Limbaugh has repeatedly smeared progressives, media by linking them to terrorists

FROM: MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA

In the fallout over comedian Wanda Sykes' comments about Rush Limbaugh during her May 9 appearance at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, Media Matters for America has revisited the numerous instances over the years in which Limbaugh has attarcked Democrats, progressives, and the media by linking them to terrorists.

Examples from Limbaugh's nationally syndicated radio show and elsewhere include:

• June 24, 2008: Limbaugh stated: "I will guaran-damn-tee you there will not be a terrorist attack before the election. And you know why there won't be one? Because they want Obama elected." He later falsely claimed, "Hamas has endorsed Obama. Hamas has endorsed Obama." Limbaugh also asserted that "every time I hear [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad speak, every time I hear a tape from [Al Qaeda leader] Ayman al-Zawahiri or a so-called dispatch from bin Laden, whenever I hear from any of these Middle East Al Qaeda terrorists, I think I'm hearing Democrat [sic] Party talking points."
• April 15, 2008: Limbaugh asserted: "[T]he Islamofascists are actually campaigning for the election of Democrats. Islamofascists from Ahmadinejad to al-Zawahiri ... Osama bin Laden, whoever, are constantly issuing Democrat talking points."
• February 29, 2008: On Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, guest host Laura Ingraham interviewed Limbaugh, who said, referring to a photograph of then-Sen. Obama dressed in traditional Somali clothing that was posted on the Drudge Report, that Obama "look[ed] like Ayman [al-]Zawahiri."

• September 20, 2007: Limbaugh claimed that Obama and bin Laden were "on the same page" with regard to the deteriorating situation in Pakistan. While discussing a newly released audiotape reported to be from bin Laden in which he calls for Pakistanis to overthrow then-President Pervez Musharraf, Limbaugh asserted: "Well, we've got another tape from -- I get these guys confused -- Osama bin Laden. Another tape says he's going to invade Pakistan and declare war on Pakistan and Musharraf, which, ladies and gentlemen, puts him on the same page with a Democrat presidential candidate -- that would be Barack 'Uss-Obama.' "

• July 2007: For several days in July 2007, a graphic on the front page of Limbaugh's website depicted a screen shot of C-SPAN's Washington Journal doctored to show bin Laden appearing as a guest identified as "Mr. Osama bin Laden, D-Afghanistan."

• October 19, 2006: Limbaugh declared that the recent surge in insurgent violence in Iraq indicated that "terrorists around the world, particularly those in Iraq, are voting Democrat today." Limbaugh maintained that "the terrorists, the Islamofascists, the jihadists" are the "key voters in this year's election," and that "[t]hey are trying to create as much havoc as possible; raise the level of violence in order to affect the midterm elections." He added: "What could be the best outcome for [the terrorists]? Cut and run, right? Whose strategy -- whose policy amounts to cut and run? Democrats."
• August 21, 2006: Limbaugh stated that even though then-President Bush pledged he would purportedly "never" criticize the patriotism of his political opponents, Limbaugh would continue to "challenge the patriotism of people who disagree" with Bush and his plan for Iraq "because the people that disagree with him want to lose." Limbaugh added: "It's about time we do challenge their patriotism. The far-left fringe in this country is actively seeking our defeat. A wacko judge in Michigan [presumably a reference to U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, who had recently ruled that the Bush administration's warrantless domestic surveillance program was unconstitutional]: actively seeking our defeat. Jimmy Carter: actively seeking our defeat. Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Al Gore may as well be seeking our defeat. So should [then-Connecticut Democratic Senate candidate] Ned Lamont [whose name Limbaugh pronounced like 'lament']."
• June 27, 2006: Responding to a June 23, 2006, New York Times article describing a secret Bush administration program designed to monitor international financial transactions, Limbaugh asserted: "I think 80 percent of their subscribers have to be jihadists. If you look at The New York Times and the kind of stories they're leaking and running and the information they're getting, it's clear that they're trying to help the terrorists. They're trying to help the jihadists."
• April 26, 2006: Limbaugh remarked that a new videotape released by al-Zarqawi "is an excellent opportunity to remind all of you that it sounds just like the DNC [Democratic National Committee] is writing his scripts now." Limbaugh also claimed that Zarqawi "sounds like Democrats," including "Howard Dean, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry ... Carl Levin, Nancy Pelosi."
• April 11, 2006: Limbaugh accused the Democratic Party of using the immigration debate as a "vehicle" to gain voters, proclaiming: "[I]f you're Al Qaeda, come on in over the southern border! The Democrats will take your votes as well!"
• April 8, 2004: Limbaugh stated: "Senator Kennedy, a simple question. Does it please you to learn who your friends are? Does it excite you, Senator Kennedy, to learn that the militant, firebrand, murderer of American civilians and military personnel is on your side, Senator Kennedy? Does it encourage you? Does it invigorate you? Does it inspire you, Senator Kennedy, to know that a murdering Al Qaeda-related terrorist has taken up your argument for use against his enemy? How does that make you feel, Senator Kennedy? Does it embarrass you? Because it should. Or does it probably excite you and think you're making headway now. You've got the enemy aligned with you."

Additionally, on the April 27 edition of his radio show, as an example of how "much fun" he and his guests "have when we get together," Limbaugh stated that one of his friends said that terrorists "don't need a second act, Obama is the second terrorist act." Limbaugh continued: "I mean, I had opinions at my house going all over the ballpark, and these are all, in their own right, involved, intelligent people, but somebody actually thought Obama is terrorist attack number 2, Obama is the follow-up to 9-11."

— J.M.

RELATED:
Drudge posts dubious picture of Obama "laugh" at joke about Limbaugh's kidneys

3 hours and 36 minutes ago

SUMMARY: Matt Drudge posted a picture of President Obama in a context that suggested that Obama had laughed and pointed at comedian Wanda Sykes after her joke about Rush Limbaugh. However, a video that Drudge linked to of Sykes' remark about Limbaugh does not show Obama pointing at Sykes.

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation's 'The Best & Worst of National News' November 2008

THE BEST

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann Gives Heartfelt Special Comment Against the Passage of Proposition 8

During the November 10 broadcast of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, the host devoted six minutes of the program to a highly personal special comment concerning the passage of Proposition 8. Olbermann stated, "In a time of impermanence and fly-by relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option." The host called upon those who had voted for or supported the anti-gay legislation and asked them to examine the impact that taking marriage away form loving, committed same-sex couples has had on so many, gay and straight alike. He continued, stating, "They want what you want. A chance to be a little less alone in the world. Only now you are saying, 'No.'" Olbermann also said of the passage of Prop 8, "This vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling and this isn't about politics. This is about the human heart. And if that sounds corny, so be it."

VIEW CLIP:
MSNBC - Countdown with Keith Olbermann

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD encourages you to contact Keith Olbermann and thank him for talking about the significance of marriage for same-sex couples.

CONTACT:
Keith Olbermann
KOlbermann@msnbc.com

Countdown with Keith Olbermann
countdown@msnbc.com

The New York Times Calls Attention to the Murder of Duanna Johnson

Earlier this month, Duanna Johnson, a 40-year-old African American transgender woman, was murdered in Memphis, Tenn. While local coverage was slow and often missed the mark, The New York Times reporter Robbie Brown penned a respectful and informative piece about Johnson on November 17 titled, "Murder of Transgender Woman Revives Scrutiny." Johnson's story first garnered media attention when she was the victim of police brutality in February. The incident was caught on tape, which led to substantial local and national media coverage. The news of her death did not garner the same volume of coverage, with the exception of this article in The New York Times. Reporter Robbie Brown spoke to local advocates who put Johnson's murder in context and helped to underscore the human side of the tragedy. "Duanna Johnson's case was tragic before, and now it's an almost unimaginable loss,"said Jared Feuer, Southern Regional Director of Amnesty International.

READ ARTICLE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/us/18memphis.html?em

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD urges you to contact reporter Robbie Brown and The New York Times and thank them for bringing national visibility to Duanna Johnson's tragic death and the pervasive problem of hate violence against transgender people.

