Is Sarah Palin the Bethenny Frankel of Politics?

Yeah... Like probably most non-'reality'-show-watching people I didn't get the connection, but the headline intrigued me, so I had to read the story.

It was an education for me. Not only do I now know who Bethenny Frankel is, but why Ilana Angel asked the rhetorical question:

Just when you think Sarah Palin has said the dumbest thing possible, she tops herself with yet another doozy. I wrote a couple of weeks ago that I wanted her to shut up and I totally take it back. I hope she never stops talking because every time she does, she reminds America there is no way in hell she should ever be President of the United States.
Mrs. Palin likes to share her views on Facebook. Perhaps she thinks this will make her popular among voters who are into social networking. It’s not working though because for her, it’s just a place where she hides from live television. What she is doing is showing Americans she is not serious, and should not hold any political office ever again, especially not President.
What are you doing Sarah? It’s time for things to get real and for you to grow up and stop playing games. Either you want to run for President or you don’t, but your rhetoric, while hilarious, is getting boring. Are you just trying to amass your fortune and raise your celebrity, or are you planning to run for President? Your cat and mouse game is annoying and we’re about done.
Following the State of the Union speech of President Obama, Palin said Obama’s use of Sputnik was confusing and I don’t doubt for one second that it was. For Palin. Bless her little heart. She was probably out bashing fish on the head, or shooting wolves from the sky when they talked about Sputnik in her history class, so you can’t blame her for not knowing the facts.
Palin said: “Well, speaking of last night, that was a tough speech to sit through and try to stomach because the president is so off base in his ideas in how it is he believes government is going to create jobs. Obviously, government growth won’t create any jobs. It’s the private sector that can create the jobs. His theme last night in the State of the Union was the WTF, you know, “Winning the Future,” and I thought OK, that acronym, spot on. There were a lot of WTF moments throughout that speech.”
Sarah Palin seems to be confused about a lot of things and it is impossible to take her seriously. What does it say about America that a woman, who is so incredibly under-qualified for a political job, is spewing crap each and every day about our country? What the f&%$ Sarah? When are you going to start acting like a grown up, and not a mean girl on the playground? You have no respect for this country, or for your President.
Sarah Palin is quickly becoming the Bethenny Frankel of the political world. Like Bethenny, she is attractive and oddly appealing, and also like Bethenny, she is a joke that we watch because we like to laugh at her, not with her. Bethenny has no talent, but she has a huge following of crazy fans. By crazy fans of course I mean the fans are actually crazy people, just like Sarah’s.

So, since there seems to be a building consensus for a Palin-free zone for February, this might be my last Palin Post for a month.

But jeez, you know the woman is such a fucking goldmine that I doubt I'll be able to go on the Palin-free wagon that long...

Louie Louie by the Kingsmen

The anthem of a generation:

I was 18 in 1963, and this was, up until the Vietnam War heated up and we were all being drafted, the anthem of our generation. Never mind the words, it was all about the beat...

The Toad Speaks!

It didn't take long for yesterday's post to bring him out of the woodwork. He posted anonymously, but come on, anyone can tell that it's The Toad himself hiding behind that diaphanous cloak of anonymity.

I also think The Toad is a little too defensive in his post:

WOW!!!
What a dissertation evolves from a simple practical joke!!!!
Hey!! Talk shit all you want - It's good for business. You know what they say....
"BAD PUBLICITY IS THE BEST KIND OF PUBLICITY THERE IS"
After your idiotic blog appeared, I got 57 orders for the book all in one shot.
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
Perhaps I should send out this "Racist Homophobe" stuff more often....
You are formally inducted into the Asshole Hall of Fame on:
http://www.AssholesAmongUs.com

A "simple practical joke", he calls that racist & violent song. It's hard to distinguish exactly who is the funny victim of that "joke" (aside from Arabs, gays and "commies", none of whom would really see the "humor" in it) nor which part of it is "practical".

I don't think he really "gets" it -- see Practical Joke on Wikipedia.

Nevertheless, if he wants to believe that it was a "joke" he is free to do so. But he is sadly lacking grounding in the reality-based world if he expects to remain free of criticism for circulating it.

And another thing: He promised that I was "formally inducted into the Asshole Hall of Fame" and then gave a website address, but neglected to provide a clickable link. So I had to go to all the time and trouble of copying and pasting it into my browser's address bar. (You'd think a guy that runs at least three websites would know some simple HTML coding, but apparently you would be wrong.)

When I got there, you can just imagine my disappointment when I learned that not only was I not in it, but there actually is no "Asshole Hall of Fame".

What is it with these guys? Over five years ago I was similarly "honored" by an anonymous VFW club somewhere in the world with the threat of having my likeness imprinted on a urinal strainer and placed in their latrine. I was, as you can also imagine, pretty excited by this and sent the guy a photo, and asked him for a picture of it in situ so I could post it on my blog. I never heard back from him. Figures.

Anyway, The Toad claims that yesterday's post -- and it alone -- was responsible for an increase in sales by 57 copies overnight. I'm impressed, but I am also just a bit skeptical. As you know, this blog has literally dozens of readers, and I'd be surprised if even one of them bought a single book from this moron.

Also a side note to The Toad: Some nice professional-looking websites you've got there. I hope you didn't pay your underwear-pissing mother's-basement-living thirty-three-year-old nephew too much money for designing them. Maybe you can get a refund...

Racist Homophobe Author: Here's a Book NOT to Buy

For obvious reasons, I'm usually a big fan of Vietnam War fiction. I belong to an email group of other Vietnam War authors, and normally the group is entertaining and informative.

But the other day I got an email that went to the group praising a new book of Vietnam War fiction: Land of Childhood's Fears - Faith, Friendship, and The Vietnam War by David Todeschini. For reasons which will become obvious, I refuse to give the guy's website or anything else about the book. Google him if you like.

This email itself was from a member of the group, and was not from this Todeschini guy, but attached to it was an email from The Toad, which said "Play the attached MP3 file; my sentiments exactly" with an .mp3 sound file of a song entitled "Sand Niggers". As you would expect, it was an inflammatory, violent and racist diatribe against Arabs -- but it also included gays and "communists" who "took god out of the schools". It also contained some wishful thinking that these "problems" could best be taken care of right here in the good ole USA by a shotgun and an M-16, accompanied by the sounds of shotgun blasts and fully-automatic rifle fire.

It is beyond me how someone who, presumably, is trying to sell as many books as possible would do something so incredibly stupid as to alienate a large portion of the book-buying public.

So, since silence is assent, I fired back my own diatribe to the group:

This is disgustingly racist and disturbingly violent and to make matters worse, it's not even funny. And, given the recent events in Tucson, it's also in incredibly poor taste. I'm sure that the parents of little Christina Taylor Green would just be tickled pink to hear this crap.
I am surprised that you would forward this, especially embedded in an otherwise striking review of this book.
But listening to this shit, I can swear that I will NEVER buy this book, I don't give a goddam how fucking good it is, if the author comes off as such an intolerant racist homophobe that this is what he thinks passes for political discourse. Especially since he has "faith" in the title -- it kind of begs the question, who would Jesus blow away with a shotgun and an M16?
I am appalled that in the second decade of the 21st Century people still think this way. This is not the America that we're supposed to have.
Please take me off this list if you ever plan on sending out anything like this again.
Life is too short for this kind of shit.

To be fair, the person who sent it to the group was not the author of the book, and he realized immediately that he had made a mistake and issued a profound apology. Which I accepted, along with, I assume, most other members of the group.

