11/13/08
75 Bits of Toxic Hate from Conservative Talk Radio
Last week, MediaMatters for America released a roundup of smears conservative radio hosts used to foment hate and distrust among their listeners for President-elect Obama. As a follow up, they put together a collection of items illustrating that these hosts did not save their ire for Obama. Immigrants, female politicians (and women in general,) the LGBT community, the poor and homeless, minorities, progressives, unions, college students, and even autistic children were targets for these radio personalities.
Do you know what's on your radio? Here's an example:
1) G. Gordon Liddy smeared undocumented Mexican immigrants, claiming they "want to reconquer America, they say"
2) Jim Quinn, Lee Rodgers: Conservative radio hosts claimed HUD said 5 million illegal immigrants were given subprime mortgages, despite HUD's reported denials
3) Savage: "Illegal aliens" have "raped and disheveled" the Statue of Liberty
4) Savage: "We're getting refugees now who have never used a telephone, a toothbrush, or toilet paper. ... [T]hey never assimilate. And then their children become gang-bangers"
5) Savage: "Bring in 10 million more from Africa. ... They can't reason, but bring them in with a machete in their head"
6) Savage on Muslim immigrants: 15th-century "throwbacks, some of whom are no doubt terrorists, and some of whom are gonna produce children who will become terrorists"
7) Chris Baker called Obama a "little bitch" who "won't even stand up to" "smoking-hot" Palin
8) Baker on Palin's appearance at VP debate: "Shoulda had a little cleavage going ... I noticed a panty line on her"
9) Baker: "I don't think homeless people should vote"; "I'm not that excited about women voting"
10) Minneapolis radio host said Code Pink protesters "ought to have all their tubes tied"
11) Mark Belling: "When you think of Hillary Clinton," the word "bitches" comes to mind
12) Belling called Gloria Steinem a "grizzled old bag," "old witch"
13) On Jon Caldara's KOA show, Coulter claimed women's suffrage "explains the destruction of America"
14) Jon Caldara asked Coulter if Clinton was "bitch-slapped" in debate
15) Bill Cunningham on Democratic women: "[A] lot of women who are single are vulnerable; they need like a daddy government to keep an eye on them"
16) Mark Levin on his "National Organization of Ugly Women" remark: "[F]or now on, it's the National Organization of Really Ugly Women"
17) Jim Quinn called NOW the "National Organization for Whores," said columnist Fatimah Ali should "get an American name"
18) Jim Quinn: "[T]he goal of the public school system -- the feminists in the public school system -- is to make male behavior illegal"
19) Jim Quinn: Steinem opposes Palin because Palin "declined to slaughter her own unborn child, Trig, to the goddess of feminism"
20) Quinn: To feminists, even "a childless feminist who looks like a Bulgarian weightlifter in drag" can be a "real woman"
21) Quinn introduced segment about Hillary Clinton by playing Elton John's "The Bitch Is Back"
22) KSFO's Lee Rodgers said many "professed leaders of the feminist movement" are "hags" who "couldn't get laid in a men's prison"
23) KSFO's Rodgers: "[P]uckered-butt Democrat women hate Sarah Palin ... because her idea of choice was choosing not to have an abortion"
24) KSFO's Rodgers: "[F]emale leadership of the Democratic Party" consists of "ugly skanks" who "hate" that "Sarah Palin's good-looking"
25) KSFO's Rodgers: "With that screechy, fingernails-on-the-blackboard voice of hers, it is impossible for Hillary Clinton to deliver a great speech"
26) KSFO's Rodgers on voting gender gap: For "a lot of women in this country who get knocked up ... the government becomes Daddy in terms of paying the bills"
27) On Jon Caldara program, Coulter called John Edwards "the very definition of faggy"
28) KHOW's Dan Caplis again asserted that gay "conduct is not natural" and is "immoral"
29) KOA's "Gunny" Bob Newman repeated concern that "crushing tyranny of the left" could "lead to legal human-animal marriage"
30) Michael Savage: "If you're insane, hate the family ... hate your mother and father, hate the Bible, hate the church, and hate the synagogue," you oppose CA gay marriage ban
31) After railing against gay marriage, Savage said "the spiritual side of the downturn on Wall Street was directly related to the moral downturn"
32) Savage linked San Francisco event to the "artistes" and "leather fetishists" of Weimar-era Germany, whom he blamed for Hitler's rise
33) Savage: "The children's minds are being raped by the homosexual mafia"
34) KSFO's Brian Sussman invited guest to talk about his claim that "gay and lesbian radicals actively recruit through our schools and the media"
35) Jim Quinn: "Gay sex produces AIDS"; "They should charge homosexuals more for their ... health insurance"
36) Neil Boortz: "Muslims, making tortillas? ... [W]ith all of the illegal Mexicans in this country, we can't find some Mexicans to make those tortillas?"
