Think Progress: Missouri school district bans t-shirts for acknowledging evolution.
T-shirts worn by members of the Smith-Cotton High School band have been recalled by the school district because they contained images of evolution. The t-shirts featured an image of a monkey holding a brass instrument and progressing through various stages of evolution until eventually becoming a human. “I was disappointed with the image on the shirt,” said Sherry Melby, a band parent who teaches in the district. “I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.” Assistant superintendent Brad Pollitt explained that the t-shirts were banned because they were imposing on religious views:Though the shirts don’t violate the school’s dress code, Pollitt noted that the district is required by law to remain neutral on religion.
“If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing,” Pollitt said.
Law professor Jonathan Turley notes, “Evolution is not a religious issue. Extremists want to make evolution into a religious question, but it is not.”
Think Progress: Texas Secessionist To Health Care Reform Advocates: ‘Go Back To The U.S. Where You Belong’
On Friday, ThinkProgress reported that “tenthers” in Texas were set to hold a pro-secession rally in Austin this weekend. According to the Texas Observer, upwards of 200 people attended the rally, where one speaker declared, “We hate the United States!”
The organizer of the event, Daniel Miller, a leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement who has appeared on Glenn Beck’s Fox News show, said that he and his fellow secessionists were disappointed that Texas Gov. Rick Perry didn’t attend the rally because they were heartened by his pro-secession comments earlier this year:
Daniel Miller, the leader of the Texas Nationalist Movement and the only speaker who had the slightest ability to make secession sound like anything other than just complete lunacy, recounted the April 15 tea party rally in Austin and what it meant to the secessionist movement.
“When [Perry] was giving a speech and the crowd began to shout what? – Secede! Secede! Secede! – that’s what they chanted. So they asked him afterward, What do you think? He said, Well we reserve that right; if things get so bad we reserve the right to leave. And I gotta tell you it’s the first solid thing he’s done in his administration that I can agree with in many, many years.”
Watch a video of the rally from the Texas Observer:
One speaker at the event, gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, explained that the people at the rally were aware of the consequences of pushing for secession. “We are aware that stepping off into secession may in fact be a bloody war,” said Medina. “We are aware that the tree of freedom is occasionally watered with the blood of tyrants and patriots.” When some secessionist began arguing with pro-health care reform activists, another speaker, Larry Kilgore, was heard telling them, “Go back to the U.S. where you belong.”
Benen: THE FAMILIAR TALE OF WILLIAM A. WIRT...
Benen: BARTON VOWS REFORM REPEAL...The LA Times' Michael Hiltzik had a terrific item yesterday on a footnote of history named William A. Wirt, who garnered some notoriety in 1934. His claim to fame? Wirt claimed he had "discovered" evidence of a plot within FDR's administration to launch a Bolshevik takeover of the United States.
As silly as this was, this was an era when Roosevelt's New Deal was blasted by the Teabaggers of the day as radical socialism. With that in mind, Wirt became a Republican cause celebre for a while, hooking up with right-wing astroturf groups of the day, garnering all kind of media attention, and even testifying before Congress about his evidence of a "concrete plan" for the overthrow of the U.S. government crafted by members of FDR's "Brain Trusters."
"Roosevelt is only the Kerensky of this revolution," he quoted them. (Kerensky was the provisional leader of Russia just before the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.) The hoodwinked president would be permitted to stay in office, they said, "until we are ready to supplant him with a Stalin."
Those words caused an immediate sensation. Wirt hedged on naming the treasonous "Brain Trusters" -- which only intensified the public mania. Into the vacuum of information poured supposition masquerading as fact (certainly a familiar phenomenon today).
Wirt's provocative tale soon after fell apart; his "evidence" crumbled; and Republican leaders decided they didn't want anything to do with the guy. He quickly vanished from the public spotlight.
And that, of course, highlights a difference between then and now. William A. Wirt sounds quite a bit like Glenn Beck, Betsy McCaughey, Dick Armey, and assorted other right-wing personalities that litter the American landscape in the 21st century, spreading nonsense. Indeed, they're spreading almost identical nonsense, claiming to have evidence of President Obama launching a nefarious Nazi/Soviet/Marxist/Illuminati scheme.
But when their tales fall apart, there are no consequences.
Indeed, the main reason not to chuckle condescendingly at Wirt is the thought of what might happen were he to walk the Earth today.
Rather than being disowned in embarrassment, he'd be lionized as a purveyor of an alternate truth -- "Bill the teacher," perhaps -- given a gig on cable news and touted as a presidential contender for 2012. He'd have a blog, a Facebook page and a Twitter account.
In today's world, the more outlandish his accusations the better. For while America has made great strides since 1934 in science, civil rights and many other fields, our ability to recognize humbug for what it is seems to have gotten much, much worse.
Well said.
