Brendon Ayanbadejo sez NOH8!

The brouhaha about the idiotic letter that Maryland state delegate Emmett C. Burns Jr. (D) wrote last month to Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti regarding Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo’s outspoken advocacy of a Maryland ballot initiative legalizing gay marriage, inspired Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe to pen his own response to Burns.

It’s a doozy. A classic, even.

Burns original letter to Steve Biscotti urged him to “inhibit such expressions from your employee.” 36-year-old Ayanbadejo traces his support for gay rights back to his mid-teen years living with his family in a dorm for gay and transgender students at the UC Santa Cruz. Ayanbadejo’s step-father was the dorm’s headmaster.

In recent months, Brendon has taped a web-only video for the Maryland same-sex marriage campaign, written a Huffington Post editorial in support of marriage equality and offered a pair of tickets to tonight’s season-opening game against the Cincinnati Bengals to raise money for the cause. The backlash against Emmett Burns is largely seen as a “win” for supporters of gay rights.

Here’s a pointed excerpt from Minnesota Viking Chris Kluwe’s razor sharp open letter to Burns published on Deadspin. Extra points to Kluwe for use of the term “cockmonster” and for calling Burns a “narcissistic fromunda stain”:

What on earth would possess you to be so mind-boggingly stupid? It baffles me that a man such as yourself, a man who relies on that same First Amendment to pursue your own religious studies without fear of persecution from the state, could somehow justify stifling another person’s right to speech. To call that hypocritical would be to do a disservice to the word. Mindfucking obscenely hypocritical starts to approach it a little bit.

Wait, he’s just getting warmed up:

This is more a personal quibble of mine, but why do you hate freedom? Why do you hate the fact that other people want a chance to live their lives and be happy, even though they may believe in something different than you, or act different than you? How does gay marriage, in any way shape or form, affect your life? If gay marriage becomes legal, are you worried that all of a sudden you’ll start thinking about penis? “Oh shit. Gay marriage just passed. Gotta get me some of that hot dong action!” Will all of your friends suddenly turn gay and refuse to come to your Sunday Ticket grill-outs? (Unlikely, since gay people enjoy watching football too.)

I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won’t come into your house and steal your children. They won’t magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won’t even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children. You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you?

In closing, I would like to say that I hope this letter, in some small way, causes you to reflect upon the magnitude of the colossal foot in mouth clusterfuck you so brazenly unleashed on a man whose only crime was speaking out for something he believed in. Best of luck in the next election; I’m fairly certain you might need it.

Kluwe signs off by telling Burns:

P.S. I’ve also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay marriage so you can take your “I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing” and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it. Asshole.

The whole thing is absolutely worth reading.

Brendon Ayanbadejo says he plans to continue supporting same-sex marriage and has offered to assist Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley with more fundraising for the issue. Ten of his fellow players on the Ravens have offered their support. He says the change in attitude within the NFL (other players used to joke that Ayanbadejo was gay, but he’s married with two kids) “has happened faster than I ever thought it would happen.”

This morning, Emmett Burns appeared to take a step back from the near universal condemnation his letter has generated, according to The Baltimore Sun:

“Upon reflection, he has his First Amendment rights,” Del. Emmett C. Burns Jr., a Baltimore County Democrat, said in a telephone interview. “And I have my First Amendment rights. … Each of us has the right to speak our opinions. The football player and I have a right to speak our minds.”

Ayanbadejo hopes that Pastor Burns will “open his heart” on the issue. In the meantime, Ellen DeGeneres has invited Brendon Ayanbadejo to fly to California for a live appearance on her show. Ravens team president Dick Cass has indicated the team would respond to Burns “in time” and hoped that Brendon would continue to speak his mind about matters that are important to him.

Maryland will be one of four states to vote on same-sex marriage in November. The issue has never been upheld by referendum, which is why what Brendon Ayanbadejo (and Chris Kluwe) and other straight people—this is crucial—are doing and saying is so very, very important.

Emmett C. Burns Jr. has had to endure public mockery for his antiquated views. Public mockery seems appropriate to me in this case—after all Burns is the one who pulled the trigger on this in the first place—but it’s also the sort of experience that might change the man. If everyone seems to be pointing at you and laughing, maybe there’s a good reason for that. Maybe it’s because you ARE the idiot.