37) Boortz's commentary on his inability to use a floor buffer: "I would make a lousy Mexican"
38) Bill Cunningham on Obama Sr.: "That's what black fathers do. They simply leave"
39) Bill Cnningham guest Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson: "[M]ost black people today are racist"
40) Cunningham: "I think there will be 100 cities burning if Barack loses. Yeah, that's what the black intelligentsia says"
41) In sketch on Corsi's detention in Kenya, Liddy played audio of "jungle telegraph drums"
42) Quinn and Tennent: Powell endorsed Obama because "he's tired of being called an Oreo," "an Uncle Tom"
43) Lee Rodgers suggested that just as the O.J. Simpson verdict "was a racial vote," African-Americans support Obama because of "racial brotherhood"
44) Michael Savage on Obama: "America's first affirmative action candidate about to become president"
45) Savage: "Kenya is going to move to America if Barack Hussein Obama wins"
46) Baker: "I don't think homeless people should vote"; "I'm not that excited about women voting"
47) Boortz: "Single mothers receiving public assistance" are "welfare broodmares"
48) Boortz again referred to victims of Hurricane Katrina as "parasite[s]"
49) Boortz: "[P]rimary blame" for Katrina goes to "worthless parasites who lived in New Orleans"
50) Cunningham: "[P]eople are poor in America ... because they lack values, morals, and ethics"
51) Cunningham: America's "so-called noble poor" don't use birth control so that "the mom can get more checks in the mail from the government"
52) Liddy: Obama is relying, in part, on "the welfare class" to win Pennsylvania
53) Quinn stated that unlike welfare recipients, slaves "had to work" for food, housing
54) Responding to Media Matters item, Quinn defended comparison of welfare recipients to slaves
55) Rose Tennent on Obama ad: "[D]on't put that jive out there in front of me, devil, and tell me that these people are hurting when they are not hurting"
56) Quinn: "Originally, if you didn't have land, you didn't vote, and there was a good reason for it"
57) Savage: "Why should a welfare recipient have the right to vote? They're only gonna vote themselves a raise"
58) Savage's answer to homelessness: "Why not put them in work camps?"
59) Minneapolis radio hosts Chris Baker and Perry are "convinced" that Magic Johnson "faked AIDS"
60) Baker: Media Matters "can kiss my supple buttocks"
61) Belling smeared "greedy, overpaid unionized schoolteacher[s]" who talk about global warming
62) Boortz: Teachers unions "do more damage to this country than all the drug pushers together"
63) Boortz again referred to victims of Hurricane Katrina as "parasite[s]"
64) Levin attacks "Jon Leibowitz, a.k.a Jon Stewart": "I'm really tired of these phony intellectuals ... arrogantly looking down their sizable noses at our armed forces"
65) "Gunny" Bob Newman's suggestions for replacing Air America's Rhodes included Obama, Stalin, bin Laden, Charles Manson
66) KSFO's "gentleman" Lee Rodgers lashes out at Media Matters
67) Discussing economic crisis and bailout plan, Michael Savage said Rep. Frank "should be in the gallows for this"
68) Savage: Democratic Party's "membership is made up largely of minority blocs ... that are all against the white person"
69) Savage reportedly likened Media Matters to HIV
70) Savage on Media Matters: "They have no place in America"
71) Savage on autism: "A fraud, a racket. ...In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out"
72) Savage referred to Pelosi as "Nancy Mussolini"
73) Savage plays Dead Kennedys song again after asserting he "is now being persecuted for refusing to take the party line" on Sen. Kennedy's illness
74) Savage: "I would round up every member of the ACLU and of the National Lawyers Guild and I'd put them in a prison in Guantánamo and I'd throw the key away"
75) Savage claimed Lantos used the Holocaust as "a weapon the rest of his life"
2/5/08
Immigration Misfire
Political pundits used to maintain that the American electorate was galvanized around the issue of illegal immigration. Voters, they claimed, would punish any candidate who failed to take a tough stance on immigrants and did not adamantly oppose the "A" word -- Amnesty -- in all its tortured definitions.Rosales asks, "How is this possible? How could John McCain, the author of the McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration bill beat Mitt Romney, who aired anti-illegal-immigrant commercials more than 12,000 times in Iowa and New Hampshire alone?"
