Part of ProgressNow Colorado's mission is to counter the right-wing message machine, and invariably that really ticks off the far-right and the unfortunate souls who actually believe the likes of the leader of the Republican Party, Rush Limbaugh.

Earlier this week, I sent out a message to our members in the 4th Congressional District that seems to have struck a nerve. We asked folks to sign our thank-you card to Representative Betsy Markey for her leadership and favorable vote on the House climate change bill known as "ACES."

Here's a sampling of the hate mail I received from the far right. Particularly interesting is the misogynistic tone many of them took. I wonder if they speak to their wives and mothers like this? Names and addresses removed to protect the moronic...spelling and grammar errors left intact.

New unemployment data came out showing the job market continues to worsen.

My Facebook friends reflect this. Four times this week, friends of mine have announced their availability in the job market via their Facebook statuses.

Colorado has lost almost 100,000 jobs in the past year according to the Colorado Dept. of Labor and Employment.

Only a fraction of the stimulus money has been spent, and most of that has come in the form of food stamps and extended unemployment benefits, and other direct assistance programs as opposed to public infrastructure projects. There is wisdom in taking the time to ensure that projects are sound and the money is not wasted, but it is frustrating to see that money delayed.

Read this piece from Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic. It's pretty biting, and yet there's nothing I can see with it that is untrue. What's wrong with this picture?

Here we are, in the summer of 2009, with gay servicemembers still being fired for the fact of their orientation. Here we are, with marriage rights spreading through the country and world and a president who cannot bring himself even to acknowledge these breakthroughs in civil rights, and having no plan in any distant future to do anything about it at a federal level. Here I am, facing a looming deadline to be forced to leave my American husband for good, and relocate abroad because the HIV travel and immigration ban remains in force and I have slowly run out of options (unlike most non-Americans with HIV who have no options at all).

And what is Obama doing about any of these things? What is he even intending at some point to do about these things? So far as I can read the administration, the answer is: nada. We're firing Arab linguists? So sorry. We won't recognize in any way a tiny minority of legally married couples in several states because they're, ugh, gay? We had no idea. There's a ban on HIV-positive tourists and immigrants? Really? Thanks for letting us know. Would you like to join Joe Solmonese and John Berry for cocktails? The inside of the White House is fabulous these days.

Good.

Every session, somebody drops in a bill that makes suspicion of not wearing a seat belt a primary offense for cops to pull you over. Of course everyone should be wearing their seat belt. And in a perfect world, this might not be a bad idea for a law. But it's been shown time and time again around the country that blacks and latinos get stopped by police disproportionately, and this traffic law would only provide another excuse for law enforcement to pull someone over for the crime of DWB.

Even ignoring all the studies about racial bias in police stops, I don't want to be subject to this law. My car has an adjustable-height shoulder belt. You can not tell I am wearing my seat belt unless you're looking right in the driver's side window or through the front windshield. I could get pulled over every day for that reason.

So kudos to the legislature for once again killing this very stupid bill. Along with the dumb RIAA bill that comes up every year to forbid me from selling CDs of music that I myself composed, arranged, and performed, hopefully the DWB bill will continue to die annually like the weeds in my yard.

Editor's note: the roll-call vote shows that GOP Rep. Mike Coffman did in fact vote for the Hate Crimes Prevention Act. We regret the error and thank Rep. Coffman for his support.

By a vote of 249 to 175, the House of Representatives just passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. All of Colorado's Democratic representatives voted for the bill.

Watch Representative Polis speak during the debate, it's very good:

Watch Representative Markey speak in favor of the bill (she rocks!)

The trial of Angie Zapata's accused murderer Allen Andrade has reached a milestone in that the prosecution has rested its case. So far we've heard all kinds of heinous testimony and evidence of hatred and violence in this case.

You can follow the rest of the trial on AngieZapata.com include live updates viw Twitter from the courtroom from Pam's House Blend blogger Autumn Sandeen and the Greeley Tribune, all aggregated on this site.

That's what it's all about, baby!

Just check out all of this patriotic merchandise. Get your "Got a birth certificate?" bumper sticker, or your "Obama bin Lyin" pro-impeachment sticker. What about "Rush is right"?

My favorite is the intro text, in which they are clearly bypassed by the double-entendre:

The Reagan.org / Patriot Depot duo has been invited to display our tea bags at the official tea party in Washington DC at the US Treasury Department (National Stage) 12:00pm-2:00pm and Lafayette Park (Grassroots Stage) 11:00am-3:00pm. The media has been invited to watch us unload the tea bags at 9:00 AM. The tea bags are going to serve as the back drop for the events at Lafayette Park. Later that day, we will be heading a short distance over to the Treasury department for an authorized protest with the tea bags. Major Media, including Fox News, will be there.

Pardon me while I adjust my teabags... In my Luzianne iced Arnold Palmer, of course--not the other thing.

Noxious talk show host Glenn Beck and his odious cronies at Faux News would like you to believe that these "protests" springing up across the nation are entirely spontaneous occurrences from the grassroots, just fed and watered a bit by Beck.

That's so transparently false that it's amazing any respectable news outlet would cover these things with anything more than the scorn and derision that they deserve.

Case in point, examine a selection of e-mails that have come into my inbox over the past several months hyping their little tea-tantrums... just the subject lines and authors, or this post would be ten miles long.

