Randi Rhodes: Thug?!

If you turned on Fox News today, you’ll see the word “thug” repeated so often that you’ll think you’re watching a gangsta rap retrospective on MTV2. Between Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Karl Rove, the rightwing echo machine is throwing the word “thug” around more than Tupac, Biggie, and Trick Daddy rolled into one. Why “thug”? Because terms like “bully” just don’t have that extra zing of racism that the rightwing wants. The way they’re using “thug,” it’s a racial slur, and a vicious one at that. They shouldn’t even be allowed to say the word “thug” out loud. It should be called the “T-word.” And when Karl Rove uses the term, it definitely becomes a racial slur. Of course, that’s true of an awful lot of words.

Bizarre—a federal appeals court judge has reacted to President Obama’s comments about the Supreme Court by demanding that the Justice Department write an essay recognizing the Court’s authority. Really! The Obama administration was given extra homework for acting out! This is like some kind of weird punishment for a misbehaving school kid. Why didn’t the judge demand that they clean the blackboards too? The judge said “The letter needs to be at least three pages, single spaced, no less and it needs to be specific. It needs to make specific reference to the president’s statements.” Oh, and make sure you have footnotes too! And put it in one of those term paper binders that they sell at Staples!

Read Attorney General Holder's letter here

Everyone in the rightwing echo chamber is claiming the President questioned the Supreme Court’s authority to review the Constitutionality of a law. That’s because there’s nothing to criticize Obama about if they don’t make something up. For the record, President Obama never questioned the Supreme Court’s authority. Heck, he didn’t even question their judgment, which is something anyone familiar with Citizens United would want to do. On the contrary, the President said that he was confident that the Supreme Court would make the right decision. And now the rightwing is attacking him essentially just for saying that there is a right decision.

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FLASHBACK: GWB referring to judges he disagreed with as a "threat to democracy" in 2007...

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