Yet a funny thing happened in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. The most anti-immigrant candidates performed below expectations, and those accused of supporting amnesty and in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants won.
My response? Because most Americans are decent people--and the pogram against immigrants fomented by screech radio and allied nativist organizataions never spoke for them. Really, these primaries are the first time fair-minded Americans have been able to weigh in--and they're sending a loud message that they do NOT subscribe to the anti-Latino, anti-immigrant Party of the Know Nothings.
More
Also:
Immigration Attacks Batting .000 in Republican Primary
Mitt: Descarado
Immigration Losers
The GOP's Bitter Harvest to Come
A Xenophobic Zeitgeist - Erasing GOP Latino Gains
WSJ -- The GOP's Anti-Latino Tone is a Loser
California's Booming Latinos: 52% by 2042
New York farmers confront feds on migrants
Linda Chavez: GOP's Self-Inflicted Wound
Republican Presidential Hopefuls Diss 1,000 Latino Leaders
Experts: Economies grow in Hispanic-heavy areas
The Coming Latino Voter Response to the Failure of Immigration Reform
The Radical Right Claims Victory
Republicans: nativism is a proven loser
Clint Bolick: The GOP Must Now Prove Itself to Latinos
Linda Chavez' The Company You Keep: In Search of anti-Hispanic hostility
GOP Risks Losing Latino Voters
The Rightwing's Winning Strategy on Immigration
Macaca: Top Politically Incorrect Word in '06
1/21/08
GOP Primary Voters Tune Out RightWing Radio
If America's right wing radio screechers are sooo right about everything, why is that their favorite candidates for president are faring sooo poorly?
The right's darling anti-immigrant Tom Tancredo never polled more than 1% among conservative Republican voters and was forced to drop out.
Mitt Romney--Sean Hannity's favorite--is having a hard time convincing rank and file GOPers that he's their man.
Fred Thompson--the favorite of Freepers--has been cast as the 2nd coming of Ronald Reagan but, again, Republicans primary voters are not believing the hype.
Then there's Duncan Hunter--aka, the Man that Built the San Diego-Mexico fence. The screechers think he's keen but he does nothing for the voters.
On the other hand, the candidates that the right wing radio "jihadists" have been working overtime to defeat: John McCain and Mike Huckabee are prospering.
This is what happens when extremists begin believing their own press releases about their purported influence and power.
Sweet!
Related: SOUTH CAROLINA'S BIG LOSER: TALK RADIO
8/21/07
RightWing Media Killed Immigration Reform
The report found that unlike mainstream media and liberal radio which devoted very little time to the immigration debate, rightwing talkers spent the spring and summer trashing immigration reform proposals.
Lou Dobbs was the leader of the anti-immigration reform pack that included Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Weiner Savage.
What the study doesn't mention is that rightwing radio/cable fomented anti-Latino racism as a way to kill immigration reform. Or that the rightwing wanted the immigration dust-up in order to distract people away from the $500 billion travesty that is the US-Iraq War.
Read Talk radio helped sink immigration reform (The Politico - 8.20.07).
8/3/07
Racism Killed Immigration Reform (by Jon Garrido)
A federal judge dealt a decisive blow against a dangerous trend of freelance immigration policies by local governments. Judge James M. Munley of the central Pennsylvania district, struck down ordinances in the town of Hazleton that sought to harshly punish undocumented migrants for trying to live and work there, and employers and landlords for providing them with homes and jobs.
In the year 2097, 50% of the entire United States population will be Hispanic...5% will be white...''The ruling was a well-earned embarrassment for Mayor Louis J. Barletta and his proclaimed goal of making Hazleton ''one of the toughest places in the United States” for migrants. In doing so, Judge Munley laid down basic truths.
The browning of America is inevitable. No one can stop it.
