Eideard

God Bless America – and Mitt Romney

Political campaigns, which have borrowed tricks from Madison Avenue for decades, are now fully engaged on the latest technological frontier in advertising: aiming specific ads at potential supporters based on where they live, the Web sites they visit and their voting records.

In recent primaries, two kinds of Republican voters have been seeing two different Mitt Romney video ads pop up on local and national news Web sites. The first, called “It’s Time to Return American Optimism,” showed the candidate on the campaign trail explaining how this was an election “to save the soul of America.” It was aimed at committed party members to encourage a large turnout. The second video ad, geared toward voters who have not yet aligned themselves with a candidate, focused more on Mr. Romney as a family man. Versions of the two ads were seen online in Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina…

The technology that makes such customized advertising possible is called microtargeting, which is similar to the techniques nonpolitical advertisers use to serve up, for example, hotel ads online to people who had shopped for vacations recently.

In the last few years, companies that collect data on how consumers behave both online and off and what charitable donations they make have combined that vast store of information with voter registration records.

As a result, microtargeting allows campaigns to put specific messages in front of specific voters — something that has increased in sophistication with the large buckets of data available to political consultants…

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That didn’t take long.

As we’ve gotten around to casting votes to select a Republican presidential nominee, the antiblack rhetoric has taken center stage. You just have to love (and despise) this kind of predictability.

On Sunday, Rick “The Rooster” Santorum, campaigning in Iowa, said what sounded like “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money.” At first, he offered a nondenial that suggested that the comment might have been out of context. Now he’s saying that he didn’t say “black people” at all but that he “started to say a word” and then “sort of mumbled it and changed my thought.”

“Uh huh.”

Newton Leroy Gingrich has been calling President Obama “the best food stamp president” for months, but after plummeting in the polls and finishing fourth in Iowa, he must have decided that this approach was too subtle. So, on Thursday in New Hampshire, he sharpened the shiv and dug it in deeper, saying, “I’m prepared, if the N.A.A.C.P. invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps.” On Friday, Gingrich defended himself, as usual, by insisting that exactly what he said wasn’t exactly what he said. He was advocating for African-Americans, not disparaging them.

“Uh huh.”

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Transgender groups are applauding a court ruling in favor of a Georgia woman who sued after claiming she was fired from her state position because of a sex change.

A federal appeals court in Atlanta concluded transgender workers are protected under the Constitution. Vandiver Elizabeth Glenn was a legislative editor in the Georgia General Assembly

“The question here is whether discriminating against someone on the basis of his or her gender non-conformity constitutes sex-based discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause,” said the three-judge panel. “We hold that it does…”

The decision is so bloody simple you have to wonder what sort of bigot is asking the question?

Glenn — who was once known as Glenn Morrision — alleged she was told she was let go because her 2005 decision to transition from male to female would be viewed as “immoral” by state lawmakers.

Her boss also objected to Glenn showing up at an office Halloween party dressed as a woman, and asked Glenn to leave.

…The judge, when ruling for Glenn, had said she could return to work, but delayed that until the appeals court ruled. Monday’s decision means she could be back on the job within days.

State attorneys had argued no discrimination laws were broken since protections extended to certain classes of individuals did not include transgender employees. The appeals panel said the reasons cited by the state in its defense were not acceptable.

“An individual cannot be punished because of his or her perceived gender non-conformity,” said the ruling. “Because these protections are afforded to everyone, they cannot be denied to a transgender individual.”

I’m confounded by the lengths politicians will go to construct rationales, excuses, lies to support whatever bigotry advances their cause. It’s popular nowadays for reactionaries to accuse insurgent politics of being the product of some devilish “agenda” – most especially when the question is simply one of civil rights, civil liberties within the definitions afforded by our constitution.

They can’t even stop lying while trying to define their hypocrisy.

To arrest one foreign car-making executive under Alabama’s new tough immigration laws may be regarded as a misfortune; to arrest a second looks like carelessness.