CONTACT:
The New York Times
letters@nytimes.com

The Washington Post Brings Attention to the Struggles of the Gay Community in India

A national debate over equal rights erupted in India this past summer when Section 377 of the Indian Penal code, which criminalizes being gay, was unsuccessfully challenged. Unfortunately, there is very little media coverage of the LGBT community in India. But in an article published on November 15 for the The Washington Post, titled "For Gays in India, Fear Rules," Emily Wax explores the struggles that members of the LGBT community in India face every day. With no protection from the state and coercive societal pressure to marry members of the opposite sex, gay people are forced to find solace in secret and commonly face threats of being blackmailed or outed. But as Wax points out, there is a growing support coming from younger Indians, many of whom work for multinational companies with LGBT-inclusive policies. The overall story is a vital reminder of the persecution faced by members of the LGBT community abroad.

READ ARTICLE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/14/AR2008111403645.html

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD encourages you to contact Emily Wax and The Washington Post and thank them for bringing much-needed attention to the current discrimination LGBT people face in India.

CONTACT:
Emily Wax
waxe@washpost.com

Washington Post
letters@washpost.com

THE WORST

Fox's Bill O'Reilly Continually Misses the Mark in November Coverage of LGBT Issues

In the weeks following the election, Bill O'Reilly has continued to provide a platform for anti-gay views and misinformation about LGBT issues. The host gave former House Speaker Newt Gingrich a platform to spew incendiary defamatory anti-gay rhetoric, going so far as to associate the gay community with "secular fascism." On the November 14 broadcast, Gingrich stated, "I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion." Earlier in the month, O'Reilly made a similarly appalling comparison, stating that the marriage ruling in Massachusetts was a result of "fascism."

But that wasn't all for O'Reilly this month. On the November 12 broadcast, Dennis Miller made a sophomoric and juvenile jab at openly gay Chairman of the House of Financial Services Committee Barney Frank. When O'Reilly suggested that Frank be arrested, Miller stated, "Barney might want to be arrested," to which both responded with laughter, exaggerated gestures and innuendo.

Additionally, following the passage of the anti-gay Proposition 8 in California, O'Reilly devoted several segments to debates that pitted African American and LGBT communities against each other. The host consistently categorized the African American community as largely or uniformly anti-gay, despite the availability of data and information that indicates otherwise. Instead, O'Reilly chose to misrepresent the issue and misinform his viewers.

VIEW CLIPS:
Fox News - The O'Reilly Factor 11.12.08: Proposition 8
Fox News - The O'Reilly Factor 11.12.08: Dennis Miller
Fox News - The O'Reilly Factor 11.14.08: Newt Gingrich

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD urges you to contact Fox News executives and remind them that the LGBT community and our allies will continue to call out Fox News Channel and the producers of The O'Reilly Factor for the harmful anti-gay sentiments he perpetuates, which continue to reflect poorly on the News Corporation brand.

CONTACT:
Mr. John Moody
Senior Vice President, News Editorial
FOX News Channel
moody@foxnews.com

Ms. Sharri Berg
Senior Vice President, News Operations
FOX News Channel
sharri.berg@foxnews.com

Clear Channel Refuses to Issue an Apology for Jim Quinn's Attack Against the LGBT Community

During the November 6 broadcast of the nationally syndicated radio program The War Room with Quinn & Rose, co-host Jim Quinn made highly offensive and ignorant statements regarding the gay community. In a discussion on the passage of the anti-gay Proposition 8 in California, he asserted, "[G]ay marriage doesn't produce anything that the state has an interest in. Gay sex produces AIDS, which the state doesn't have- or should have an interest in. They should charge homosexuals more for their- for their health insurance than they charge the rest of us." On November 7, GLAAD issued a Call to Action, asking the community and its allies to contact Clear Channel Communications and voice their concerns. Despite numerous complaints, Clear Channel has refused to issue an apology and has not disciplined Quinn for his disgusting and unacceptable remarks.

LISTEN TO AUDIO CLIP:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200811070005?f=h_latest

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD urges you to contact Clear Channel Communications and express your concern over the complete lack of responsibility taken by the syndicate in response to Quinn's reprehensible statements.

CONTACT:
Lisa Dollinger
Chief Communications Officer
Clear Channel Communications
(210) 822-2828
lisacdollinger@clearchannel.com

Kathryn Johnson
Senior Vice President, Corporate Relations
Clear Channel Communications
(210) 822-2828
KathrynMaysJohnson@clearchannel.com

Sanda Coyle
Clear Channel Radio
(210) 822-2828
sandacoyle@clearchannel.com

University of Washington Student Paper Publishes Juvenile Anti-Gay Defamation

A November 25 op-ed in the University of Washington's student newspaper The Daily likened marriage for same-sex couples to bestiality, among other defamatory comparisons. The column was illustrated with a highly offensive graphic of a man standing next to a sheep. In the column, writer John Fay repeatedly makes a series of offensive statements about the gay community throughout the op-ed, titled "Gay marriage? Let's stop and think about this." After making a host of illogical arguments, he suggests that "homosexuality is more of an emotional condition," claiming that if same-sex couples are given the right to marry, "…why not polygamy, incest, bestiality or any other form of union? If the only criteria is that people love each other, then who says it's wrong for a 70-year-old man to marry 10 underage girls?" Such ignorant remarks serve to distract and sensationalize rather than focus on the real issue of extending protections for same-sex couples in marriage.

READ ARTICLE:
http://dailyuw.com/2008/11/25/gay-marriage-lets-stop-and-think-about/

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD urges you to contact John Fay and The Daily and let them know that publishing such grossly offensive commentary and defamatory imagery is unacceptable.

CONTACT:
John Fay
opinion@dailyuw.com

Sarah Jeglum
Editor-in-Chief
The Daily
editor@dailyuw.com

Racist, Xenophobic Sheriff Arpaio gets rewarded by Rupert Murdoch's FOX Entertainment

SOURCE: Cynthia I.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio on New Reality TV Show

http://www.foxreality.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW AMERICA MEDIA

EFE, Posted: Nov 25, 2008

LOS ANGELES -- A new Fox Reality TV show called "Smile... You're Under Arrest!" will feature Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Arizona's Maricopa County, as he and his team arrest fugitives in sting operations, reports EFE. Lisa Allen, spokesperson for the Maricopa County sheriff's office, said the program "is based on undercover operations to capture people who already have arrest orders against them." The television show will air on Sundays on Fox Reality Channel, beginning on Saturday Dec. 27. Arpaio, known for his tough stance on immigration, has conducted operation in cities such as Phoenix, Mesa and Guadalupe that have led to the arrest of dozens of undocumented immigrants.

http://news.newamericamedia.org/news/view_article.html?article_id=11d77019003bb1e4cbd8a87543b74e32&from=rss

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PLEASE WE URGE YOU TO contact FOX and tell them (or use your own words): I condemn and reject FOX Corporation / Fox Reality Channel for contributing to hate-crimes and racism, by allowing xenophobic anti-Hispanic Sheriff Arpaio to star in his own Reality t.v.show! - which he will use for the sole purpose to display his egotistic antics and spread his xenophobic and hateful agenda!

Send email with complaint to:
http://www.foxreality.com/contactus.php

===================================================================

Related Articles:

Arizona Immigrant Witch Hunter Handcuffed

New America Media, News Analysis, By Henry Fernandez, Posted: May 20, 2008

Editor's Note: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s unconstitutional Latino witch hunt will no longer be subsidized by the state of Arizona. It turns out that while Arpaio had his deputies were stopping anyone who looked like a Latino immigrant, there were 60,000 real felons running around Arizona. Henry Fernandez is a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, focusing on state and municipal policy.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s unconstitutional Latino witch hunt will no longer be subsidized by the State of Arizona.

It turns out that while Arpaio had his deputies stopping anyone who looked like a Latino immigrant, there were 60,000 real felons running around Arizona. Apparently Governor Janet Napolitano has had enough. This week, she took $1.6 million from Arpaio and redirected it to a new state-run fugitive task force to get real criminals off the street. Of course, this was supposed to have been Arpaio’s job all along. Read full story...

Cops Enforcing Immigration Laws Bust County Budgets

When local cops enforce federal immigration laws, the police department may not only incur significant costs, but may also fail to attend to more serious crimes and delay response times to most emergency calls, according to a report released by the Immigration Policy Center (IPC).

Take the case of Maricopa County, Ariz. Since Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio transformed his department into an immigration-enforcement agency, following a partnership made by the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on January 19, 2007, his office has incurred a $1.3 million deficit in just three months.

Maricopa’s police officers began working 4,500 extra hours every two-week pay period during the first month of the partnership, as compared to 2,900 extra hours the previous month, the report said. In April 2007, police officers worked more than 9,000 overtime hours and cost the county’s taxpayers $373,757.

