VT

Just to be clear: It can't be denied that Cho bears responsibility for his actions (or would if he survived).

But it's interesting how rightist policies enabled him and, yes, probably made the killings more likely.

The other post discusses the NRA-"inspired" halfass approach by Virginia to dealing with the Federal database meant to keep guns from nutjob.

Arianna discusses how Big Pharma did their share because, you know, in the capital suprastate, capital is the most important thing:

"This didn't have to happen." So said Cho Seung-Hui in his final message, which he mailed to NBC.

In the aftermath of any tragedy, personal or collective, the human mind retraces steps and looks at what might have kept the tragedy from happening.

In the case of Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech, the first look has been at our insane gun laws -- and rightly so.


The fact that a clearly disturbed individual like Cho, a young man who had been found to be "mentally ill" and potentially dangerous by a Virginia court, could so easily -- and legally -- purchase the semiautomatic weapons he used on his rampage should make even the most ardent fan of the Second Amendment take pause (and the rest of us pull our hair out).
We urgently need a national debate about guns. But we also urgently need a national debate about the epidemic of mood-altering drugs being prescribed to young Americans.

I'll take my teachable moments wherever I can find them. And Virginia Tech has the potential to be one of them.

Reports that Cho had been taking antidepressants once again turn the spotlight on the uneasy question of what role these powerful medications might have played in yet another campus massacre.

It's the same bloody-morning-after question I've been asking since 1998, when we learned 15-year old Oregon school shooter Kip Kinkel, who opened fire in his school cafeteria, had been on Prozac. Nearly ten years -- and numerous school-shooters-on-prescription-meds -- later, we're still waiting for answers.

Now let me make it perfectly clear that I am NOT saying that antidepressants are what caused Cho to go off the deep end and kill 32 people and then himself (indeed, school and law enforcement officials haven't yet disclosed what specific meds were found among his effects). And I'm NOT saying that there aren't thousands of people who benefit from such medication. What I AM saying is that it is absurd -- and incredibly irresponsible -- for our leaders, and our culture, not to be fully investigating the correlation between antidepressants and manic/suicidal behavior.

Despite disturbing evidence of drug-induced reactions, the number of children being given mood-altering drugs continues to soar. America now has over 8 million kids on such drugs.

Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, has vehemently denied numerous claims that the drug causes violent or suicidal reactions. But the company's own documents admit that "nervousness, anxiety, insomnia, inner restlessness (akathisia), suicidal thoughts, self mutilation, manic behavior" are among the "usual adverse effects" of the medication. And a clinical trial found that Prozac caused mania in 6 percent of the children studied.

Can there be any doubt that Cho was exhibiting many of these adverse effects during his reign of terror in Blacksburg? His rambling, multi-media diatribe seems like a textbook example of manic behavior. The question is, was his manic behavior purely the result of a sick mind or was drug-induced psychosis part of the toxic psychological mix?

We don't know. But we do know that one school shooter after another was on prescription drugs. Kip Kinkel was taking Prozac. Columbine killer Eric Harris was taking Luvox. Red Lake Indian Reservation shooter Jeff Weise was taking Prozac. James Wilson, who shot 2 elementary school kids in Greenwood, South Carolina, was taking anti-depressants. Conyers, Georgia school shooter T.J. Solomon was on ritalin. Is this just a coincidence?

Again, we don't know. But here are some of the questions we need answers to:

1. It's been reported by the New York Times that Cho was on prescription medications. Which ones? Who prescribed them? How long had he been taking them?

2. If the drugs were prescribed when he was admitted to the New River Community Services center near Virginia Tech in December 2005, which doctor kept refilling his prescriptions? And what was the diagnosis?

3. What kind of medical and/or psychological follow-up was there? Or was Cho one of the many people put on antidepressants without a thorough and ongoing monitoring of the results and side effects?

America's blogs and op-ed pages are teeming with discussions about the impact Monday's carnage will have on America's relationship with guns. It's well-past time to also embark on a national discussion about the potentially deadly side effects of our pill-for-every-ill culture.

What Our Leaders' Supporters Believe

Link.

Thank You, NRA for 32 Deaths

Down there in Virginia, the NRA has ensured the failure of minimal federal gun controls so a certified nutjob is free to exercise his Second Amendment right to buy handguns -- oops, not for the purpose being a member in any sense of a well-armed militia but kill out of some unknown but demented titty-fit.

The paper of record, pardon the expression, nails it:

The federal law defines adjudication as a mental defective to include “determination by a court, board, commission or other lawful authority” that as a result of mental illness, the person is a “danger to himself or others.”

Mr. Cho’s ability to buy two guns despite his history has brought new attention to the adequacy of background checks that scrutinize potential gun buyers. And since federal gun laws depend on states for enforcement, the failure of Virginia to flag Mr. Cho highlights the often incomplete information provided by states to federal authorities.

Currently, only 22 states submit any mental health records to the federal National Instant Criminal Background Check System, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Thursday. Virginia is the leading state in reporting disqualifications based on mental health criteria for the federal check system, the statement said.

Virginia state law on mental health disqualifications to firearms purchases, however, is worded slightly differently from the federal statute. So the form that Virginia courts use to notify state police about a mental health disqualification addresses only the state criteria, which list two potential categories that would warrant notification to the state police: someone who was “involuntarily committed” or ruled mentally “incapacitated.”

“It’s clear we have an imperfect connection between state law and the application of the federal prohibition,” Mr. Bonnie said. The commission he leads was created by the state last year to examine the state’s mental health laws.

You know Virginia doesn't work with the federal statute deliberately; it shouldn't be difficult to coordinate if any halfway good faith effort was wanted, where there's a will, there's a way.So thank you, N-fucking-RA.

Victory in Iraq

Harry Reid says we lost.

I say "it's" unwinnable.

I say "it's" because Our Leaders have failed to date to articulate any goal that can be achieved. Get rid of non-existent weapons? A unified Western democracy?

What goal is there that can be won?

Other than mitigate as much of the harm we've wrought as possible.

But, as one would expect from a pathetically, indeed, tragically weak leader such as W, the situation echoes a freaking nursery rhyme:

"All the King's men...."

Voter Fraud That Needs to be Prosecuted

Actual voter fraud of the kind decried in Republican propaganda is rare, according to nonpartisan experts. Although the White House recently rewrote a careful federal study by the Election Assistance Commission to hide that basic fact, it remains true that very few individuals intentionally seek to fabricate a registration or cast an illegal ballot. There are exceptions, of course—most notably illustrated by Republican celebrity Ann Coulter.