Basic truths that every American should remember
First, immigration is a federal responsibility. State and local governments have no right to usurp or upend a vast, ''carefully drawn federal statutory scheme” that governs who enters the country and the conditions under which immigrants stay, study, work and naturalize. Congress may be botching the job, but has not delegated it.Herein lies the crux of the problem, racism was the major contributing factor that killed immigration reform
An Hispanic friend, Sen. Barack Obama said the recent Senate immigration debate ''was both ugly and racist in a way we haven't see since the struggle for civil rights.''Every brown face in America is suspect
Even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in the well of the U.S. Senate said, ''There’s no shortage of plain old racism in this issue.''
If you think conservative Republican talk radio, cable television and other Americans focus only on migrants, you must be living in a cave for every brown face in America is suspect.Citizenship
Hispanics cast 5.6 million votes in the 2006 midterms elections which represented only 13 percent of the total Hispanic population compared to the 27 percent of all blacks who cast votes and 39 percent of all whites who voted — a disappointing turnout attributed to a population too young to vote or ineligible because of citizenship status.The only consolation
Working on getting out the vote will help but this is not enough. We need to go on the offense. We need to launch a local campaign to identify, name and shame those who systematically bash Hispanics. Then we need to launch a nationwide campaign.
The only consolation is a population projection from the Unites States Census Bureau: In the year 2097, 50% of the entire United States population will be Hispanic, 30% will be black, 13% will be Asian, 5% will be white, and 2% will be ''other.'' The browning of America is inevitable. No one can stop it.
8/1/07
Latinos Face 'Time for Confrontation'
MIAMI -- The Senate's failure to pass immigration reform sent Latinos the message: fend for yourselves, said Janet Murguía, head of National Council of La Raza, at its recent 2007 conference in Miami. A vocal minority of shock jock radio hosts fueled a mob that overcame Congress, Murguía said."We thought we were having a debate on immigration policy," she said. "But it was really a debate about who decides what it means to be an American." While Latinos have been trying hard to be civil and fair, she said, "some of our opponents have taken a different tack," using hatred and bigotry.
In politics, she said, there is a time for coorperation and a time for confrontation -- and Latinos have been cooperating long enough.
Democracy, Murguía said, challenges Latinos now to "ask the tough questions" such as, "What does it mean to be an American?" or "Will you stand up and reaffirm the best of America?"
Integration and further participation in American civic, social and economic life is the only way for Latinos to level the playing field, she said. Voting and mobilizing more voters through the recently announced Ya Es Hora (Now is the Time) campaign, Murguía added, represent the best option for their community to triumph over bigotry.
Click here for the full text (pdf) of Janet Murguía's speech at the 2007 NCLR conference.
7/27/07
We Must Respond to the Lies
Traducción al español
LOS ANGELES – During the immigration reform debate, radio commentators and propagandists mascarading as news programs, like CNN’s Lou Dobbs, stoked resentment towards undocumented immigrants, repeating lies and perpetuating hateful images.
The defeat of the comprehensive and humane changes to immigration laws was the triumph of a deafening slander that never met much resistance.This outcome forces us to think of the strategy for the next steps toward an immigration reform that considers legalization for the millions of working families who, from the shadows of illegality, contribute to the well-being of Americans. This year the topic of immigration reform in Washington is dead, despite attempts by a group of Republican senators to revive only the most restrictive clauses, and by piecemeal provisions that deserve to succeed, introducing the bills AgJobs and the DREAM Act in budget-related measures.
However, the discussion on immigration should continue, because anti-immigrant sentiment grows daily across the country. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that 48 bills were introduced this year that restrict the activity of the undocumented, while locally more than 100 ordinances were introduced last year.
The failure of reform has aggravated this negative trend, as anti-immigrant forces capitalize on people’s frustration with Congress. A law approved in Arizona, for example, prohibits employers from hiring undocumented immigrants. Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano said she enacted the law after Congress failed to act on immigration reform.
Fortunately, the courts are setting things right for the time being. Yesterday, the anti-undocumented ordinance approved in Hazleton, Penn. was declared unconstitutional. The federal judge kept an unjust law off the books. But the responsibility to promote a just law falls on the shoulders of the immigrant and Latino community. The marches were impressive; the collection of signatures demonstrated that getting out the vote is crucial for the future. However, there was no response to the hysterical lies promoted by conservative hosts on talk radio.
The repeated lies – from comparing the law to an amnesty, to blaming undocumented immigrants for all the ills of society – were not challenged at the same level, and they convinced thousands to pressure their senators to reject reform.
The lesson is that we must to respond to these talk shows, unite in an effort to confront them concretely and not allow this to happen again.