Maricopa County is not an isolated case. Read full story....

Border Group Documents Rights Abuses Across Arizona

New America Media, Interview, Amy Bonilla, Posted: Sep 16, 2007

Editor's Note: The Border Action Network, based in Tucson, Ariz., is launching its second year of a campaign to document the human rights violations of immigrants. As enforcement practices spread to the interior, volunteers are no longer confined to the border: they are documenting rights violations in 14 towns across Arizona. The results of the three-month campaign will be announced on International Human Rights Day, Dec. 10. New America Media interviewed Jennifer Allen, executive director of the Border Action Network. Read full story...

Lou Dobbs doesn't want to deal with his own culpability for hate crimes

SOURCE:

Top Videos At Crooks And Liars - Visit Site, Will You?

By David Neiwert Friday Nov 28, 2008 5:00pm

The recent attention paid to anotorious Long Island hate crime in which a group of young whites went in search of Latinos to harm has raised serious questions about the relationship between immigrant-bashing rhetoric and the surge of anti-Latino bias crimes nationally.

And the mainstream purveyors of this rhetoric -- particularly pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs -- are denying their culpability in the only means available to them: By distorting the reality of hate crimes themselves.

In O'Reilly's case, this entailed conflating hate crimes with ordinary (and completely unrelated) crimes.

And in Dobbs', as we saw on his Monday program, it entails distorting statistics and pretending that he's never bashed or demonized Latinos on his CNN show:

DOBBS: Advocates of open borders and amnesty accusing border security advocates of fostering a wave of hate, but as usual, those groups led by La Raza and MALDEF were long on rhetoric and absolutely, absolutely devoid of facts or respect for them. Bill Tucker has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Being tough on illegal immigration is a bad thing in the eyes of La Raza, a Hispanic special interest group which says it represents the civil rights of all Latino immigrants. The group blames the murder of Marcello Lucero, an Ecuadorian immigrant on Long Island, New York, on a wave of immigrant hate sparked by local politicians who have called for enforcement of immigration law.

JANET MURGUIA, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA: Steve Levy has taken a notably hard line against immigrants in his county and has been lauded by cable hosts like Lou Dobbs as a folk hero.

TUCKER: The community has shown no tolerance for the crime. Seven teenagers were quickly arrested and charged with hate crimes ranging from assault to manslaughter in connection with that murder, the leader of the gang being held without bail. Lucero's murder though is being used by special interest groups like La Raza and MALDEF to call attention to what they call "a wave of hate crime in America."

However, just last month the FBI reported a slight decline in hate crimes nationally last year. The FBI saying there were just over 7,600 hate crimes versus just over 7,700 the year before. Groups calling for the enforcement of immigration law are furious that La Raza and MALDEF and others equate their position with hate.

DAN STEIN, F.A.I.R.: Their true agenda is to try to stop public discussion about the need to control the borders. And they are using isolated incidents, tragic incidents, to be sure, but isolated ones, and distorting statistics to try to muzzle important free-speech rights in this country.

TUCKER: Not once in the news conference was the phrase "illegal immigration" used or heard, instead the phrase "immigrant bashing" and "anti-immigrant" were the word choices of the day.

Dobbs and Tucker essentially lie by omission here: Even though hate crimes have in fact declined overall in the past couple of years, anti-Latino bias crimes have actually increased significantly. In other words, the statistics actually speak strongly to the fact that Latino-bashing bias crimes are on the rise because those figures run counter to the larger trend of declines in such crimes generally.

[Heidi Beirich at SPLC's Hatewatch has more on this point.]

Even more bizarre is Dobbs' shock and horror of being accused of culpability. Actually, this can't be a surprise for Dobbs: He has been called out on this score before, and he has similarly been unable to offer any kind of adequate defense, so he has blustered, snarled, and distorted. Yet on Monday, he was once again seemingly baffled by the criticism.

As for the claim that the Latino-bashing is something else -- the neutral and completely benign criticism of illegal immigration generally -- we've known this is nonsense for some time, especially Lou Dobbs' case. If Dobbs and cohorts like FAIR (an SPLC-designated hate group) really were only concerned about only illegal immigration, then Dobbs needs to explain:

Why he makes up phony statistics connecting immigration generically with a supposed increase in diseases like leprosy.

Why he broadcasts white-supremacist mythology about a Hispanic “Aztlan” conspiracy to return the Southwest to Mexico.

Why he continually claims that Latino immigration is responsible for an increase in crime.

Why he once said that this wave of immigration is turning America into “a third world cesspool” (a remark that has since been removed from the CNN website).

Why he constantly promotes the notion of making English the official U.S. language.

Why he regularly refers to this wave of immigration as an “invasion.”

Why he regularly hosts anti-immigrant voices from white-supremacist groups and vigilante scam artists like the Minutemen and yet neglects to explain his guests' troubling backgrounds.

You also had to love Tucker's attempt to use the election of Barack Obama as a shield against accusations of racism. Evidently, because Obama won the presidency, racism and hate crimes no longer are serious problems:

TUCKER: And today's news conference was not without irony. While trying to make the argument that a new wave of hate is rising in America, the participants had to admit and acknowledge that the president-elect is a black man who was elected by a majority of Americans, Lou.

So apparently Obama's election has now absolved America's racists and their enablers -- people who manifestly did their damnedest to prevent that outcome -- of all their past sins. I'll bet Dobbs never thought Obama's victory would give him yet another reason to feel all smug and warm.

And that's obviously how he absolves himself from feeling any responsibility for the Latino victims of the crimes he helps inspire.

Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s "The Best & Worst of National News" October 2008

THE BEST

Op-ed in Chicago Sun-Times Voices Need for Inclusive Hate-Crime Legislation

The Chicago Sun-Times published an opinion piece reflecting on the prevalence of hate crimes against LGBT people at the 10-year remembrance of Mathew Shephard's murder. In his October 17 op-ed, "Expand hate-crimes law to cover transgender people," Ricky Garcia, the Public Policy Director of Equality Illinois, highlights the dangerous lack of comprehensive federal and statewide hate-crime legislation. Garcia draws upon his personal experience working in Illinois, and speaks to the need for gender identity to be included in the state's hate crimes law, which currently only encompasses sexual orientation. Most brutal attacks in the state have been against transgender people and those who do not fit traditional gender stereotypes. Garcia says, "unfortunately, as shown by the news, gay and transgender folks here in Illinois and across the country are too often the victim of brutal hate crimes."Â He also points to the recent murders of Lawrence King in California and Angie Zapata in Colorado as two tragic examples that highlight the dire need for inclusive state and federal hate crime legislation.

READ ARTICLES:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/1226870,CST-EDT-open17.article
http://www.suntimes.com/aboutus/feedback/index.html

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD encourages you to contact Ricky Garcia and the Chicago Sun-Times to thank them for drawing attention to the urgent need for inclusive hate crime legislation.
E-mail Rick (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')

Denver Post Shares Moving Story of Family's Loss.

Monica Zapata, the sister of Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old woman who was brutally murdered in her home because she was transgender, shared her story in the Denver Post on October 7. In "Ten years after Matthew Shepard, no change," Monica paints a moving portrait of her sister Angie and the ramifications her murder has had on her family and friends. She calls upon readers to stop hate crimes, pointing out that not enough change has happened since Matthew's death, and that LGBT youth continue to be victims of hate-motivated violence. She says, "My sister and Matthew were both torn down in their prime. At the threshold of their lives, they were brutally torn down and denied the opportunity to achieve their hopes and dreams." Monica highlights the need for federal hate-crimes legislation and reminds readers that the time has come to end violence against LGBT people.

READ ARTICLE:
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_10661633

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD encourages you to contact the Denver Post to thank them for giving space to Monica Zapata's powerful story about her sister Angie and for encouraging readers to take a stand against hate.
E-mail Denver Post (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')

Associated Press Explores Experiences of Gay Seniors

The Associated Pressdrew attention to the estimated 2.5 million gay seniors in America and the challenges they face in an October 4 article titled, "Gay elders' distinctive challenges get a closer look." In his story reporter David Crary highlights the recent partnership between the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) and Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders (SAGE), and shares the stories of several LGBT seniors and how they have worked to overcome a lack of familial and institutional support. Ruth Juster, an 85-year-old lesbian Crary profiles, illuminates the need for increased outreach to gay and lesbian seniors, explaining, "Society looked down on us. A lot of people remained under the influence of that prejudice and kept their lives secret. We have to reach these seniors and let them know life is much different now. You have to speak up."