When the far-right columnist and television personality registered to vote in Palm Beach, Fla., in 2005, she wrote down the address of her realtor’s office rather than her own home address. She then signed the form, despite its plain warning that falsifying any information on it would make her liable to felony prosecution—and which she, as a lawyer, surely understood. According to Palm Beach County election officials, she also voted in the wrong precinct the following year, disregarding a poll worker who explained her error. (Coulter fans can view her dubious voter-registration form online at www.bradblog.com.)

If proved, those acts would be crimes punishable by prison terms of up to five years, but Ms. Coulter has stonewalled the ongoing investigation. (She says the Palm Beach officials are syphilitic and mentally defective.) No charges have been filed so far, perhaps because her lawyer is a prominent Republican who worked on Bush v. Gore in 2000—and whom the President then appointed as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida. He must know a lot about voter fraud.

[More]

And here's more, lots more:

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates, according to former department lawyers and a review of written records.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.

Questions about the administration's campaign against alleged voter fraud have helped fuel the political tempest over the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom were ousted in part because they failed to bring voter fraud cases important to Republican politicians. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales could shed more light on the reasons for those firings when he appears today before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Civil rights advocates contend that the administration's policies were intended to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority voters who tend to support Democrats, and by filing state and federal lawsuits, civil rights groups have won court rulings blocking some of its actions.

Justice Department spokeswoman Cynthia Magnuson called any allegation that the department has rolled back minority voting rights "fundamentally flawed."

She said the department has "a completely robust record when it comes to enforcing federal voting rights laws," citing its support last year for reauthorization of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the filing of at least 20 suits to ensure that language services are available to non-English-speaking voters.

The administration, however, has repeatedly invoked allegations of widespread voter fraud to justify tougher voter ID measures and other steps to restrict access to the ballot, even though research suggests that voter fraud is rare.

Since President Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft, a former Republican senator from Missouri, launched a "Ballot Access and Voter Integrity Initiative" in 2001, Justice Department political appointees have exhorted U.S. attorneys to prosecute voter fraud cases, and the department's Civil Rights Division has sought to roll back policies to protect minority voting rights.

On virtually every significant decision affecting election balloting since 2001, the division's Voting Rights Section has come down on the side of Republicans, notably in Florida, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Washington and other states where recent elections have been decided by narrow margins.

Joseph Rich, who left his job as chief of the section in 2005, said these events formed an unmistakable pattern.

"As more information becomes available about the administration's priority on combating alleged, but not well substantiated, voter fraud, the more apparent it is that its actions concerning voter ID laws are part of a partisan strategy to suppress the votes of poor and minority citizens," he said.

Former department lawyers, public records and other documents show that since Bush took office, political appointees in the Civil Rights Division have:

• Approved Georgia and Arizona laws that tightened voter ID requirements. A federal judge tossed out the Georgia law as an unconstitutional infringement on the rights of poor voters, and a federal appeals court signaled its objections to the Arizona law on similar grounds last fall, but that litigation was delayed by the U.S. Supreme Court until after the election.

• Issued advisory opinions that overstated a 2002 federal election law by asserting that it required states to disqualify new voting registrants if their identification didn't match that in computer databases, prompting at least three states to reject tens of thousands of applicants mistakenly.

• Done little to enforce a provision of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act that requires state public assistance agencies to register voters. The inaction has contributed to a 50 percent decline in annual registrations at those agencies, to 1 million from 2 million.

• Sued at least six states on grounds that they had too many people on their voter rolls. Some eligible voters were removed in the resulting purges.

Survived the Holocaust to be Killed Saving Lives in a Deranged Reaction to Conspicuous Wealth

A 76-year-old Holocaust survivor who was killed Monday during the massacre at Virginia Tech was eulogized yesterday in the Boro Park section of Brooklyn as a man who made the ultimate sacrifice for his students.

Liviu Librescu, a longtime lecturer at the Blacksburg, Va., university, was shot five times as he tried to prevent a gunman from entering his second-floor classroom — all the while encouraging students to escape through the windows, witnesses have said.

Assemblyman Dov Hikind of Brooklyn gave the sole eulogy at the funeral, which brought several hundred Orthodox Jews to a Boro Park funeral chapel yesterday afternoon. Mr. Hikind, like most of those in attendance, did not know Librescu, a Romanian-born engineer.

Librescu's body was brought to New York after a Brooklyn-based organization, Chesed Shel Emes, offered to arrange a funeral and prepare the body for burial according to Jewish law. The Librescu family has no known connection to Boro Park, although the heavily Orthodox Jewish neighborhood is home to several thousand Holocaust survivors.

***

Another Boro Park resident, Sara Tamber, choked back tears outside the funeral chapel. "The way this man finished his life — he's a really big tzadek," she said, using the Hebrew word for a righteous person.

A former student of Librescu's, Dana Dillon-Townes, 28, said she was not surprised by the professor's final selfless act. "That is really the measure of a man," Ms. Dillon-Townes, a Virginia Tech alumna who lives in Manhattan, said.

Librescu survived the Holocaust in a labor camp in Transnistria and a Jewish ghetto in Focsani, Romania. Following World War II, he lived under communist rule in Romania before immigrating to Israel in 1978. He moved his family to Virginia about 20 years ago. In addition to his wife, Librescu is survived by two adult sons.

Link.

Our Leaders; Men of Principle

Wolfowitz's World Bank scandal over his girlfriend reveals many of the same qualities that created the wreckage he left in his wake in Iraq: grandiosity, cronyism, self-dealing and lying -- followed by an energetic campaign to deflect accountability. As with the war, he has retreated behind his fervent profession of good intentions to excuse himself. The ginning up of the conservative propaganda mill that once disseminated Wolfowitz's disinformation on WMD to defend him as the innocent victim of a political smear only underlines his tried-and-true methods of operation. The hollowness of his defense echoes in the thunderous absurdity of Monday's Wall Street Journal editorial: "Paul Wolfowitz, meet the Duke lacrosse team."

Superficially, Wolfowitz's arrangement for his girlfriend of a job with a hefty increase in pay in violation of the ethics clauses of his contract and without informing the World Bank board might seem like an all-too-familiar story of a man seeking special favors for a romantic partner. Wolfowitz has tried to cast the scandal as a "painful personal dilemma," as he described it in an April 12 e-mail to outraged employees of the World Bank, who have taken to calling the neoconservative's girlfriend his "neoconcubine." He was, he says, just attempting to "navigate in uncharted waters." But the fall of Wolfowitz is the final act of a long drama -- and love or even self-love may not be the whole subject.

