Colleagues of mine have put together an impressively comprehensive report about the network of opportunists and nutcases who make a living ginning up anti-Muslim panic in America today. Take a look.
NEWS FLASH
Constituents Jeer Rep. Dan Lungren’s (R-CA) Support Of Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich | At a town hall last Wednesday attended by ThinkProgress, Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) was asked why he supports the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy since America has lost millions of jobs since its passage. When Lungren deflected, saying that everyone benefits from the Bush tax cuts and that Obama supported extending them, several people began jeering him. Lungren, who at one point threatened to leave the Carmichael town hall, said he doesn’t know of any economists who support raising taxes during a recession. Ironically, that same day the National Association for Business Economics released a study showing nearly three quarters of business economists stating they support raising revenues through taxes:
LUNGREN: Obama extended the tax cuts for several more years [...]
CONSTITUENT: You use the deficit ceiling to blackmail! That’s what you did. [...]
LUNGREN: I know of no economists who suggest we ought to raise taxes in the midst of a down turn in the economy.
Watch it:
Global News: Japan Adopts National Feed-in Tariff for Solar, Wind, Geothermal; China May Leave CDM in 2015
Wind turbines at a wind farm in Kamisu City, Japan.
Japan Spurs Solar, Wind Energy by Approving Subsidies for Renewable Power
Japan approved a bill today to subsidize electricity from renewable sources, joining European nations in shifting away from nuclear power after the Fukushima reactor meltdowns in March.
The renewable-energy bill was passed by the upper house following approval by the lower chamber on Aug. 23 and was one of the last acts of Prime Minister Naoto Kan, whose support sagged over his handling of Japan’s worst postwar disaster. He said today he’s resigning after parliament passed the legislation.
The bill allows for incentives that guarantee above-market rates for wind, solar and geothermal energy. The so-called feed- in tariff created a race to install solar panels when implemented in Germany and Spain.
Anti-Muslim Blogger Pamela Geller Lashes Out At Islamophobia Report: ‘Pile Of Dung Masquerading As Research’
Responding to CAP’s Islamophobia report, anti-Muslim activists David Horowitz called it “fascistic” and Robert Spencer deemed it the “agenda of the Islamic jihad.” Determined to one-up her Islamophobia network colleagues, Pamela Geller took to her blog on Friday evening to unleash a fiery tirade against the new report “Fear, Inc.”
Geller piles baseless, if at times colorful, allegations on the report’s authors. Including:
Over at the wildly funded machine of hate and lies, the “Center of American Progess,” the Soros cranks have spent hundreds of thousands producing a pile of dung masquerading as research. [...]
It reads more like a Mein Kampf treatise. The funding section of the report is outrageous. I have not seen one dime from any those donors, though they name me as a recipient. Lies. [...]
[MediaMatters and the Center for American Progress] mean to destroy this country, and they will crush anyone who gets in their way. [...]
This “report on Islamophobia” is Goebbels attacking the Jew. I wear it as a badge of honor. These quislings are the enemy. They fear my work, and that is good. They fear my book, Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. [...]
Watch them choke on their own vomit.
Geller’s only factual issue with the report is that “I have not received one cent from any of these funders they attempt to tie me to.” But the report never claims that Geller receives any money from the seven funders who contributed $42.6 million to the Islamophobia network. Indeed, Geller is probably one of the few individuals who requires little money from outside donors. Last year, The New York Times reported:
Ms. Geller got nearly $4 million when [she and Michael H. Oshry] divorced in 2007, and when Mr. Oshry died in 2008, there was a $5 million life-insurance policy benefiting her four daughters, said Alex Potruch, Mr. Oshry’s lawyer. She also kept some proceeds from the sale of Mr. Oshry’s $1.8 million house in Hewlett Harbor.
Geller, much like her colleagues Robert Spencer and David Horowitz, uses the report as an opportunity to solicit readers for contributions while never meaningfully challenging the factual accuracy of the 130-page report on Geller and her anti-Muslim allies. While unsurprising and certainly not out of the norm for Geller, her response to the report underlines the bigotry, hatred and intolerance exhibited by many member of the Islamophobia network.
Update
Last night, ThinkProgress editor-in-chief Faiz Shakir discussed the Islamophobia network with Keith Olbermann:
