Rachel Maddow - The GOP's clash over class

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

I sincerely believe in the Great Pumpkin

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

The pompous predilictions of priestly lies

Manila, the Philippines.

Struck by Ketsana, a powerful typhoon. Hundreds of people killed. Thousands more without housing or food. There is little or no water in certain sections of the city.

The Philippines is a nation fervently dedicated to the Roman Catholic version of Christianity. Thus, it is not surprising that churches throughout the country were jammed following this terrible tragedy. Christian Today noted that worshipers struggled "through high water and floating debris in many places to hear sermons of encouragement."

One can't blame the Filipinos for wanting to hear some good news amidst such devastation.


But what did they hear? Perhaps a radio message by Father Anton C T Pascual, the executive director of the Manila branch of the Catholic charity Caritas, best exemplifies the message:

"God loves you," said the Rev. Father Pascual, "God will not forsake you. Don't lose hope because these trials are challenges that will makes us all the more cling to God, and to unite as brothers and sisters, and to unite as one people."

Yup, that's what he said.

And the people listened. I'd guess most even nodded their heads and thanked their god for her many blessings!

What a crock! God has forsaken them. Hundreds are dead! How do the dead not lose hope, cling to God, and unite with those still living?

Padre Pascual is passing out priestly pap to people desperately in need of straight talk. The truth, Padre, for a change: Your god doesn't give a damn. Your god doesn't care that hundreds of people were killed by Ketsana, and that thousands more have no homes or food.

Your god, Padre, could have stopped that typhoon in its tracks, siphoned off its power, and tamed its fury. Your god, Padre, did not do so. Your god, Padre, killed hundreds of Filipinos!

What kind of horrendous deity do you believe in, Padre? She sends tragedy so that the survivors, beaten and disheartened and hanging by a thread, will better "cling to God"? She sends death and pain and sorrow so that the people whom she didn't kill can "unite as one people"?


What you should have said, Pascual, is that your god has forsaken the people of Manila. That your god, if she exists, is a monster. You should have said to your people that they are on their own. That whatever help they get will come from human beings. That their only hope lies in the goodness of people, not some unseen, hateful deity.

And you might have admitted that you are a charlatan, filled to the brim and overflowing with bullshit!

The wise man and the fool

Koheleth wrote:

"I ventured to tempt my flesh with wine, and to grasp folly, while letting my mind direct with wisdom, to the end that I might learn which of the two was better for men to practice in their few days of life under heaven. I multiplied my possessions. I built myself houses and I planted vineyards. I laid out gardens and groves, in which I planted every kind of fruit tree. I constructed pools of water, enough to irrigate a forest shooting up with trees.

"I bought male and female slaves, and I acquired stewards. I also acquired more cattle, both herds and flocks, than all who were before me in Jerusalem. I further amassed silver and gold and treasures of kings and provinces; and I got myself male and female singers, as well as the luxuries of commoners--coffers and coffers of them. Thus, I gained more wealth than anyone before me in Jerusalem. In addition, my wisdom remained with me: I withheld from my eyes nothing they asked for, and denied myself no enjoyment; rather, I got enjoyment out of all my wealth. And that was all I got out of my wealth.

"Then my thoughts turned to all the fortune my hands had built up, to the wealth I had acquired and won--and oh, it was all futile and pursuit of wind; there was no real value under the sun! For what will the man be like who will succeed the one who is ruling over what was built up long ago?

"My thoughts also turned to appraising wisdom and madness and folly. I found that

Wisdom is superior to folly
As light is superior to darkness;
A wise man has his eyes in his head,
Whereas a fool walks in darkness.

"But I also realized that the same fate awaits them both."


--Ecclesiastes 2:3-14 (The Jewish Study Bible)

Star of the War

John Gebhardt's wife, Mindy, said that this little girl's entire family was executed. The insurgents intended to execute the little girl also, and shot her in the head...but they failed to kill her. She was cared for in John's hospital and is healing up, but continues to cry and moan. The nurses said John is the only one who seems to calm her down, so John has spent the last four nights holding her while they both slept in that chair. The girl is coming along with her healing.

