Rick, Mitt, Michele and the rest can pack it in now.  It’s all over.  The long awaited news is out.  The great Barry Manilow has thrown his support to Ron Paul.

“I like him. I like what he says, I do. I like what he says. I think he’s solid,” said Manilow, who confirmed to TheDC in an interview at the Capitol on Thursday that he contributed to Paul’s last campaign for president.

“I agree with just about everything he says. What can I tell you?” Manilow added.

Nothing more, Barry.  You’ve said it all…as has Ron Paul.

That stuff about Paul wanting to eliminate minimum wage…brilliant strategy to get people working and rejoice over those newly available $1.72/hour jobs.  After all, workers in India and Bangladesh get paid a quarter of that and they’re happy.

Same with eliminating the FDA and getting the government out of the business of regulating drugs.  Much better idea to hand over that responsibility to the drug companies.  Makes perfect sense because you know that big pharma’s only concern is your welfare.  Just ask the health insurers.  They’ll tell you that no one guards a hen house better than a skulk of foxes.

The Federal Aviation Administration?  Worthless, money-gobbling bureaucracy.  Paul understands that air safety and your life is best managed by an altruistic private sector.

U.S Department of Education?  Gone.

U.S. Department of Energy?  Gone.

U.S. Department of Commerce?  Gone.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services?  Gone.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security?  Gone.

Federal Emergency Management Agency?  Gone.

Internal Revenue Service?  Gone.

In Ron Paul’s finely tuned analysis, all of the above are “unnecessary bureaucracies” and Barry Manilow agrees.  That’s all anyone needs to know.

Here’s the bottom line: when a presidential candidate has the support of a man who not only writes music but is Music, for crying out loud…and writes the songs that make the whole world sing, as well as songs of love and special things, to say nothing of songs which make young girls cry, what more do they need?

Nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Take it away, Barry!

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First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…”

Christine O’Donnell / Chris Coons debate:

“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?” O’Donnell asked him.

When Coons responded that the First Amendment bars Congress from making laws respecting the establishment of religion, O’Donnell asked: “You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?”

Rush Limbaugh:

“Are you telling me separation of church and state’s in the First Amendment? It’s not. Christine O’Donnell was absolutely correct — the First Amendment says absolutely nothing about the separation of church and state.”

“This is a modern and incorrect description of the prohibition of the establishment of a national religion.”

“And the left has taken this to say that religious people can not be in government. And that you can’t teach something like creation in the schools while you can teach evolution because evolution isn’t religion but creationism is. Intelligent design can’t be taught because that’s a religion, evolution is. Yet both require faith because neither can be proved.”

“Separation of church and state is not in the Constitution, and the fact that people laughed about this is what’s really scary.”

No, what’s really scary is that Limbaugh has 20 million listeners who hang on to his every lie.

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A disgruntled conservative speaks out. From the Comments section…

It’s unfortunate, you know… my philosophy and perspective is FAR closer to the republican side than it is to the democrat side – but I reject the republican party because they really come across like a bunch of idiots.  Prominent republican leaders and their supporters alike seem to have a total inability to argue things in a straightforward and/or rational way.  Instead they simply pick up some insane, impotent point or another and repeat it endlessly.

They also appear to hold beliefs and attitudes that most of the civilized world finds disgusting, including myself.  Undercurrents of racism, blind hatred and fear of muslims, blatant homophobia, threats of violence, intense christian fundamentalism, constant invocations of the boogeyman (commies, terrorists, whatever)… it’s all so… gross.

What I would give to see the republican party truly stand up for the respectable conservative ideals… fiscal responsibility and individual freedom.  Instead we see them talk loudly about these things, all the while spending amazing amounts of money killing people in the middle east, prosecuting americans for victimless crimes like prostitution and pot-smoking, pushing to reverse the separation of church and state, denying marriage rights to gays, and backing fools like Palin and Bush who display no intelligence, no tact, and zero curiosity about foreign policy.  I really don’t know what that party is doing.

You can either get serious and have a real debate with people you don’t agree with… or you can try to claim that BO is Hitler because he pushed for health care reform.  One is politics, and the other is schoolyard nonsense.

Reminds me of the endless bellyaching about BO’s farking birth certificate.  Republicans’ time/effort would be better spent coming up with convincing, sensible arguments about public policy.  I’d be listening for sure.

As would many other people.

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When it comes to conservative media, there is never a shortage of idiotic issues to attack President Obama over.

CNBC’s Larry Kudlow:

Am I the only one who saw weakness when President Obama and his departing chief of staff Rahm Emanuel gave each other big, fat, full-bore hug following their speeches at the resignation event in the White House’s East Room on Friday?

Remember, this is on global television. And it has to do with the very top of the United States government. Our friends and enemies were all watching.

I think the hug lacked dignity. It did not send a message of American power and forcefulness. So I fret about the reaction around the world to this kind of fraternity-like emotionalism in full public view.

Why not just a dignified, stand-up, serious handshake? That’s what Reagan would have done. A strong handshake shows friendship, respect, and even affection. But a big fat hug seems to go over the line.

What a doofus.  The following comment sums up what Kudlow’s readership thought of the hug.

“The hug should be emblematic of Anti-Americanism! Two socialists that want to rule over U.S., in the corrupt political world!”

God, these people are raging lunatics.  I wonder if he felt the same way when President Bush groped German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a G8 meeting in 2006?

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They’re not going to stop until every child in America is as bigoted and stupid as they are.

The Texas State Board of Education adopted a resolution Friday that seeks to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, as social conservative board members warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation’s publishing industry.

The board approved the one-page nonbinding resolution, which urges textbook publishers to limit what they print about Islam in world history books, by a 7-5 vote.

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Conservatives in denial.

“It’s unavoidable that many will cite this as proof of the national wave of ‘Islamophobia,’ touted by Time magazine and other media outlets. We’ll have to wait for the facts, but even if the allegations prove true, one assault doesn’t a national trend make. [...] There isn’t an anti-Muslim climate.”  – Jonah Goldberg

“Certainly, there is no cresting wave of bigotry about to roll over Muslims in America: There are now slightly more than 100 such attacks each year — this in a nation of 310-plus million people.”  – NY Post

Check out this MediaMatters piece for a list of hate crimes against Muslims all over the country.

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Rachel Maddow picks up on the Conservapedia piece on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the right’s assault on science and intelligence.

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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If Republicans regain power, be afraid, be very afraid…unless, of course, you’re anti-science and anti-smart, in which case, by all means vote Republican, the political party of idiots, for idiots.

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It’s as if someone has removed the padlocks from the asylum doors…

One of the most contentious issues in the debate over what to include in Texas’ social studies textbooks surrounds the separation of church and state. The far-right members of the State Board of Education (SBOE) argue that America is a Christian nation and separation of church and state is a myth. In March, a majority of SBOE members voted “against requiring high school American government students to learn that the nation’s Founders barred government from favoring or disfavoring one religion over all others.”

At the opening of yesterday’s session — where the board gave final approval to the social studies standards — far-right member Cynthia Dunbar gave the invocation, in which she used the prayer to push her anti-church-state separation agenda:

Whether we look to the first charter of Virginia, or the charter of New England or the Charter of Massachusetts Bay, or the Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the same objective is present: a Christian land governed by Christian principles. I believe the entire Bill of Rights came into being because of the knowledge our forefathers had of the Bible and their belief in it. … I like to believe we are living today in the spirit of the Christian religion.

Call it the Glenn Beck Syndrome.  History conflicts with your beliefs?  No problem.  Simply state what your historical preference is and – presto! – instant history rewrite.  You now have a perfect match for your whacked out conservative beliefs.  The only caveat is that you need to preface your rewrite with, “The Founding Fathers intent was…”.
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Actually, this is an idiot/great quote post.  First the idiot quote.

“Where is the oil?  It’s not on — except for little of chunks of it, you’re not even seeing it on the shore yet.”  -Brit Hume

And the great quote:

Britt Hume isn’t sure there’s actually a massive oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

But he was absolutely fucking certain there were WMD’s in Iraq.

Hmmm…which cable news network does Hume work at?

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Newt Gingrich runs American Solutions, a political committee he founded.  Gingrich is not happy with cap and trade proposals put forward by Democrats. Using his prominent role as a Fox commentator, here is a sampling of what he’s had to say.

“[t]he fact [Democrats] are determined to cripple our industry at a time when virtually every American realizes that having national security and energy, keeping the money here at home, creating less expensive energy here is vital to our economic future.”

Democrats are “going to come back, I think, and try to pass cap-and- trade, even though it’s a gigantic energy tax and weakens America in energy production.”

Gingrich is more than entitled to criticize whatever proposals or legislation he does not agree with.  But the problem is not what he says. It’s what he does not say. Such as failing to tell his listeners this:

As Politico noted, according to the group’s Internal Revenue Service filings, American Solutions received a $250,000 donation from Devon Energy Corporation on January 7, and a $100,000 donation from Arch Coal on March 30.

Two of the country’s largest coal and energy producers own Gingrich and he and Fox fail to mention this little fact.  Yet Gingrich has no qualms in ripping into cap and trade.  Let me say it for the hundredth time – if you want to remain an uninformed moron, keep using Fox as your source for information.  Fox won’t mind.  Their fortune is dependent on you staying stupid.

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