It's hollow bravado, but it's nevertheless interesting hollow bravado. (Faiz Shakir has the video.)The health bill is "dead on arrival" in Congress, said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce committee, said during an interview on Fox News.
"If they somehow manage to get the votes and get enough Democrats to walk the plank and commit suicide, in the next Congress, I'll be chairman Joe Barton of the Energy and Commerce committee, and we'll repeal it," Barton said.
The far-right congressman from ExxonMobil added that passing reform would push Democrats into the "political wilderness."
As a practical matter, Barton is clearly getting ahead of himself. If health care reform passes, and if voters disapprove, and if there's an enormous Republican surge and the GOP reclaims the House majority, then Barton would help repeal the historic legislation.
Unless Barton also has a plan to elect a Republican president in 2010 -- two years ahead of the next presidential election -- this vow won't amount to much no matter how many seats the GOP gains.
That said, it's a possible hint of what's to come. If Dems can get their act together -- by no means a foregone conclusion -- next year, expect to see some Republican candidates positioning themselves as leading opponents of consumer protections and coverage for the insured. "Vote GOP," they'll say, "for the return of the health care system that wasn't working."
Benen: MODERATES....
Benen: ENZI GIVES UP ON GOOD-FAITH TALKS; WHITE HOUSE NOTICES...Bruce Bartlett, who has a habit of writing brilliant emails that get published elsewhere, shared some very interesting thoughts with David Frum the other day on why he no longer wants anything to do with the Republican Party. I intend to talk the piece in more detail later, but something James Joyner said in response to the item caught my eye.
Bartlett argued, persuasively, that the modern GOP no longer welcomes moderates into positions of party leadership. Joyner considers it a problem for both parties, not one.
It's true that moderates have largely been driven from the leadership ranks of the Republican Party. But they've also been driven from the leadership ranks of the Democratic Party. The combination of gerrymandered districts and the permanent campaign have incentivized polarization.
I disagree. The leadership ranks of the Democratic Party have plenty of moderates. Comparing the two, the centrist-count isn't even close.
In the Senate, the Majority Leader is Harry Reid, a pro-life moderate from a traditionally "red" state. While the Majority Whip is Dick Durbin, whom I consider to be a solid progressive, there are four Deputy Whips including two clear moderates: Tom Carper and Bill Nelson.
Elsewhere in the Senate, Max Baucus is the Senate Finance Committee chairman, and he's moderate. Kent Conrad is the Budget Committee Chairman, and he's a moderate. Hell, Dems made Joe Lieberman the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, even though he's not a Democrat and even after he spent the last couple of years attacking Barack Obama.
Admittedly, the House Democratic leadership is more reliably liberal, but it's worth emphasizing that when it came time to choose the House Majority Leader, the job went to Steny Hoyer, who is clearly not from the party's progressive wing.
For that matter, I'd argue that both Barack Obama and Joe Biden embrace a generally-progressive agenda, but neither are Dems I'd call "liberals."
I can appreciate the fact that a word like "moderate" is somewhat subjective. One person's centrist is another person's idea of American Fidel Castro.
But I think a fair assessment of the parties' leadership shows a qualitative difference. Is there any way in the world the Senate Republican caucus would make a pro-choice moderate from a traditionally "blue" state the Senate Majority Leader? Of course not; the idea is almost laughable.
One party not only tolerates moderates, it elevates them to leadership posts. One party doesn't.
Let no one say the White House was impatient. Republican Sen. Mike Enzi, ostensibly a member of the Finance Committee's farcical Gang of Six, kept trashing health care reform. President Obama and other Democratic leaders kept pretending Enzi was negotiating in good faith, reality notwithstanding.This weekend, however, Enzi delivered the Republicans' weekly address, and he went too far. Enzi denounced the Democratic reform proposals, using painfully dishonest rhetoric, and even lending credence to the "death panel" garbage. It was an ugly display for anyone, but that the scripted remarks came from a Gang of Six member made Enzi's diatribe particularly ridiculous.
Apparently, the White House has seen and heard enough. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters today that Enzi obviously is no longer committed to the process that the senator has been involved with for months.
"It appears that at least in Senator Enzi's case, he doesn't believe there's a pathway to get bipartisan support, and the president thinks that's wrong," Gibbs said. "I think Senator Enzi's clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship and decided that it's time to walk away from the table."
Gibbs added, "The president is firmly committed to working with Democrats, Republicans, independents, anybody that wants to see progress on health care reform." That group, at long last, no longer seems to include Mike Enzi.
His role in the process won't be missed. The idea of including Enzi in the talks in the first place never made any sense. Krugman recently noted that negotiating with Enzi on reform is "the quest for bipartisanship gone stark raving mad."
If that quest is over, and I sincerely hope it is, it's a very positive development. The less Enzi is involved in the process, the better the chances of a quality bill becoming law.
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