He is a real Star of the war, and represents what America is trying to do.

This, my friends, is worth sharing. Go for it!! You'll never see things like this in the news. Please keep this going. Nothing will happen if you don't, but the American public needs to see pictures like this and needs to realize that what we're doing over there is making a difference. Even if it is just one little girl at a time.

James Gates U. S. Navy

h/t to Bob Poris, who had this to say:

I think it important to remember we are fighting two wars, have troops in Korea, and many places in the world, all manned by about 1% of our population. Regardless of our opinions re either war, someone’s kids have volunteered and we do not have enough troops due to a lack of enlistments. We do have the Limbaugh’s and the Beck’s, our super patriots, that have never served in any service at any time, as far as I know, telling us only Republicans are loyal patriots. If so why are not more serving in our armed forces.


The man in the picture is serving and helping. He might not even approve of the wars, (soldiers are not asked, they go where sent) but he is serving his country and deserves credit and our support. We should not be using profit making corporations to serve in a war. Our armed forces should do the job without regard to profit or costs to equip soldiers properly so they might live to fight when needed.

Alan Grayson on Countdown says Republicans should get out of the way

"No apology" Grayson let the Republicans have it re: health care reform! A wonderful speech. I'm so proud he's from Florida!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Michele Bachmann - Worst person in the world

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Keith Olbermann - A wake-up call to Washington

If you never read another word about health care reform; if you never see another video dealing with health care reform; watch this video by Keith Olbermann!

He pulls no punches, dissects the problem(s), and offers a cure.

I'm afraid, though, it's too late. The haters, the nogoodniks, the corporate monsters are too many and have too much money. And they own the Congress and the Press.

The Dick Armey's of the world, truly evil men and women, are trumping goodness with their lies built upon their ties to the very industries that are engaged in the systematic destruction of all we hold dear!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Rachel Maddow - Oklahoma threatens women with shame, public exposure

Here is additional evidence (not that it's needed) that Repugnicans, who claim to be "conservative," and lovers of freedom, are neither. They rail and rant against "socialism," "fascism," and "communism," and at the same time adopt policies which are much closer to fascism and communism than to democracy.

The Repugnican Party is inimical to the health of this country. Driven by christianist hogwash and ideologies better suited to the 16th century, these mavens of idiocy are threatening the very foundations of the state of our union!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Lobbyists get the boot

[Cartoon from koreatimes.co.kr]

Everyone knows that the world is ruled by huge, international corporations. Everyone knows that Congress is bought and paid for by huge, international corporations. Everyone knows that huge, international corporations hire lobbyists to worm their way into Washington's inner circles to ensure that huge, international corporations get what they want from the people they have bought and paid for.

One of the ways they do that is to get their lobbyists appointed to federal advisory committees. Yup, that's right! Federal advisory committees. Then they can "advise" the guv'mint on what to do for their corporations!

I wonder how many representatives of the common folks sit on these federal advisory committees?

Everyone also knows that most Congress people, when they've outlived their usefulness on Capitol Hill or have to resign because of some ethical lapse, go to work as lobbyists for the huge, international corporations they served so well while in Congress.


President Obama has made a change in this game plan. Norm Eisen, Obama's "ethics czar," announced the other day that "The White House has informed executive agencies and departments that it is our aspiration that federally-registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions." Eisen went on to say that such lobbyists currently sitting on an agency advisory board not be re-appointed.

K-Street, is mightily pissed! According to CQ Politics, one lobbyist who sits on a committee, said "There is a fury. Absolute fury." I'll bet. No more special access to work against the well-being of the country and the will of the people!


Watch for the hatred against Obama begin to spike! There is nothing they will not do to keep the profits flowing! Nothing!