READ ARTICLE:
http://www.ohio.com/news/nation/30480519.html

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD encourages you to contact David Crary and the Associated Press to thank them for increasing awareness about LGBT seniors and the challenges they face.
E-mail David Crary (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')

"Choice" Issue Debunked Los Angeles Times

Following Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's comments prior to the election implying that being gay is a "choice," the Los Angeles Times published an October 8 opinion piece by Nathaniel Frank titled, "Gay is a choice?" Frank, of the Michael Palm Center, a public policy group that works on LGBT issues, debunks the legitimacy of the choice argument. He says, "calling homosexuality a choice is the time tested way politicians signal their belief that it is the wrong choice." On Palin's assertion that her gay friend has made a choice to be gay, Frank writes, "if Palin's gay friend is like other gays and lesbians, her sexual orientation is neither a choice to be tolerated nor a sentence to be served. It's an expression of her freedom to be herself, a freedom that, as Palin said in the debate, 'is always just one generation away from extinction.'" Frank's op-ed is a reminder that rhetoric that inaccurately suggests sexual orientation is a choice can be used as a justification for discrimination and intolerance towards LGBT people.

READ ARTICLE:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-frank8-2008oct08,0,7682829.story

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD encourages you to contact the Los Angeles Times to thank them for providing a space for this clear and convincing argument against the baseless assertion that being gay is a "choice" and the discrimination that is validated by this argument.
E-mail Los Angeles Times (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')

THE WORST

Glenn Beck and James Dobson Make False Claims About Prop 8

Prior to the elections, an episode of CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck featured an interview with James Dobson, head of the anti-gay organization Focus on the Family. The subject of the interview was Proposition 8, which since has passed, and will eliminate future marriages for same-sex couples in California. Beck and Dobson made repeated false and misleading claims about Prop 8, suggesting that if it was not passed churches would be called "organizations of hate." Dobson continued by saying "There's no question about it. If Proposition 8 fails, there will be a spate of lawsuit against churches …." Dobson then repeated discredited assertions about schools, saying, "all textbooks would have to be republished" and "everything in schools will change." By giving an uncontested platform to an anti-gay activist to state falsehoods about Prop. 8, CNN Headline News and Glenn Beck perpetuated the kind of fear and misinformation that contributed to the passage of Prop 8.

TAKE ACTION:
Glenn Beck, whose program will move to Fox News in 2009, has made repeated anti-LGBT remarks on his program. GLAAD urges you to contact the Fox News Channel and remind them that the LGBT community and our allies will continue to hold Beck accountable if he continues to make inaccurate and misleading claims about our community.
E-mail Mr. John Moody Senior Vice President, News Editorial, FOX News Channel (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')
E-mail Ms. Sharri Berg, Senior Vice President, News Operations - FOX News Channel (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')

Radio Station Gives Anti-Gay Activist Platform to Attack Transgender Youth

Kentucky News Talk radio station WKYX's gave Richard Nelson of the anti-gay group The Family Foundation of Kentucky a platform on the outlet's website to perpetuate misinformation about medical care for transgender youth. Nelson made a baseless and fallacious attack on Dr. Norman Spack, a pediatric endocrinologist in Boston who provides care and treatment to transgender youth. Nelson falsely claims both that the treatment is permanent and makes the false assertion that it is "the first step necessary for a sex-change operation." Expressing a blatant disregard for the struggles transgender children encounter, Nelson dispassionately states, "When little Johnny comes in for a checkup wearing a dress and women's jewelry, has it ever occurred to anybody, including his parents, that he should be told to wear pants and stop playing with Barbies?" These kinds of uninformed attacks disregard the expertise of medical and psychological professionals, and only serve to perpetuate distortions and fear of transgender people.

READ ARTICLE:
http://www.wkyx.com/local-news-details.asp?NewsID=7927

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD urges you to contact WKYX news editors and tell them not to make cheap, sensational grabs for ratings by attacking transgender youth and deceiving audiences about medical decisions that they make with their families and doctors.
E-mail WKYX News (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')

Dr. Phil Show Fails to Present a Fair and Accurate Dialogue on Transgender Children

On the October 29th episode of Dr. Phil, Dr. Phil McGraw interviewed transgender children and their parents. Also on the show to discuss gender identity were Dr. Dan Segal, a clinical psychologist from UCLA, and Glenn Stanton of the anti-LGBT organization Focus on the Family. While Segal's dialogue was backed by research and medical experience, Stanton was not a credited or unbiased source in any way. While we encourage informative dialogue, the Focus on the Family representative was not an expert on developmental issues or transgender children and should not have been presented as a professional counterpart to Dr. Segal. Stanton baselessly asserts that children develop transgender identities when their parents fail to enforce gender roles.

TAKE ACTION:
GLAAD encourages you to contact the Dr. Phil Show and voice your concerns about the platform afforded to the anti-LGBT organization, Focus on the Family, which allowed them to perpetuate misinformation about transgender children. Ask why producers presented Glenn Stanton as an equal counterpart to Dr. Dan Segal when Stanton lacks expertise or credentials in the fields of psychology, medicine or transgender issues.
E-mail Stephanie Granader, Dr. Phil Producer (Just click here, pre-filled fields, all you'll have to do is 'SEND')

Correction: Arizona High Court Asked but Has Not Yet Decided to Ban term "illegal Alien" from Courtroom

A notice came across one of my RSS Readers titled Arizona Supreme Court: Quit Saying ‘Illegal Aliens”!!, ‘Let’s Call ...

I followed the link and it led me to a site which had this entry Arizona Supremes Ban Term “Illegal Alien”, Then Threaten To Sue Website For Reporting Story, Obviously, I wanted to learn more about it and once there, I learned that it's source was Juditial Watch which has an ultra-right wing bent where you will find writings about all kinds of conspiracies that reinforce the right wing's paranoia and their cult of 'Victimhood"

This notice is all over the right wing blog rolls and you can feel free to imagine how it is being reported and commented, the interesting part is that there are scant postings in arguing for not calling undocumented immigrants, illegal - personally I think that no human being is illegal and to call anybody by that designation, dehumanizes the person.

I continued to search for any entries which were not as viscerally reactionary, it took a little while but finally I came across a posting at ImmigrationProf Blog - A Member of the Law Professor Blogs Network
who does clarify the facts of the matter - it is not what or how the right-wing-nuts are describing it.
Finally, some sobering balance.

Q: Why aren't more of us refuting the anti-immigrant propaganda and disinformation on the Media and the Internet?

Aurora
Here is the post at ProfBlog with a couple of comments:

November 10, 2008

Correction: Arizona High Court Asked but Has Not Yet Decided to Ban term "illegal Alien" from Courtroom

The media report that the term had been banned, click here. was wrong. I apologize for the earlier posting.

Car Gerchick, communications director for the court said "Those words have not been banned from Arizona courtrooms."

"A letter was sent in from an organization, a local legal organization, asking a court to essentially ban the use of those words."

Gerchick said Chief Justice Ruth McGregor's responded to the group, identified as Los Abogados, and told them she would share the request with the legal community and that no decision has been made.

"Under no circumstances did the Chief Justice McGregor ban any words."

ra

November 10, 2008 | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/89778/35575390

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Correction: Arizona High Court Asked but Has Not Yet Decided to Ban term "illegal Alien" from Courtroom:

Comments

http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=986969

"Reports that the words "illegal" and "alien" have been banned from Arizona court rooms are false, according to an Arizona Supreme Court official."

Posted by: Daniel M. Kowalski | Nov 10, 2008 12:24:23 PM

Censorship!

Posted by: Thomas Lillich | Nov 10, 2008 1:12:11 PM

It is always a good idea to read articles before posting and commenting upon them.

Judicial Watch published the story to inflame public opinion against illegal immigration and its elitist enablers.

Professor Aldana swallowed the story, hook, line and sinker and posting it has hurt the "undocumented worker" cause.

Read, read, read!