Wolfowitz's girlfriend, Shaha Ali Riza, is a Libyan, raised in Saudi Arabia, educated at Oxford, who now has British citizenship. She is divorced; he is separated. Their discreet relationship became a problem only when he ascended to the World Bank presidency. Riza had floated through the neoconservative network -- working at the Free Iraq Foundation in the early 1990s and the National Endowment for Democracy -- until landing a position in the Middle East and African department of the World Bank. The ethics provisions of Wolfowitz's contract, however, stipulated that he could not maintain a sexual relationship with anyone over whom he had supervisory authority, even indirectly.

Back in 2003, Wolfowitz had taken care of Riza by directing his trusted Pentagon deputy, Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith -- who had been in charge of the Office of Special Plans and had been Wolfowitz's partner in managing the CPA -- to arrange for a military contract for her from Science Applications International Corp. When the contract was exposed this week, SAIC issued a statement that it "had no role in the selection of the personnel." In other words, the firm with hundreds of millions in contracts at stake had been ordered to hire Riza.


Riza was unhappy about leaving the sinecure at the World Bank. But in 2006 Wolfowitz made a series of calls to his friends that landed her a job at a new think tank called Foundation for the Future that is funded by the State Department. She was the sole employee, at least in the beginning. The World Bank continued to pay her salary, which was raised from $60,000 to $193,590 annually, more than the $183,500 paid to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and all of it tax-free. Moreover, Wolfowitz got the State Department to agree that the ratings of her performance would automatically be "outstanding." Wolfowitz insisted on these terms himself and then misled the World Bank board about what he had done.

Exactly how this deal was made and with whom remains something of a mystery. The person who did work with Riza in her new position was Elizabeth Cheney, then the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs. And Riza's assignment fell under the purview of Karen Hughes, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. But these facts raise more questions than they answer.

The documents released by the World Bank do not include any of the communications with the State Department. How did Elizabeth Cheney come to be involved? Did Wolfowitz speak with Vice President Dick Cheney, for whom he had been a deputy when Cheney was secretary of defense in the elder Bush's administration?

Riza, who is not a U.S. citizen, had to receive a security clearance in order to work at the State Department. Who intervened? It is not unusual to have British or French midlevel officers at the department on exchange programs, but they receive security clearances based on the clearances they already have with their host governments. Granting a foreign national who is detailed from an international organization a security clearance, however, is extraordinary, even unprecedented. So how could this clearance have been granted?

State Department officials familiar with the details of this matter confirmed to me that Shaha Ali Riza was detailed to the State Department and had unescorted access while working for Elizabeth Cheney. Access to the building requires a national security clearance or permanent escort by a person with such a clearance. But the State Department has no record of having issued a national security clearance to Riza.

State Department officials believe that Riza was issued such a clearance by the Defense Department after SAIC was forced by Wolfowitz and Feith to hire her. Then her clearance would have been recognized by the State Department through a credentials transmittal letter and Riza would have accessed the State Department on Pentagon credentials, using her Pentagon clearance to get a State Department building pass with a letter issued under instructions from Liz Cheney.


But State Department officials tell me that no such letter can be confirmed as received. And the officials stress that the department would never issue a clearance to a non-U.S. citizen as part of a contractual requisition. Issuing a national security clearance to a foreign national under instructions from a Pentagon official would constitute a violation of the executive orders governing clearances, they say.

Given these circumstances, the inspector general of the Defense Department should be ordered to investigate how Shaha Ali Riza was issued a Pentagon security clearance. And the inspector general of the State Department should investigate who ordered Riza's building pass and whether there was a Pentagon credentials transmittal letter.

Wolfowitz's willful behavior, as though no rules bound him or facts constrained his ideas, should not have surprised anyone. At the Pentagon, Wolfowitz was an insistent force behind an invasion of Iraq, bringing it up at the first National Security Council meeting of the Bush administration, months before Sept. 11. For years he had been a firm believer in the crackpot theories of Laurie Mylroie, a neoconservative writer, who argued that Saddam was behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and even the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. After Sept. 11, Wolfowitz pursued his obsession by sending former CIA Director James Woolsey on a secret mission to attempt to confirm the theory. Woolsey came back with nothing, but Wolfowitz continued to believe. His beliefs are stronger than any evidence.

Surrounded by his Praetorian Guard, Wolfowitz insulated himself at the World Bank from the career staff. There, as at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz pushed aside the professionals and replaced them with a small band of politically reliable assistants. Wolfowitz rewarded them, too, on his own authority, with enormous tax-free salaries. Consider Kevin Kellems, his public affairs officer at the Pentagon, who had guided conservative media from that perch and is known as "keeper of the comb," for having been the person to hand Wolfowitz the infamous comb he licked before slicking down his hair in the Michael Moore film "Fahrenheit 9/11." Kellems was given a salary of $240,000, at least equal to what World Bank vice presidents with years of service earn.

Link.

Bye, Bye, Roe; a Day that will Live in Infamy

If you're looking for some kind of silver lining in today's Supreme Court decision restricting abortion rights, this is about as close as you're going to get: While John Roberts and Samuel Alito sided, predictably, with the conservative majority, they didn't join Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia in declaring that the Supreme Court's "abortion jurisprudence, including Casey and Roe v. Wade, has no basis in the Constitution."

But every silver lining has a dark cloud, and this one has at least two.

***

As a Supreme Court justice, Alito has now signed off on exactly the sort of approach he was advocating as a lawyer. As the Center for Reproductive Rights' Nancy Northrup said today, "This opinion is in fact gutting the precedent without saying so."

Link.

The highly principled flip-flopping GOP candidates' opinions are here.

Here's Rudy:

"I could just have easily have appointed Sam Alito or Chief Justice Roberts as President Bush did....I mean, they're sort of a very high standard, and so is Justices Scalia and Thomas. That would be the kind of judges I would look for, both in terms of their background and their integrity, but also the intellectual honesty with which they interpret the law."

The solutions are obvious and difficult:

Significant Dem majorities in Congress, a Dem president and a couple of fast retirements of some of the loonies on The Supreme Court, and making abortion (*sigh*) a state issue again i.e. passing state laws protecting the right.

Mitt's Da Man!

Carl Linder is going to be Mitt Romney's Finance Co-Chair in Ohio.

Carl Linder gave over $425,000 to a group called Common Sense Ohio, which ran deceptive ads and push-polling. And by the way, when Mitt Romney was chair of the Republican Governors Association, that organization gave money directly to Common Sense Ohio. What the H-E-double toothpicks Mitt? A direct endorsement of push-polling and deceptive ads? Nice.

Sam Fox gave Mitt Romney's PAC $100,000. (And just think George Bush made Fox an ambassador for a mere $50,000 to the Swift Boat Liars.) Sam Fox may have had amnesia regarding what scum the Swifties were, but Mitt should know. Evidently Mitt doesn't care.