Except for this one. He (who shall not be named here unless he wants a public fight in which he will be the pathetic loser) sent me a personal email, not to the group, calling me out:

For the love of God, I do not know why some folks want to paint them selves [sic] as lilly [sic] white and pure in actions and deeds.

The word nigger was coined by the English, it means a dirty trashy person. It was their way of refering [sic] to the Irish, not anyone of color. Through hard work and intergity [sic] the Irish out grew [sic] the name. Then the blacks picked it up and now it is taking a violation of our right to free speach [sic], and laws passed by half assed politicians trying to buy votes at the cost of our free speach rights to make it a raciest [sic] term.

What is the NAACP? What is LULAC, La Raza, Brown Berets, and the Latino Congresional [sic] caucus? All raciest [sic] organizations.

If you are sincer [sic] point these organizations out as raciests [sic]. Other wise shur [sic] up.

A side note: Why is it that these people are all so spelling-challenged and thinking-impaired that they don't even know how to turn on the spell check in their word processors?

Also note that he claims that the Irish, through their "intergity" and hard work, outgrew the term, which of course blatantly implies that the "others" (i.e., black people) do not work hard and have no integrity...

Here's my email response to this jackass, to which as of this posting I have not received a reply:

Thank you for that reasoned and rational response. Ignoring the fact that your response was neither "reasoned" nor "rational", nor was it even correct.
From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger):
"Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people (generally people of Sub-Saharan African descent), and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur. The word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger, meaning the color 'black' ... In the Colonial America of 1619, John Rolfe used negars in describing the African slaves shipped to the Virginia colony ... In the United Kingdom and the Anglophone world, nigger denoted the dark-skinned (non-white) African and Asian (i.e., from India or nearby) peoples colonized into the British Empire, and "dark-skinned foreigners" — in general."
I can find no reference that backs up your claim that it was first used by the British to describe the Irish, and I challenge you to prove your claim. It's obvious from its etymology that it was first used to describe dark-skinned peoples, and ascribing any other origin to the term is nothing more than wishful thinking.
It is a horribly offensive -- and yes, racist -- term for black people, and those other organizations that you throw in willy-nilly are not "racist" in any normal usage of the term. However, to be fair you didn't actually call them "racist"; you called them "raciest"...
You have some ... issues ... with race, obviously, most likely taking the form of Denial. Go ask your friends who are black what they think about your statements.
Oh, wait. My guess is that you don't actually HAVE any friends who are black, do you.
So maybe you should do a little thinking for yourself before you tell anyone else to "shur up" (whatever that means).
"Violation of our free speech"? Really, that's the best you can do? You want to be able to call a black person a "nigger" without any responsibility for what that speech can mean? As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. stated in Schenk v US, free speech does not include things similar to yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. In other words, freedom is not license; freedom comes with responsibilities.

I think that the reason he hasn't responded is that he's having too much trouble with words like "etymology" and "pejorative". Plus he's probably scouring desperately the Rush Limbaugh and Michelle Malkin and Clusterfuck "News" websites to find that fake origin that he cites. I know that his enfeebled mind didn't come up with that on his own. He's just parroting something he's heard, and my best guess is that he heard it coming out of the spewing maw of that nitrogenous-waste semi-human pimple-assed draft-dodging slimebag, Rush Limbaugh. I can just hear him saying it...

Note to Bill-O: As If!!!

It didn't take Bill-O very long to smack a comeback slap to Jon Stewart's Fox News 24-Hour Nazi Partysegment. Here's his lame-assed attempt to cover himself from the "Nazi" label he thinks Stewart applied to him "out of context":

Nice try, Bill-O, close but no cigar. You are still a fascist-enabling Nazi-ist propagandiser for the far right wing, the lunatic fringe of political discourse.

Say goodnight, Bill-O. You dick.

Fox News: The 24-Hour Nazi Party People

Here's The Daily Show's Jon Stewart deftly skewering Clusterfuck "News" over their "I'm shocked!" denials that they use Nazi imagery on a continual basis:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
24 Hour Nazi Party People
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> The Daily Show on Facebook

Don't Like the Rules? Sue the Government

A number of years back, in my hometown (where I lived from the time I was 12 until after I graduated high school, and then again for several years when I was in my 30s) there was a locally-owned business college that had been in business since the 1930s. It was a highly regarded institution that turned out successful "lower rung" skilled workers, such as secretaries (remember them?), bookkeepers and other "clerical" types. The school was relatively inexpensive and its graduates were actually in demand at local businesses.

Then, in the late 1970s a ton of federal money became available for student loans for individuals attending private vocational schools, and an enterprising dick who worked for the Employment Security Department (where I was employed) suddenly realized the potential cash cow that was going unmilked, quit Employment Security, bought the business college, changed its modest location to some prime-time downtown real estate, and started a massive and misleading direct-marketing advertising campaign to lure potential students into signing up.

After all, it was a time of heavy unemployment, stagflation and economic stress. Why not attend a business school, since it was "free" (free if you discounted the fact that you went deeply into debt to attend) and get some skills?

The school had shills -- barkers, really, paid by the number of students they enrolled -- who stood outside the Employment Security Department office, snagging folks who had just signed up for Unemployment Insurance, weaving a tissue of fancy big-buck promises surrounded by an invisible bodyguard of lies, to get them to enroll in the school. They found even more fertile soil outside the local Welfare Office.

The school signed up way more individuals than it could possibly serve, knowing that a large percentage of them were from a woefully undereducated low income population, who simply did not have the self-discipline, the work ethic and the study skills necessary to succeed.

New classes began every week, and by the end of the second week, you could not get any of your money back if you dropped out. And it generally took three weeks for the students who were not going to make it to realize that, and finally quit in frustration and despair.

Great! That frees up a space for a new sucker and the school pockets the tuition, leaving the poor erstwhile students saddled with a lifetime of horrendous debt.

And the good reputation that the school had enjoyed with the local businesses? Forget about it. It went the way of the dinosaurs and the dodo birds.

This went on for years -- when I was working there I always counseled the unemployed to avoid the fuckers out on the sidewalk like the plague -- and it is still going on. If not in my home town (I moved away nearly 30 years ago, so I don't know for sure), then in thousands of other towns across the country.

Now something called the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities is suing the US Department of Education:

The Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities on Friday filed suit against the US Department of Education in federal court seeking to overturn three regulations promulgated by the department. The challenged rules are a part of the DOE's final regulations adopted in October. One rule challenged by the suit would stop deceptive advertising by schools. Another bars recruiters from being paid based on how many students they enroll. A third specifies minimum steps a state must take to authorize post-secondary programs that participate in federal student aid programs. [Emphasis added]
. . .
The new regulations are a part of a larger federal crackdown on for-profit schools that are accused of graduating poorly educated students with high student-loan debt. A report released by the US Government Accountability Office accused for-profit colleges of promoting fraudulent practices so their students could acquire federal aid, exaggerating potential salary after graduation and failing to provide clear information about costs and duration of programs. Additionally, a 2009 GAO report found that for-profit college students were more likely to default on federal student loans than were students from other colleges.

Seems like a reasonable set of rules to me. Which, I guess, is why they are suing...

Greedy fuckpig bastards. They need to be dropkicked into the dustbin of history.

---
[HT to Dusty at It's My Right to be Left of the Center for the story]

The Second Coming

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats has remained one of my favorite poems for years, and now more than ever his chilling words seem appropriate:

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeats wrote the poem in 1919, in the aftermath of the First World War, but his imagery and themes are universal, and they seem to describe with Nostradamus-like prescience the short history of the 21st Century.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity"... Indeed.

