The lies roll off the man's lips like music off Yo-Yo Ma's cello. Both are virtuosos - one a cellist, the other a liar.
A partial list.
Bush had nothing to do ...
Happy Friday.
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor.
"Barack Obama supports same-sex marriage. Mitt Romney doesn't even support same-sex car pools." –David Letterman
"The head of ...
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser in Colorado.
I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that. But I ...
Rand Paul:
Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his [Obama's] views on marriage could get any gayer.
We won't call Rand cynical. Ignorant, bigoted asshole is more fitting. An adult using ...
Happy Friday.
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor.
"President Obama came out with approval of same-sex marriage. He said that over the years, he has ...
I've never understood Log Cabin Republicans - gay conservatives who give their support to a homophobic political party that derides their sexuality and refuses to grant them equal rights under ...
Finally.
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own ...
Election roundup:
Indiana.
As polls forecast, the Tea Party's efforts to cleanse the GOP of any impure conservatives has Dick Lugar out and teabagger Richard Mourdock in. Mourdock is the new Republican ...
There are lies...and then there are lies.
My own view, by the way, was that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what ...
From the papers captured last year at Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout comes this.
Like any public figures, bin Laden and his advisers were mindful of the media. Adam Gadahn, one ...
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. Happy Friday.
"Today Mitt Romney visited a firehouse here in New York City. Of course, he was disappointed ...
It happened to Kerry. Can it happen to Obama? Nope says Margaret Carlson.
Obama’s belief system -- in that hopey-changey business and the post-partisanship thing -- has been altered by reality. ...
Sullivan:
What do Republicans call a gay man with neoconservative passion, a committed relationship and personal courage?
A faggot.
Exactly right, but then could one expect anything different from a political party that ...
And they claim that atheists are immoral?
The ugly side of religion shows its face once again. The words below were spoken at a Sunday sermon by Sean Harris, a pastor ...
It's been fun watching conservatives and Romney twist themselves into pretzels trying to undo Mitt's past words on GM and bin Laden.
Romney, April 2007:
It’s not worth moving heaven and earth ...
In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, a couple of scholars from liberal and conservative think tanks, discuss the state of American politics.
We have been studying Washington politics and ...
Romney's VP-in-waiting, Marco Rubio, is perfecting the conservative sleaze play.
He has proposed his version of the Dream Act in which people who entered the country illegally as children will be ...
Beyond the rhetoric, the political BS, the lies - that is, the concerted effort by the right-wing noise machine to distort and misinform at every opportunity - is the very ...
It was never a matter of 'if'...only of 'when'.
Two constituencies that President Obama is holding onto about as strongly now as he did four years ago are voters under 30 ...
“I prayed and prayed and prayed. I’m a man of faith, I had to do a lot of praying for this one, more praying than I’d ever done before in my life. And when I finally realized that it was God saying that this is what I needed to do, I was like Moses. ‘You’ve got the wrong man, Lord. Are you sure?’” Cain told a crowd of over 100 people at the Young Republican National Federation…
Cain is probably telling the truth. What we’re not understanding, I think, is that Herman spells God, ‘K-O-C-H’…and there’s not one God in Cain’s world, there’s two.
If there is a just and loving God, Herman Cain will be the Republican presidential candidate next year because if there was ever a time when Americans needed a good laugh, it’s now.
Samuel “Joe The Plumber” Wurzelbacher formally announced his intention to run for the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, but when Political Correction caught up with him in April, Wurzelbacher sounded much more averse to the idea of pursuing higher office. “I pray to God I won’t,” he said. “I mean that very specifically.” Likening Washington, D.C. to some of his worst plumbing jobs, Wurzelbacher said, “I prayed to him, I said, ‘God, you know, I don’t want to run.’… Now, if God says, ‘Joe,’ you know, ‘I want you to do it,’ then I’ll do it, but I’ll do it because that’s what God, you know, that’s what prayer has led me to believe.”
I’ll venture a guess and say that religion has screwed up more people than it’s ever helped. Conservative politicians invoke the name of god in much the same way that magicians use the term ‘abracadabra’. Say the word and the naive become instantly mesmerized as magicianpolitician con-man pulls another fast one on his unsuspecting audience.
It seems that every second Republican running for public office is doing so at God’s calling. Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michele Bachmann have all stated they’re running because of voices chirping away in their heads. And Newt Gingrich, the poster boy of virtue and morality, when asked last year if he was seeking the presidency, had this to say:
“That will be up to God, and the American people.”
“…if God is willing to help Newt Gingrich become President of the United States, he either has a very twisted sense of humor or he’s completely lost his omnipotent mind.”
Since the Bible is filled with tales of mass murder and the slaughter of innocent men, women and children, I’m thinking that God is lacking anything resembling a sense of humor. So, I’m going with the part of him having lost his omnipotent mind.
As if you needed more reason to be wary of the right-wing’s obsession with religion and in particular presidential aspirants like Rick Perry.
An emerging Christian movement that seeks to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus, is becoming more of a presence in American politics. The leaders are considered apostles and prophets, gifted by God for this role.
The international “apostolic and prophetic” movement has been dubbed by its leading American architect, C. Peter Wagner, as the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Although the movement is larger than the network organized by Wagner — and not all members describe themselves as part of Wagner’s NAR — the so-called apostles and prophets of the movement have identifiable ideology that separates them from other evangelicals.
Two ministries in the movement planned and orchestrated Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s recent prayer rally, where apostles and prophets from around the nation spoke or appeared onstage.
[...]
Thomas Muthee, the Kenyan pastor who anointed Sarah Palin at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church in 2005, while praying for Jesus to protect her from the spirit of witchcraft, is also part of this movement.
[...]
Tabachnick says the movement currently works with a variety of politicians and has a presence in all 50 states. It also has very strong opinions about the direction it wants the country to take. For the past several years, she says, the NAR has run a campaign to reclaim what it calls the “seven mountains of culture” from demonic influence. The “mountains” are arts and entertainment; business; family; government; media; religion; and education.
Do read the full article. It’s downright frightening.
Rachel Tabachnick is an expert on the religious right’s influence on politics. Here is how she describes the NAR.
“[Their issues are] anti-abortion, anti-gay rights — but they also have … the belief that government should not be involved in social safety nets, that the country is becoming socialist, if not communist … — all of what we’ve come to call ‘Tea Party issues’ of very small government. In the case of the apostles, they believe this because they believe that a large government that handles the safety net is taking away what is the domain of the church and of Christianity.”
Sounds to me like Tabachnick has just described a major part of the GOP platform. If Republicans take power next year, look for an assault on those “seven mountains of culture” unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. These people are determined to take Americans as far back into the Dark Ages as they possibly can.
Up to 150 students at a Missouri high school that ordered “Slaughterhouse-Five” pulled from its shelves can get a free copy of the novel, courtesy of the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, library officials said on Thursday.
“All of these students will be eligible to vote and some may be protecting our country through military service in the next year or two,” Julia Whitehead, the executive director of the Vonnegut library in Indianapolis, said in a statement.
“It is shocking and unfortunate that those young adults and citizens would not be considered mature enough to handle the important topics raised by Kurt Vonnegut, a decorated war veteran. Everyone can learn something from his book.”
And why was the book banned?
The Republic School District took the move at its April 18 meeting following a complaint lodged by local resident Wesley Scroggins in the spring of 2010.
In his complaint, the Missouri State University associate business professor called on district officials to stop using textbooks and other materials “that create false conceptions of American history and government or that teach principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth.”
Here is the specific complaint he had regarding Slaughterhouse-Five. (You can read the full document he submitted to the Republic School District here. It’s quite a read.)
It contains very vulgar language throughout the book and covers topics such as sex outside of marriage and homosexuality. See pages 12?15 in the appendix for excerpts from the book.
Something is seriously wrong when religious zealots of this type are able to successfully force their individual thoughts on history and morality on to others in this manner. Scroggins also took issue with movies like “The Breakfast Club” and “Saving Private Ryan” being shown in schools because these films “have offensive (and violent) content that justifies the R rating.” He goes on to say…
Requiring children to be exposed to this content at school is immoral. It is an abomination to God to expose children to this material and this content will never be part of a moral education.
Depicting the true nature and consequences of war by way of films like “Saving Private Ryan” is an immoral act? His thoughts on sex education are even more bizarre.
A cursory review of 8th grade sex education materials indicate that children are being
exposed to immorality in this class. Materials such as “What Do You Know About HIV?”
and “HIV and AIDS? Facts For Young People” introduce children to concepts such as
homosexuality, bisexuality, oral and anal sex, and the use of condoms. See pages 28?29
for excerpts from the “HIV and AIDS? Facts For Young People” booklet.
Materials such as this introduce children to abominations (Lev. 18:22; 1 Cor. 6:9; Eph.
5:5; Gal. 5:19?21) according to God and equip them with the knowledge to have premarital
sex, which is also sinful (Matt. 15:19; 1 Cor. 6:18; 1 Cor. 6:9; 1 Cor. 5:9?11.
It would be fine if one could dismiss Scroggins as a lone wolf religious right-wing nutjob and nothing more. But you can’t. This garbage has infiltrated the Republican party at its highest levels. At least two of the Republican presidential candidates would feel right at home with this moralistic righteous bullshit…Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum. The desire to impose Christian dogma and morality onto the masses has gone beyond Pat Robertson spouting ignorance and hate to an audience of naive, simple-minded and frightened old people. You now have these people fighting hard to become president and you have them in state legislatures like Texas where banning textbooks and rewriting history is now the norm. You have them forming the base for the Tea Party movement which has found its way into Congress in a big way.
Science, history and intelligence are under siege by a small but powerful group of narrow-minded religious zealots. When they are able to get books like Slaughterhouse-Five banned from a high school’s curriculum, it might be time to wake up and do something about it. If not, Mr. Scroggins from Missouri might one day be sitting in the oval office in the form of a Michele Bachmann.
I’ve been on sabbatical for a few days, so I haven’t been able to throw in my two cents regarding Missouri’s Republican Rep. Todd Akin and his thoughts on liberalism. In case you missed the story, Akin was responding to the story that NBC had omitted the words “under God” when it aired the Pledge of Allegiance during its telecast of the U.S. Open Golf Championship last week. Here’s Akin…
…I think NBC has a long record of being very liberal and at the heart of liberalism really is a hatred for God and a belief that government should replace God. And so they’ve had a long history of not being at all favorable toward many of things that have been such a blessing to our country.
[…]
This is a systematic effort to try to separate our faith and God, which is a source in our belief in individual liberties, from our country. And when you do that you tear the heart out of our country.
Demagoguery of the type displayed by Akin in that remark makes me think that Mark Twain was on to something when he said, “If Jesus were alive today, the last thing he’d be is a Christian.” I don’t know, but if Christianity is at all defined by the words and actions of Republicans these days, then Twain had it right. It would seem to many that Republican’s policy toward children, the poor and the aged runs counter to anything that Jesus taught. It was he who said, “as you do to the least of these, you do unto me.”
The bigger issue here, though, is the politicizing of every damn issue imaginable and the conservative tendency to force religion down everyone’s throat. Political orientation is not defined by one’s spirituality. There are atheists who call themselves conservative as well as liberals who are devoutly religious. If one can make any kind of broad generalization regarding politicians and religion, it is to be made in how they express their beliefs. Liberals, for the most part, have no need to interject their religious beliefs onto the masses. Conservative politicians, on the other hand, see religion as a tool to be used as a means for political gain. It is precisely this politics of fear that has them, for example, demonizing Muslims. The underlying thinking being, ‘if they’re not one of us (i.e. Christian), they’re against us.”
If Todd Akin and his fellow Republicans truly cared about Christian values, then have them answer this question: what is of more relevance, NBC omitting a few words from the Pledge of Allegiance or the fact that 50 million Americans have no health insurance? Fact: one American dies every 12 minutes due to a lack of proper medical care. Where is the outrage on the part of Republicans? Why are they not evoking Jesus’ name in regards to that moral tragedy?
Easy one. Because for all of their sanctimonious talk and Bible thumping, Republicans really don’t give a shit for anything which does not advance their political agenda. And if that means allowing 45,000 Americans to needlessly die each year or referring to liberals as god-hating pagans, so be it.
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