Information From School District About President Obama Song That Has Fox News, Other Conservatives Whining About Indoctrination

Fox News and nutty far-right bloggers like Michelle Malkin and the Matt Drudge (among many others) have attempted to turn this group of elementary school kids singing a song about President Obama into a scandalous-type conspiracy seemingly on scale with the Kennedy assassination, Watergate and the Lincoln assassination. While some are frustrated with No Child Left Behind, conservatives like Malkin, Fox News and Drudge are advancing a new project ... No Obama Smear Left Behind. Operating on the premise that it's better to smear first and ask questions later, some of these far-right commentators have been trying to advance the notion that this is some kind of an indoctrination plot seemingly hatched by President Obama to control the minds of young students.

After Fox News blew up the story on its Web site all day, here is a response from the school district (B. Bernice Young Elementary School) in question about the scandal according to Fox 29 News in Philadelphia:

The first of two Burlington Township School District letters to local families posted online Thursday and obtained by Fox 29 News confirms that a video circulating online and in the media is a class at B. Bernice Young Elementary School singing about the president.

"The activity took place during Black History Month in 2009, which is recognized each February to honor the contributions of African Americans to our country," the letter states. "Our curriculum studies, honors and recognizes those who serve our country. The recording and distribution of the class activity were unauthorized."

Of course, for Fox News, Malkin, Drudge and others ... why let context get in the way of a good smear?

I found this on Daily Kos:

It's what a nutty comedian network would do to our nation's youth:

Drudge and the right-wing blogosphere are flogging a "SHOCK VIDEO" from YouTube that purports to show "[s]chool kids taught to praise Obama."

The children in this video appear to be no more than 8 years old. They have done nothing wrong. Presumably, neither they nor their parents have consented to having their faces plastered all over the right-wing media. They did nothing to justify Matt Drudge's invasion of their privacy. They did nothing to justify Michelle Malkin's invasion of their privacy.

Nothing these kids have done would warrant a decision by Glenn Beck, his enablers at Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, or Lou Dobbs to further invade their privacy.

The right is ruthless.

These conservatives are now using children (via exploitation using an unauthorized video) to advance their bigoted right-wing agenda.

As I wrote earlier, this is stupid, overblown and extremist even by far-right standards. It also shows these right wingers have learned nothing from their hysterical reactions to a speech that the president gave to school students weeks back.

The Politics Of Fear Are Spiraling Out Of Control For Conservatives

The politics of fear, divisiveness, ugliness, anger and hatred sadly were hallmarks of the failed presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin.

The fear, divisiveness, anger and hatred McCain and Palin attempted to harness, to build a successful campaign toward the White House, failed and merely set the stage for a level of anger we’re seeing today that should put a chill down the spine of this country. Hateful extremist conservatives have ratcheted up the hatred to seemingly the highest political DEFCON-type levels and have directed their disproportionate and misguided anger at President Barack Obama. Many of these same far-right conservatives, who were in full attack mode against President Clinton, then fell back into a soft zone defense during the President Bush years are now running a fastbreak of hate, anger and division against President Obama.

Today, far-right conservatives are attacking with reckless abandon.

As a nation, we witnessed this dangerous emotion throughout last year’s presidential campaign during several rallies put together to support McCain and Palin.

To his credit, near the end of the presidential campaign, it seemed McCain recognized the hatred had begun to spiral beyond control into a dangerous territory.

But, on Tuesday in his home state of Arizona, McCain recently got another whiff of the hatred that was sparked during his campaign. McCain attempted to tell his people that the president respects the constitution, but that he and other Republicans simply had differences of opinion as to how to guide the country. Whether or not that is the simple basis for the anger is debatable, but what is hardly debatable is the angry response that popped McCain upside the head.

“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” he told the crowd in Sun City, Airzona. “He is sincere in his beliefs, we just happen to disagree. And he is the president. And let’s be respectful.”

A questioner had asked whether Obama realized that the spending priorities his administration is pursuing are “against the Constitution.”

“Doesn’t he know that we still live under a Constitution?” the attendee asked.

“I’m sure that he does,” McCain responded. The crowd, thinking the response was a joke, laughed along.

“No, no. I am serious. I am sure that he does and I’m sure he respects the Constitution,” said McCain.

Shouts of “No” came from the crowd.

“I really do,” McCain pleaded. “I am absolutely convinced of it. I just believe, my friends, that there is a fundamental difference in philosophy and about the role of government. That is why we have competition for public office and competition amongst parties, and competition about different ideas and vision for the future of America. I’m convinced the president is absolutely sincere in his beliefs.”