Conservative Media Figures: Obama's Hawaii trip is about birth-certificate, not about grandmother

From: Media Matters for America

Thu, Oct 23, 2008 10:13pm ET

Summary: Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, and Jerome Corsi suggested or asserted that the true purpose of Sen. Barack Obama's current trip to Hawaii is not to visit his ailing grandmother, as Obama claims, but rather to address rumors -- widely debunked -- that Obama has failed to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate. However, in addition to FactCheck.org and a Hawaiian Health Department official, even Corsi's employer, the right-wing website WorldNetDaily, has reportedly determined that the birth certificate provided by the Obama campaign is authentic.

Conservative media figures allege Obama's Hawaii trip is about discredited birth-certificate rumors, not his ailing grandmother

Conservative radio hosts Michael Savage and Rush Limbaugh and Obama Nation author Jerome Corsi -- who appeared as a guest on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show -- suggested or asserted that the true purpose of Sen. Barack Obama's current trip to Hawaii is not to visit his ailing grandmother, as Obama claims, but rather to address rumors -- widely debunked -- that Obama has failed to produce a valid U.S. birth certificate. However, as Media Matters for America has documented, the Obama campaign posted a copy of Obama's birth certificate on its "Fight the Smears" website and reportedly provided the original document to FactCheck.org, whose staff concluded in an August 21 post that it "meets all of the requirements from the State Department for proving U.S. citizenship." A Hawaiian Health Department official also reportedly confirmed to PolitiFact.com that Obama's birth certificate is valid, and even Corsi's employer, the right-wing website WorldNetDaily, reported in an August 23 article that a "WND investigation into Obama's birth certificate utilizing forgery experts also found the document to be authentic."

On the October 23 broadcast of his radio show, Limbaugh said:

Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later? See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so.

Limbaugh later added:

When you first announced this, you're gonna rush, you're gonna hurry, you're gonna make tracks, you're gonna get over there because you don't want your grandmother to die before you got there like your mother did, but somehow you keep campaigning, you take three days to get over there, if he's left yet. And this birth certificate business -- I'm just wondering if something's up. I have no clue, and I -- folks, I'm telling you, this has not reached the threshold until now, and it's now popping up all over the place.

During an appearance on the October 22 broadcast of Liddy's radio show, Corsi said:

I'm headed out to Honolulu. I am not convinced that Barack Obama is going because his grandmother is sick. I appreciate that his grandmother is sick and he wants to be with her. I do recall that Barack Obama's mother died of cancer, and he didn't go to be by her side when she died. He relates that in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father. And I'm going out to do what digging I can on the birth certificate.

Corsi later added:

I think I'll accomplish something in Hawaii, too. Obama's headed out there, and I believe there's a court challenge that if Obama does not dodge, he's gonna be forced to produce a birth certificate, and there's gonna be something damaging on that birth certificate, because even at the eleventh hour, Obama refuses to show us the hospital-generated birth certificate when he was born.

As Media Matters has noted, Corsi has previously claimed that the Obama campaign "refuses to release the original birth certificate," even though WorldNetDaily -- where Corsi works as a staff writer -- has debunked the claim.

On the October 22 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Savage stated that "[t]here are people arguing that Obama is headed back to Hawaii not so much to visit an ailing relative, but to fudge the birth certificate in question" and said moments later, "There is intense national interest on the Internet about his citizenship, and the question is being asked, could this be the real reason he is headed to Hawaii?" Savage subsequently became more definitive, stating:

Do you actually believe he's going to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother with 10 days to go until an election? Do you actually believe that? Do you actually believe he'd be going to Hawaii at this time with 10 days to go? You actually believe that? No, no, no -- no, no, no, no, no. No. There's some other reason that he's leaving the mainland of the United States in the midst of this toe-to-toe struggle right now, and it's got to do with his birth certificate.

He later added: "And Obama's leaving for Hawaii -- why? Why? What's he doing there? Why's he going there, huh? What's he going there for, huh? Why's he gonna -- the last phase of a race, he's getting off the track just to visit his grandmother? Don't be stupid. It's the birth certificate issue, you fools, you."

More on this Story

Savage also directed people to his website to "look at the birth certificate and judge for yourself on MichaelSavage.com. We actually have the birth certificate submitted by the Obama camp, and it looks like it's fake." Savage's website currently has a copy of the birth certificate Obama has posted on its "Fight the Smears" website along with a headline stating "Could this be the REAL reason Obama is heading to Hawaii?" The headline links to a post by Andy Martin on Martin's Contrarian Commentary website. Martin stated in an October 20 press release: "Monday (today) we petitioned the Hawai'i Supreme Court to order Obama's secret birth records released. How did Obama respond? He suddenly discovered that his grandmother, who had supposedly been released from her hospital a week ago, when he showed no interest in her, needed his immediate attention. Cool, calm, collected Obama suddenly suspended his campaign and headed for Hawai'i."

From Savage's website:

From the October 23 edition of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: By the way, I'd like to be a little inquisitive than the average reporter out there and observe that we have not -- we've been hearing and reading for at least three days now that Obama's grandmother is deathly ill, and that he's going out to rush to her side in Hawaii. Now, if he's already won the presidency, why hasn't he already gone to Hawaii? Why is he not already there? What's he waiting for? If she's deathly ill, this is the -- I'm just -- I'm pretending to be a reporter here. You know they'd ask McCain these questions. If Obama's grandmother is deathly ill, why has this been announced days ago, and he's only going now or tomorrow or whenever it is? Now, I understand, folks, Snerdley's got-- he's buried his head in his hands -- I understand this, my friends -- anything said about Obama is gonna be turned into an unfair, racist attack on the man, but I -- am I not asking the obvious questions? Who announces days in advance they're rushing to the side of a loved one who is deathly ill, but keeps campaigning in a race that's said to be over, only to go to the loved one's side days later?

See, I think this is about something else. You know what's really percolating out there? And I've been laying low on this because it just -- it hasn't met the threshold to pass the smell test on this program. But this birth certificate business, this lawsuit that a guy named Phillip Berg filed in Philadelphia in August for Obama to produce his genuine birth certificate, and he still hasn't replied, he hasn't done so. And I'm just -- you know, you've got a deathly ill grandmother, you are going to rush to her side a few days from now. When you first announced this, you're gonna rush, you're gonna hurry, you're gonna make tracks, you're gonna get over there because you don't want your grandmother to die before you got there like your mother did, but somehow you keep campaigning, you take three days to get over there, if he's left yet.

And this birth certificate business -- I'm just wondering if something's up. I have no clue, and I -- folks, I'm telling you, this has not reached the threshold until now, and it's now popping up all over the place. There are a lot of people now that are starting to speculate and be curious about this. I don't know. Let's say, for example, that somebody does come up with proof that Obama -- something's screwy with his birth certificate, and something's screwy about the fact that he's allegedly a natural citizen, American citizen but may not be, dual citizenship, born in Kenya, who knows, there's all kinds of stuff out -- so what? What's gonna happen this late in the campaign? Do you think, if it's proven, that they're gonna dump him? That's not gonna happen. But there's still -- these are just questions that I have. I mean, look at, I -- both of my parents have died, and when I was told that the end was near, bam, I got there fast as I could, and I didn't announce to the audience, "I just got word my father's soon to be passing away, in four or five days I'm gonna go to Missouri. In the meantime I will not leave you here on this radio program." These are just natural questions. I think any inquisitive reporter -- I know the risk I'm running here by raising all of this, but I wouldn't be me if I didn't do that.

From the October 22 broadcast of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: We're gonna raise the question of why Obama is headed to Hawaii. He certainly wouldn't take the time out to visit an ailing grandmother all of a sudden -- it is for other reasons, it is being speculated across the Internet that he was born in Kenya and he is not a U.S. citizen. Now, this originated with a Democrat who filed a lawsuit, a Democrat from Pennsylvania and a big donor to the Democrat [sic] Party -- filed a lawsuit claiming Obama was born in Kenya and that he is not a U.S. citizen and not qualified to run for the presidency. There are people arguing that Obama is headed to Hawaii not so much to visit an ailing relative but to fudge the birth certificate in question.

[...]

SAVAGE: There's an October surprise that could brew, and that's built around Obama's secretive trip to Hawaii coming up momentarily. There's intense national interest on the Internet as to whether or not he's an American citizen, and the question is being asked, could this be the real reason he is headed to Hawaii, and it was started by a Democrat who filed a lawsuit claiming Obama was born in Kenya. And you gotta read -- you gotta look at the birth certificate and judge for yourself on MichaelSavage.com. We actually have the birth certificate submitted by the Obama camp, and it looks like it's fake.