Utter futility

A poem from Ecclesiastes, the bible's "atheistic" book:

"The words of Koheleth son of David, king in Jerusalem. [Although "Koheleth" is presented as Solomon, that is probably not the case. The word means "to assemble," and thus the Greek translation, Ecclesiastes - the biblical book from which this is taken. No one knows for sure to what or whom Koheleth refers.]

'Utter futility! -- said Koheleth --
Utter futility! All is futile!
What real value is there for a man
In all the gains he makes beneath the sun?

One generation goes, another comes,
But the earth remains the same forever.
The sun rises, and the sun sets--
And glides back to where it rises.
Southward blowing,
Turning northward,
Ever turning blows the wind;
On its rounds the wind returns.
All streams flow into the sea,
Yet the sea is never full;
To the place [from] which they flow
The streams flow back again.

All such things are wearisome;
No man can ever state them'
The eye never has enough of seeing,
Nor the ear enough of hearing.
Only that shall happen
Which has happened,
Only that occur
Which has occurred;
There is nothing new
Beneath the sun!'"


In other words, we've always had assholes like Beck, Coulter, Rushbaugh, Cantor, DeMint, Bourn, Steele, Palin, etc., etc., and we're just going to have to live with the fact that there's nothing much we can do about it. There is nothing new under the sun."

Quotation from the Jewish Study Bible.

Tim Tebow is back but god doesn't care

Gloom, as a blanket of wet fog, descended upon the stadium. Silence ruled. The hero of Gainesville and football fans everywhere was down. On the grass. On his back. Other players hovered. Trainers and medical types rushed to his side.

In the stands, grown men wept. Pubescent young girls with "breasts like two fawns, Twins of a gazelle" [The Song of Songs, 4:5] sobbed and hugged each other crushing their surgically-enhanced chests.

Did I say "gloom"? People looked at each other and shook their heads. How could this be? Tim Tebow, the greatest college quarterback of all time, injured and unmoving on the turf. Wasn't this the youthful titan who could do all things through his Christ who gave him strength? Wasn't this the fine, upstanding, virginal specimen of home-schooled christianist religion? Wasn't this the gracious missionary who gave of his spare time in order to go tell little pagan boys and girls they were going to burn forever in hell if they didn't accept Tebow's Jesus into their hearts?

"Why?" people cried.

"Where was god?" they asked their heart of hearts.


Well, Tim is back. Not at 100% yet, but he's back practicing with the team. There's a chance he may be at the helm tomorrow against LSU. Maybe. The coach will make that determination at game time. The backup quarterback is ready. All systems are go.

Thank goodness.

Except...well...Maybe Tim should stop writing that Bible verse on his cheek. One can never know about such things but perhaps god got pissed. It should be clear to everyone by now that Tim Tebow's god doesn't really care about him. Tim Tebow's god let him undergo a vicious hit resulting in Tim getting knocked on his ass with a bad concussion (there are no good concussions!).

Why would Tim Tebow's god do that?

There's only one answer: She just doesn't care. Tim was taught early on that his god is omnipotent; his god can do anything; his god is all-powerful. Of course, it may be hard to get her attention. One has to pray a lot. Without ceasing. Maybe she's deaf?

Whatever, Tim's god left him stranded when he needed her protection the most. Being omniscient, Tim's god certainly knew what was going to happen and when. Being omnipotent, stopping it from happening would have been a piece of cake.


We are glad to see Tim back and we wish him the best and hope he leads the Gators to another winning season.

But, Tim needs better protection out there on the gridiron. He needs to be surrounded by protectors with helmets of steel and arms of brass 'cause Tim's god just doesn't care.

Poor Michele Bachmann with her "personal stalkers"

This would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Commentary from Crooks and Liars:

Another one of both Michelle Bachmann and Bill O’Reilly’s finer moments on Fox Noise. O’Reilly can’t understand why everyone is “after” poor little old Michele Bachmann and says she’s second only behind Sarah Palin in “far left angst” and asks Bachmann why the left is “after her”.

Bachmann: You know, it’s an interesting phenomenon, I think it happened with the competing cable networks who’ve taken an interest in me, and it’s only grown and so now it’s almost like I have personal stalkers, only they have TV shows. So it’s kind of an interesting phenomenon.

