Political and religious commentary from a liberal, secular, humanistic perspective.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Christianist leaders fight to be allowed to discriminate
Attempts to pass an anti-discrimination policy began back in 1997, but have been unsuccessful. Now, however, it appears that it may receive the blessing of Congress and President Obama will sign it.
That possible success is driving certain christianist leaders nuts. Well, nuttier than usual. It matters not to these fruitcakes that the bill actually contains an exemption for religious groups. Which is pretty funny. Religious groups pretend they are all about love and inclusion, especially christianist religious groups who go about quoting what they think Jesus meant about everything, but they really are more about hatred and exclusion than anything else.
So, they are now claiming the exemption is just a subterfuge. Craig Parshall, representing the rightwhitewingnut christianist fundamentalistic National Religious Broadcasters, wailed that this bill would "impose a crippling burden on religious organizations" because they would no longer be able to discriminate against homosexuals, etc.
Dear God, please let us religious folks continue to discriminate! We know YOU hate homosexuals (well, actually you love homosexuals, you just hate their homosexuality) and would never want a christianist group to knowingly hire one of "them."
Heh. Heh.
One wingnut by name of Frank Wright, president and CEO of National Religious Broadcasters, accused someone [I guess the "liberal left"] of hypocrisy, saying of this bill:
"[I]t purports to address discrimination, all the while visiting a pernicious viewpoint discrimination against people of deep religious conviction. In the final analysis, ENDA is an attempt to subjugate First Amendment freedoms while advancing the political orthodoxy of the liberal left."
Heh. Heh. Pernicious! Big word. I like it. It fits the NRB and other christianists very well!
Let's see. According to this logic, if christianist groups want to follow God's law and stone adulterers to death, any attempt to stop them would be "discrimination against people of deep religious conviction." It would be "an attempt to subjugate First Amendment freedoms while advancing the political orthodoxy of the liberal left."
What an asshat! Having a "deep religious conviction" is not an asset; it usually means the person is mentally unstable. And anyone who talks about "the political orthodoxy of the liberal left" is exposing to the entire world a monumental stupidity about American politics. If there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that the so-called "liberal left" has no "political orthodoxy" at all!
But, hey, lovers of Jesus unite! Carry your banner high. Let it read "We hate homosexuals and don't want to hire them, work with them, go to lunch with them or share a company picnic with them!"
[Much of this material, minus my own rants, of course, was taken from the article, "NRB Leader Warns Congress of ENDA's 'Chilling' Effect on Christian Groups," at Christian Post.]
How did ACORN become a target?
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Gun nuts stocking up and hiding out
But lots of gun nuts are worried. Gun sales have spiked since Obama's election. According to an AOL article titled "Bullet Makers 'Working Overtime' in US," "The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported that 6.1 million background checks for gun sales were issued from January to May, an increase of 25.6 percent from the same period the year before."
In tandem with gun sales, the number of applicants for concealed weapons licenses has also spiked sharply in several states, including my own, Florida.
But there's a problem. All these guns and all these shooters have created an unprecedented demand for ammo. As Larry Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation said, 'Without bullets a gun is just a paper weight.'"
Cute, huh?
Remington Arms in North Carolina is going crazy trying to keep up with demand for bullets. "We've had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7. It's a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business," saith Al Russo, a spokesman for Remington. From what I hear, Remington's problem is typical of ammo manufacturers throughout the U.S.
Some people have panicked, believing that President Obama is going to send his troopers to take away their weapons. Many of them have been unduly influenced by that bunch of morons at the National Rifle Association who have wailed from the beginning of Obama's run for the presidency that he was a threat to anyone's ownership of guns.
Actually, the NRA went ballistic (pardon the intended pun) when it looked like Hillary Clinton might have a chance to be the Democratic nominee. She's anti-gun, they cried! She'll scuttle the 2nd Amendment, they cried.
But, with Obama the NRA shot it's wad. In their magazine and other literature, the NRA screamed and hollered and wept that everyone's gun's rights were in danger, that Obama was anti-gun, that he would not uphold the NRA's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, blah, blah, blah.
In fact, following the lead of the NRA, all of the gun magazines published this same bullshit constantly, in every issue. Vote Republican, and save your right to own a gun, was the mantra repeated again and again!
And this, in spite of the fact Obama said nothing about taking away anyone's guns. He did speak about responsible gun control, but any talk of "responsible gun control" sends the NRA into spasms of unmitigated agony and strenuous fund-raising activities.
In fact, since Obama has taken office, no anti-gun legislation has surfaced. Obama has said over and over again he "respects Second Amendment rights." But he also talks about using "common sense" with regard to gun laws.
The NRA and its minions will have nothing to do with common sense! So, all over the country, ignorant and gullible gun nuts are stockpiling weapons and ammunition waiting for an apocalypse that ain't a-gonna happen, just like the ignorant and gullible christianists waiting for Jesus to come back, which ain't a-gonna happen, either.
It's rather sad, really.
Who bought Sen. Lisa Murkowski?
Senator Lisa Murkowski, R (AK), doesn't think the Environmental Protection Agency should protect the environment. It's not their job, she says.
What do they smoke in Alaska?
Here's another example of a bought and paid for politician, blatantly moving an agenda which is detrimental to the her own state of Alaska, the United States of America , and the entire world.
According to McClatchy, Murkowski attempted "to amend the Interior Department appropriations bill ..." She wanted to "limit for a year the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, factories and other stationary sources of pollution."
McClatchy says that while Murkowski claims to want to reduce emissions, she said "she didn't believe the EPA, acting under the authority of the Clean Air Act, was the proper agency to do so."
Huh? Yup. The EPA messing around in the EPA's business might result in "unintended consequences, and could be devastating to our economy."