And last but not least, there's Romney National Finance Chair, John Rakolta. You might think that Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm is a remarkable woman. Mr. Rakolta thinks that she, and some other prominent Democratic presidents, resemble Hitler.

Link.

Leadership, Leadership and Virginia Tech

Our Beautiful, Beloved Leader:

A lesson learned, or are some victims just maybe more important than others?

Number of days that passed between the shootings at Virginia Tech and George W. Bush's expected arrival for a convocation there: 1.

Number of days that passed between the levee breach in New Orleans and George W. Bush's arrival there for a series of photo opportunities: 4.

Number of presidential guitars played or birthday cakes served in the last 24 hours: 0.

Link.

And I'm, well, at a loss: flags to be at half-mast for this? Speaking of which, from the same source:

The president had participated in a conference on school safety in October hosted by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. That had produced an agreement that all schools need to have security plans in place – but the White House today was at a loss to immediately answer what actually came out of that conference six months ago.

And a another bizarre mystery: Why does the U.S. Attorney General need to be involved with this -- other than to dodge a public humiliation -- I mean, appearance before a Senate panel? For that matter, why does he need a private PR operation to get his word out?

More Right Wingnut Stupidity

First they came for Don Imus. And now they'll come for Rush.

At least, that was the fear at the Free Congress Foundation on April 13, where a panel discussion of an ancient broadcasting regulation quickly turned into a discussion of Don Imus and how his firing might portend a similar fate for some of the right's best-known media personalities.

***

In fact, the prominent conservatives, addressing a crowd of 30 on the ground floor of a Washington row house, described what sounded like a conspiracy. Panelist Ken Blackwell, formerly Ohio's secretary of state and the Republican candidate for governor last fall, said Imus was "not a conservative" and that "the left has sacrificed one of their own to give them a platform to go after true conservative talk show hosts." Cliff Kincaid, of the conservative media watchdog Accuracy in Media, said the Imus firing had been a revelation. "It wasn't exactly clear to me how [liberals] intended to bring back the Fairness Doctrine, but I think now with the Imus affair, we know ... [And it's a] short leap from firing Imus to going after Rush Limbaugh."

Link.

In fact, while the uproar could be described, maybe, buy wrongly, as coming from "liberals", Imus was fired by his employers who were scared of the loss of business from businesses. And of course, Imus had no first amendment protection from being fired by a private sector employer who didn't want to broadcast him anymore.

Duh

One can learn a lot from "fake" news: Daily Show viewers best informed on current events, Fox News viewers finish at the bottom - NYT: "Americans may have more news outlets today than two decades ago, but they still don't know much more about current events than they did then, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. But here's one big difference: the survey respondents who seemed to know the most about what's going on -- who were able to identify major public figures, for example -- were likely to be viewers of fake news programs like Jon Stewart's 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report'; those who knew the least watched network morning news programs, Fox News or local television news."

Link.

Another GOP Candidate's Undisputed Genius

Did GOP presidential candidate Tommy Thompson just have his "macaca" moment? Speaking before the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington today, the former Wisconsin governor explained his financial success after government work this way:

"I'm in the private sector, and for the first time in my life I'm earning money," Thompson reportedly said. "You know, that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."

According to a report from Haaretz, Thompson subsequently apologized, after realizing that he'd upset some people in the audience. We're not so sure that he made things better.

"I just want to clarify something because I didn't [by] any means want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances and things," Haaretz quotes Thompson as saying. "What I was referring to, ladies and gentlemen, is the accomplishments of the Jewish religion. You've been outstanding business people and I compliment you for that."

Link (emphases added).

And Fab Freddy here is not alone in his love and respect for the Jews.

Voter Fraud

Let's say it's a legitimate concern and the partisan purge of U.S. attorneys is an attempt to deal with the problem.

What I wanna know is:

What has Our Leaders done in regard to voter fraud by the Jeb Bush administration in Florida leading up to the 2000 election?

Sad, Sad, Sad

Link.

Quotes of the Day

We'd forgive Kirsten for kissing Tom Cruise for this if she hadn't already beaten that rap on the ground being too young for it to even have counted in the first place.

But she gets points for these quotes and bonus points for who her best friend is:

Lots of entertainment websites are breathlessly exhaling the news that Kirsten Dunst has spoken out in favor of reasonable use of marijuana, still considered a taboo subject in her home country, and therefore a guaranteed attention-getter.

What should have billions and billions of science fans investigating the facts on THC, however, was Dunst's quote, "My best friend Sasha's dad was Carl Sagan, the astronomer. He was the biggest pot smoker in the world and he was a genius."

Dunst, like many, believes "America's view on weed is ridiculous. I mean," she added, "are you kidding me? If everyone smoked weed, the world would be a better place. I'm not talking about being stoned all day, though. I think if it's not used properly, it can hamper your creativity and close you up inside."

Hit List!

Of course, the First Amendment is not a guarantee of publishing in the broad sense. Indeed, it relates to public ssector censorship, not a corporation deciding to deny access. And Imus didn't get his involuntary sabbatical until too many sponsors freaked.

But anyway, here's a list of others whom, if deprived of their overly-public forums, would not be missed over here:

Glenn Beck

On the March 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, Beck called Rosie O'Donnell, co-host of ABC's The View, a "fat witch," claimed that O'Donnell has "blubber ... just pouring out of her eyes," and asked, "Do you know how many oil lamps we could keep burning just on Rosie O'Donnell fat?" On the March 23 edition of his radio show, Beck said, "I'm a little ashamed" for calling O'Donnell "a fat witch" -- then added, "But she's so fat."
On the March 15 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Beck said: "Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president because ... there's something about her vocal range." He went on to say, "There's something about her voice that just drives me -- it's not what she says, it's how she says it," adding, "She is like the stereotypical -- excuse the expression, but this is the way to -- she's the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean?" Beck subsequently qualified his statement: "I never said that Hillary Clinton was a bitch. I said she sounded like one."
On the February 28 edition of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, while discussing racy photos of American Idol contestant Antonella Barba, Beck asked his female guest: "I've got some time and a camera. Why don't you stop by?"
On the November 14, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck said to Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), the first Muslim ever elected to Congress: "OK. No offense, and I know Muslims. I like Muslims. ... With that being said, you are a Democrat. You are saying, 'Let's cut and run.' And I have to tell you, I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' "
On the September 5, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck warned that if "Muslims and Arabs" don't "act now" by "step[ping] to the plate" to condemn terrorism, they "will be looking through a razor wire fence at the West."
On the April 27, 2006, edition of his radio program, Beck claimed that there are three reasons that an illegal immigrant "comes across the border in the middle of the night": "One, they're terrorists; two, they're escaping the law; or three, they're hungry. They can't make a living in their own dirtbag country."
On the August 24, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck claimed that Braille on walls (used to identify rooms for blind people) "drives me out of my mind." When he made his comment, Beck was discussing the "politically correct world we live in." He then said, "Just to piss them [blind people] off, I'm going to put in Braille on the coffee pot ... 'Pot is hot.' "
On the August 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Glenn Beck warned that "[t]he world is on the brink of World War III" and that "Muslims who have sat on your frickin' hands the whole time and have not been marching in the streets" will face dire consequences. Beck made his comments toward Muslims who he claimed "have not been saying, 'Hey, you know what? There are good Muslims and bad Muslims. We need to be the first ones in the recruitment office lining up to shoot the bad Muslims in the head.'"
On the August 9, 2006, edition of his CNN Headline News program, Beck aired a segment mocking the names of several missing Egyptian students in which the announcer said that one "may or may not be accompanied by his camel." The segment showed pictures of crowds and pointed to random, unidentifiable people as the missing Egyptians. It ended with a reading of the students' names in quick succession followed by the announcer pretending to gag as he struggled to pronounce them.
During the March 16, 2006, edition of his radio show, in describing Nigeria's new public education campaign to fight the spread of bird flu, Beck stated that the country has "actually resorted to radio jingles," and then asked if the United States could be "as dumb as Nigeria."
On the January 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio show, Beck called anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan "a pretty big prostitute," later amending, at the behest of his executive producer, Steve "Stu" Burguiere, that "tragedy pimp" would be "the most accurate description."
On the September 9, 2005, edition of his radio show, Beck referred to survivors of Hurricane Katrina who remained in New Orleans as "scumbags." Also, after acknowledging that nobody "in their right mind is going to say this out loud," Beck attacked victims of the disaster and the families of victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying: "I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims."
On the May 17, 2005, broadcast of The Glenn Beck Program, Beck said he was "thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore" and pondered whether "I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it," before concluding: "No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?"

Neal Boortz

On the August 3, 2006, edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Neal Boortz asked his audience: "I want you to think for think for a moment of how incompetent and stupid and worthless, how -- that's right, I used those words -- how incompetent, how ignorant, how worthless is an adult that can't earn more than the minimum wage? You have to really, really, really be a pretty pathetic human being to not be able to earn more than the human wage. Uh -- human, the minimum wage."
On the July 19, 2006, edition of his radio show, Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show, Boortz claimed that "at its core," Islam is a "violent, violent religion," and said, "[T]his Muhammad guy is just a phony rag-picker." Boortz asserted that "[i]t is perfectly legitimate, perhaps even praiseworthy, to recognize Islam as a religion of vicious, violent, bloodthirsty cretins."
On the March 31, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Boortz said that then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) "looks like a ghetto slut." Boortz was commenting on a March 29 incident in which McKinney allegedly struck a police officer at a Capitol Hill security checkpoint. Boortz said that McKinney's "new hair-do" makes her look "like a ghetto slut," like "an explosion at a Brillo pad factory," like "Tina Turner peeing on an electric fence," and like "a shih tzu." McKinney is the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia.
On his March 27, 2006, radio program, Boortz suggested the U.S. government should "store 11 million Hispanics" who entered the country illegally in the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans before deporting them to their home countries.
In a December 12, 2005, weblog post, Boortz predicted that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) would commute the sentence of convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams to life imprisonment because "Schwarzenegger knows full well that as soon as Tookie's death is announced there will be riots in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere." Boortz wrote that "[t]here are thugs just waiting for an excuse ... not a reason, an excuse" and explained that "[t]he rioting, of course, will lead to wide-scale looting." Boortz added: "There are a lot of aspiring rappers and NBA superstars who could really use a nice flat-screen television right now."
On the October 24, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, Boortz suggested that a victim of Hurricane Katrina housed in an Atlanta hotel consider prostitution. "If that's the only way she can take care of herself," Boortz posited, "it sure beats the hell out of sucking off the taxpayers."
On the October 14, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz stated that if the country is faced with an impending national disaster, then "hell, yes, we should save the rich people first. You know, they're the ones that are responsible for this prosperity."
On the August 17, 2004, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz, in response to reports from Florida that looting was occurring in Hurricane Charley's aftermath, said: "If they see someone looting, shoot him. They go up there, they just spray paint an 'L' on him and get about their business, and then after everything is over, they can go collect them all and bury them in a mass grave."
On the July 21, 2004, broadcast of his radio show, Boortz referred to McKinney as "the cutest little Islamic jihadist in Congress."