A judge has acted to put a Japanese employee of Honda Motor Company out of his misery by dismissing immigration charges against him, three days after he was booked under Alabama’s new immigration laws that have been billed as the most swingeing in America. Ichiro Yada is one of about 100 Japanese managers of the company on assignment in southern state.

Yada was stopped in Leeds, Alabama, at a checkpoint set up by police to catch unlicenced drivers. He was ticketed on the spot, despite the fact that he showed an international driver’s licence, a valid passport and a US work permit.

Bamalama coppers probably think an international driver’s license is just for driving outside Dixie.

Key parts of the new immigration law, HB56, came into effect in late September, including the driving provisions. Under them, the police are required to check up on the immigration status of anyone they stop who they suspect of being in the country illegally…

Yada is the second foreign car executive to fall foul of the new law. Last month police officers arrested a German director of Mercedes-Benz for failing to carry a valid driver’s licence. The move exposed Alabama to widespread criticism and ridicule…

The St Louis-based Post-Dispatch newspaper revelled in Alabama’s embarrassment by publishing an open letter to foreign car companies encouraging them to pack their bags and move to the rival car-producing state of Missouri.

“We are the Show Me State, not the Show Me Your Papers State,” it wrote, telling auto bosses: “You’ve got two choices. Either ask your executives to carry their immigration papers at all times, or move to a state that understands gemüchlichkeit…”

Between redneck idiots, Tea Party idiots and the new Republikan Party idiots, freedom to travel in a free country is only a memory in the Confederate States of America. That includes all the old boundaries plus the states outside of Dixie run by the latest clan of fools dedicated to voodoo economics and ethnic hatreds to match.

Dangerous couple — way too happy to be allowed to join church

A tiny church in rural Kentucky has voted to ban interracial couples from joining its congregation, pitting members against each other in an argument over race. Members at the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Kentucky voted on Sunday on the resolution, which says the church “does not condone interracial marriage”.

The church member who crafted the resolution, Melvin Thompson, said he is not racist and called the matter an “internal affair”…

Dean Harville, the church’s secretary, disagreed – he said the resolution came after his daughter visited the church this summer with her boyfriend from Africa. Stella Harville and Ticha Chikuni, now her fiancé, visited the church in June and Chikuni sang a song for the congregation. The two had visited the church before.

Harville said he was counting the church offering after a service in August when he was approached by Thompson, who told him Harville’s daughter and her boyfriend were no longer allowed to sing at the church.

“If he’s not racist, what is this?” Harville said…

The resolution says anyone is welcome to attend services, but interracial couples could not become members or be “used in worship services or other church functions”…

The National Association of Free Will Baptists in Tennessee has no official position on interracial marriage for its 2,400 churches worldwide, executive secretary Keith Burden said. The denomination believes the Bible is inerrant and local churches have autonomy over decision making.

“It’s been a non-issue with us,” Burden said, adding that many interracial couples attend Free Will Baptist churches. He said the Pike County church acted on its own. Burden said the association can move to strip the local church of its affiliation with the national denomination if it’s not resolved.

There are additional legal avenues that must be considered if these fools can’t sort their bigotry in a timely fashion. Since they continue to define themselves as a body open to the public, racist policies cannot be condoned. That means all and every benefit they take advantage of as a church must be ended. Tax, zoning, political advantages must be withdrawn by local, state and federal bodies.

Part of separation of church and state is that all parties live up to civil law, the law of the land. Religion is an unsatisfactory excuse for bigotry practiced in a public context. You can be an idiot on your own anytime.

Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to repeal the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.

The vote that sends the proposal to the full Senate floor was considered symbolic because the measure has no chance of getting passed by the Republican-led House.

All eight Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted “no” Thursday, while all the 10 majority Democrats supported the measure that would provide equal federal benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

Democrats and gay rights advocates hailed the vote as historic in the continuing effort to legalize same-sex marriage and end separate treatment for legally married same-sex couples.

Committee Chairman Pat Leahy, D-Vermont, called it “an historic step forward in righting an injustice that goes right to the core of what we stand for in this country — freedom and equality.”

RTFA for the details. They’re about what you would expect. The Party of NO persists in their opposition to civil rights.