Moderate conservatives have allowed (by not standing against it strongly enough) this hateful rhetoric (using code words like socialist, socialism, Nazi, Hitler and more) to sow the seeds of hate and hostility and portray the president (as we’ve seen with this ridiculous birther campaign pushed by far-right nuts) as “not one of us.”

This kind of talk is dangerous and is taking this country where it should not want to go.

More On Extremism From Jon Voight

Actor Jon Voight, with an Academy-award performance as a knowledgeable political activist, showed his extremism with his own words at a Republican hateraiser fundraiser.

VOIGHT: My most pressing concern at this hour is the safety of Israel.I think Obama has no idea that Israel was built on the blood and sweat of the Jewish people.Every blade of grass, every tree, has been a successful effort because the Jewish people understanding they would have a safe homeland forever. He could not possibly understand this or he would know that the Jewish people are tried time and time again to give the Palestinians land and bring a peaceful solution. But every attempt, every attempt, was returned with violence. The Palestinians used Gaza to attack Israel. As far as I’m concerned, their only agenda is to wipe Israel off the Earth. And he reprimands the Israeli people, Obama. Like he’s a professor and they’re the school children. I was embarrassed to watch his press conference with the great war hero, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has helped keep his country safe for many years. Obama sat there with complete arrogance that he is the new American power, that he is able to dictate what he thinks is best for Israel. So how worried are we supposed to be now? Was I hearing things when he said that Iran might have the right to nuclear power? Are we supposed to be sitting and waiting, watching for the possibility of a new Holocaust? Who’s going to take the responsibility to keep Ameri — Israel safe?

I’ll tell you why this really scares the hell out of me. Because everything Obama has recommended has turned out to be disasterous.His so-called stimulus package and his budgets will leave our grandchildren with great burdens and great debts. The government is now owning car companies and banks and we’re losing job after job. Our unemployment rate is an astronomic 9.4. And of course they send out Joe Biden, one of the great double-talkers of our time, to tell us the unemployment rate is getting better. The government wants to run health care and tell people what doctors they can see. How much they can make. What cars to drive. And they’re killing off the entrepreneurs who are the backbone of our economy. It’s no wonder that the Russian newspaper Pravda, the former house organ for the former Soviet Communist regime, has said the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath-taking speed.We can blame Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, George Soros, David Axelrod and their ilk for the downfall of this country. It saddens me greatly to think we were the great power for good in the world. We as Americans knew America to be strong. And we were the liberators of the entire world. We are becoming a weak nation. Obama really thinks that he is a soft-spoken Julius Ceaser. He thinks he’s going to conquer the world with his soft-spoken sweet talk. And really thinks he’s going to bring all the enemies of the world into a little playground where they’ll swing each other back and forth. We and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression.

And let’s give thanks to all the great people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, William Bennett, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, John Kasich, Michael Steele, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson, Shelby Steele, Charles Krauthammer, Michelle Malkin, Fred Barnes and so many others.Let’s give thanks to them for not giving up and staying the course to bring an end to this false prophet Obama.

These are the same old and tired Republican talking points that failed in the election of 2008, are failing now and will fail in the future. The Republicans had power and did little good with the power they had. President Bush and Vice President Cheney left us with mammoth debt, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opinions of the United States of America at an all-time low worldwide, a collapsing economy, a housing crisis, no health care reform and more. The American people rejected the Republican brand and this pilot-less ship continues to fly toward political oblivion. We can thank Voight for one thing (to partially make up for the lackluster movie Anaconda he gave us): identifying all the right-wing nuts (in the last paragraph).

At least in Anaconda, we had Jennifer Lopez.

In his speech, Jon Voight gave us nothing positive to appreciate.

Well, Sen. Mitch McConnell appreciated it. That should tell you something about him.

Think Progress:
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/06/09/mcconnell-voight-enjoyed/

How Will Conservative Fox News Commentator Bill O’Reilly Address Dr. George Tiller’s Murder?

The shocking murder of Dr. George Tiller of Kansas is making headlines in newspapers and on the Internet – all over the country. Dr. Tiller has come under heavy attack from hardcore extremists, including conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly of Fox News.

Consider this entry from the the Daily Kos that documents O’Reilly’s attacks on Dr. Tiller:

Since 2005, Bill O’Reilly has waged jihad against Dr. George Tiller, dedicating 29 segments of his show to demonizing and dehumanizing Tiller, who he invariably called “Tiller the baby killer.”

As you can see from these video clip samplings of O’Reilly’s holy war, you don’t have to actually pull the trigger to help sponsor terrorism.

Check out the Daily Kos page (video from Daily Kos is below) for documentation of O’Reilly’s war against Dr. Tiller.

Daily Kos:
http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001803/