So who’s stalking you Michele? Chris Matthews? I would suspect he’ll have something to say about this on his show tomorrow.

While trying to rationalize Bachmann’s arguments on why the left doesn’t like her, Bill-O throws this one out there.

O’Reilly: Do you think, and this is an off the wall question and I’m telling the audience that it’s just something that occurred to me. Both you and Sarah Palin are good looking women. I mean you’re attractive, young… relatively young women, who other women can identify with. You’re a mom, a wife, you had a private sector job. I think that’s it. I think that the success of Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann drive the far left crazy because you don’t fit, they don’t like what you believe in, but you, but you can attract others to listen to you. I think that’s what’s going on.

Yeah, that's it Bill. The left hates Palin and Bachmann because you think they're hot. And they're successful. What liberal woman could ever relate to that? And mothers...gasp. What liberal woman could relate to that either? And they had jobs... Oh my goodness what liberal woman could ever relate to another woman that had a job?

And you'd better watch it Michele or you might be getting a phone call from O'Reilly wanting you to talk dirty to him on the phone. (Warning, link definitely not safe for work.)

My comment to Michele: The reason, my dear dimwit, why liberals and people with brains don't like you is because you're just plain goddamn stupid. And you're a member of the United States Congress which gives you a certain amount of power. But because you're so goddamn stupid, you pose a threat to our country, our Constitution, and our way of life.

That's why we don't like you. And frankly, I don't think you're very attractive. But then I've never been attracted to people with empty heads.

Corporate Communism

I really like this one!

And here's what Crooks and Liars has to say:

Dylan Ratigan offered up some meaning for his new catch phrase he's been using this week, describing it as

a system that takes resources from the citizenry and redistributes it to a tiny elite....a handful of weak, uncompetitive and outdated corporations and industries are purchasing control of the American political process in order to stay in business using their cronyism. It is coming at the direct expense of the rest of us, and is a total betrayal of everything that represents America.

The former host of the business channel CNBC spares no punches either in this article at the Huffington Post.

It is an interesting idea, somewhat reminiscent of the idea in economist James K. Galbraith's book The Predator State, which developed on more ideological lines. Galbraith related to Thomas Frank in the Wall Street Journal:

"The 'predator state' describes what happens when chicken coops are given over to foxes," Mr. Galbraith continued. "When consumer protection, worker protection, environmental protection, and policing against fraud are handed over to lobbyists. And when health care is run for the benefit of private insurance companies, whose business model . . . is to target coverage on the healthy and delay payments to the sick."

Paul Broun Jr. at Town Hall Meeting in Athens, Georgia

Paul Broun, Jr., aka The Liar. For more on this defective politician, go here.

Shroud of Turin - made of whole cloth?

Would you believe it? The Shroud of Turin is a fake. Really!

Yep. Of course you already knew that. Way back in 1988 scientists, using radiocarbon dating, proved it was made sometime in the 13th or 14th centuries. It is a hoax! That did not, of course, dissuade "true" believers who are not bothered by facts or the truth.

You probably also know that this faux shroud is supposed to show "a crucified man, complete with blood seeping out of nailed hands and feet, and believers say Christ's image was recorded on the linen fibers at the time of his resurrection." (AOL News).

Hee, hee. All this from a man who most likely didn't exist in the first place!


Just recently, a team of scientists led by a chemistry professor at the University of Pavia in Italy, were able to duplicate the shroud using a variety of processes (materials and methods available in the 14th century).

In fact, the shroud was "discovered" somewhere around 1360. A French knight had possession. Hmmm. Where had it been before that? No one knows. It just appeared out of thin air.

Now the Vatican, that repository of ignorance and superstition, keeps the shroud locked away and brings it out only when it needs to entice a bunch of people to Rome to fill its coffers with Euros. It was last displayed in 2000 and over a million of the ignorant faithful showed up to pay their respects (pun intended).