Rush Limbaugh

On the March 2 broadcast on his nationally syndicated radio show, Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush Limbaugh stated that "since [Sen. Barack] Obama [D-IL] has -- on his mother's side -- forebears of his mother had slaves, could we not say that if Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then wins the presidency, he will own [Rev.] Al Sharpton?"
On the February 1 edition of his radio show, Limbaugh responded to a Reuters report on a University of Chicago study that found that "a majority of young blacks feel alienated form today's government" by asserting: "Why would that be? The government's been taking care of them their whole lives."
On the November 30, 2006, edition of his radio show, Limbaugh proclaimed: My "cat's taught me more about women, than anything my whole life" because his pet cat "comes to me when she wants to be fed," and "[s]he's smart enough to know she can't feed herself. She's actually [a] very smart cat. She gets loved. She gets adoration. She gets petted. She gets fed. And she doesn't have to do anything for it."
On the August 23, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Limbaugh commented on a season of CBS' reality TV program Survivor in which contestants were originally divided into competing "tribes" by ethnicity. Limbaugh stated that the contest was "not going to be fair if there's a lot of water events" and suggested that "blacks can't swim." Limbaugh stated that "our early money" is on "the Hispanic tribe" -- which he said could include "a Cuban," "a Nicaraguan," or "a Mexican or two" -- provided they don't "start fighting for supremacy amongst themselves." Limbaugh added that Hispanics have "probably shown the most survival tactics," that they "have shown a remarkable ability to cross borders," and that they can "do it without water for a long time, they don't get apprehended, and they will do things other people won't do." When the Survivor producers decided to dissolve the show's racially segregated "tribes" after only two episodes, Limbaugh declared that "[t]here can only be one reason for this ... that is the white tribe had to be winning."
On the January 10, 2006, broadcast, Limbaugh suggested that some women "would love to be hired as eye candy."
On the July 17, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, Limbaugh announced a new "advertising campaign" for the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in which he would call the facility "Club G'itmo, the Muslim resort," a "tropical paradise down there where Muslim extremists and terrorist wannabes can get together for rest and relaxation." On his website, he sold "Club G'itmo" T-shirts that read: "I Got My Free Koran and Prayer Rug at G'itmo," "Your Tropical Retreat from the Stress of Jihad," "My Mullah went to Club G'itmo and All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt," and "What Happens in G'itmo Stays in G'itmo."
On the March 1, 2005, edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Limbaugh claimed that "[w]omen still live longer than men because their lives are easier."
Limbaugh noted on August 9, 2004, than in recent television appearances, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd appeared "just joyless," "miserable," and "did not seem happy at all." Limbaugh then concluded: "Must be a guy. Isn't it always a guy when a woman's unhappy?"
On June 14, 2004, Limbaugh shared with listeners his "pet name" for the National Organization for Women (NOW): "National Association of Gals" (his acronym: "NAG"). Limbaugh claimed that the "militant feminists" who make up the "NAGs" "aren't determining who wins elections. White men are."
Responding to an Associated Press report that women had recently been appointed as chiefs of police in four major U.S. cities, Limbaugh on May 27, 2004, referenced the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib: "If we've got four new female police chiefs out there, then I guess we can watch out for some naked pyramids among prisoners in these new jailhouses that these women ran, because we had a woman running the prison in Abu Grab [sic]."
On April 26, 2004, Limbaugh claimed that women "actually wish" for sexual harassment, and said he then "laughed [him]self to tears" when Media Matters for America documented that and other sexist remarks he has made. The Media Matters report also noted that Limbaugh used the term "femi-Nazis" eight times between March 15 and April 29.
In 2003, Limbaugh made controversial comments about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, which led to Limbaugh's resignation from his position as a commentator on ESPN. During the September 28, 2003, edition of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown, Limbaugh said that "[t]he media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well" and, therefore, that McNabb "got a lot of credit for the performance of this team [the Eagles] that he didn't deserve."
According to a June 7, 2000, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) article, "As a young broadcaster in the 1970s, Limbaugh once told a black caller: 'Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.' " In the early 1990s, "after becoming nationally syndicated, he mused on the air: 'Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?' " According to FAIR, "[w]hen Carol Moseley-Braun (D-IL) was in the U.S. Senate, the first black woman ever elected to that body, Limbaugh would play the 'Movin' On Up' theme song from TV's 'Jeffersons' when he mentioned her. Limbaugh sometimes still uses mock dialect -- substituting 'ax' for 'ask'-- when discussing black leaders." FAIR also reported that "[i]n 1992, on his now-defunct TV show, Limbaugh expressed his ire when Spike Lee urged that black schoolchildren get off from school to see his film Malcolm X: 'Spike, if you're going to do that, let's complete the education experience. You should tell them that they should loot the theater, and then blow it up on their way out.' "

Bill O'Reilly

On the April 6 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Westwood One's The Radio Factor, Bill O'Reilly stated that Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf "should be baking pies, not running a major city."
On the April 2 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, while discussing the British soldiers captured by the Iranian government, Nancy Soderberg, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, stated that "the Arab Sunnis are uniting against Iran" and said: "[I]t's going to be the Arab world against the Persian world. And that's a fight we don't want to have played out in Iraq." O'Reilly responded: "Well, I'd like to see that fight with us out of it. That's what I'd like to see." O'Reilly continued: "I want -- let them kill each other."
On the February 28 edition of his radio show, O'Reilly told co-host Lis Wiehl that "women were treated better than men" at ABC News and CBS News because "[t]hey had a little cabal; and they intimidated the men in the organization and said, 'If you look at me cross-eyed, I'm gonna bring you up to Human Resources and destroy your life.' " O'Reilly added that "every man in the place was terrified of them." He later stated that, "in a lot of places, women have formed cabals to terrorize the men because they take advantage of, 'Oh, we're downtrodden. You're kicking us in the teeth.' " He then discussed how, in every country he'd "ever been to, women are treated worse [than] in the United States. ... Guys are gonna put their hands on you in that society in Italy, in Spain." O'Reilly concluded: "So, all of this whining about American women -- 'We don't have this; we don't have that' -- to me, I'm not real sympathetic. But I am a barbarian."
Discussing Iraq during the January 24 edition of his radio show, O'Reilly claimed that "the Sunni and Shia want to kill each other. ... They have fun. This is -- they like this. This is what Allah tells them to do, and that's what they do." O'Reilly then asserted that the "essential mistake of the war" was failing to anticipate that "these people would act like savages, and they are." Later, O'Reilly said that he had not predicted that the Iraqis "were going to act like savages in the aftermath of Saddam [Hussein]," and added: "[N]ow, Iran, we know they're savages."
On the January 16 broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly agreed with a caller's assertion that illegal immigrants "bring corrupting influences" to the United States, including "a third-world value system" that "can corrupt the education system." O'Reilly replied: "Absolutely. And that's why the dropout rate is so high."
On the January 15 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly said of Shawn Hornbeck -- who was abducted at the age of 11, held for four years, and recently found in Missouri -- that "there was an element here that this kid liked about this circumstances" and that he "do[esn't] buy" "the Stockholm syndrome thing." O'Reilly also said: "The situation here for this kid looks to me to be a lot more fun than what he had under his old parents. He didn't have to go to school. He could run around and do whatever he wanted." When fellow Fox News host Greta Van Susteren pointed out that "[s]ome kids like school," O'Reilly replied: "Well, I don't believe this kid did."
On the December 13, 2006, edition of The O'Reilly Factor, host Bill O'Reilly dismissed scientific research on same-sex parenting to assert, "Nature dictates that a dad and a mom is the optimum" form of child-rearing. O'Reilly asked "why," if children suffer no psychosocial deficit from being raised by same-sex parents, "wouldn't nature then make it that anybody could get pregnant by eating a cupcake?" O'Reilly declared that by arguing in favor of same-sex couples' right to raise children, "you're taking Mother Nature and you're throwing it right out the window, and I just think it's crazy." In fact, studies have consistently found that children raised by gay or lesbian parents suffer no adverse effects in their psychosocial development.
On the November 29, 2006, broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly denied that Iraq is in a "civil war as NBC News wants you to think" and asserted that "they're all Muslims, and they're doing what they do. They're killing each other. And they're killing Americans."
On the August 16, 2006, edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly argued extensively for "profiling of Muslims" at airports, arguing that detaining all "Muslims between the ages of 16 and 45" for questioning "isn't racial profiling," but "criminal profiling."
While discussing the rape and murder of 18-year-old Jennifer Moore during the August 2, 2006, edition of his radio show, O'Reilly appeared to suggest that the clothing she was wearing at the time helped incite her killer. O'Reilly discussed several factors that contributed to the "moronic" girl's rape and murder, including that she was drunk and wandering the streets of New York City alone late at night. But in addition to those factors, O'Reilly added: "She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at 2 in the morning."
On the July 12, 2006, edition of his radio program, during a discussion of the development of ethanol-fueled vehicles in Brazil, O'Reilly stated that "they still have people in Brazil running around with their little darts, hitting you in the head with the poisoned darts, with the loincloths."
During the April 12, 2006, broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly claimed that on the April 11 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, guest Charles Barron, a New York City councilman, had revealed the "hidden agenda" behind the current immigration debate, which was "to wipe out 'white privilege' and to have the browning of America."
While discussing New York City Councilwoman Christine Quinn's decision to boycott Manhattan's St. Patrick's Day parade due to the decision by the Ancient Order of Hibernians to ban the Irish Lesbian and Gay Organization (ILGO) from marching O'Reilly attacked Quinn, calling ILGO's potential participation in the parade "inappropriate." O'Reilly asked, "Why doesn't Ms. Quinn and others who support her wise up?" Continuing, O'Reilly stated: "You have your Gay Day parade. You have your Stonewall celebration. You have your Halloween deal, OK? You don't need this." O'Reilly also asserted, "I don't want these people intruding on a parade where little children are standing there, watching" for fear that children would ask "mommy, what does that mean?" O'Reilly's comments came during the March 17, 2006, edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor.
In a February 27, 2006, conversation with a caller about the disproportionately few jobs and contracts that have gone to locals in the rebuilding of New Orleans, O'Reilly said: "[T]he homies, you know ... I mean, they're just not going to get the job."
On the November 10, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, during a segment on a telecommunications executive who spent $250,000 in one night at a New York strip club, O'Reilly asked Wiehl if "it might be worth learning how" to dance for a $10,000 tip, adding, "You're [Wiehl] a good-looking girl. I mean, if you haven't seen Lis on TV, she's a good-looking blonde."
On the November 3, 2005, broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly called for "a full-body search" of Wiehl. During a conversation about a New York Sun editorial on a lawsuit over New York City's policy of subway bag checks, O'Reilly said: "Would you please -- would you please bring in some security to do a full-body search on ... Lis Wiehl." When Wiehl repeated, "I said my bags, not my body," O'Reilly responded, "Full-body search on Lis Wiehl right this minute. She asked for it." Wiehl is also an author, Harvard-trained law professor, and legal analyst for Fox News.
On the September 13, 2005, broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly claimed that "many of the poor in New Orleans" did not evacuate the city before Hurricane Katrina because "[t]hey were drug-addicted" and "weren't going to get turned off from their source." O'Reilly added, "They were thugs."
On April 15, 2005, a caller to O'Reilly's radio show claimed that each undocumented immigrant crossing the border "is a biological weapon." O'Reilly agreed, further stating, "I think you could probably make an absolutely airtight case that more than 3,000 Americans have been either killed or injured, based upon the 11 million illegals who are here."
Responding to a Jewish caller to his radio show who objected to "Christmas going into schools" and expressed his "resentment" that "people were trying to convert me to Christianity," O'Reilly asserted that America is "a predominantly Christian nation" and said that "if you are really offended, you gotta go to Israel." O'Reilly labeled the caller's concerns "an affront to the majority" and insisted that "the majority can be insulted, too." During his December 3, 2004, exchange with the caller, O'Reilly also mistakenly referred to "the seven candles" of Hanukkah.
On the June 21, 2004, broadcast of The Radio Factor, O'Reilly referred to Wiehl as "eye candy ... for me," telling Wiehl that she is on the show "because you're good-looking, so I got somebody to look over" while he's on the air.

