Westboro Hate Church Helps NYC Synagogue Raise Cash

If you haven't heard of Kansas' Westboro Baptist Church, prepared to be sickened. The church sent a few of its members into Manhattan yesterday, primarily to protest Jews for their general support of the GLBT community (I for one, am one of those Jews). The protests started early in the morning and even though I knew it was happening beforehand, I personally felt like getting a couple extra hours of sleep since I get next to nothing during the week. As I expected, for every Phelps-loving hater of humanity, there were more than ten that opposed them. The synagogue happened to be around the corner from Council District 3 challenger Yetta Kurland, and she had an excellent response to the anti-semitism that these misguided souls brought with them.

Now the community response on the streets was fantastic, but what I loved most was that it raised money for the synagogue, to the tune of $10,000:

Leaders of the synagogue, which is currently using rented space in the West Village, asked supporters to pledge a dollar or more for every minute that the six bigoted bumpkins protested outside. After almost an hour, they raised $10,000, thanks to the Westboro Baptist Church protesters, who were vastly outnumbered yesterday by a counter-demonstration of some 150 synagogue supporters. Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum tells the Daily News, "The synagogue wants a building so we're hoping this will help us get a building. We're not intimidated by them. We're joining together today to show that we ... simply reject their language, their violence, and we won't be scared away by them."

Not only am I grateful for the fundraising the synagogue pulled off, I am ecstatic that it countered what Phelps is ultimately up to. I believe that Phelps may or may not believe what he encourages his followers to do, but the real motivation is to profit monetarily from that hate. Getting press at military funerals and yes, this synagogue is what Phelps wants, but if it can also raise money for those that have good intentions, then so much the better. Phelps is going to continue on hating and the media will cover him from time to time. So what everyone else should do is to beat him at his own game.

Tenet Blames The Jews For His Problems

George Tenet, winner of the Medal of Freedom, is reported to have said some not-so-nice things about the members of Bush's inner circle who happen to be Jewish. Yes, Jewish. He had been designated as one of the scapegoats for faulty intelligence that gave Bush the impetus to go in and invade Iraq. Well according to some inside sources, Tenet made his displeasure loud and clear. Well, it might have been a little bit on the slurry side.

From The Atlantic:

A servant appeared with a bottle. Tenet knocked back some of the scotch. Then some more. They watched with concern. He drained half the bottle in a few minutes.

"They're setting me up. The bastards are setting me up," Tenet said, but "I am not going to take the hit."[...]

"According to one witness, he mocked the neoconservatives in the Bush administration and their alignment with the right wing of Israel's political establishment, referring to them with exasperation as, "the Jews."

Stay classy Mr. Tenet, and watch out for that dastardly Scotch!

McCain Aide Claims Obama Pals With Anti-Semites But Can't Name Them

The McCain campaign truly is in shambles. Listen to his national spokesman Michael Goldfarb try to link Obama to anti-semites and fail miserably. Seriously, this campaign is a total joke. If you are going to viciously smear someone, at least try to get your names straight before going on air.

EMILY's List Must Renounce Their Support Of Anti-Semite Nikki Tinker

Having volunteered some time for Emily's List in Arizona a few years back, I know that there are many good people in this organization. Their number one qualification for endorsing candidates is finding pro-choice women, but sometimes it is good to exercise some common sense (well all the time really). They failed to do that with Nikki Tinker, in her bid to unseat fellow Democrat and Congressman Steven Cohen. Simply put, her behaviors are inexcusable and have no business being endorsed by a supposedly reputable organization like Emily's List.

From TPM:

This brutal new attack ad from House candidate Nikki Tinker, who is challenging liberal Tennessee Rep. Steven Cohen in tomorrow's Democratic primary, just might be the nastiest, most race-baiting (and Jew-baiting) ad of the entire cycle:

"While he's in our churches, clapping his hands and tapping his feet ... he's the only senator who thought our kids shouldn't be allowed to pray in school," the announcer says, referring to an old vote against school prayer from when Cohen was a state senator. And remember, this is coming from a Democrat.

Cohen is the only white Congressman from a majority-minority district in the South, and was elected largely because of the divided field of black candidates in the 2006 primary, which included Tinker herself. Tinker never really stopped running against him, and has picked up the support of EMILY's List and a few members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Furthermore, Cohen is a Jew -- which makes the "our churches" line all the more suspicious. Tinker's campaign has not yet returned our call for comment on what message the ad is supposed to communicate.

The ad is sickening to say the least. Local reporters know how bad this ad is, along with the rest of her disgusting voter outreach attempts over the airwaves. I wrote Emily's List that I find their support of Tinker to be outrageous, and you can let them know what you think right here as well. If NARAL can support Congressman Cohen, so should Emily's List.

Why Won't McCain Repudiate And Denounce Ant-Semite Hagee?

John Hagee has already been exposed for his anti-gay and anti-Catholic sentiments. John McCain says he disagrees with some of his views yet continues to hold onto his endorsement. While Hagee has "apologized" about the Catholic comments, he stayed silent about hating gays and now we find out he hates Jews as well. How much does he hate them (me included!) you ask?

From The Huffington Post:

John Hagee, the controversial evangelical leader and endorser of Sen. John McCain, argued in a late 1990s sermon that the Nazis had operated on God's behalf to chase the Jews from Europe and shepherd them to Palestine. According to the Reverend, Adolph Hitler was a "hunter," sent by God, who was tasked with expediting God's will of having the Jews re-establish a state of Israel.