7/26/07
Melanie Morgan and Lee Rodgers of KSFO
KSFO AM RADIO 560 IN SAN FRANCISCO CALIFORNIA HAS A 13 YEAR HISTORY OF HATE TALK. I HAVE BEEN MONITORING THEM FOR MONTHS NOW.
THE SHOW IS FROM 5 AM TO 9 AM.
MELANIE MORGAN AND LEE RODGERS. THEY ARE LAYING LOW NOW. I HAVE INVITED THEM TO TAKE THEIR SHOW TO THE STREETS. GOOGLE: "KSFO HATE TALK RADIO" - 39,000 REFERENCES TO THEIR HATE TALK HISTORY. THEY ARE A COMBINATION OF RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC AND STUPID.
SAKANTA RUNNING WOLF, GLOBAL PEACE GLOBAL HEALING
Ya Basta! Time to hit back against anti-Latino bigotry
Here is what the National Council of La Raza -- the biggest U.S. Hispanic organization -- should do at its annual meeting in Miami this week: draw from the experience of African Americans and Jewish Americans by launching an all-out campaign to expose anti-Latino bigots in the media, entertainment and politics.
The recent immigration debate in the Senate, which ended with the defeat of a bill that would have given a path to citizenship to many of the 12 million undocumented workers, has given way to the biggest explosion of antiHispanic sentiment I have seen since I arrived in this country three decades ago.
Most Hispanics feel the same way. A new nationwide poll by Bendixen and Associates says 76 percent of U.S. Hispanics agree with the statement that ''anti-immigrant sentiment is growing in the United States,'' and 62 percent say this phenomenon has directly affected them or their families.
Few Hispanics believe statements by rabid antiimmigration radio and television hosts who say they only oppose ''illegal immigration.'' When asked what fuels the current anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States, 64 percent of Hispanics in the poll mentioned one factor: ``racism against immigrants from Latin America.''
Indeed, in recent times we have heard statements on radio and television that go far beyond the boundaries of fair debate over the need to fix the U.S. immigration system, and that twist the facts in ways that make it difficult to believe in the good faith of those who make them.
It's not just what fearmongers such as CNN's Lou Dobbs or radio talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage allow to be said in their shows, which systematically blame Hispanics for many of America's ills. Prominent academics such as Harvard University political scientist Samuel Huntington are getting away with sweeping statements such as ``America's Latino immigration deluge . . . constitutes a major potential threat to the cultural and possibly political integrity of the United States.''
While the 44 million Hispanics are the biggest minority in America, you don't see the kind of nationwide protests, legal actions or calls for boycotts on a scale that you would probably see if these statement were directed against African Americans or Jewish Americans.
When you visit the website of the NAACP, one of the first things you see is an 'NAACP `Stop' Campaign'' headline, which is a call to action against racism in the media.
The NAACP and other African American groups regularly launch name-and-shame campaigns, and most recently forced the firing of radio host Don Imus over an April comment calling the Rutgers University women's basketball team ``nappy-headed hos.''
The Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has been exposing racism in the media since 1913.
But when you go to The National Council of La Raza's website, you don't find a similar emphasis on fighting bigotry. The group's main theme is ''Ya es hora!,'' a voter registration drive conducted alongside the Spanish-language Univisión network and other Latino organizations aimed at adding two million new Hispanic votes for the 2008 election.
La Raza President Janet Murguia conceded in an interview Friday that Hispanics need to do more to fight back against bigotry in the media.
''We do need to rethink our strategy; there is no question about it,'' Murguia told me.
``But the key change that we need to focus on is to make sure that we can influence the outcome of elections. Getting madder doesn't necessarily help, but getting smarter will help.''
My opinion: The National Council of La Raza and its sister institutions are doing the right thing with their ''Ya es hora!'' citizenship drive. But they should also launch a nationwide ''Ya basta!'' campaign to identify, name and shame those who systematically bash Hispanics.
If anti-Hispanic sentiment is allowed to keep growing, we will soon have an underclass of 12 million immigrants that will feel not only frustrated by not having a legal path to citizenship but increasingly insulted by the mainstream media.
And social exclusion mixed with frustration can be a dangerous cocktail, as we've seen in the violent 2005 riots by Muslim youths in the suburbs of Paris.
The time for Hispanics to say ''Ya basta!'' is now, before it's too late.