Michael Savage

On the March 30 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, The Savage Nation, Michael Savage stated that he "agree[d] 100 percent" with a caller who said: "I'm very concerned that the Jews are now accepting gays as rabbis. And as a Catholic, I can tell you it almost destroyed our church when we accepted gays as priests." The caller added, "[T]hey were raping teenage boys, and if you allow them to come into your churches, I'm sorry, your synagogues, I have no reason to believe they're not going to do the same thing." Savage responded: "The idea of a gay rabbi is an oxymoron. Think about it: 'Rabbi' means teacher. You cannot have a homosexual teacher teaching boys how to be a Jew," adding, "I'm not going to mince words for fear of offending homosexuals. They're everywhere, anyway, trying to tell me what to say and what not to say and what to think. I know what's right and what's wrong. And that's all there is to it."
On the March 20 broadcast of his radio show, Savage discussed a San Francisco Chronicle report detailing the murder of a transgender woman whose body was found naked near a freeway outside San Francisco. Savage read a sentence from the article stating that "it appeared the victim had been in the process of becoming a woman," to which Savage replied: "Yeah, process of becoming a woman -- psychopath. [She] should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication." He went on to say, "And what's this sympathy, constant sympathy for sexually confused people? Why should we have constant sympathy for people who are freaks in every society?" adding, "But you know what? You're never gonna make me respect the freak. I don't want to respect the freak." Savage concluded: "The freak ought to be glad that they're allowed to walk around without begging for something. You know, I'm sick and tired of the whole country begging, bending over backwards for the junkie, the freak, the pervert, the illegal immigrant. All of them are better than everybody else. Sick. Everything is upside down."
On the March 16 broadcast of his radio show, Savage played audio clips from Barbara Walters' interview with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, portions of which aired on the March 16 edition of ABC's Good Morning America, and called her a "double-talking slut." Savage added: "She's an empty mind-slut. She'd peddle anything for a ratings point." Savage went on to call Walters a "mental prostitute" and said, "I think that the woman is vermin. I think she's dirt."
On the February 26 broadcast of his radio show, after playing an audio clip of the beginning of singer Melissa Etheridge's acceptance speech at the Academy Awards in which she thanked her wife and four children, Savage said: "I don't like a woman married to a woman. It makes me want to puke. ... I want to vomit when I hear it. I think it's child abuse." Savage later similarly stated: "I want to puke when I hear about a woman married to a woman raising children because, frankly, I think that it's child abuse to do that to children without their permission. What does a child know? Ask them when they're 16 whether they want to be raised by two lesbians or two men," adding: "What are the two men doing behind the other wall? You think the children don't hear it?"
On the February 7 broadcast of his radio show, Savage claimed that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "was chosen by George Bush as part of an affirmative action program in order to make his Cabinet look like America" and called her "a schoolmarm who has been pushed up the ladder all of her life because of social engineering." Savage also stated that President Bush's secretary of state "should have been a man because he would have more respect in the Middle East than does a woman to begin with."
On the January 15 edition of his radio show, in a monologue about Martin Luther King Day, Savage called "civil rights" a "con" and asserted: "It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males' birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give it to people who didn't qualify for it." Savage then said, "Take a guess out of whose hide all of these rights are coming. ... [T]here is only one group that is targeted, and that group are white, heterosexual males." He added: "They are the new witches being hunted by the illiberal left using the guise of civil rights and fairness to women and whatnot."
On the November 27, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage declared that in order to "save the United States," lawmakers should institute "an outright ban on Muslim immigration" into the country. Savage also recommended making "the construction of mosques illegal in America, and the speaking of English only in the streets of the United States the law."
On the November 13, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage declared that "[t]he radical homosexual agenda will not stop until religion is outlawed in this county," adding that gay people "threaten your very survival." Savage also stated that homosexuals are "all not nice decorators" and warned: "Gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg. They want full and total subjugation of this society to their agenda."
On the October 23, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage said of Ethiopians: "The people down there have flies around their eyes," adding, "I never went into an Ethiopian restaurant. The Ethiopians come here to eat American food." Earlier in the broadcast, while discussing Ramadan and the continued violence in Iraq, Savage suggested that Islam is "a bloodthirsty religion that's practiced over there by a bunch of throwbacks, and we're gonna to kill 'em." Savage called for the United States to say: "That's it, we're leaving them; we're killing them."
On the September 21, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage claimed that the "average prostitute" is "more reliable and more honest than most U.S. senators wearing a dress."
On the September 12, 2006, edition of The Savage Nation, Savage claimed that "we" were "told" that "before Barbara Boxer [D-CA]... before Dianne Feinstein [D-CA] ... [and] before Hillary [Rodham] Clinton [D-NY] became ... U.S. senator[s], that when women became senators, we'd have a kinder, gentler Senate." Instead, Savage said, the Senate has become "more vicious and more histrionic than ever, specifically because women have been injected into" it.
On the August 7, 2006, edition of his radio program, Savage declared that CNN hosts Wolf Blitzer and Larry King "look like the type that would have pushed Jewish children into the oven to stay alive one more day to entertain the Nazis." Savage remarked that Blitzer "will do the astonishing act of being the type that would stick Jewish children into a gas chamber to stay alive another day. He's probably the most despicable man in the media next to Larry King ... a close runner-up." Savage opined: "The reason they curry favor with the turbaned hoodlums is to gain access to the turbanned hoodlums, domestic and foreign, for their news shows. They need more turbanned hoodlums to build ratings."
On the July 28, 2006, edition of his radio show, Savage predicted Israel is "going to lose in Lebanon" unless it wins a "devastating, catastrophic, overwhelming victory" in which "nothing is left living in southern Lebanon, south of the Litani River." Later in the program, Savage chastised the Israeli government for displaying a "Holocaust mentality" by shying away from his proposed course for victory, adding that Israel cannot continue to "live" unless it "frees itself of the men who are acting as though they are still hiding in the sewers of Warsaw" and "act[ing] like Holocaust Jews hiding in the sewer."
On the July 24, 2006, edition of radio program, Savage declared that Blitzer is "the type who would have let children into the gas chamber in order to stay alive an extra day." Savage accused Blitzer of being "anti-Semitic ... anti-Jewish, and pro-Arab" because he "doesn't want to appear too Jewish ... and too pro-Jewish."
During the April 10, 2006, broadcast of his radio program, Savage warned political leaders not to sympathize with illegal immigrants, whom he described as "vermin." Savage stated: "If you take to the streets with the vermin who are trying to dictate to us how we should run America, even though they're not even entitled to vote or be here, you're going to be thrown out of office." Savage added that Americans are "craving leadership" because "[f]eminism is destroying America. Homosexuality is destroying America. Weepy liberalism is destroying America."
On the May 21, 2004, Savage Nation, Savage expressed disdain for a newspaper article about "what breeds of dogs came first" that did not include that "the Asians still chew 'em [dogs] up."
On his May 11 and May 12, 2004, radio shows, Savage called Arabs "non-humans" and "racist, fascist bigots"; asserted that Americans would like to "drop a nuclear weapon" on any Arab country; and that "these people" in the Middle East "need to be forcibly converted to Christianity" in order to "turn them into human beings."

Michael Smerconish

Substituting for host Bill O'Reilly on the April 4, 2006, broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor, nationally syndicated radio host Michael Smerconish repeatedly discussed "the sissification of America," claiming that political correctness has made the United States "a nation of sissies." Smerconish also claimed, several times, that this "sissification" and "limp-wristedness" is "compromising our ability to win the war on terror."
On the November 23, 2005, broadcast of The Radio Factor, while guest-hosting, Smerconish took issue with a decision by the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority to provide a designated prayer area at Giants Stadium. The decision was in response to a September 19 incident involving the FBI's detention and questioning of five Muslim men who were observed praying near the stadium's main air duct during a New York Giants football game. Smerconish stated: "I just think that's [the men's public praying] wrong. I just think they're playing a game of, you know, mind blank with the audience. And that they should know better four years removed from September 11."
On the November 23, 2005, edition of The Radio Factor, Smerconish interviewed Soo Kim Abboud, author of Top of the Class: How Asian Parents Raise High Achievers -- and How You Can Too (Penguin, 2005). Smerconish asserted that "if everyone follows Dr. Abboud's prescription ... you're going to have women who will leave the home and now get a great-paying job, because you will have gotten them well educated." He continued, "But then they're not going to be around to instill these lessons in their kids. In other words, it occurs to me that perhaps you've provided a prescription to bring this great success to an end."

John Gibson

On the May 11, 2006, edition of Fox News' The Big Story, host John Gibson advised viewers during the "My Word" segment of his program to "[d]o your duty. Make more babies." He then cited a May 10 article, which reported that nearly half of all children under the age of five in the United States are minorities. Gibson added: "By far, the greatest number [of children under five] are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic." Gibson later claimed: "To put it bluntly, we need more babies." Then, referring to Russia's projected decline in population, Gibson claimed: "So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way -- a slogan for our times: 'procreation not recreation'."
—R.D. & J.M.

Link.

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy! Campaigning on Continuing the Insanity

An adviser on Iraq: John Bolton.

So Rudy is campaigning on continuity on a policy rejected by a majority of voters: being led by nutjobs.

Training for Our Leaders' Enablers

Trust me (or don't and Google this) but approximately 150 lowish and middle-ish aides of Our Leaders' are Pat Robertson's organization's law school and here's the curriculum.



Here's the website for the most famous alumna, W's Monica.

And here's Monica's philosophy. As a parent, I believe raising a child to be an idiot with warped judgment is pretty abusive of a child but I wasn't smart enough to go to Regent's Law so what do I know, at least compared to Monica who is now professionally made, so to spek (we all know the rightists take good care of their own).

And here is something somewhere between all you need to about Monica's law school and everything about it....

Nappy Haired Hos

Here's two, all of the "mug shots" can be found here.