Going in and out of biblical verse, Hagee preached: "'And they the hunters should hunt them,' that will be the Jews. 'From every mountain and from every hill and from out of the holes of the rocks.' If that doesn't describe what Hitler did in the holocaust you can't see that."

He goes on: "Theodore Hertzel is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Hertzel went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.

How dare this bastard talk about my great-grandparents like that. Fuck him! This sermon, even if it is ten years old, is disgusting and has no business in an open and religiously tolerant nation. Hagee is a sick bastard who belongs at a KKK rally, not standing behind John McCain and his Presidential bid. For McCain to keep this guy around is a slap in the face not only to Jews, but to any group persecuted by Hitler or any other dictator who has advocated and carried out instances of ethnic cleansing.

If McCain can kick a few lobbyists to the curb, he can do the same to this gasbag.

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On a somewhat related note, hear me rant about McCain and a few other things at 5:30EDT on Sirius' Indie Talk Ch. 110

Ann Coulter "Perfects" Her Anti-Semitism

At last night's Mega Meetup down in TriBeCa a few of us were joking about having a Halloween costume contest to see who could wear the scariest Ann Coulter costume. No matter how hard we could try, no one is scarier than the real thing. Today she proved just how ugly she is on the inside, showing her anti-semitic self on CNBC.

From Editor and Publisher:

NEW YORK Appearing on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show, "The Big Idea," on Monday night, columnist/author Ann Coulter suggested that the U.S. would be a better place if there weren't any Jewish people and that they needed to "perfect" themselves into -- Christians. It led Deutsch to suggest that surely she couldn't mean that, and when she insisted she did, he said this sounded "anti-Semitic." Asked by Deutsch whether she wanted to be like "the head of Iran" and "wipe Israel off the Earth," Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ... That's what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament."

This is absolutely disgusting. Every single pundit and TV host should bar her from their programs, if there wasn't enough proof to do so already. Her quest to sell more books has gone far off the deep end.

Media Matters Hauled Into Court By An Anti-Semite

Guarding against the lies of the right is a tough job to do and Media Matters has been getting it done for quite some time now. Lately the liars David Brock and Co. have been documenting started biting back, most notably Bill O'Lielly. As nuts as he is, not even he would carry out a frivolous lawsuit against Media Matters. Though there is a wingnut that will. His name is Andy Martin.

This is Andy's deal, from Betanews:

"David Brock has invented a new form of political organization: a tax exempt group that is subsidized by taxpayers while Brock gets to spew his hate/smears," Martin charges. "The sympathetic left-wing national media love it.

"Brock attacked Don Imus. He has attacked Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly. And he as also smeared me. I am in good company with national media personalities.

"I have sued Brock and MMFA. He can defend his defamatory accusations in DuPage County, Illinois Circuit Court.

"I can't prove it yet, but I believe there are links between Brock's tax exempt hate/smear group and Barack Obama's campaign," Martin will state.

Sounds like your typical right winger seething with hate and looking for revenge. He can't handle his own truth, so he is attacking the messenger. Andy is outraged he has been labeled an anti-semite. It probably wouldn't look good if you were running for the Senate versus Dick Durbin next year, would it? But what if it were true?

From The Chicago Tribune:

In a 1983 personal bankruptcy case, he referred to a federal bankruptcy judge as a "crooked, slimy Jew, who has a history of lying and thieving common to members of his race."

In 1973, the Illinois Supreme Court refused to allow Martin admission to the bar. The court's decision noted that Martin, a University of Illinois law school graduate who was previously known by the name Anthony R. Martin-Trigona, had a Selective Service record that showed he had a "moderately-severe character defect manifested by well documented ideation with a paranoid flavor and a grandiose character."

There are so many funny stories about Andy, I hope the judge laughs him right out of court. AHiddenSaint has the rest of the story over at DailyKos. Kudos to him for putting it all together. I look forward to this day in court real soon. Then hopefully Andy can be committed to an institution that cares for his kind.

Tommy Thompson On Jewi$h Tradition$

Former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson exposed his feelings on Jewish traditions while speaking to an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism today. He wasn't commenting on Ashkenazi or Sephardic culture, nor the holidays that we Jews observe like Passover or Yom Kippur. Instead he referring to one of the stereotypes that anti-semites like to use, that is the tradition of making money. Apparently he showed his true colors down in Washington.

From Haaretz:

WASHINGTON - Former Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson told Jewish activists Monday that making money is "part of the Jewish tradition," and something that he applauded.

Speaking to an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington D.C., Thompson said that, "I'm in the private sector and for the first time in my life I'm earning money. You know that's sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that."

Thompson later apologized for the comments that had caused a stir in the audience, saying that he had meant it as a compliment, and had only wanted to highlight the "accomplishments" of the Jewish religion.

Talk about ignorance at it's finest. These white (mainly) Republicans really have no clue when it comes to dealing with minorities. Whether it is Imus, Tom Tancredo, Tony Snow or even Dem Joe Biden, these guys have a hard time getting passed the deeply ingrained stereotypes that the majority have held against the rest of us for centuries. Of course some of these comments weren't meant to be offensive. Yet the candid nature of them still point to ethnic and racial problems between those that are privileged and the rest that are subjected to these kinds of stereotypes.