Still in Denial?

Take a gander at this Interactive Map put up by the folks over at Crooks and Liars showing the incidence of rightwing violence -- terrorism -- directed at "liberal" and government entities just since July 2008.

I realize that I've posted before on this topic, but it's important to keep these cases in mind.

If we remember no one else from this litany of horror, we ought to remember Jim David Adkisson, the well-armed wingnut who shot up a Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tennessee, in July 2008, killing two persons and wounding four others because ... well, in his own words:

Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....
This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence.
I thought I'd do something good for this Country Kill Democrats til the cops kill me....Liberals are a pest like termites. Millions of them Each little bite contributes to the downfall of this great nation. The only way we can rid ourselves of this evil is to kill them in the streets. Kill them where they gather. I'd like to encourage other like minded people to do what I've done. If life aint worth living anymore don't just kill yourself. do something for your Country before you go. Go Kill Liberals.

There you go, in his own words. Still don't think that the lunatic fringe of the right has declared war on you?

Have They No Sense of Shame?

Today I read the news that SCOTUS Crypto-Nazis Scalia and his lapdog Thomas have been palling around with the infamous Koch Brothers Crime Family.

This happened before the reprehensible making-laws-from-the-bench Citizens United ruling.

At the very least, these two black-robed inquisitors should have recused themselves from the case. But of course, they didn't.

IOKIYAR* is the appropriate acronym here, apparently.

But I find that the most troubling aspect of this is that they aren't even trying to hide it. They are blatant about their rightwing partisanship. I'm starting to long for the good old days of brown-bag money drops and smoke-filled rooms. At least back then, you could imagine the corruption, and for the most part the imagined wrongs were worse than the reality.

Now it's right out there, and lo and behold, the real corruption is worse than the imagined corruption.

----

[*IOKIYAR = It's Okay If You Are A Republican]

Something New: Quote of the Day

I've added another "gadget", this time in the right-hand column, the Quote of the Day.

Every day it will change to another quote from someone famous on the state of things. Note that today's says:

I think on a national level your Department of Law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out.
-- Sarah Palin

I kinda did it in a hurry so I couldn't take the time to dig out some of the more ludicrous Palinisms, but I'm willing to go back and revisit the Palin file in the future.

Speaking of revisiting, you will get a new quote of the day every day for a month, and then they start recycling themselves. I intend to try to keep it fresh and replace quotes from time to time.

BTW, this is another JavaScript I wrote for work, and happily adapted to this freer (and snarkier) venue. It originally was a "this day in history" kind of thing.

Darth Cheney to Get Heart Transplant

I thought it was a joke. To get a "transplant" you need to have a heart to begin with...

But no, it's apparently true.

Nevertheless, I am tagged as an organ donor on my driver's license. I wonder if I can add a stipulation or a codicil or something similar that will tell whoever ends up parting me out that I do not want my heart transplanted into the chest of Dick Cheney.

On the other hand, having the heart of a flaming liberal beating his chest might just have a positive effect on the fucker...

Remember When...

Today we're going to play Remember When.

Remember when the FBI and Homeland Security came out with a report entitled Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalism and Recruitment?

That was in April 2009. Remember how Rush Limphole and Michelle Mockery hooted with derision about its findings?

Here's Rush:

I mean, the language they use in this report to describe conservatives... We hear all the time that the left is a bunch of pacifists, make-love-not-war types. They don't want violence. They just want to get along, and why can't everybody just be happy together, and yet when you read what a typical leftist like Obama or Janet Napolitano put together in this Department of Homeland Security report, you conclude nothing else that they are extreme partisan radicals, and they're ready to go to war with a domestic enemy, conservatives, that they consider to be a greater threat than Iran, than China, than North Korea, than Venezuela, Russia, or any other nation that threatens the United States. Conservatives are the biggest threat to America. That's the message coming out of Washington from Obama and Janet Napolitano.

Well, Rusty, since the American death toll from all those foreign and smelly countries remains at zero, and the death toll from American-bred wingnuts is something like over a hundred, with a full 25% of those being police officers who were gunned down by white supremacists, I think you need to issue a correction.

Yeah, good luck with that happening...

And let's not forget Michelle:

The “report” ... was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I’d ever read out of DHS. I couldn’t believe it was real.
. . .the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives. And the intent is clear. As the two spokespeople I talked with on the phone today made clear: They both pinpointed the recent “economic downturn” and the “general state of the economy” for stoking “rightwing extremism.” One of the spokespeople said he was told that the report has been in the works for a year. My b.s. detector went off the chart, and yours will, too, if you read through the entire report — which asserts with no evidence that an unquantified “resurgence in rightwing extremist recruitment and radicalizations activity” is due to home foreclosures, job losses, and…the historical presidential election.

So how's that famous b.s. detector working out for you, Michelle? I think you need new batteries... Maybe you can recycle them from your Steely Dan.

Or better yet, a new Bullshit Detector Watch. It's all the "rage" ... in other words, perfect for you.

As Stephan Salisbury over at Tom Dispatch said, America's political landscape is littered with bodies, victims of the rightwing killing machine.

The Great Debate on a Social Network

It started out simply enough with me putting a link to the CREDO Mobile story Tell Sarah Palin: Violent threats have consequences on a popular Social Networking site:

We must put a stop to the escalating hate rhetoric of the right and its very specific calls to armed violent action. Lines of decency have been crossed, and Sarah Palin has a special responsibility and opportunity in the wake of the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

First response:

Billie: Bullshit

Me: Thank you for the well-reasoned dialog

Her: You're welcome. It describes all this "let's blame the right instead of the shooter" crap perfectly.

2nd Party joins in.

Yousef: yup. things happen in a vacuum. no one is influenced by anything.except holy wars, crusaders, sun tans and right-wingers. lol

Her: The routine use of imagery by both parties in a culture obsessed with "battleground" states is nothing new. A nearly identical map, included in a Democratic Leadership Committee publication in 2004, featured nine bulls-eyes over regions where Republican candidates were considered vulnerable that year, and was accompanied by a caption reading: TARGETING STRATEGY. A smaller caption, beneath the bulls-eyes, read: BEHIND ENEMY LINES. The map illustrated an article on campaign strategy by Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute. SoSarah is not the only one to use this kind of stuff, but I guess only the Democrats get a pass. It's metaphorical for crying out loud as Obama's "if they bring a knife to a fight we'll bring a gun" comment was. There was a rush to judgment by the left almost immediately BEFORE any details were known about anything or anybody. The biggest culprit was the Pima County sheriff who was/is supposed to be conducting an investigation NOT spewing his political opinions. I find his credibility in question anyway since he enforces laws only he thinks he should. It's not his place to decide. His oath demands he enforce all laws, not just those he decides in his infinite wisdom are worthy. He's not a judge.he's a sheriff.

Yousef: Point taken. But Dem's don't lie about using it. At least I don't. But then I don't use weaponry as an analogy or an excuse. If we want to be semantic.bulls eye targets are antiquated. The use of a sniper scopes cross-hair is not. :)

Me: I am not saying that the Dems don't use it, but do two wrongs make a right? You know that I am well-armed liberal, but even I have to gag when I see ALL of the "war" imagery used in political contests. And the right wing uses it more than the Dems by a factor of 10 (or more) to 1. When you couch all your political speeches using the metaphor of war ("Don't retreat, reload!" etc.) it is not conducive to reasoned political discourse. I've actually been to war, unlike the vast majority of Republican politicians, and I take it kind of personally when they appropriate the language from the battlefield to the political field. War is one of the very worst things that a person can endure, and its metaphors should never be used lightly or blithely. Again the Republicans are way out in front on this, and no reasonable thinking person can deny that.