Maybe it’s time for a little soul-searching Mr. Burns.

To Chris Kluwe and Brendon Ayanbadejo, you’re good citizens one of the highest compliments I have to offer. I’m proud to share a country with guys like you.
 

Those fucking Disney Obama communists also serve FRENCH fries at the American Pavilion! FRENCH fries! Call the Tea party!

GOP delegates Mark and Irene Harris, of Snyder County, Pennsylvania, were “highly offended” to see a Mexican employee working at the “American Pavilion” of Disney World’s Epcot Center, as Irene posted on their “Rock Star GOP” blog from the GOP national convention in Tampa:

Prior to National Republican Convention we visited Disney for three days.  During our time at Epcot we visited the different countries.  It was neat seeing each country and the employees were from that individual country.  Then we visited America . . . one would think you would find American employees.  We were offended to find a person from Mexico working in America.  Mark spoke up and told them he was highly offended after visiting the other countries and seeing employees from that country and then come to America and find a Mexican.  He was very civil but his point was well made.

I’ll bet it was. Imagine being the manager who had to absorb that piece of Mark’s tiny mind… I can’t currently think of anything that could be more painful. Or stupid.

According to their website, “Mark and Irene are both pro‐life, believe marriage is between one man and one woman, are for open records and transparency, believe in very conservative principles and the Republican platform.”

Sounds about right to me! To this information, I have nothing, absolutely nothing, to add.
 

 
Via Think Progress

 
As an unapologetic IQ snob, I was both appalled and yet amused by the abject stupidity and irrational xenophobia exhibited by Tea Party Express chairwoman Amy Kremer over the weekend when she was asked a direct question by CNN’s Soledad O’Brien about something idiotic that she had posted on Twitter.

As is obvious from the video, Amy Kremer was ready, willing and quite able to inflict her aggressive ignorance on CNN’s global audience. Watching her strain to verbalize her tiny thoughts like turds that would just not plop out was nothing short of incredibly painful… but funny.

Kremer says Mitt Romney “loves America” whereas with the black guy currently occupying the Oval Office it’s “about more a global — having, uh, global, um, oh what’s the word? Being more global, one-world, with other countries, and it’s not about the shining city on the hill, the greatness that has always been America that our Founding Fathers were all about.”

Sarah Palin herself would have winced if she’d have witnessed Amy Kremer’s nincompoopish attempt to Madlib her way out of O’Brien’s question. The muted, comical reactions from the bemused newscaster and the other guests is fairly priceless, especially the reporter who calmly tries to school the inarticulate buffoon sitting beside him. Normally, you would expect to hear the rest of the panel vociferously rebutting such ridiculous, unintelligent statements of questionable “facts” but in the case of the shockingly brain-dead Amy Kremer, it’s obvious that none of them seem to think she’s worth much of an effort! (They’re right.)

A question for CNN’s bookers: What value (besides the lulz) does someone as utterly devoid of intelligence as Amy Kremer OBVIOUSLY IS bring to your newscast?

Then what the fuck is she doing there?

Hey, CNN, why not just invite Jessica Simpson on to see what she thinks about politics and shit? I’d much rather see her on CNN, because at the very least she’s got one up on Kremer since she’s probably figured out the difference between tuna and chicken by now!
 

 
Via Wonkette

 
Australian heiress, Gina Rinehart, the world’s wealthiest woman is either totally batshit crazy, a closet Marxist prankster or else she is Mitt Romney’s drag alter ego…

Rinehart—who inherited her fortune and ferrous oxide-rich land holdings from her father, and who is estimated to make $600 per second—thinks Australian workers are overpaid and that the iron-ore business there will be abandoned by Chinese firms seeking cheaper iron ore elsewhere, such as Africa, where Rinehart says miners are “willing to work for less than $2 per day.”

Via Raw Story:

In a video recently posted on the Sydney Mining Club website, 58-year-old Gina Rinehart — who has amassed a $18 billion fortune through iron-ore prospecting — said that Australia could be more competitive by emulating Africa.

“We must be realistic, not just promote class warfare,” the billionaire explained. “Indeed, if we competed at the Olympic games as sluggishly as we compete economically, there would be an outcry.”

“The evidence is unarguable that Australia is indeed becoming too expensive and too uncompetitive to do export- orientated business,” she insisted, adding that “Africans want to work. Its workers are willing to work for less than $2 per day.”

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard dismissed Rinehart when speaking to reporters Wednesday. “It’s not the Australian way to toss people $2, to toss them a $2 gold coin and then ask them to work for a day,” she said. “We support proper Australian wages and decent working conditions for Australian people.”

Last week Rinehart wrote a column for a mining industry magazine advised people who are “jealous” of the über-wealthy—like heiress Rinehart herself, of course, people jealous of her—to “spend less time drinking or smoking and socializing, and more time working.”

Who thought she was going to top that one so fast?

I nominate Gina Rinehart as the undisputed winner of the “Marie Antoinette of the 21st century” award (not that Kirsten Dunst will be playing her in the movie version of her life. Too bad Ernest Borgnine isn’t around for the role).

Now off with her head!
 

 
It’s well-known to be the only weekly TV series that President Obama watches with his daughters and on Tuesday, Ann Romney told Entertainment Tonight that Modern Family is her favorite show, too.

Modern Family co-creator Steven Levitan responded on Twitter:

“Thrilled Ann Romney says ModFam is her favorite show. We’ll offer her the role of officiant at Mitch & Cam’s wedding. As soon as it’s legal.”

Thrilled Ann Romney says ModFam is her favorite show. We’ll offer her the role of officiant at Mitch & Cam’s wedding. As soon as it’s legal.

— Steve Levitan (@SteveLevitan) August 28, 2012

 
Nice one. Actor Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays uptight lawyer, Mitch, on Modern Family chimed in with:
 

I have to say, I’m actually thrilled Mitt & Ann Romney love “Modern Family”. I hope it sparks something in them! #Equality

I have to say, I’m actually thrilled Mitt & Ann Romney love “Modern Family”. I hope it sparks something in them! #Equality

— Jesse Tyler Ferguson (@jessetyler) August 29, 2012

 
UPDATE: CNN did finally go on air about this, but I can’t say that I was impressed.

As you’ve probably already heard last night an attendee of the Republican National Convention in Tampa was ejected from the venue for tossing peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman and taunting her with “this is how we feed animals.”

Follow up reports this morning say that there were actually two people thrown out of the convention center for this despicable low IQ nonsense and this, as TPM’s Josh Marshall writes, puts CNN in a bit of a difficult bind:

Now, one of the more interesting things about this story is that it broke on TPM. Actually, not quite. We first saw a tweet from David Shuster. Then we got confirmation of what happened from CNN and were the first to run the story. (This morning the RNCC essentially confirmed something rotten had happened.) But you may have noticed that one of the biggest news organizations in the world — CNN — has been remarkably tight-lipped about this.

So it’s worth noting why that probably is. There’s a normal and correct tendency for a news outfit not to want to make itself into the story. But this goes way beyond that and puts CNN in an exquisitely awkward position. CNN has been bending over backwards of late trying to position itself as the last holy beacon of objectivity and fairness in cable news, as Fox and MSNBC play to more clearly partisan audiences. Yet they’re under almost constant assault from conservatives for alleged (and basically mythical) liberal bias.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Convention is the GOP’s quadrennial ‘we love us a lotta non-white people’ fest. And given what I said above the last possible thing CNN wants is to rain on that parade or become the focus of a huge messaging nightmare if attendees were harassing an African-American member of their team. Certainly, the Convention organizers want to avoid discussion as much as possible too.

As a side note, one can only imagine how Fox News would be going to town over this had something somehow analogous happened to one of their staffers at a Democratic convention.

Journalists don’t tend to like non-transparency from other news organizations. And CNN’s relative silence (they did finally put out a basic report this morning) will, I suspect, generate a backlash from viewers outraged by the incident.

If this incident isn’t the breaking point for CNN, when will that breaking point EVER occur?

Aren’t any of them—besides Soledad O’Brien, who is clearly a fan of the series—watching The Newsroom?
 

Image via Billionaires for Wealthcare

Although Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Congressional Republicans as a whole are trying to take the offense on Medicare by painting Obamacare as siphoning off funds from Medicare that will materially harm seniors—it worked like a charm in the 2010 midterm elections—an article that appeared this morning on Talking Points Memo about Romney and Ryan’s actual intentions re: Medicare is getting a lot of attention.

As has been noted repeatedly, that strategy requires Romney and Ryan to disavow Medicare reforms the GOP recently endorsed overwhelmingly as a part of the party’s budget, which Ryan authored.

[Good luck with that one, boys]

From “Mitt’s Medicare Strategy: Don’t Tell Seniors Truth”:

All along Romney has been claiming that he and Paul Ryan won’t change Medicare for existing beneficiaries — only for the people who will get old in the “future.”

[Like nearly all of us, yeah?]

Now Romney’s own advisers and campaign surrogates are saying that this ain’t so.

As outlined in a memo the campaign released Saturday, Romney plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act in its entirety, and thus to spend over $700 billion more on the program in the coming decade than the government would spend if the health care law stands.

That commitment would leave Medicare poised for insolvency in 2016, years before he proposes to phase in the voucher system. Which means Romney would have two options: find new Medicare cuts or taxes to extend the life of the program, or preside over its demise.

On Fox News Sunday, Romney adviser Ed Gillespie tried to address the conundrum. “There are other reforms as well. As you know Governor Romney supports increasing over time bringing the Medicare eligibility age in line with the Social Security retirement age.”

But raising the Medicare eligibility age is a benefit cut, and implementing the increase before 2016 would violate Romney’s pledge to leave the program unchanged for people between ages 55 and 65.

Avik Roy, an outside health care adviser to the Romney campaign, admits that committing to billions of dollars in higher Medicare spending in the near-term will make it difficult for Romney to achieve its separate goal of reducing overall federal spending to modern lows. But he notes that Romney could make up the difference elsewhere in the budget or, by “mak[ing] other changes to the Medicare program, such as increased means-testing, that don’t alter the program’s basic structure.”

Further means-testing of Medicare would amount to a benefit cut to current seniors.

These admissions rest on top of the fact that by repealing the Affordable Care Act, Romney would wipe out new Medicare benefits included in the law. Repeal would result in higher payments to doctors and hospitals, and the restoration of overpayments to insurers participating in Medicare advantage. But for beneficiaries, it would re-open the Medicare prescription drug donut hole and eliminate coverage for preventive services and annual checkups that the ACA created.

Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan would cost senior citizens an additional $6400 or more a year out of pocket! Did you hear that Republican retirees? Considering that Paul Ryan’s “voucher” amounts to “Here’s a coupon for your old age, go fuck yourself oldster and please hurry up and die” HOW IN THE WORLD—at a time in history where far fewer than half of the American population has anywhere NEAR the amount of savings they’ll need to retire on—-can the Republicans think running on a platform that essentially says to senior citizens: “Let them eat Advil!” is anything but a very, very bad idea?!?

A “wheelchair army” would come to Washington, DC and kill them all if Paul Ryan’s plan were put into place. Every damned one of them. You have to shake your head in amazement at people who are anywhere near retirement age who would vote Republican. It’s beyond idiocy.

I had a friend who died when he was 94 years old. How in the hell would, say, even a spry 84-year-old, just come up with another $6k a year? How the fuck would you do it at that age? Get a job as a greeter at Home Depot? Flip some burgers at McDonald’s? Slot machines? The fucking lottery? Pulling it out of your ass? INVESTING IN WALL STREET???

It’s preposterous… and it’s pretty much what the Republicans have in store for you. For YOUR old age! Nope, it’s not an abstraction, dumbshit Fox News viewers and “low information voters,” (LIV) it’s your “golden years” that Mitt is talkin’ ‘bout!

The Democrats, if they play their cards right politically (which they never, ever do, but might it happen by accident?) could inflict some major damage to the Republicans this election if they’d run a few commercials with a wheezing 90-year-old dealing with bill collectors, having to choose between food and his prescriptions and being told “We’re sorry sir, your coverage won’t pay for dialysis anymore” by a kindly-faced nurse who smiles as she shuts the door in his face.

The same actor in all of them. Maybe it’s a couple. Yes! It’s a couple, even better.

Remember those famous Taster’s Choice coffee commercials with the serialized narrative of the flirting good looking yuppie neighbors back in the 90s? Now imagine the flipside of that: That same couple is old, retired and the 83-year-old husband husband is eating Ramen noodles so they can keep the lights on in their apartment.

An elderly man staring straight ahead has tears running down his face. CAMERA PULLS OUT, REVEALING his wife, asleep in a medical bed in their living room with IV drips and heart monitors beeping softly in the background.  He is holding his sleeping wife’s hand.

The camera sees collection notices in his hands. The top one, which the camera lingers on long enough to read indicates that their gas and electricity is about to be shut off

The man, sobbing, lays his head on sleeping wife’s body.

The lights in their apartment sputter and go off.

The heart monitor stops beeping.

 
When I first saw the item about this on Joe.My.God. I automatically assumed that it was authentic because, well, if these things were real they’d probably sell millions of them.

A gay rights group should sell a similar item as a stealth fundraiser and separate some bigoted fools from their money (again).
 

 
A statement from Marxist intellectual Slavoj Žižek on the Pussy Riot trial
 

The True Blasphemy

Pussy Riot members accused of blasphemy and hatred of religion? The answer is easy: the true blasphemy is the state accusation itself, formulating as a crime of religious hatred something which was clearly a political act of protest against the ruling clique. Recall Brecht’s old quip from his Beggars’ Opera: “What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a new bank?” In 2008, Wall Street gave us the new version: what is the stealing of a couple of thousand of dollars, for which one goes to prison, compared to financial speculations that deprive tens of millions of their homes and savings, and are then rewarded by state help of sublime grandeur? Now, we got another version from Russia, from the power of the state: What is a modest Pussy Riot obscene provocation in a church compared to the accusation against Pussy Riot, this gigantic obscene provocation of the state apparatus which mocks any notion of decent law and order?

Was the act of Pussy Riot cynical? There are two kinds of cynicism: the bitter cynicism of the oppressed which unmasks the hypocrisy of those in power, and the cynicism of the oppressors themselves who openly violate their own proclaimed principles. The cynicism of Pussy Riot is of the first kind, while the cynicism of those in power — why not call their authoritarian brutality a Prick Riot — is of the much more ominous second kind.

Back in 1905, Leon Trotsky characterized tsarist Russia as “a vicious combination of the Asian knout and the European stock market.” Does this designation not hold more and more also for the Russia of today? Does it not announce the rise of the new phase of capitalism, capitalism with Asian values (which, of course, has nothing to do with Asia and everything to do with the anti-democratic tendencies in today’s global capitalism). If we understand cynicism as ruthless pragmatism of power which secretly laughs at its own principles, then Pussy Riot are anti-cynicism embodied. Their message is: IDEAS MATTER. They are conceptual artists in the noblest sense of the word: artists who embody an Idea. This is why they wear balaclavas: masks of de-individualization, of liberating anonymity. The message of their balaclavas is that it doesn’t matter which of them got arrested — they’re not individuals, they’re an Idea. And this is why they are such a threat: it is easy to imprison individuals, but try to imprison an Idea!

The panic of those in power — displayed by their ridiculously excessive brutal reaction — is thus fully justified. The more brutally they act, the more important symbol Pussy Riot will become. Already now the result of the oppressive measures is that Pussy Riot are a household name literally all around the world.

It is the sacred duty of all of us to prevent that the courageous individuals who compose Pussy Riot will not pay in their flesh the price for their becoming a global symbol.

—Slavoj Žižek

 
Although best-selling author David Barton is held in high esteem by Republican pols like idiot queen Michele Bachmann (to whom he’s a “national treasure”) and Chick-fil-A booster Mike Huckabee (who calls him “the single best historian in America today”) as well as by conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck (who went even further out on a limb than Huckabee, calling Barton “the most important man in America”!) anyone with half a brain who has followed the career of David Barton knows that he is little more than a shameless rightwing Christian fabulist, making things up out of thin air and then claiming that they actually happened. Some people, who don’t know any better, i.e., his readers, actually believe him.

David Barton, you see, is the historian of the Tea party. There is practically nothing his audience of goofy ignoramuses won’t swallow hook line and sinker from him, even though it’s easily demonstrable bullshit. If you know your ass from your elbow, you would be highly suspicious that there was very little of scholarly value in Barton’s “research.” (Barton says of his critics: “I don’t know if it’s jealousy or liberalism.”)

Some of Barton’s greatest shits include claims that Jesus Christ would have been opposed to the minimum wage and socialized medicine, that the Constitution quotes the Bible “verbatim” and that Thomas Jefferson sent missionaries to convert the Indians to Christianity!

His biggest fib, of course, is that the Founding Fathers were all devout Christians and that America was founded on Christian principles to be a nation for Christians, and governed by Christians.

What percentage of Americans, do you think, would know the truth of the matter anyway? A depressing thought, of course, for most of us. For David Barton, however, these knuckleheads are his bread and butter!

Barton specializes in pulling “facts” out of his ass to bedazzle the folks who show up for his WallBuilders sermon/lectures around the country with amazing things they never knew about American history. Amazing things that never actually happened! But. again, what do they know? When David Barton is introduced to them as a best-selling author—and indeed he IS one—he would have certain presumed bona fides to an audience that is almost always comprised exclusively of white, evangelical Christians who vote Republican. Even when what Barton has to say is complete nonsense, his audience, taking their cues from the solemn heads nodding in agreement all around them, have no way of knowing that what he is telling them is bunk and so Barton’s “assertions” becomes history to them.

It’s pathetic. No wonder Glenn Beck holds Barton in such high regard. They’ve got similar shticks.

As with Beck, Barton’s entire career of telling historical lies, is predicated on the necessary ingredient of an audience of Billy-Bobs Bojangles who “don’t know much about history” (as in next to NOTHING) who just want to hear their “ideas” about stuff confirmed in a room full of people who look and think just like they do. Barton’s talent is telling an audience of not very bright people (I’m not being unkind here) who are predisposed to want to hear something that sounds like something they already believe (like the Founding Fathers were religious) so as to confirm that not only are God and Jesus on THEIR side, the Tea party, Christian team side, but George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams as well.

The Jefferson Lies was recently voted the “Least Credible History Book in Print” by the readers of the History News Network. There’s no surprise why “fact improviser” Michele Bachmann likes it so much, is there? Sen. Marco Rubio and Newt Gingrich are also fans.

However, it’s been a very bad couple of days to be David Barton. First there was the hilariously brutal—yet strangely polite—takedown of Barton yesterday on NPR’s “All Things Considered” program.

Several Cincinnati-area African-American pastors announced that they were boycotting the Thomas Nelson company—the world’s largest Christian publisher—for publishing David Barton’s Jefferson book, claiming he “whitewashes” Jefferson, a well-known slave owner.

Then World, a Christian news website, ran an article sharply critical of Barton as well. From “The David Barton Controversy”:

Jay W. Richards, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and author with James Robison of Indivisible: Restoring Faith, Family, and Freedom Before It’s Too Late, spoke alongside Barton at Christian conferences as recently as last month. Richards says in recent months he has grown increasingly troubled about Barton’s writings, so he asked 10 conservative Christian professors to assess Barton’s work.

Their response was negative…

And then the unthinkable happened: Thomas Nelson dropped The Jefferson Lies, as World reported today in a follow-up:

The Thomas Nelson publishing company has decided to cease publication and distribution of David Barton’s controversial book, The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed about Thomas Jefferson, saying it has “lost confidence in the book’s details.” (See “The David Barton controversy,” Aug. 8.)

Casey Francis Harrell, Thomas Nelson’s director of corporate communications, told me the publishing house “was contacted by a number of people expressing concerns about [The Jefferson Lies].” The company began to evaluate the criticisms, Harrell said, and “in the course of our review learned that there were some historical details included in the book that were not adequately supported. Because of these deficiencies we decided that it was in the best interest of our readers to stop the publication and distribution.”

Ouch, ouch and double ouch.

David Barton will be a special delegate from Texas to the Republican National Convention. Of course!