The Roman Church has since its inception created phony saints, phony bones, and god knows how many other relics to keep the ignorant and superstitious in line and give them reason to continue to bow and scrape and send money.

These are people who "believe," and science be damned, they're gonna keep on believing the shroud is real.

But one wonders about this god in which they believe. Why couldn't he or she have put a name tag on the damn thing saying "Jesus was buried in this garment"? If god is omnipotent as the Roman church claims, that would have been a piece of cake.

Or, when the legendary Yeshua walked out of the tomb, why didn't this omnipotent god have some non-believing artists available who could have touched him and talked to him and drawn his portrait, noting on their work the date and time? The Roman authorities could have recorded the incident like they recorded every other incident. That would have better served to verify the resurrection than some old raggedy shroud that was created out of whole cloth in the 14th century!

Maybe Jesus didn't exist. Or maybe the Roman god is not really omnipotent. Maybe he's impotent.

Rick Sanchez v. the dumb bimbo, Michele Bachmann

The brainless Michele Bachmann is back pretending to know something. What she pretends to know, is once again not true. Rick Sanchez, bless his heart, takes her to task for being just plain stoopid!



The commentary is from Crooks & Liars.

SANCHEZ: One of the things that we like to do in this segment is shine a light on lawmakers who gaffe or don't exactly tell the truth all the time. We begin "Fotos" today with Michele Bachmann.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BACHMANN: The bill orders these clinics protect patient privacy in student records. What does that mean? It means that parents will never know what kind of counsel and treatment that their children are receiving.

And, as a matter of fact, the bill goes on to say what's going to go on. Comprehensive primary health services, physicals, treatment of minor, acute, chronic medical conditions, referrals to follow up for specialty care -- is that abortion? Does that mean that someone's 13-year-old daughter could walk into a sex clinic, have a pregnancy test done, be taken away to the local Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, have their abortion, be back and go on home on the school bus that night? Mom and dad are never the wiser.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: If could, if could -- Bachmann is a Republican, by the way. And to be clear, we looked into this. Nothing that she is alleging in that sound bite you just heard is actually true, nothing. We checked.

School-based health clinics, or as Bachmann terms them, "sex clinics," have been around for some 30 years in the United States. And as far as we've been able to discover, not one of them has ever referred a student to an abortion provider without the knowledge of a parent, never happened. The actual bill that Bachmann is citing stipulates that school-based health clinics comply with all federal, state and local laws governing parental notification and parental consent.

So, why would she say that? She is right, by the way, that as of last Wednesday, none of the three bills explicitly ban school-based health clinics from referring students to abortion clinics. And for the record, neither does it ban kids from being shipped to Mars, either.

There is one other note: there is now an amendment to specifically bar all public school-based health funds from being used for any such medical needs.

Keith Olbermann - Paul Broun, worst person in the world

Paul Broun is a certified christianist loony-toon from Georgia. He's the one who wants to censor what our military overseas can read. In other words, no Playboy magazines! God told him to do it!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Going Rogue - Rachel Maddow

Watch the video and read the commentary by Crooks and Liars below. Does not this come close to treason?


From the Rachel Maddow Show Oct. 5, 2009. Rachel reiterates this report from TPMDC--The GOP's New Foreign Policy: Undermine American Diplomacy:

An interesting pattern has been emerging in the Republican Party's handling of foreign policy: Individual GOP officials are now making a regular point of not only formulating an alternative foreign policy, to be presented to the American people and debated in Congress -- they're acting on it too, and undermining the official White House policies at multiple turns.

• Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) is visiting Honduras in order to support the recent military coup against a leftist president, which has been opposed by the Obama administration and all the surrounding countries in the region. (Late Update: DeMint's office says he is not taking sides during his visit to the current Honduran leadership, denying the New York Times reports that this was his intention.)

• Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) will be going to the upcoming climate change conference in Copenhagen, bringing a "Truth Squad" to tell foreign officials there that the American government will not take any action: "Now, I want to make sure that those attending the Copenhagen conference know what is really happening in the United States Senate."