[...]

SAVAGE: Do you actually believe he's going to Hawaii to visit his ailing grandmother with 10 days to go until an election? Do you actually believe that? Do you actually believe he'd be going to Hawaii at this time with 10 days to go? You actually believe that? No, no, no -- no, no, no, no, no. No. There's some other reason that he's leaving the mainland of the United States in the midst of this toe-to-toe struggle right now, and it's got to do with his birth certificate. That's correct. That is correct. 1-800-449 -- but please go to MichaelSavage.com and look at the alleged birth certificate. Look at it very carefully.

[...]

SAVAGE: And Obama's leaving for Hawaii -- why? Why? What's he doing there? Why's he going there, huh? What's he going there for, huh? Why's he gonna -- the last phase of a race, he's getting off the track just to visit his grandmother? Don't be stupid. It's the birth certificate issue, you fools, you. Something's wrong with this picture, and we're gonna talk about it in the next hour. Carla in New York, if you make it fast, fire away on The Savage Nation.

CALLER: OK, first of all, as far as the trip to Hawaii, the reason he needs to go there is he's lost the lawsuit by not -- by having no one show. He needs to get to that house, the grandma's house. Those documents, the Kenyan documents are in that house. The other thing is that he has had four identities.

From the October 22 edition of Radio America's The G. Gordon Liddy Show:

LIDDY: Bring us up to date on the latest findings.

CORSI: Well, Mr. Liddy, I'm headed out to Honolulu. I am not convinced that Barack Obama is going because his grandmother is sick. I appreciate that his grandmother is sick and he wants to be with her. I do recall that Barack Obama's mother died of cancer, and he didn't go to be by her side when she died. He relates that in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father. And I'm going out to do what digging I can on the birth certificate. I'll be in Honolulu for the next few days. I don't expect to be detained in Honolulu the way I was in Kenya.

[...]

CORSI: I think I'll accomplish something in Hawaii, too. Obama's headed out there, and I believe there's a court challenge that if Obama does not dodge, he's gonna be forced to produce a birth certificate, and there's gonna be something damaging on that birth certificate, because even at the eleventh hour, Obama refuses to show us the hospital-generated birth certificate when he was born.

—H.D., G.L., & N.T.

Conservative radio hosts claimed HUD said 5 million illegal immigrants were given subprime mortgages, despite HUD's reported denials

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA

Summary: Rush Limbaugh and KSFO's Lee Rodgers repeated a variation of the claim that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) gave "5 million illegal aliens" subprime loans that they have not paid back. Quinn & Rose's Jim Quinn also cited the 5 million statistic without citing a source for the figure. None of these radio hosts noted that HUD has reportedly stated that this statistic is false.

See Video

Trouble viewing clip? Download: QuickTime

On October 10, radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Lee Rodgers repeated a variation of the claim that on October 9, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) reported, in Limbaugh's words, "that 5 million illegal aliens were given" subprime loans that they have not paid back. In addition, radio host Jim Quinn cited the 5 million statistic without citing a source for the figure. None of the talk radio hosts noted that HUD has reportedly stated that this statistic is false.

As Media Matters for America has documented, radio host Roger Hedgecock similarly claimed that "HUD was talking about 5 million illegal alien home mortgage loans that have gone bad." On October 9, the Drudge Report linked to an article posted on the website of Phoenix radio station KFYI under the headline "HUD: Five Million Fraudulent Mortgages Held by Illegals..." However, according to an October 9 Phoenix Business Journal article, HUD "says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants" and "a HUD spokesman said ... his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages." KFYI stated in a subsequent article that a "person from Housing and Urban Development contacted KFYI to tell us the number was inaccurate, that there were only 2.3 million mortgages held by immigrants, so there was no way that 5 million illegals could have mortgages." KFYI also reported that its source for the original story was an unnamed "retired agent from Immigration and Customs Enforcement," who "stands by" the numbers in the original report.

From the October 10 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show:

LIMBAUGH: What is the root right now of this economic problem? What's the root of it? Subprime mortgages. Not supposedly what has happened in the subprime mortgage industry, the whole country -- look at HUD yesterday admitting 5 million illegal aliens were given mortgages without -- with fake Social Security numbers and so forth to go out and purchase homes that they didn't have to pay back -- 5 million of them. And that's just a drop in the bucket to the number that are out there, and the number of banks that were involved.

Now, whose idea was this? Democrats -- starting with Jimmy Carter and moving through Bill Clinton. Who pressured banks via intimidation to make these kinds of loans? Democrats -- led by Jamie Gorelick and Janet Reno in the Clinton administration. Led by ACORN. Barack Obama was part of a suit against Citibank, Citicorp, to make them make such loans. The suit was settled out of court because of the pressure brought to bear.

From the October 10 broadcast of KSFO's The Lee Rodgers Show:

RODGERS: Neither of these pathetic weenies we have running for president wants to talk about this, but here's a reality check -- and this news story came out right after the program yesterday. And I think Rush devoted a little time to it, but it deserves all the exposure we can give it.

Some 5 million of these fraudulent home mortgages are in the hands of illegal aliens. These figures come from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The problem began years ago, when banks were forced to give mortgages without confirming Social Security numbers or borrower identification, and as a result, illegal immigrants were able to obtain home mortgages, which they could not afford, and some banks, starting with, I believe, B of A -- Bank of America -- was, if not the first, among the first of the big banks openly advertising that they would give mortgages to illegal aliens. Remember that?

Well, some of us -- we certainly were absolutely raising hell on the air about it, because they went ahead and did it. Now -- and now they have 5 million bad mortgages to illegal aliens. One guy was arrested in Tucson after using a stolen Social Security number to buy two houses and rack up over $780,000 in bad debt. Why? Because Bush and McCain and Obama and the Democrat Congress have absolutely no respect for our immigration laws. They don't have the guts to enforce them, and instead, they try every sneaky way possible to subvert the immigration laws. This is the sorry state at which we have arrived in this country.

From the October 10 broadcast of Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn & Rose:

QUINN: The Democrats have done to this entire country what Enron did to its employees, and they have yet to pay a price for it.

By the way, another dirty little secret from the halls of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Five million of these bad mortgages went to illegal aliens -- people who weren't even required to give a valid identification. Now, you can get mad about the excesses on Wall Street, and there are some. That can really tick you off, you know. AIG, what were you guys thinking?

You can get upset about that if you want to, but don't get too upset because it diverts you from the real problem: 5 million mortgages to illegal aliens who didn't even have to come up with an ID. They have given away your American dream, and by God, at some point, they need to be called to account for it.

—G.L. & N.T.

ACORN Response to Senator McCain’s Smear Ad

ACORN

October 10, 2008

ACORN President Maude Hurd released the following statement today in response to the McCain campaign's new ad claiming that, among other things, ACORN is responsible for the mortgage crisis:

"For almost a decade, ACORN, a community organization of 400,000 families in neighborhoods across the country, has been fighting against the predatory lending practices that have robbed our members of their homes, destabilized neighborhoods, and roiled the global economy.

"In his newest ad, John McCain's campaign bizarrely claims, 'ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans, the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today.' Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, ACORN has worked successfully to help working class families get good home loans on fair terms from legitimate banks and has fought vigorously against predatory lenders who have ripped off families in our communities. These predatory loans caused the crisis.

"For more than a decade, ACORN members have held protests, released reports, and advocated for regulations to protect homeowners from predatory lenders. ACORN organizers and volunteers have been working day and night to help victims of the GOP economic meltdown to save their homes from foreclosure. In fact, ACORN has brought class action lawsuits against several predatory lenders, and has lobbied the Federal Reserve and Congress in support of regulations against predatory lending. ACORN has even been successful in convincing many lenders to treat homeowners more fairly and help families be able to make their mortgage payments and save their homes.

"Unfortunately, the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans like John McCain have blocked the sensible regulations that ACORN and others proposed that would have averted the mortgage meltdown. If John McCain thinks that community organizers caused the foreclosure crisis, he knows even less about the economy than previously thought.

"John McCain and the Republicans are desperately trying to shift the blame for the economic crisis they caused with a philosophy of deregulation and indifference to homeowners. All the grainy footage and creepy music in the world can't cancel out some simple, basic facts, and the facts about the economy are not on John McCain's side."

