Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 6:42:12 pm
The religious fanatics on the Texas State Board of Education are gearing up for another fundamentalist hoedown, as Chairwoman Gail Lowe tries to stack the panel that will review the state's science curriculum with creationist loons. Lowe has nominated more potential panelists than any other board member. And a number ...

Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 11:49:26 am
In addition to all the other wonderful things Republicans have been doing lately (union-busting, misogynistic anti-abortion legislation, tax breaks for the richest, keeping gays down), they've also introduced a record number of bills that promote the teaching of creationism in science classes as a valid alternative to evolution. Sometimes these ...

Thu, Mar 17, 2011 at 11:20:01 am
As expected, House Republicans voted en masse today to defund NPR. They had to rush it through with an "emergency meeting," before any more people got wise that James O'Keefe's sting video was a dishonest scam. Can't let a good smear go to waste. The proposal, sponsored by Rep. Doug Lamborn ...

Wed, Mar 16, 2011 at 12:54:09 pm
In March 2009, Florida Republican science denier Sen. Stephen Wise introduced an anti-evolution bill that quickly died in the legislature for lack of support. This year, though, after the influx of far right anti-science Tea Party candidates in 2010, Wise thinks his attempt to sneak creationism into public school science classes ...

Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 12:01:45 pm
Admitted criminal and right wing attack dog James O'Keefe didn't just target NPR with his phony Muslim organization scam; his cronies also contacted the Public Broadcasting System. According to PBS spokeswoman Anne Bentley, they had an initial conversation with O'Keefe's "Muslim Education Action Center," but put an end to discussions when ...

Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 3:42:56 pm
At Townhall.com (home of the execrable Pat Buchanan and a host of other deranged throwbacks), we find religious fanatic Terry Jeffrey (editor-in-chief of the religious right propaganda site CNS News) openly calling for the destruction of the public school system: Do Wisconsin's Public Schools Deserve to Survive? With the entire ...

Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 7:04:48 pm
I'd just like to say that I stand in solidarity with the workers and students of Wisconsin tonight, and against the right wing's war on employee unions.

Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 10:51:10 am
Salon's Joan Walsh points out that while left-wing journalist Nir Rosen was correctly denounced by everyone for his crude comments about assaulted reporter Lara Logan (and he then apologized and resigned from his job at NYU), right wing bloggers like Jim Hoft, Pamela Geller, and Robert Stacy McCain are getting ...

Tue, Feb 8, 2011 at 9:49:14 am
A survey by Science magazine reveals a very serious problem in American science education; a majority of biology teachers shy away from teaching the scientific theory of evolution, while a sizable minority are unashamed creationists. Researchers found that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the ...

Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 2:23:00 pm
Republican Thomas A. Anderson has introduced a bill to the New Mexico House of Representatives that will shield teachers who indoctrinate children with creationism and climate change denial. House Bill 302, as it’s called, states that public school teachers who want to teach “scientific weaknesses” about “controversial scientific topics” including ...

Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 11:52:37 am
Alaskan politician Andrew Halcro has a very interesting post on the appeal of Sarah Palin. In April of 2006, the morning after a debate at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Palin and I were sharing a cup of coffee at the Captain Cook. "I hear you spout off facts and ...

Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 11:37:54 am
It didn't get much notice, but Tea Party "libertarian" Rand Paul (R-AquaBuddha) released his personal federal budget yesterday; I have to give him some credit for being specific about what he would cut, unlike most Republicans, but this budget is a real hoot. Congressman Paul proposes to cut spending by more ...

Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 11:59:00 am
Remember John Freshwater -- the fanatic creationist Ohio "science teacher" who got in trouble for branding a cross into a student's arm with a high-voltage device? Two years later, Freshwater has finally been fired from his job -- a job he never should have been given in the first place. On ...

Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 12:04:25 pm
TPM writer Eric Kleefeld spoke with Gov. Haley Barbour's official spokesman, Dan Turner, about Barbour's statements in the Weekly Standard praising the segregationist "Citizens' Councils." To recap, here's the quote from the interview: “You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK,” said Barbour. ...

Thu, Dec 9, 2010 at 10:44:33 am
The Republican Party continues playing obstructionist politics with important issues, pandering to the nativist right wing base by blocking the DREAM Act. The so-called Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would have affected immigrants who entered the United States illegally as children under the age of 16 and ...

Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 3:15:29 pm
A classically incoherent run-on title from the Shrieking Harpy introduces her latest outrageous outrage: JIHADIST DEVELOPERS OF GROUND ZERO MOSQUE HIT UP 9/11 FUND TO REBUILD LOWER MANHATTAN FOR $5 MILLION JIZYA TO ERECT ISLAMIC SUPREMACIST MEGA-MOSQUE Imagine the gall of these Islamic supremacists. The very idea that the infidels should ...

Thu, Nov 18, 2010 at 11:34:27 am
General Motors went on the public market today, with one of the largest IPOs in US history, and from all accounts it was a monster success. GM is well on track to a full recovery; they've returned billions of dollars in bailout money to the federal government, and it looks like ...

Wed, Nov 17, 2010 at 5:37:53 pm
(Click to enlarge.)Here's an update to a story we covered last December, in which the creationist "think tank" called the Discovery Institute used a right wing front group to sneak a creationist film into the schedule of the California Science Center -- and then the front group promptly sued when ...

Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 3:16:56 pm
Since Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed the anti-evolution "Louisiana Science Education Act," the sponsors of this law have been oddly silent; but now the other shoes are starting to drop, as a group of citizens backed by the Christian Louisiana Family Forum (there's that "family" word again) are attacking the ...

Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 12:32:52 pm
One of the scariest social conservative concepts to come to fruition in the last 40 years is the so-called "Personhood" bill, which is actually on the ballot in Colorado, thanks to the Republican/Tea Party. The latest poll data suggests the bill will probably not pass, but it has a disturbing ...

Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 12:18:31 pm
In this political silly season, the Republican Party has been developing a new talking point intended to help sneak creationism into public schools; they're trying to hitch a ride on the Tea Party's "limited government" bandwagon, and pushing the idea that local schools should be able to teach creationism if ...

Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 12:46:34 pm
Rodney Ho happened to be scheduled to interview NPR CEO Vivian Schiller today, and got her first statements on the record about the firing of Juan Williams: First interview with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller on Juan Williams firing. Schiller says that Williams's statements on Bill O'Reilly's show were just the latest ...

Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 9:11:31 am
It's bad enough that creationists are constantly trying to get their nonsense published in school textbooks; but now we have neo-Confederates doing it too: Virginia 4th-grade textbook criticized over claims on black Confederate soldiers. And once again, behind this latest revisionist outrage we find the sleazy white supremacist hate group that ...

Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 3:22:23 pm
Peter Daou makes a good point about Christine O'Donnell's First Amendment gaffe -- to the right wing audience it was aimed at, this was not a gaffe. It's an article of faith (literally) on the right wing that separation of church and state was not the intention of the First Amendment. ...

Mon, Oct 18, 2010 at 12:18:11 pm
At the Tablet, Michelle Goldberg has an excellent and disturbing piece on the historical revisionist promoted by Glenn Beck as "the most important man in America" -- fundamental Christian theocrat David Barton: History Lesson. I've had several posts about Barton -- he's a fraud with no education as a historian (he ...