Not especially different from 1964. Still cowards. Still backwards. Still opposed to equal opportunity and equal rights.

Federal civil rights officials announced…they have sent election observers to locations in five states to keep an eye out for potential trouble at the polls Tuesday.

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division dispatched 11 staff attorneys along with 85 trained election observers from the Office of Personnel Management to watch activities at the polls and report any irregularities…

In Mississippi, monitors are being dispatched to four counties, as voters go to the polls in a gubernatorial election to replace Haley Barbour, who is term-limited from running again. The campaign features the white Republican Lieutenant Gov. Phil Bryant and African-American Hattiesburg Mayor Johnny DuPree, a Democrat. Mississippi political observers say Bryant is a strong favorite to win the election…

The Justice Department has also assigned monitors to Lorain County, Ohio, to protect the rights of Spanish-speaking voters. Last month, the federal government signed an agreement with Lorain County to resolve concerns that limited-English Hispanic voters were being denied their full voting rights because the county failed to provide language assistance as required by law.

In Alameda County, California, the U.S. will monitor voting following an agreement between federal officials and the county in July. The agreement requires Alameda County to provide election materials and information in Spanish and Chinese. Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez said the agreement “ensures that Alameda County’s Spanish- and Chinese-speaking citizens will be able to cast an effective ballot and successfully participate in the electoral process.”

In Jasper, Texas, racial tensions have run high over the recall election for three African-American city council members responsible for the hiring of the city’s first black police chief.

In Springfield, Massachusetts, activists claim minorities were turned away at the polls in the September primary, and said there was no Spanish-language assistance for voters. Hispanic leaders, the NAACP and ACLU had all urged the Justice Department to travel to Springfield to protect voting rights of all minorities.

Republicans around the country continue to mobilize to deny the franchise to citizens on the basis of ethnicity and language. Nothing new about the practice. Nothing less than bigotry is expected – after all – since the so-called Southern Strategy has never been limited to the South. Or to Black folks alone.

The owner of a large southwest Alabama car dealership derided as “Taliban Toyota” by a competitor has been awarded $7.5 million in damages after a jury trial for his slander claim.

Iranian-born Shawn Esfahani, owner of Eastern Shore Toyota in Daphne, Alabama, sought $28 million in compensatory and punitive damages from Bob Tyler Toyota, claiming employees at that Pensacola, Florida-based dealership falsely portrayed him as an Islamist militant to customers.

“The feeling I received in the courtroom for the truth to come out was worth a lot more than any money anybody can give me,” Esfahani told Reuters…

Esfahani’s lawsuit said that Bob Tyler sales manager Fred Kenner told at least one couple considering buying from Eastern Shore Toyota in 2009 that Esfahani was of Middle Eastern descent and was “helping fund the insurgents there and is also laundering money for them…”

A Bob Tyler salesman was accused of telling the same couple that Esfahani was from Iraq and calling him a “terrorist” who put soldiers including the salesman’s brother in harm’s way…

The jury deliberated for three hours before awarding Esfahani $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages on Monday evening…

Esfahani said the dollar amount awarded by the jury was irrelevant unless the case sets a precedent by which other business owners can seek recourse against tactics he considers “un-American.”

Slimeballs who perpetuate slander and discrimination against minorities – whether for business or demented pleasure – represent the sickest form of bigotry. They are so preoccupied with their Limbaugh-like hatred they pay no heed to ordinary standards of civility or public conduct.

A judgement like this one warm the cockles of my heart. Hitting these creeps where it hurts them most – in the wallet – is especially just.

Officials in Rick Perry’s home state of Texas have set off a scientists’ revolt after purging mentions of climate change and sea-level rise from what was supposed to be a landmark environmental report. The scientists said they were disowning the report on the state of Galveston Bay because of political interference and censorship from Perry appointees at the state’s environmental agency.