• House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) traveled to Israel, where he spoke out against President Obama's opposition to expanded settlements. He also defended Israel on the eviction of two Arab families from a house in east Jerusalem, which had been criticized by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

• Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) boasted in June that he told Chinese officials not to trust America's budget numbers. "One of the messages I had -- because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor," said Kirk, "is that the budget numbers that the US government had put forward should not be believed." Since then, he has declared his candidacy for U.S. Senate.

Anyone remember this statement by Trent Lott when some Democratic Congressmen dared to visit Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion?

Lott raps U.S. congressman in Iraq:

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Washington, who is one of three House members visiting Iraq to urge Iraqi officials to avert war by allowing U.N. weapons inspectors back in, has acted irresponsibly, Lott said.

"For him to be in Baghdad, the center of one of the most dangerous dictators in the world, with all kinds of weapons of mass destruction, to be questioning the veracity of our own American president, is the height of irresponsible," said Lott, R-Mississippi. "He needs to come home and keep his mouth shut."

Or these attacks on Nancy Pelosi for going to Syria? Pelosi's Syria Trip: Media Advancing Right-Wing Spin.

As always, IOKIYAR.

Update. Transcript below the fold.

MADDOW: As Republicans search for meaning in the political minority, as they try to beat a path out of the political wilderness, an increasing number of Republican leaders seem to be trying to compensate for their relative lack of power at home by flexing their muscles abroad. Republicans have been traveling to other countries to try to undermine the policies of the United States. You might call it anti-diplomacy.

We first reported this phenomenon in June when Illinois Republican Congressman Mark Kirk bragged that on a trip to China, he had met with Chinese government officials and told them to not trust the American government on matters of the budget and the deficit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARK KIRK: One of the messages I had-because we need to build trust and confidence in our number one creditor-is that the budget numbers that the U.S. government had put forward should not be believed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Don't believe the U.S. government, China. Congressman Mark Kirk's great idea for building trust and confidence is to tell China to definitely not trust us.

But a little over two weeks ago, Republican Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma made an announcement. He said that he was going to go rogue overseas himself. He says he plans on attending the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December and it's because he thinks that global warning is a hoax.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JIM INHOFE: All these problems, it just didn't happen. In fact, the IED rate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Well, that's not at all-what was interesting part of what he said. What he said was, "I'm going to go ahead and announce now, I'm going to go to Copenhagen. I think someone needs to be there as a one man truth squad." A one man truth squad.

Senator Inhofe says the mission of his little one man truth squad will be to tell other countries not to believe what the United States says when our government negotiates on climate change and carbon emissions. And, you know, when it was just Mark Kirk going to China to tell the Chinese not to trust us, that was weird. Then when it turned out to be Mark Kirk plus Jim Inhofe, when it happened twice, sort of seemed like it might be a coincidence.

But when something like this happens three times, I think it's called a trend-which makes Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina officially the trend-maker. Senator DeMint is now back from meeting with the de facto government of Honduras, the government that the United States does not recognize.

Mr. DeMint called the meeting with the military government that ousted their president there, quote, "very productive." Adding, "We saw a government working hard to follow the rule of law, uphold its Constitution, and to protect democracy for the people of Honduras."

Senator DeMint is referring to a government that ushered its country's democratically-elected president out of the country in his pajamas, a government that until today allowed police and soldiers to break up public meetings, arrest people without warrant and restrict the news media.

Then today, remarkably, three more Republican members of Congress went to Honduras and visited with this government that we, as a country, supposedly do not recognize. Thereby jumping on the "go abroad to undermine American foreign policy" even though you're an American bandwagon -- this creepy, creepy bandwagon.

Another bestseller?

Thanks to Atheist Cartoons.

Keith Olbermann - Michele Bachmann, worst person in the world

Once again it becomes very clear that one need have no brain to become a member of the United States Congress. Michele Bachmann, the brainless bimbo from Minnesota so qualifies!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy