! Reverend Wright is off limits? My ass! This is a fight for survival. Think prison yard beef, not school yard beef!

Indeed, it looks like fighting without rules is exactly what Jackson has decided to do.

St. Louis Tea Party Site Continues to Misinform Membership about Forum Arrest

At Senator McCaskill's health care forum earlier in the week, an angry white man grabbed a Rosa Parks poster out of Maxine Johnson's hands, ripped it, and threw it on the ground, in the middle of the forum! Johnson and a couple friends had walked into the forum late holding the signs without being stopped by security, and had put the sign away once informed of the rules. That didn't stop the right-wing crowd, however, from jeering her as she was escorted from the auditorium after the incident. You can see a video that makes the whole event clear here:

Despite the fact that the details of the event are now fairly clear, the St. Louis Tea Party leaders continue to misinform their membership. Here's the latest from the official tea party web site:

I only saw one serious incident in which two women violated the “no signs in the hall” rule and had to be escorted out by security people. McCaskill chastised these two and correctly predicted that they had set the tone for the national media reports about the meeting. She wisely asked the other attendees to please spread the word that the meeting was mostly calm and productive, with the two idiotic women being the exception.

Yes, it was all the women's fault. No mention of the fanatic who ripped the poster out of their hand. No mention of the fact that they complied with the rules when told about them. No mention of the fact that a reporter asked them if she could see the poster. No mention of the multiple "don't tread on me" signs that were allowed in the auditorium.

I'm not surprised that the Tea Party leadership has such little regard for the truth, but I would think they'd at least be smart enough to stop repeating the same nonsense when it is directly contradicted by the video.

Teabaggers should ask for a refund...from their leader!

Bill Hennessy, leader of the teabagging events in the St. Louis region, recently accused a local reporter of lying. After elevating the level of discourse by commenting on the reporter's clothes, Hennessy's main accusation was that the reporter completely made up the claim that Kenneth Gladney was uninsured.

In Sunday’s paper, the reporter inaccurately wrote: ”Gladney was recently laid off and does not have insurance.” Blatant lie. Or, more nicely, rookie error. Which is inexcusible for a man on the backside of his career.

The “error,” as we’ll call it, has given the evil left new artificial ammunition with which to mock and accuse Mr. Gladney.

I certainly wouldn't take Hennessy's word over a reporter. But more to the point, if Gladney is insured, and Hennessy knows Gladney is insured, why was Hennessy begging for money to pay for Gladney's medical bills? You can see for yourself at the 4:30 mark of this video:

Considering that Gladney has raised over $1,100 for medical bills according to his lawyer, but doesn't actually need the money for medical bills, it seems as though Hennessy owes all of the teabaggers a refund. Of course, since everyone knows that this whole incident is a giant fraud, Hennessy surely owes his unfortunate followers much more than a refund.

"Missing the Point" is too kind of a description

Fanatic right-winger Gateway Pundit weighs in on the situation where an angry white man grabbed Maxine Johnson's Rosa Parks sign in the middle of McCaskill's health care forum:

CNN was upset that a St. Louis woman Maxine Johnson had her sign ripped at Claire McCaskill's town hall meeting this week. Dana Loesch, who was at the event, later wrote about the incident in an email:

"The footage on the Post Dispatch site and on all the liberal blogs totally omits Johnson entering 30 minutes before the forum's end, rudely gesturing to the audience, and mouthing off in an attempt to start a fight."

Of course.
The left is trying to accuse the ripper James Winfrey of a hate crime because the sign had Rosa Parks on it. The audience was told several times before the meeting that no signs were allowed. The unhinged left is trying to smear the "teabaggers" because of this incident. Ms. Johnson knew signs were not allowed into the meeting and brought her sign in anyway.

Wow, where to start with this one? How about with the video:

Here are just a few of the things that are wrong with the pungent pundit's post:

(1) Johnson gestured at the audience earlier because the audience was screaming at her.

(2) From the video, she obviously was not "attempting to start a fight."

(3) She had put her sign away, and only unrolled it because a photographer asked her to.

(4) In none of the links he provides does anyone claim that it was a hate crime, yet he pretends that this is what all liberals are arguing.

(5) Plenty of teabaggers in the audience had signs, and police let them stay. They also were not harassed by the audience for having signs.

In answer to the burning question that's on your mind: no, Gateway Pundit is not really this stupid. But he profits from manipulating an audience that is.

Sharp Elbows, Dull Wits

Adam Sharp, or "Sharp Elbows". is a local blogger who likes to run around with a camera at political events. His favorite techniques are to sneak up on people with his camera or interview them and selectively edit the conversation later to make them look like "stoopid libruls."

He was at Senator McCaskill's recent health care forum, and he stood up waiving his hands like a five year old who needs to go to the bathroom for the first two hours of the event. Senator McCaskill broke the rules of the event to call on him, and here's what he had to say about it:

Senator McCaskill Did Not Take Questions. She Read Questions Written On Cards By People Who Attended This Event. This Tactic Allows The Senator To Waste Time With Long Answers And Also Rules Out Follow Up Questions. I Submitted My Question But I Knew The Chances Were Slim To None That I Would Get Called On. So I Stood...With My Hand Up....For Nearly The Full 2 Hours. I Knew That If I Was Not Disruptive But Persistent She Would Have to Acknowledge Me. And If She Didn't She Would Be Called On It. Finally, As The Event Was Winding Down. Senator McCaskill's Mommy Told Her To Call On Me. So She Did. Please Forgive Me For The Shaky Nature Of The Following Video.

It's not clear if he has been the victim of severe head trauma in the past, but he shows some indications. First of all, McCaskill did take questions at the town hall. People wrote their questions on cards, but she gave every single person (whose card was pulled) an opportunity to either ask the question themselves or for her to read them. She'd even let them ask a different question if they wanted to.

Furthermore, with over 1,000 people in the audience, why is this guy whining about the fact that there was a low probability of him being called on? Are we supposed to assume that his question was more important than the questions of everyone else in the room? He apparently thinks so, since he threatens that if she didn't call on him, 'She Would Be Called On It." But she decided to reward him for his childish behavior, went against the pre-established rules of the forum, and did call on him after all, and amazingly he still whines about it. As with any brat who has a temper tantrum, caving in to his demands will never actually fix his problem.

Update: Replaced original picture of Adam Sharp with a screenshot.

Irony Impairment Alert: Dana Loesch thinks you should respect authora-tah and follow the rules, unless you're a teabagger

Update: I've replace the original images with screen shots.

Dana Loesch, right-wing radio host and a leader of the local teabagger movement, was at the Senator McCaskill's forum for this incident, and concluded that, "from what we could tell...there was an argument over who brought in a rolled-up sign." Yes, for some reason, Maxine Johnson thought that the fact that she brought in the sign meant that she was the person who brought in a sign, and apparently some angry old white man disagreed. Go figure.

Anyway, Loesch, and other right-wing hacks are of course convinced that this is all Johnson's fault because she didn't follow the rules. Never mind the fact that no guards stopped Johnson at the door with her sign or that she actually complied with the rules when they were told to her (she only unrolled the sign when a photographer asked her to). Loesch triumphantly posts the following picture at the end of her blog post on the incident:



Apparently completely oblivious to the concept of Irony, she posts another picture just a little bit down:

Notice anything in the man's hand? Like, say, a sign? I guess for Loesch the rules only apply to non-teabaggers.