By academic standards, the protest amounts to the beginnings of a rebellion: every single scientist associated with the 200-page report has demanded their names be struck from the document. “None of us can be party to scientific censorship so we would all have our names removed,” said Jim Lester, a co-author of the report and vice-president of the Houston Advanced Research Centre…

However, Perry, in his run for the Republican nomination, has elevated denial of science, from climate change to evolution, to an art form. He opposes any regulation of industry, and has repeatedly challenged the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency.

Texas is the only state to refuse to sign on to the federal government’s new regulations on greenhouse gas emissions. “I like to tell people we live in a state of denial in the state of Texas,” said John Anderson, an oceanography at Rice University, and author of the chapter targeted by the government censors…

Officials even deleted a reference to the sea level at Galveston Bay rising five times faster than the long-term average – 3mm a year compared to .5mm a year – which Anderson noted was a scientific fact. “They just simply went through and summarily struck out any reference to climate change, any reference to sea level rise, any reference to human influence – it was edited or eliminated,” said Anderson. “That’s not scientific review that’s just straight forward censorship.”

The barbarian cohort of politicians catering to every whim of the Oil Patch Boys is nothing new to anyone who lives within 600 miles of the Permian Basin. That they are marching towards full control of the Republican Party in concert with the flat-earthers of the Tea Party isn’t a surprise either.

The foolishness of born-again libertarians is compounded not only by ignorance and a fear of educated folk – censorship once again comes into play as thoroughly as xenophobia and bigotry.

Arizona wanted her to stop teaching English because she has an accent

Ms. Aguayo is a veteran teacher in the Creighton Elementary School District in central Phoenix as well an immigrant from northern Mexico who learned English as an adult and taught it as a second language. Confronted about her accent by her school principal several years ago, Ms. Aguayo took a college acting class, saw a speech pathologist and consulted with an accent reduction specialist, none of which transformed her speech.

As Ms. Aguayo has struggled, though, something else has changed. Arizona, after almost a decade of sending monitors to classrooms across the state to check on teachers’ articulation, recently made a sharp about-face on the issue. A federal investigation of possible civil rights violations prompted the state to call off its accent police.

“To my knowledge, we have not seen policies like this in other states,” Russlynn H. Ali, the assistant federal secretary of education for civil rights, said in an interview. She called it “good news” that Arizona had altered its policy.

Silverio Garcia Jr., who runs a barebones organization called the Civil Rights Center out of his Phoenix-area home to challenge discrimination, was the one who pressed the accent issue. In May 2010, he filed a class-action complaint with the federal Department of Education alleging that teachers had been unfairly transferred and students denied educations with those teachers. The Justice Department joined the inquiry, but federal investigators closed Mr. Garcia’s complaint in late August after the state agreed to alter its policies.

“This was one culture telling another culture that you’re not speaking correctly,” Mr. Garcia said….

But the federal review found that the state had written up teachers for pronouncing “the” as “da,” “another” as “anuder” and “lives here” as “leeves here…”

In the Creighton Elementary School District, where about a dozen teachers attracted the attention of the state monitors, an accent reduction specialist, Andy Krieger, was brought in from Canada last year. Mr. Krieger, who has taught actors, business executives and others from around the world to speak American English, said some of the teachers had what he considered heavy accents…

It was Ms. Aguayo’s principal and not the state monitors who first questioned her accent and suggested that she join Mr. Krieger’s class, Ms. Aguayo said. Because she was told that state policy forbade her to teach students who were learning English, she has filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“I have the same credentials as everyone else, and I don’t think it’s fair that I’m being singled out,” Ms. Aguayo said, adding that her school has teachers with a variety of regional American accents. “I know I have an accent. It’s been hard to get rid of it. I think I’ll always have it…”

Arizona is still the Mississippi of the West. The bigots-in-charge decided the best way to maintain political control of the state is to inhibit any and all opportunities for non-Anglos to advance. Indios or Hispanics, it doesn’t matter. Even if you collaborate you are suspect. Your children are suspect. Have an accent? You are suspect.

The drill is designed to keep whole generations from feeling they have a chance to change anything. So, make certain schoolkids see that if their teachers don’t fit the Anglo mold – they will be dumped. An object lesson for how to fit into Arizona society.