And another thing. Here is a list (http://crooksandliars.com/david-neiwert/terror-arizona-just-another-isolated) of "lone nuts" who were unwitting recipients of Hate Radio's constant drumbeat of war. I challenge anyone to come up with an equivalent list of wackjob liberals who have committed similar crimes, let alone ones who were provoked by, say, Keith Olbermann or Thom Hartmann .

And these incidents are from just in the last two-and-a-half years!

Yousef: Has nothing or had nothing to do with politics in Arizona either. LMAO.

Me: And here's another bunch of examples of rightwing hate speech: http://opovet.blogspot.com/2011/01/just-little-taste.html Again, show me a matching list of liberals who have said similar things

Her: Your first list Farnsworth is chock full of extremists and they certainly do not echo what I believe in or most of us on the "other side".For example, I'm a pro-lifer but would never think of killing a doctor or bombing a clinic. The overwhelming majority of us wouldn't either and condemn the ones who do. Since you mentioned Michelle Malkin check this out on her website..michellemalkin.com." The progressive "climate of hate:" An illustrated primer, 2000-2010.." No, I didn't count the number of hate filled things to compare with your list. There's plenty to see there if you'll look at it.It's enough to say that your side as well as mine has it's nuts. That what this loon was that shot up Tucson..nutty.. Some on blogs and comment sites have even gone so far as to lump the despicable Westboro Baptist Church( I say church loosely) in with us mainstream Christians. Fred Phelps and his "Phreaks" make me sick and I have fought them for years even when they came to protest a young soldier's funeral in our area.Don't want to get in a pissing contest with you Farnsworth, but there's plenty of questionable stuff to go around and to pull back a little and tone it down wouldn't hurt on ALL sides. But to blame this shooting on Conservatives is all wrong. I would have liked to have seen some of this outrage from the left when Major Hassan killed our soldiers at Ft. Hood and wounded 30 or others. Instead for weeks we were "told"(by the left of course) not to jump to conclusions that he had was leaning toward radical Islam.Don't want to offend anyone don't 'cha know. But, within a few short hours these left-wing folks were screaming this Tucson shooting in part was due to Sarah Palin and others vitrolic, speech. Nuts are nuts and we need to realize it and make THEM responsible for their actions, A molestor of children is just that and is responsible for what he/she does. I don't give a damn how bad or good his/her childhood was he/she still had a choice to not harm a child. The responsibility is on them if they do and I have no sympathy for them at all. Same goes with these nuts that do the sort of thing that happened in Tucson, Ft Hood, abortion clinics.schools, work places etc. Put the blame where it belongson the guy that did it.

Yousef: funny thingextremists always look and act like the rest of us. If they didn't we could just point and click them to a holding cell. Extremists are by nature cultural chameleons. But the particular psyche does aggregate in certain ways that shed light on tendencies..

Me: I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush. I embrace reasonable and non-strident socially-conscious conservatives, but you know it's always the extremists who get the focus. Remember after 9-11, when every Muslim in the world was our enemy (and many on the right still feel that way)? The ones who commandeered those planes were extremists, but this country had a problem -- and still does -- accepting that.

Her: Point taken Farnsworth. Peace.

Then a new player, John, joins the discussion:

John: Maybe everyone should read the Koran or Quoran , when Mohamad calls his followers ,whether moderates or extremists ,they are required to KILL the non-beleivers of THEIR god , if you are not a muslim believer YOU are an infidel ;one who does not believe in a particular religion . WHAT part do you not understand ??? And I am NOT a right winger , I believe in JESUS CHRIST , and GOD and COUNTRY .

Me: I agree. The Holy Book of any religion can be misused by its adherents.

Take a look at this list of items, which includes genocide, violence, rape, forced marriages, infanticide, and even cannibalism. opovet.blogspot.com/2010/10/more-scary-stuff-from-quran.html

Her: Line 20 in this with the reference to Allah proves to me it's not my Bible. You're correct though Farnsworth, anyone can take out of context written or spoken words and twist them to suit their own particular purpose(s).

Yousef: @John yes you should. And you should read the Qur'an. As i have read and have a copy of the Red Letter Bible. also read the historical footnotes that put each verse of the Qur'an in context. What all of you would soon understand of is that the Qur'an was primarily revealed to those present. In the context of their particular plight of a historical tale to them. Not as a harbinger of future behavior necessarily. So just using line 20 as a reference is the usual gross ignorance and is typical of people who feel victimized. I am flag waiving American as Farnsworth can attest. But don't gloat on what Fox News passes for your education of the Qur'an or the Middle East or it's inhabitants.

Her: Yousef, What I meant by that reference to line 20 was simply that my religion does not refer to God as Allah. Sorry if I was unclear on that point. I am a member of The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod which is conservative by many standards, but we are not right-wing nuts. We have folks in our congregation who are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, students from our local university,blue collar working people, professors,small business owners,teachers, doctors and all manner of folks.. ..each of us having our own political views.. The thing that ties us together is our faith and what our creed teaches us. We do not preach politics from the pulpit. We preach the Gospel.

Yousef: Actually it does. The literal translation of 'God' as the omnipotent in Arabic is 'Allah'. All the churches in Nazareth as elsewhere in Arabic speaking countries use that teem as well as the Latin.

John: Yousef , I believe in Jesus Christ , He is my God , I do not believe in allah as being the I AM ; what does your Qur'an tell you that you are to do with me ???

Me: @Billie-- did you read the whole thing? Those are NOT lines from the Qu'ran, but from the Old Testament, my point being that every religion that has a "Holy Book" has crap like this. And exactly WHERE in the Qu'ran is the quote that Muslims must kill all infidels? See http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080827235128AAY0Asq

Her: Farnsworth, I have to admit I have never heard of this Xian Bible so I looked it up and from what I can see, I'm disturbed by it. It seems as though whoever put it together is very hateful. Did they speak the truth or put stuff in it to suit their own purposes? I'll have to do more reading about it when I find the time to do so and speak with some folks who might be able to shed more light on it for me.Besides, although we still read scripture from the Old Testament, Christians use the New Testament as the basis for their faith.

Me: It's actually shorthand for the "Christian" Bible, Xian being a play on words from the early Christians in hiding in Rome, who left an "X" on walls to show their belief in Christ. The "X" of course representing the Cross. While I applaud you for your concentrating on the New Testament, so many of the Religious Right are fond of quoting the Old Testament in their hatred of, for example, gay people, and their insistence on the Ten Commandments being displayed in the public square. And you are right, you ought to be disturbed by what you read. Is this really who we want to be as a society? The Religious Right thinks

Yousef: If one reads the whole of the Qur'an and understands it's historical context then it tells Muslims to respect as respected. Pretty much the same as any monotheistic religion. I've heard these taunts before. You dint know the Qur'an better than I so any inflammatory Fox news jabs from a misquoted verse isn't going to win you much defensiveness from me. Just a chuckle and recognition that P. T. Barnum was a genius. And I mean that toward both Muslims and Christians. :). The Jews as a people probably know their history and Book better than the rest of us. And the concept of replacing the Trinity by using the single consciousness of Jesus as the only god-conscious is purely an American invention. Anywhere else and still in the Roman Catholic church the trinity still recognizes the prophet (human body) of Jesus. For me the justification of a Trinity is murky at best. Mind you that I've spent many more hours in Catholic school and in Baptist churches than in a mosque. This has been done primarily to separate connection with Aramaic and Arabic. The original languages of the Bible. Besides it's easier for both sides to justify war this way. ;)

John: I asked a very straight forward question , I did not get a straight answer.If a person does not "submit" to Allah ,or accept the Muslim faith ,What does the Qur'an say to do with them??????

Me: What does the Christian Bible say about it? My point is that you can do the "cafeteria plan" on ANY piece of Holy Writ and find something that will allow you to do what you want to do anyway. See the quotations from the Old Testament on the earlier link. And what do we make of these quotations from the Old Testament:

"..devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey. "

"But of the cities of these peoples which God gives you as an inheritance, you shall let nothing that breathes remain alive, but you shall utterly destroy them."

"We took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain." I have a lot more of these, as you can see at opovet.blogspot.com/2010/08/it-is-will-of-allah.html

John: After Christ died on the cross, christians live under the new covenant of the new testament . Old testament violence is no more .

But Islam has things called Surah and Quran texts 8:12-13 that say pretty much the same thing ; " I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve, therefore strike off their heads and strike off every finger tip of them." I see Yousef did not want to answer . I have another for Yousef ; What does the word "subjugate" mean to you ?????

Surah 9:5 , 2:191-193 ,4:74 ,4:89 ,8:60,8:65 9:29,9:52what do all these verses pertain to ? And there are a few hundred more that tell you to do away with un believers.What I read in my Bible is , my duties are to tell you of GOD'S word ,so you can hear it ,try to bring you to GOD ,if you do not ,He does not tell me to kill you or do away with you . If you do not believe, your punishment is at your own hand and of your own disbelief . My hand will not harm you . You die in your own disbelief .

Me: As I mentioned earlier in this thread, if you truly believe in Jesus Christ and eschew all that God-directed murder in the Old Testament, then I applaud you. But too many of the Religious Right are not really into the Jesus of the New Testament -- too wimpy, I guess, what with all that "love thy neighbor" and "turn the other cheek" stuff -- and more into the hellfire and damnation that you find in the Old Testament. More power to you. You have done your duty to spread the word of God to atheists like me. If I choose to go my own way, then, as you say, that's on me

John: Well I am sorry , but I'm not a rihgt winger and Yousef ,your "moderate" friend still won't answer truthfully as to what his Qur'an says to do with non-believers . I gave you the verses, if I'm reading them wrong , then give me the right answer.

Me: What can I say, dude? Yousef is his own man and if he chooses not to respond, that's his choice And here's how the Christian Bible treats unbelievers:

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

Suppose you hear in one of the towns the LORD your God is giving you that some worthless rabble among you have led their fellow citizens astray by encouraging them to worship foreign gods. In such cases, you must examine the facts carefully. If you find it is true and can prove that such a detestable act has occurred among you, you must attack that town and completely destroy all its inhabitants, as well as all the livestock. Then you must pile all the plunder in the middle of the street and burn it. Put the entire town to the torch as a burnt offering to the LORD your God. That town must remain a ruin forever; it may never be rebuilt. Keep none of the plunder that has been set apart for destruction. Then the LORD will turn from his fierce anger and be merciful to you. He will have compassion on you and make you a great nation, just as he solemnly promised your ancestors. "The LORD your God will be merciful only if you obey him and keep all the commands I am giving you today, doing what is pleasing to him." (Deuteronomy 13:13-19 NLT)

1) If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other.

2) do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst. (Deuteronomy 13:7-12 NAB)

My point still being that anyone can take bits and pieces out of their own particular Holy Book to justify their own actions. You cannot deny the truth of that statement. So, as Jesus may have said, "don't worry about the speck of dust in your neighbor's eye when you can't see the two by four in your own."

John: You can't get out of the Old Testament can you my friend ,you did not want to hear what I said , but what I have given you about the Qur'an is what they consider their "new" testament , those verses overide all the old ones . Just as I told you of The New Covenant God made with christians . But like you said ya'll hear only what ya want to .GOD BLESS . And good luck.

Yousef: Well I did answer you John. But it was an attempt at speaking with respect to your intellect because I don't know you. Farnsworth thanks for your Deuteronomy citations. I thought you were actually making my point for a sec! Oh wait you did. I mean we did. But you must have been righter-er cuz it was the bible. Oh wait it was the old one so we don't have to listen to the old god just the new one. Cuz he changed his mind n stuff. Lol

Reread it carefully. I called you a sucka' for a cheap fight: P. T. Barnum reference. LOL why would I do that? Just calling the kettle black dude. You don't even know me and yet you are willing to pick a fight over something you don't know jack shit about. Really. Not jack shit.

Anyway, for every 'killum' bad guy verse in the Qur'an they are usually followed quickly by a short verse or stanza that says something similar to "but the best of you will not (do said thing)or [will] know better.." etc.

You may also find it interesting to know that there is actually a verse that admits the "Arabs of the desert are the -worst- amongst you". You will also note that accusation is made without a reference to a religion but addressed to the larger population of 'you'. Meaning ALL Arabs: lumping Arabs of all three religions into a single accusation.

Then Qur'an also directs us to be respectful of any and all holy site of any religion (admittedly except idolaters. Though I choose to include them). Be honorable and respectful in all our relationships and dealings with the non-believer. In this instance 'non-believer' just means a non-Muslim. But you will likely take offense to it. And also allows unto marry anyone of any religion. Which I did. And glad for it.

If you are ever interested I suggest the Muhammad Asad translation. Born an Austrian Jew he traveled the middle east for his journalist job. His translation has the most historically accurate notes on just about every verse and his formal training in the Torah just adds to his understanding.

But that's assuming you even want to understand someone else outside of what Fox and Rush could tell you. Because they are like smart n stuff.

Me: I have only one last comment, and then I'm bailing out of this conversation. If the New Testament superseded and overruled the Old Testament, then are the Ten Commandments no longer in effect?

If they are still in effect, the Old Testament was not overridden by the New, and then we're back to the pick-and-choose cafeteria plan, which was, I believe, my point in the beginning of all this. People take what they can from their particular Holy Book to justify their actions.

The reason I am bailing is that, as much fun as this has been, none of us is going to "win". We all believe -- or disbelieve -- what we want, and we are free to do so.

You know, no matter what you do, someone is just not going to "get it". I could have gone on with this discussion endlessly, asking, for example, why the Old Testament is bound up with the New if it's been superseded, why so many Xians are so clutchy to the Ten Commandments and ignore the 11th, etc etc etc.

But essentially it's a waste of time arguing with these people. They'll never get it.

Palin Speaks Out, Says Nothing

The Killa from Wasilla was on the Slanthead Hannity show (yeah, there's a real hard-hitting "journalist" for you) trying to defend her use of the emotionally-freighted politically-loaded phrase "Blood Libel".

Here's what she said:

Speaking out for the first time since she used the term in a video, Palin said on Fox's SeanHannity show that the term referred to those "falsely accused of having blood on their hands."Some Jewish groups strongly protested her use of the term, which historically was used to accuse Jews of using blood of Christians in religious rituals."I think the critics again were using anything that they could gather out of that statement," she said. "You can spin up anything out of anybody's statements that are released and use them against the person who is making the statement."Palin, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2012, said the criticism won't stop her from speaking out and accusing Democrats of taking the country in the wrong direction."They can't make us sit down and shut up," she said.

Oh brother. Yeah, Caribou Barbie, your sacrifices were right up with the deaths of six million Jews in WWII, with hundreds of thousand of Jews who were physically tortured, forcibly converted to Catholicism, and then wantonly murdered.

Oh, the humanity...

Martin Luther King Day

Today is the day we celebrate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Given the trying times we've been through the last ten days years or so, I can think of no better way to honor his memory than quoting from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. I believe that even amid today's mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow. I believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.

Think You Know Jared Loughner?

With all the media attention to Jared Lee Loughner, you might think you kind of know him by now.

Turns out you don't know shit. A ranter who goes under the name Poor Richard has a post about Loughner on his blog in which he says, among other things:

I have seen and evaluated the evidence and have come away with a very clear and unmistakable understanding of who this troubled maniac is and why he did what he did. My analysis contrasts sharply with that of the controlled press.
Jared Lee Loughner hated God and loved death. Loughner Is a Jewish Satan Worshipper.
According to one media source, Jared Lee Loughner is a Satan worshipper. New York’s Daily News published photos of a “Devil shrine” and altar found in the Loughner family’s back yard of their home in suburban Tucson.
Loughner Is a Jewish Liberal.
Loughner is a Liberal, Left-Winger.

One "media source", that being the wingnut NY Daily News. He also goes on a tirade about the books Loughner supposedly read (taken from the phony Facebook page that was put up by someone else posing as him), including The Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf, Alice in Wonderland(!), etc etc etc. And then he makes this remarkable statement:

Loughner Was Functionally Illiterate

Pretty amazing how he was able to read all those difficult books, isn't it?

And from there the criticism devolves into claiming that Heavy Metal rock music fried his brain, that Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison were Satanists, he hates god, blah blah blah. Oh, and he was also a pothead who tried to join the army so he could go kill somebody. Or something like that...

And I almost forgot. At the end of his diatribe, he launches into a harangue about, of all things, Buddhists!

A Hater of God With an Interest in Buddhism
Let me for just a moment dwell on Jared Lee Loughner’s hatred of God. Several who knew him said that Jared was “hostile to religion.” We note that he did not list among his favorite books the Holy Bible. However, interestingly, he did name the Buddhist classic, Siddhartha. Siddhartha is the story of Gautama Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion.
Many Jews are attracted to Buddhism because it is a religion in which there is no personal deity in a place called Heaven. In Buddhism, an offshoot of Hinduism, the Cosmos is itself divine and when a man or woman dies, the best he or she can hope for is a better life in another incarnation, eventually leading to a state of nothingness called “Nirvana.” (Not surprisingly, one popular heavy metal music group called itself “Nirvana.”)
These concepts are strikingly similar to those taught by Jewish kabbalist rabbis. Menachem Begin, the bloody Jewish terrorist whose murderous activity with the Jewish Irgun Gang earned him so much popular support among Jews that he was elected Prime Minister of Israel, was a Buddhist who regularly practiced a Buddhist form of meditation.
Jared Lee Loughner’s interest in Buddhism, while simultaneously spouting he will not trust in a personal God, is common among Jews who are New Agers.

Damn those New Age Jewish Buddhists anyway. They are really the ones who are in control of the New World Ordure.

And here's the kicker:

It may well be that in the future, anyone who opposes Obama Care, or Socialist bailouts to the international bankers, or increased taxes, or the unbridled growth of the federal government and the Police State, will be branded a “dangerous enemy of the state.” The Oklahoma City bombing proved to be a boon to the builders of the New World Order—haters of American traditionalism—as did the horror of Waco. Now, the despisers of God and enemies of the Constitution can cluck and talk about how “so and so might just be another Jared Lee Loughner.” (Incidentally, one observer on an internet chat page asked, “Isn’t it interesting how the media leaped to add the middle name “Lee” to Jared Loughner’s name? You know, like in Lee Harvey Oswald?” It does seem odd that a lot of the serial mass killers and assassins are psychologically dubbed with a middle name: John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln), Mark David Chapman (Lennon), Lee Harvey Oswald (JFK), John Wayne Gacy (33 boys), etc.

I also suspect that the bigoted Jewish groups like AIPAC, the AJC, and the ADL will use the Jared Lee Loughner shooting incident for all its worth. At the least, these Jewish organizations and others will again attempt to bash the 2nd Amendment of our Bill of Rights, the right to keep and bear arms.

It always comes down to this with the wingnuts, doesn't it. They're taking our guns away! Be afraid! Be very afraid!

------

[HT to constant reader jae for the story]

Franklin Graham & His Sycophants on Sarah Palin

From the Billy Graham website (I wont provide the link because I don't want the trackback -- Google it if you really want to see it), here's what Billy Junior (aka Franklin Graham) has to say about Saint Sarah:

I have been shocked at the reports from those suggesting that former Governor Sarah Palin has some level of responsibility for the horrific shooting in Arizona.
. . .
She is a kind and compassionate God-fearing woman who believes with all her heart that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Whether you agree with her politics or not, it is outrageous to suggest that her political opinions encourage violence toward anyone.

Jesus wept.

Even worse are some of the reader comments on this site:

• Thank you Franklin for voicing for so many that which we believe and know to be the truth about Sarah Palin. She is a godly woman who publicly professes Jesus as her Personal Savior and Lord. This attrocity [sic] belongs to one man who has given himself over to hate, violence and destruction. Anyone expoilting [sic] this evil act to push their agenda is in fact promoting it.
• Thank you for standing up for Sarah Palin. I am thankful that she is a Christain [sic], and I pray she will become our next President. May God help us to have a strong Christain [sic] in the White House. We need to turn back to God as a nation and having a Christain [sic] president will show us as a Christain [sic] nation once again. May God continue to bless us!
• I agree with Franklin, our society has been so conditioned to let our youth grow up with all this corruption, murder, rape, cursing etc. It is small wonder our kids are so violent and messed up. It is not the LORDS' way, it is Satans' way. The gospel states that man will become weaker and wiser. I think you have to look at that with broad strokes of periods in civil and social acts. When you constantly pour evil acts by the bucket full on our kids. All the killing games that are available for so call entertainment. Wow our kids don't have much of a chance. Don't blame 1 or 2 people for these crimes, we have to look at ourselves and say where can we start to get this stuff off our airways, out of our play station game rooms. Praise be to GOD,to help us through these terrible times.
• How unconsionable [sic] that someone could even consider Gov. Palin as somehow contributing to this heious [sic] crime. Palin who is a Christian and stands only for righteousness and godly principles. May she become our next president.

So there you go. These people, aside from being spelling-challenged and thinking-impaired (equating murder and rape with cursing? Really?), are deadly serious about pushing the Half-governor into the White House.

South America is starting to look real good about now...

Another Case of a "Lone Nut"?

So the shootings -- the murders -- in Arizona are just another example of a "lone nut" who apparently existed in a total vacuum (like all the other "lone nuts" who take up arms to right a government "wrong" -- apply a Second Amendment solution, as it were, thank you Sharron Angle) and had absolutely no provocation from the nattering nabobs of negativism in the wingnut media?

Well, here, thanks to Crooks and Liars, is a compelling list of other "lone nuts" on the loose, in just the last 2 1/2 years:

• July 2008: A gunman named Jim David Adkisson, agitated at how "liberals" are "destroying America," walks into a Unitarian Church and opens fire, killing two churchgoers and wounding four others.
• October 2008: Two neo-Nazis are arrested in Tennessee in a plot to murder dozens of African-Americans, culminating in the assassination of President Obama.
• December 2008: A pair of "Patriot" movement radicals -- the father-son team of Bruce and Joshua Turnidge, who wanted "to attack the political infrastructure" -- threaten a bank in Woodburn, Oregon, with a bomb in the hopes of extorting money that would end their financial difficulties, for which they blamed the government. Instead, the bomb goes off and kills two police officers. The men eventually are convicted and sentenced to death for the crime.
• December 2008: In Belfast, Maine, police discover the makings of a nuclear "dirty bomb" in the basement of a white supremacist shot dead by his wife. The man, who was independently wealthy, reportedly was agitated about the election of President Obama and was crafting a plan to set off the bomb.
• January 2009: A white supremacist named Keith Luke embarks on a killing rampage in Brockton, Mass., raping and wounding a black woman and killing her sister, then killing a homeless man before being captured by police as he is en route to a Jewish community center.
• February 2009: A Marine named Kody Brittingham is arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate President Obama. Brittingham also collected white-supremacist material.
• April 2009: A white supremacist named Richard Poplawski opens fire on three Pittsburgh police officers who come to his house on a domestic-violence call and kills all three, because he believed President Obama intended to take away the guns of white citizens like himself. Poplawski is currently awaiting trial.
• April 2009: Another gunman in Okaloosa County, Florida, similarly fearful of Obama's purported gun-grabbing plans, kills two deputies when they come to arrest him in a domestic-violence matter, then is killed himself in a shootout with police.
• May 2009: A "sovereign citizen" named Scott Roeder walks into a church in Wichita, Kansas, and assassinates abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.
• June 2009: A Holocaust denier and right-wing tax protester named James Von Brunn opens fire at the Holocaust Museum, killing a security guard.
• February 2010: An angry tax protester named Joseph Ray Stack flies an airplane into the building housing IRS offices in Austin, Texas. (Media are reluctant to label this one "domestic terrorism" too.)
• March 2010: Seven militiamen from the Hutaree Militia in Michigan and Ohio are arrested and charged with plotting to assassinate local police officers with the intent of sparking a new civil war.
• March 2010: An anti-government extremist named John Patrick Bedell walks into the Pentagon and opens fire, wounding two officers before he is himself shot dead.
• May 2010: A "sovereign citizen" from Georgia is arrested in Tennessee and charged with plotting the violent takeover of a local county courthouse.
• May 2010: A still-unidentified white man walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., mosque and sets it afire, simultaneously setting off a pipe bomb.
• May 2010: Two "sovereign citizens" named Jerry and Joe Kane gun down two police officers who pull them over for a traffic violation, and then wound two more officers in a shootout in which both of them are eventually killed.
• July 2010: An agitated right-winger and convict named Byron Williams loads up on weapons and drives to the Bay Area intent on attacking the offices of the Tides Foundation and the ACLU, but is intercepted by state patrolmen and engages them in a shootout and armed standoff in which two officers and Williams are wounded.
• September 2010: A Concord, N.C., man is arrested and charged with plotting to blow up a North Carolina abortion clinic. The man, 26-year--old Justin Carl Moose, referred to himself as the "Christian counterpart to (Osama) bin Laden” in a taped undercover meeting with a federal informant.

Anybody feel like coming up with an equivalent list of "lone nuts" from the left who have committed such heinous acts. You got anything to back up your specious and phony "angry rhetoric from the left/both sides do it" claims? Anyone? Beck? Hannity? Limbaugh?

Yeah, I didn't think so. Bunch of fucking hypocritical blowhole liars.

Now it's "Blood Libel"? Really?

Half-governor Palin finally broke squelch today by claiming that the "liberal media" attack on her gun scope graphics over Gabby Giffords district, her "don't retreat, reload" sound bites, her continual violent verbal imagery, her battering use of violence metaphors, is nothing short of "blood libel".

"Blood Libel"... That's code, in case you didn't know, for "Hey, I'm the victim here".

Here's what Wikipedia says about "Blood Libel":

Blood libel ... refers to a false accusation or claim that religious minorities, almost always Jews, murder children to use their blood in certain aspects of their religious rituals and holidays.Historically, these claims have–alongside those of well poisoning and host desecration–been a major theme in European persecution of Jews.
The libels typically allege that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzos for Passover. The accusations often assert that the blood of Christian children is especially coveted, and historically blood libel claims have often been made to account for otherwise unexplained deaths of children. In some cases, the alleged victim of human sacrifice has become venerated as a martyr, a holy figure around whom a martyr cult might arise. A few of these have been even canonized as saints.

Okay, so what the hell is Sarah Palin doing going around trying to claim that she's the martyr? It's especially pathetic when you remember that Rep. Giffords is, herself, Jewish.

Jesus, does this woman's stupidity, her irresponsibility, her arrogance know absolutely no boundaries?

Just Change One Thing...

...imagine that the congressional representative in Arizona who was shot point blank in the head was, instead of a Democrat, a Republican.

The screams of outrage from the wingnuttery would be audible on the moon. The Professional Hate Industry represented by their idiotic squealing and squawking heads on most AM radio stations and Clusterfuck "News" would NEVER let it rest.

Just make that one change.

Okay, not good enough for you. Reverse the political affiliation back to Democratic, to keep an even playing field.

Now imagine that the shooter was, instead of a deranged white guy, had been a deranged Muslim.

Go ahead, just imagine that...

Now for the coup de gras: Go back and picture the congressional victim as a Republican AND the shooter as a Muslim...

It's not a pretty picture, is it?

Just a Little Taste...

I knew that the wingnut media would be falling all over itself to try to distance their actions from the Arizona shootings. But their protest tend to sound kind of tinny when you consider this list (from the terrific Skippy the Bush Kangaroo blog):

rush limbaugh: "i tell people don't kill all the liberals. leave enough so we can have two on every campus – living fossils – so we will never forget what these people stood for."
senator phil gramm: "we're going to keep building the party until we're hunting democrats with dogs."
rep. james hansen on bill clinton: get rid of the guy. impreach him, censure him, assassinate him."
john derbyshire intimated in the national review that because chelsea clinton had "the taint," she should "be killed."
ann coulter: "we need to execute people like john walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too."
ann coulter: "my only regret with timothy mcveigh is he did not go to the new york times building."
bill o'reilly: "if those clowns over at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. will you have that done, please? send over the fbi and just put them in chains."
radio host glenn beck said he was "thinking about killing michael moore" and pondered whether "i could kill him myself, or if i would need to hire somebody to do it," before concluding: "no, i think i could. i think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and i could just be choking the life out -- is this wrong?"
fresno city council member jerry duncan in 2003 wrote in an email that police should "cap" members of the human relations commission and wrote, "if i had one dirty bomb and i could eliminate all the liberals in fresno at once."

Still want to believe the wingnut denials that they have any responsibility at all in this tragic shooting? Try the extensive list at Orcinus from back in 2007.

When is Terrorism Not Terrorism?

When is terrorism not terrorism? That's today's pop quiz.

Here are just a few names to give you a hint: Timothy McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Scott Roeder, Byron Williams, Jared Loughner.

The answer, as far as the media is concerned, as far as the Teabaggers are concerned, as far as the spewing blowholes over at Clusterfox "News" and wingnut radio are concerned, terrorism is not terrorism unless Muslims are behind it. "Normal" people, i.e. "white" people, don't do terrorism. They do "isolated incidents" of personal violence... Like blowing up buildings, killing abortion providers and shooting members of congress.

As much as they are in denial over the fact, the hate-filled rhetoric of the vicious pundits of the plutocracy has had an effect.

They have been falling all over themselves for the last 24 hours or so trying to take the heat and the focus and the spotlight off of them. Bullshit! They are as culpable as they would have been if they had physically superglued the Glock into Loughner's hand, curled his finger around the trigger and shoved him towards the crowd.

That said, I don't know what can be done about it. We still do have free speech in this country (sort of) and I'm not comfortable with the government trying to silence them... But maybe if they got a little of their own medicine, it might give them a wakeup call.

No, I am not advocating violence against them. That would be wrong. But I will admit that I have a serious moral failing in that I would unavoidably experience just a bit of schadenfreude if someone kneecapped Glenn Beck, if someone curbstoned Rush Limbaugh...

I'm just sayin'...

Open Season on Democrats?

I got home tonight to the news that Arizona Democratic Congressional Representative Gabrielle Giffords had been shot in the head at a public event.

Apparently she is going to survive (I don't know how...being shot in the head seems like a pretty serious thing), but that's not true for six others at the scene, including a Federal judge.

There is apparently no proof yet that the shooting was political, according to authorities, but come on...

I'm willing to bet my next paycheck that this asshole is an avid listener to the Glenn Beck program. If not him, then Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc etc etc. And I'm also willing to bet that he watches Clusterfox "News". Tragically, the loudmouths of the right have lowered the bar on reasonable political discourse so fucking much that it seems a rational course of action to kill a politician if s/he doesn't agree with the Unholy Trio.

The wingnut media have created such an atmosphere of hate in this country that I am afraid that this is not the last attempt on the life of a Democratic office holder.

After all, Sarah Palin had Giffords in the crosshairs during last fall's election. In the crosshairs. Everybody knows what that means, and just because the Killa from Wasilla now says that the shooting is "tragic", she's the one who put Giffords in the crosshairs in the first place. Maybe Sarah thinks that the phrase is a metaphor, but she has to know that her base is firmly planted in the knuckledragging set who wouldn't know a metaphor if it, metaphorically, slapped them in the face.

I used to live in Cochise County, Arizona, and if I still lived there, I would have actively campaigned for Gifford. Would that have put me in the crosshairs as well?

Maybe. But for sure this shooting -- and killing -- will create a chilling effect on the next election. After all, who is going to want to run for office knowing that if you are a liberal, you are 1,000 times more likely to be assassinated than if you run as a Teabagger.

When was the last time you learned that a political assassin was a "liberal"?

And there's an additional sad note to this, and that is Giffords isn't all that liberal. She is, in fact, a "blue dog" Democrat. Not that I blame her much for that -- it was probably the only way she could get elected in that largely conservative district.

The Four Freedoms 70 Years Later

Today is the 70th anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms speech:

I wonder what old Frank D. would have to say about the current crop of Crypto-Fascist Rethugs in Congress.

Plenty, I'll bet, and none of it good.

That's in the Constitution?

Today the House of Representatives is reading aloud the Constitution of the United States.

Of course it is political stuntery of the first order, but maybe ... just maybe ... they will learn something during the course of it. Most of them probably have never even seen it, let alone read it, and I can imagine the shocked faces when some of its provisions are vocalized:

Preamble:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Promote the general welfare? Is that why the wingnuttery is squeezing its butt cheeks together over the "unconstitutionality" of the Health Care Law? Is that why they want to get rid of government regulation, the environmental and consumer protection laws, etc etc etc?

Article I Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States...
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water...
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Congress is the entity with the power to declare war. That means that our misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan are being done illegally. As was our losing proposition to "bring democracy" to Vietnam. And they are supposed to be making all laws about stuff, not the president making "signing statements" (are you listening, Baby Doc Bush?) that, in essence and in practice, "make" laws.

Article I Section 9
The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

Tell that to the several hundred prisoners still wasting away in places like Guantánamo. Tell that to the other "enemy noncombatants" who are existing outside the bounds of civilized government. We might have been attacked, but we were certainly not "invaded".

Article II Section 1
[Duties of the President] Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Note there is no "so help me god" at the end of that oath or affirmation. That was added by unwritten convention due to political pandering to the 18th Century equivalent of the Religious Right.

Article V Section 3
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

It's easy for the wingnuttery to throw around "The T Word" when discussing Obama or various members of the administration or Democrats in Congress, but here's the strict definition.

Article VI
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Got that, congressman? No religious test. That's as clear a statement of the Original Intent of the Founders on whether or not this is a "Christian Nation" and that we do have a wall of separation between church and state.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

See above. Wall of separation. Period. You can also legally show up at a political rally for Bush wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt. Supposedly.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

No wiretaps of citizens' phones, no snooping into our personal lives, no arbitrary actions on the part of the cops who are notorious in certain geographical areas for pulling innocent people over on suspicion of DWB (Driving While Black).

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Again, tell that to the Guantánamo detainees. Tell that to Wikileaker Bradley Manning. Tell that to Muslim former Army chaplain James Yee.

So if the members of the House of Representatives can pull themselves away from their cell phones and keep from sexting the teenage House pages long enough to actually listen, they might learn something.

But I doubt it. These people mostly claim to have read their holy bible, and they seem to ignore completely all of that loosey-goosey "love thy neighbor" "turn the other cheek" neo-hippie garbage spewing from the mouth of their actual living god incarnate (i.e., Joshua bar-Joseph, aka "Jesus Christ").

So I take it back. It won't do them any good, and it's just a waste of time that could be better spent by the Rethugs doing what they do best, "The People's Work": Rolling back health care reform, cutting Social Security, and impeaching Barack Obama.

Michelle Bachmann? Really?

Just what we need, another batshit crazy presidential candidate:

“Rep. Michele Bachmann is beginning to consider a presidential run, according to close congressional aides,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes. “As part of that effort, the Minnesota Republican is traveling to the early caucus state of Iowa on Jan. 21 to confer with state GOP leaders and address a group of conservative tax activists… While Bachmann has made no firm decision about a White House bid in 2012, ‘nothing is off the table,’ press aide Sergio Gor told the Star Tribune Wednesday, confirming an earlier ABC News report.

When someone from your own staff acts all coy like this about your plans to run for president, you just know that she is going to be running.

Good.

Finally, some much-needed if unintentional humor injected into the presidential race. I can't wait for her and Half-governor Palin to start yapping at each other during the first primary debate.

In the words of several characters in a memorable episode of Seinfeld, "Mmmmm, cat fight!"

When it's all over and they are shown up for the moron losers that they really are, maybe they can enter the Witless Protection program. Neither of them should have the slightest problem getting in.

New: The Day Count & a Bumpersticker

If you look in the right-hand column, you'll see a new feature, the Day Count.

I used to be a propeller head/computer geek when I was gainfully employed (before I retired and became an elderly shut-in on a fixed income) and the other day I was looking through some old JavaScript stuff that I wrote when I was working.

This count-up/count-down script caught my eye, and while I wrote it originally for something else entirely (having to do with Unemployment Insurance), I immediately realized that I could adapt it to another purpose.

Which is what I did. Every day you will see a couple of new numbers, one showing the number of days that John Boner Boehner has been Speaker of the House, and asking the rhetorical question, "Where are all of the jobs?"; the other showing the number of days until the next general election, when we will all concentrate on getting out The Base to vote out the Rethug bastards and put the reins of government back in the hands of Liberals.

Towards that end, I also created a new bumpersticker:


Feel free to make one of your own and use it yourself, but I disclaim any responsibility for whatever might happen to you as a result. People don't fuck with me, generally, because they know I am possibly-crazy Vietnam veteran wearing on his Jeep another bumper sticker that tends to keep them at bay.