North Iowa Tea Party displays billboard comparing Obama to Hitler.
The North Iowa Tea party, like many sympathizers of the movement, denounce media attempts to portray tea party members as extreme or outside the mainstream. On its website, the North Iowa Tea party links directly to a report by the conservative Media Research Center that decries the media’s characterization of Tea Party protesters as “‘ugly,’ ‘unruly,’ ‘nasty’ mobs, with reporters presenting the most odious images (such as pictures of Obama drawn as Hitler) as somehow representative of the entire group.” Ironically, despite disassociating themselves from Obama-Hitler comparisons in the past, the North Iowa Tea Party is now a leading propagator of this abhorrent image. Last week, they created a billboard that features President Obama “flanked” by Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Lenin:
A new billboard in downtown Mason City features a photo of President Obama, flanked by pictures of German dictator Adolph Hitler and Communist leader Vladimir Lenin.
The billboard features phrases like “Live Free or Die” and “Radical leaders prey on the fearful and naive.”
It’s the same spot where a billboard last fall featured the phrase “Obama-Nation, Live Free or Die” with the Communist symbol of a hammer and sickle. The billboards were paid for by the North Iowa Tea Party.
Iowa Tea Party leaders now say they disagree with the use of the pictures, but not the Obama-is-Hitler message. North Iowa Tea Party co-founder Bob Johnson stated that while the “the pictures might be overwhelming,” the sign “highlights” the right message. Iowa state Tea Party coordinator John White agrees that while the “sign goes” where “the Tea Party doesn’t want to be”, “everything Obama has done is ‘lock-step’ with what Hitler did in his day.”
The tea nuts are nothing but conservatives that shroud their radicalism in fake patriotism and conspiracy theories. Everything they claim is socialists is either some program that started during Bush's presidency - like TARP and the GM bail-out. health care reform is a gift to private health insurance companies and health care corporations that will millions in new profits. How could these wackos not be described as extremists without a clue.
Manufactured scandal: Right wing's phony allegations against the Justice Department
A Clarification on the NBPP Case.
The original complaint in the NBPP case alleged that the behavior of the men outside the polling station was part of a larger scheme to disenfranchise white voters ("Prior to the election, Defendant New Black Panther Party For Self-Defense made statements and posted notice that over 300 members of the New Black Panther Party For Self-Defense would be deployed at polling locations during voting on November 4th 2008 throughout the United States"). But there's no evidence that's the case -- no voters in Philadelphia or elsewhere came forward to say they had been intimidated. One of them actually had a poll watching certificate, and the remarks from the NBPP leader state the obvious -- that the NBPP thought they were protecting blacks from being disenfranchised by whites. Basically what you have -- to the extent that you have anything -- is a conspiracy to wear black clothing outside of polling stations as part of a fringe group, which career attorneys at the Department of Justice weren't comfortable prosecuting as a violation of the Voting Rights Act.Eek! Black Panthers!
In fact, no voters at all in the Philadelphia precinct have come forward to allege intimidation. The complaints have come from white Republican poll watchers, who have given no evidence they were registered to vote in the majority black precinct.
An Associated Press story inaccurately described the scene as one where white voters were being intimidated by the Black Panther members. The only white people at the scene that day appeared to be the Republican poll watchers. And Fox News host Megyn Kelly inaccurately described video taken of the incident as made by a “voter.” In fact, the video was made by Stephen Robert Morse, a blogger hired by the local Republican Party on behalf of the John McCain presidential campaign.
The Philadelphia video also did not capture any racial slurs, although the two Black Panthers were shown in an earlier National Geographic documentary using derogatory terms against whites. The Southern Poverty Law Center has classified the New Black Panther Party as a hate group.
The incident allegedly took place was at 1221 Fairmount Avenue in Philadelphia, where approximately 65% of the nearby residents are black.
A civil complaint was filed against the NBP by the Bush Justice Department on January 7, 2009. J. Christian Adams, a former Bush Campaign poll watcher, conservative activist, and now Fox News pundit, was the prosecutor assigned to the case. Adams had no experience in voting rights law or civil rights law when he was hired, but he did have an extensive background in Republican politics. When the Bush Justice Department decided to drop the case against all but one of the defendants, Adams was silent. But last month he resigned in protest. DOJ cited the lack of a pattern of intimidation and the fact that no voters actually came forward to say they had been intimidated. The Civil Rights Commission held a hearing about the matter last April:
"No citizen has even alleged that he or she was intimidated from voting." In an April 23 hearing on the DOJ's decision in the case, Civil Rights Commissioner Arlan Melendez stated that "no citizen has even alleged that he or she was intimidated from voting," which "was clear to the Justice Department last spring, which is why they took the course of action that they did."
Media Matters has published an extensive write-up of Adams and the "manufactured outrage" on the right.