Nearly 70 percent of the Pentagon's 96 major weapons-buying programs were over budget in 2008 for combined cost growth of $296 billion above original estimates, congressional auditors said in an annual report released on Monday.

A total of 75 percent, or 69 programs, reported increases in research and development costs and these were 42 percent above their original estimates in 2008, up from 40 percent above the year before.

And that's great news for the future of the Earth, and doubly great because it will really annoy the right-wingers. According to treehugger.com:

The Alliance's new CEO is Maggie Fox, a longtime advocate for numerous national issue, political and environmental campaigns. Fox was the president of America Votes, the largest voter mobilization effort in the country. Prior to that, she worked as deputy ED of the Sierra Club. The Alliance has been making waves recently, announcing that they are greatly expanding their field presence with the goal of getting climate legislation passed this year. Steve Hildebrand, of the Obama campaign, and Steve Bouchard, another campaign veteran, have been tapped to grow the organization.

Maggie Fox, if I may swoon for a moment, is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. She's a powerhouse when it comes to community organizing. She's also Senator Udall's wife, and everybody knows what a champion he is for renewable energy and environmental protection.

Between Mark Udall in the Senate and Maggie Fox at the Alliance for Climate Protection, I feel more confident than ever that we will be able to fulfill President Obama's commitment to end our dependence on foreign energy sources and bring the Earth back from the brink of destruction by climate change.

Check out this amazing video from Fox 31 News's Heidi Hemmat:

Then contact your state legislators and tell them to support HB 1292, the bill that will finalize the new oil and gas rules that might have prevented this from happening.

That's how many jobs were lost in the United States last month.

It's over 4 million since the recession began. Here's a visual:

Click here to tell Scott Renfroe what you think!

On the floor of the State Senate yesterday, Senator Scott Renfroe (R-Greeley) actually referred to gay and lesbian people as an "abomination" and an "offense to God."

It gets worse:

Renfroe equated gay and lesbian people with murderers and quoted the Book of Leviticus suggesting that gay people should be put to death.

He also said that women were created to be "helpers" for men, quoting the Book of Genesis.

Renfroe was referring to Senate Bill 88, a bill that would extend healthcare coverage to the same-sex partners of state employees. SB 88 is about healthcare. It's about gaining some measure of equality for gay and lesbian state employees. And regardless of how people like James Dobson and Scott Renfroe feel about gay people, their shameless hate-mongering has no place in public debate and we should reject them completely.

Respond to Scott Renfroe.

http://www.ProgressNowColorado.org/NoHateState

And please also forward this email to your friends and urge them to sign as well. ProgressNow Colorado will deliver your comments by the end of the week.

Sincerely,

Bobby Clark
Deputy Director

The British government has put a halt to the Fred Phelps sideshow before it has even begun:

The Phelpses, whose protests at military members’ funerals in the U.S. have prompted lawsuits and legislation, apparently had planned to fly to the United Kingdom to protest a performance of “The Laramie Project.”

The play about the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay student who was killed in 1998 in Laramie, Wyo., is scheduled to open today at Queen Mary’s College in Basingstoke, Hampshire.

“Both these individuals have engaged in unacceptable behavior by inciting hatred against a number of communities,” a U.K. Border Agency spokesman told the Times Online, the online site of The Times of London. “The government has made it clear it opposes extremism in all its forms.”

In America, the Phelpses have a Constitutional right to free expression, something I and others have repeatedly defended here on this blog.

Swastika Guy and Michelle Malkin, too, are certainly welcome to exercise their right to free expression as guaranteed by the Constitution, as we reserve our own right to combat their speech with free speech of our own.

It is tremendously disrespectful to the memory of 6 million dead Jews, gays, and other so-called "undesirables" during the Holocaust, not to mention the 400,000+ Americans who lost their lives fighting in World War II to cheapen their legacy by comparing a mainstream American politician to Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, or any of their associated political ideologies.

People on the right who call President Obama a socialist don't know what socialism is. People on the right or left who would call President Obama or Bush a Nazi don't know what the word means.

I don't care where the comparison occurs, whether it's on the steps of our State Capitol or on this community blog where anyone can create an account and write for free, it's wrong. So please stop it.

ProgressNow Colorado was at today's presser put on by Colorado Republicans and their Big Oil-funded front groups. We're still pulling stuff together to show you, but you have to see this right away:

That's noted right-wing shill Michelle Malkin posing with who we've dubbed "Swastika Guy," owing to the sign he carried right onto the stage with State Senator Josh Penry, Congressman Mike Coffman, Colorado GOP Chairman Dick Wadhams, State Senator Dave Schultheis, former Congressman Tom Tancredo, and Independence Institute president Jon Caldara, among others. None of whom did anything about it, and in fact one person defended the guy to one of our people saying that the swastika is not a Nazi symbol, but an honored Native American symbol.

Yeah, I am totally sure that is what Swastika Guy was referring to.

If Republican politicians are so deeply opposed to President Obama's economic recovery plan, they should refuse to take the money. After all, if you think all that federal spending is damaging, there are easy ways to reduce it: Don't take federal money.

[...]

Justice Louis Brandeis famously called states "laboratories of democracy." So let's experiment. Gov. Sanford can be the guinea pig. His Palmetto State already gets $1.35 back from Washington for every dollar it pays in federal taxes, according to 2005 numbers, the latest calculated by the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit tax research group.