Myths and falsehoods about the purported link between affordable housing initiatives and the financial crisis

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA

Fri, Oct 10, 2008 9:24pm ET

Summary: Conservative and other media figures -- echoing a reported strategy on the part of Republicans -- have attempted to lay blame for the financial crisis on proponents of the expansion of affordable housing. Those attacks are premised on several myths and falsehoods.

Trouble viewing clip? Download: QuickTime

Conservative and other media figures, echoing a reported strategy on the part of Republicans, have attempted to deflect blame for the financial crisis onto proponents of the expansion of affordable housing and legislation and institutions created to effect that expansion.

Newsweek senior editor Daniel Gross wrote in an October 7 Slate commentary:

On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks -- which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities -- to make more efforts to do so.

Recent attacks have turned personal, with conservative media -- along with congressional Republicans and Sen. John McCain -- targeting Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) directly as a purported culprit in the financial crisis, falsely representing his decades-long advocacy of increased affordable housing as advocacy of lax oversight over Fannie and Freddie.

The attacks are premised on several myths and falsehoods and, in the case of CRA and attacks on minority lending, have taken on a racial tinge.

MYTH 1: The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act forced lenders into irresponsible lending

In a September 28 Boston Globe column, Jeff Jacoby asserted:

The roots of this crisis go back to the Carter administration. That was when government officials, egged on by left-wing activists, began accusing mortgage lenders of racism and "redlining" because urban blacks were being denied mortgages at a higher rate than suburban whites.

The pressure to make more loans to minorities (read: to borrowers with weak credit histories) became relentless. Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act, empowering regulators to punish banks that failed to 'meet the credit needs' of 'low-income, minority, and distressed neighborhoods.' Lenders responded by loosening their underwriting standards and making increasingly shoddy loans."

Jacoby is not alone in his reference to "minority" lending. On the September 18 edition of Fox News' Your World, host Neil Cavuto asked Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA), "[W]hen you and many of your colleagues were pushing for more minority lending and more expanded lending to folks who heretofore couldn't get mortgages, when you were pushing homeownership ... Are you totally without culpability here?" Cavuto later said, "I'm just saying, I don't remember a clarion call that said, 'Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster.' "

But the suggestion that the financial crisis was caused by banks lending irresponsibly to comply with the CRA is widely discredited. According to housing experts, a large number of subprime loans were not made under the CRA, which applies only to depository institutions. A study released earlier this year by a law firm specializing in CRA compliance estimated that in the 15 most populous metropolitan areas, 84.3 percent of subprime loans in 2006 were made by financial institutions not governed by the CRA. Moreover, Janet Yellen, president and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, stated in a March 2008 speech that "studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households" [emphasis added].

In testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, University of Michigan law professor Michael Barr stated:

Despite the fact that CRA appears to have increased bank and thrift lending in low- and moderate-income communities, such institutions are not the only ones operating in these areas. In fact, with new and lower-cost sources of funding available from the secondary market through securitization, and with advances in financial technology, subprime lending exploded in the late 1990s, reaching over $600 billion and 20% of all originations by 2005. More than half of subprime loans were made by independent mortgage companies not subject to comprehensive federal supervision; another 30 percent of such originations were made by affiliates of banks or thrifts, which are not subject to routine examination or supervision, and the remaining 20 percent were made by banks and thrifts. Although reasonable people can disagree about how to interpret the evidence, my own judgment is that the worst and most widespread abuses occurred in the institutions with the least federal oversight.

The housing crisis we face today, driven by serious problems in the subprime lending, suggests that our system of home mortgage regulation, including CRA, is seriously deficient. We need to fill what my friend, the late Federal Reserve Board Governor Ned Gramlich aptly termed, "the giant hole in the supervisory safety net." Banks and thrifts are subject to comprehensive federal regulation and supervision; their affiliates far less so; and independent mortgage companies, not at all. Moreover, many market-based systems designed to ensure sound practices in this sector-broker reputational risk, lender oversight of brokers, investor oversight of lenders, rating agency oversight of securitizations, and so on -- simply did not work. Conflicts of interest, lax regulation, and "boom times" covered up the extent of the abuses -- at least for a while, at least for those not directly affected by abusive practices. But no more.

Others who have advanced this or similar claims include guest Jonathan Hoenig during the September 25 edition of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, radio host Laura Ingraham during the September 25 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, and a September 25 Investor's Business Daily editorial claiming that the CRA "forced banks to make many more subprime loans."

MYTH 2: Excessive lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the financial crisis

On the October 9 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, San Diego radio host Roger Hedgecock claimed that "[w]e have a situation where today HUD [the Department of Housing and Urban Development] was talking about 5 million illegal alien home mortgage loans that have gone bad." Radio host Joe Madison responded, "You see, this really angers me, because I'm sitting here ... and wondering, how is it that people who are illegal get loans when people in my community who are legal have a difficulty getting loans, and if they do get them, they're often from predators?" Neither Hedgecock nor Madison cited a source for the purported HUD statistic. On October 9, the Drudge Report linked to an article on the Phoenix radio station KFYI website under the headline, "HUD: Five Million Fraudulent Mortgages Held by Illegals..." However, according to an October 9 Phoenix Business Journal article posted at 3:15 pm MT (more than an hour before Lou Dobbs Tonight aired), HUD "says there is no basis to news reports that more than 5 million bad mortgages are held by illegal immigrants" and "a HUD spokesman said ... his agency has no data showing the number of illegal immigrants holding foreclosed or bad mortgages."

Other media figures advancing the claim that lending to undocumented immigrants is responsible for the mortgage crisis include syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, who wrote in her September 24 column that "there's one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: How illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis.

MYTH 3: Congressional Democrats, led by Barney Frank, opposed strengthening oversight over Fannie and Freddie

In a September 18 column, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly falsely claimed that Frank "sat by as mortgage brokers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made bad loans" and asserted that "[i]nstead of demanding responsible business practices from Fannie and Freddie, Frank continued to pound the table to extend even more credit to 'low income' families." In fact, Frank did not "s[i]t by." Frank's efforts to enhance regulatory oversight on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac include:

• In 2005, Frank, then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, worked with committee chairman Rep. Michael Oxley (R-OH) on the Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2005, which would have established the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to replace the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) as overseer of the activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. After voting for the bill in committee, Frank voted against final passage of the bill on the House floor, stating that he was doing so because an amendment to the bill on the House floor imposed restrictions on the kinds of nonprofit organizations that could receive funding under the bill.

• In early 2007, as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Frank sponsored H.R. 1427, a bill to create the FHFA, granting that agency "general supervisory and regulatory authority over" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and directing it to reform the companies' business practices and regulate their exposure to credit and market risk. Among other things, Frank's legislation, titled the "Federal Housing Finance Reform Act of 2007," directed the FHFA director to "ensure" that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac "operate[] in a safe and sound manner, including maintenance of adequate capital and internal controls" and to establish standards for "management of credit and counterparty risk" and "management of market risk." The FHFA was eventually created after Congress incorporated provisions that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said were "similar" to those of H.R. 1427 into the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, which the president signed into law on July 30.

Some in the conservative media have taken the charge further, suggesting that in the 1990s, Frank allowed his relationship with Fannie Mae executive Herb Moses to affect his responsibility as a senior member of the House Financial Services Committee to conduct oversight over Fannie Mae. For example, in an October 3 article, Fox News deputy Washington Managing editor Bill Sammon asserted, in a charge he later echoed on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, "Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s. So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions."

In his article, however, Sammon cited only two sources: an anonymous Republican congressional staffer and Dan Gainor, who, Sammon did not note, is an employee of the conservative Media Research Center. Moreover, Sammon misrepresented Frank's record by reporting in his article that Frank "spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations" on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Sammon did not note in his article or during an October 6 appearance on The O'Reilly Factor that in the early 1990s, while Frank's Democratic Party still held the majority in Congress, and while Moses was at Fannie Mae, Frank supported bills to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and create a government regulatory agency that would supervise and have authority over some aspects of the company:

• On September 30, 1991, Frank voted for a bill to create a new regulatory agency to oversee Fannie and Freddie that would have "[r]equire[d] the [agency's] Director to establish by regulation a risk-based capital test for the enterprises," "[r]equire[d] the Director to establish risk-based capital levels for each enterprise according to statutory guidelines," "[e]stablishe[d] minimum capital levels, critical capital levels, and enforcement levels," and "[s]et[] forth mandatory supervisory actions for the enterprises at various capital levels, including mandatory conservatorship."

• In October 1992, Frank voted for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992, creating OFHEO, which was tasked with "ensur[ing] that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (the enterprises) and their affiliates are adequately capitalized and operating safely." As with the bill Frank voted for in September 1991, the new law gave OFHEO authority to set, monitor, and enforce risk-based capital requirements for Fannie and Freddie.

Neal Boortz also advanced this claim about Frank and his former partner during the October 8 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show. On October 8, The Wall Street Journal reported that "[a] conservative political organization will begin airing nationwide TV advertisements Wednesday that criticize congressional Democrats for their ties to mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae."

MYTH 4: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess"

In a September 19 Huffington Post blog post, Center for American Progress senior fellow David Abramowitz wrote:

"There must be a Republican playbook circulating widely with a chapter entitled, 'What to say if asked who's to blame for the foreclosure mess.' Because an awful lot of Republican candidates are all suddenly yelling 'Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae, Fannie Mae' whenever plunging home prices and the housing crisis comes up. [...] So their plan seems to be to chant Fannie Mae often and loudly enough, and hope the public will get confused about who really caused this huge national calamity. It is always a good political story to just blame a bad guy who has something to do with the same topic.

Indeed, during the September 24 edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume said, "Many financial analysts are saying that if mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been effectively regulated years ago, the supercharged subprime mortgage meltdown that led to the current financial mess would either never have happened or would have been nowhere near as severe." But rebutting the suggestion that the subprime mortgage purchasing activities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the "current financial mess," economist Dean Baker recently stated:

Fannie and Freddie got into subprime junk and helped fuel the housing bubble, but they were trailing the irrational exuberance of the private sector. They lost market share in the years 2002-2007, as the volume of private issue mortgage backed securities exploded. In short, while Fannie and Freddie were completely irresponsible in their lending practices, the claim that they were responsible for the financial disaster is absurd on its face -- kind of like the claim that the earth is flat.

Indeed, in a 2006 Securities and Exchange Commission filing (available here) covering its activities in 2004, Fannie Mae stated: "We did not participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages in 2004 and 2005." In the report, Fannie Mae also noted the growth of subprime lending and reported, "These trends and our decision not to participate in large amounts of these non-traditional mortgages contributed to a significant loss in our share of new single-family mortgage-related securities issuances to private-label issuers during this period."

Gross wrote in Slate that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were an "integral part" of a "culture of stupid, reckless lending." But, he wrote, they are not the primary culprits in the current financial crisis. He wrote:

Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them-frequently using borrowed capital.

As an example, he noted that the following happened during testimony by Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform:

At Monday's hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., gamely tried to pin Lehman's demise on Fannie and Freddie. After comparing Lehman's small political contributions with Fannie and Freddie's much larger ones, Mica asked Fuld what role Fannie and Freddie's failure played in Lehman's demise. Fuld's response: "De minimis."

From Fuld's testimony:

MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right?

FULD: Yes, sir.

MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles?

FULD: Our --

MICA: It didn't matter or you --

FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir.

MYTH 5: Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has significantly more ties to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac than does John McCain's

In articles about the presidential candidates' responses to the economic crisis, the Associated Press, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Washington Post reported that the McCain campaign criticized Sen. Barack Obama for, in the words of McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, "his ties to spiraling lenders like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and their jet-set CEOs." But those articles did not note that several senior McCain campaign aides have served as lobbyists for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, or both. According to a Media Matters for America search of the Senate Office of Public Records' Lobbying Disclosure Act Database, they include:

• Political adviser Charlie Black, who lobbied for Freddie Mac from 1999 to 2004;

• National finance co-chairman Wayne Berman, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2008 and for Freddie Mac in 2004;

• Congressional liaison John Green, who lobbied for Fannie Mae from 2004 to 2007 and for Freddie Mac in 2003;

• Arthur Culvahouse, who reportedly headed McCain's vice-presidential search team, lobbied for Fannie Mae in 1999, 2003, and 2004; and

• William E. Timmons Sr., who reportedly "has been tapped by the McCain campaign to conduct a study in preparation for the presidential transition," lobbied for Freddie Mac from 2000 to 2008.

Additionally, several media outlets have reported that McCain campaign manager Rick Davis previously served as president of the Homeownership Alliance, a Washington-based advocacy group whose founding members included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which Media Matters has noted.

MYTH 6: Democrats sought to divert funding in the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act to ACORN

On the September 29 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs claimed: "ACORN [Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now] stands to reap hundreds of millions of dollars from a government bailout of Wall Street." Dobbs added later: "This is a straightforward deal for ACORN and other groups, left-wing groups, set up by the Democratic leadership of Congress. They're not interested in the bailout per se. They want to spread this out, and many people believe that this bailout in part is dear to the Democratic leadership because they want to advance a social agenda here as much as much as an economic bailout of Wall Street." Numerous other media figures also reported the false claim that Democrats were trying to steer money to ACORN. In fact, neither the draft proposal nor the final version of the bill contained any language mentioning ACORN. Those making the false claim were misrepresenting a provision -- since removed -- that would have directed 20 percent of any profits realized on troubled assets purchased under the plan into two previously established funds: the Housing Trust Fund and the Capital Magnet Fund, which, under the law authorizing them, distribute funds through state block grants and through competitive application processes, respectively.

On the October 9 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund similarly made the false claim that ACORN "almost got a slush fund in the housing bailout bill a few weeks ago."

MYTH 7: Former President Clinton has blamed Democrats for the financial crisis

In a September 30 post on Time.com's Swampland blog, Washington bureau chief Jay Carney claimed that comments former President Bill Clinton made during a September 25 interview on ABC's Good Morning America that were subsequently featured in a McCain campaign ad "could undercut Democratic arguments that Bush and the Republicans are primarily responsible" for the financial crisis. During that interview, Clinton said, "I think the responsibility that the Democrats have may rest more in resisting any efforts by Republicans in the Congress or by me when I was president to put some standards and tighten up a little on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac." But in reporting on the ad, Carney failed to point out that in the very same interview, Clinton also said, "I think the biggest mistake, by the way, that contributed to the current circumstance that almost nobody talks about, is the repeal after decades of something called the uptick rule, which allowed the hedge funds, heavily leveraged, and others to just drive down the market without any kind of automatic stoppers." In a separate interview aired that day with Matt Lauer, co-host of NBC's Today, Clinton stated of the financial situation: "[T]his thing really took off when the SEC, under this administration, exercised less oversight and they got rid of something called the uptick rule, which enabled betting down on housing stocks to go crazy."

The uptick rule, which was created in 1938, was a securities trading rule that regulated market short selling, the act of selling a stock that an investor does not own (but borrows from a broker or someone else) in anticipation that the stock's price will decrease. After a June 13, 2007, decision that became effective July 3, 2007, the SEC issued a final rule that repealed the uptick rule.

From C-SPAN's October 6 coverage of the House Oversight Reform Committee:

MICA: Again, you -- when you opened your statement, you said that Lehman Brothers -- and it was around for what, 150 years -- dealt in some pretty hard assets and some secure investments. You've been around a while. What turned the corner for you to get into some of the more speculative ventures, like subprime and some of the other, again, riskier investments?

FULD: As I said in my verbal testimony, our participation in the mortgage-related businesses was clearly a natural for us, given our dominance in fixed income. That was something that went back a number of years.

And even as I listened, as I say, to the panel before me, they correctly pointed out that this was a goal of the government to provide funding and mortgages to a number of people that typically would not or could not have received a mortgage.

MICA: And one of your big com -- well, one of the big packagers, or the competitor, so to speak, was Fannie Mae, which was deep into this. And you were -- you were dealing in some of the paper, I think, for secondary markets and other securitized mortgage paper, to basically package it and make money off it. Is that right?

FULD: Yes, sir.

MICA: What was Lehman Brothers' exposure to the debt of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and what role did their collapse play in precipitating some of your financial troubles?

FULD: Our --

MICA: It didn't matter or you --

FULD: Our exposure to both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac was de minimis, sir.

MICA: OK, but their collapse -- did that help precipitate any problems with your firm?

FULD: It certainly set the stage for an environment, as I talked about loss of confidence and credit-crisis mentality that permeated our market, clearly set the stage for investors losing confidence, counterparties asking for additional collateral, and clearly an environment that lost liquidity --

MICA: I notice you --

FULD : -- which is the lifeblood of the capital market system.

—J.H.