Our economy? One can't help but wonder where Murkowski gets most of her money ... it ain't Mom and Pop and all the other little people! Maybe from the oil companies?
But not to worry for the moment. The Senate blocked Murkowski's typical Repugnican assault on common sense. Which led Joe Mendelson, director of Global Warming for the National Wildlife Federation to say:
"The Senate today stood with the vast majority of Americans who want the government to take action on global warming and reduce pollution from tailpipes and smokestacks. We need action to reduce global warming pollution, repower America's economy with millions of clean energy jobs, and break our dependence on oil."
Consider that. EPA action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions could just as well cause a boost in the nation's economy.
My goodness!
Friday, September 25, 2009
Beck supports a slave import tax?!? - Keith Olbermann
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In Iowa, Rep. Steve King makes an ass of himself
Now that isn't hard for Mr. King to do - make an ass of himself. You may recall how he warned that if Barack Hussein Obama was elected president, al Qaida and other nefarious groups around the world would be dancing in the streets. And he used the middle name, "Hussein," just to remind everyone that Obama might be a secret Muslim.
King is back in the news these days damning the Iowa Supreme Court for legalizing gay marriage. He's also very worried that Congress may repeal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), a bit of legislative mischief dear to the hearts of the rightwhitewingnuts, for whom the sex lives of Americans is red meat, and who feel it is their business to turn the United States into a christianist country.
But what's really got his shorts in a knot is "socialism." He doesn't like socialism. I'm not sure he has a freaking clue what socialism is all about but he knows it when he sees it and he doesn't like what he's seeing.
According to an article in The Hill's Blog Briefing Room by Michael O'Brien, King, while pontificating on a conservative news radio program, said this:
"If there's a push for a socialist society where the foundations of individual rights and liberties are undermined and everybody is thrown together living collectively off one pot of resources earned by everyone, this is one of the goals they have to go to, same sex marriage, because it has to plow through marriage in order to get their goal. They want public affirmation, they want access to public funds and resources."
Huh?
Yup. If socialism cometh, same sex marriage is right behind, because same sex marriage people want to feed in the public trough.
Maybe he got kicked in the head by a horse when a yong ass?
Same sex marriage is, not only "a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept in the final analysis," saith Mr. King.
Of course it is.
One more thing: King referenced Rick Santorum's comment that "legal same sex marriages would open the door to legal polygamy or bestiality." King said Santorum was right on.
And this, my friends, is the state of Repugnican discourse in our country today. Moronic and utterly without value. But they live in the unreal world of christianist theology and prey on the ignorant, uniformed and stoopids.
Antonin Scalia - Papal presence on the Supreme Court
Antonin Scalia was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Georgi Bush has praised Antonin Scalia as a great justice.
Scalia is the Supreme Court justice who, not long ago, saw no reason to give a condemned man a new trial even when evidence turned up indicating he was likely not guilty, saying, in a tremendous burst of righteous indignation, that the Supreme Court shouldn't intervene. Or, in other words, execute him!
Scalia is a devout follower of the Papacy in Rome.
And he is back in the news. This from Rob Boston at Talk 2 Action.
Mr. Boston notes that in an interview with an Orthodox Jewish newspaper based in Brooklyn, "Scalia attacks one of the core concepts of church-state separation - the idea that government must remain neutral between religion and non-religion."
This isn't surprising to anyone who knows anything about Roman Catholicism. The Roman Catholic Church has never given up its right to rule the world. If it could, it would rule the United States and put the United States under the authority of the pope. But it cannot, so it works subversively to undermine "core concepts" such as church-state separation.
Scalia is the papal presence on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Boston quotes Scalia as questioning the whole notion of government neutrality re: religion. Scalia has declared that the Establishment Clause drives God out of public life, and that "God protects" the United States of America ... because we honor him as a nation. We invoke Him in our country..."
Scalia, says Mr. Boston, "has been a complete and utter disaster as far as church-state separation is concerned. He was one of two justices to vote in favor of allowing public schools to teach 'creation science.' He has voted to allow government to meddle in school prayer at every turn. He believes taxing people to support religious institutions is just fine. As far as he is concerned, government can festoon itself with the Ten Commandments and other sectarian symbols."
There's more, but suffice it to say that Scalia should have never been confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. He vowed to uphold the Constitution but does everything he can to undermine it.
In that regard, he is a typical Repugnican conservative. What makes him more dangerous, however, is that he is an agent of an institution which would corrupt the very Constitution the Supreme Court has vowed to honor and protect.
Michael Ledeen and President Obama
Who's ever heard of Michael Ledeen? Raise your hands. Oh, no one? Okay. Well...
Ledeen is a "conservative" writer. I put the word conservative in quotes because these days most people who call themselves conservatives are really not conservative at all but are rather radical rightwhitewingnuts with an agenda that is primarily self-serving and boasts a "me first, screw everyone else" philosophy.
Anyway, this from Alex Koppelman at Salon.com:
Ledeen wrote a post for one of the National Review's blogs. That tells you right away it's going to consist of a bunch of wingnuttery. It's titled, "Is Obama Naive?"
Ledeen essentially says, no, Obama's not naive, but he's a dangerous despot who wants to be king of the world!
"I think he rather likes tyrants and dislikes America. I think he'd like to be more powerful. I think he is trying to get control over as much of our lives as he can, so that he can put an end to the annoying tumult of our public life ...
" ...
"Leaders are constantly frustrated, and some of them come to yearn for an end to our freedom. They think they know best, they just want to tell us what to do and have us shut up and do it. I think Obama is one of them. He's not naive. It's different. He doesn't like the way things work here, he thinks he can do much better ... " Blah, blah, blah.
Obviously, there isn't a lot of gray matter inside Mr. Ledeen's skull. Unfortunately, "he thinks" a lot of things, none of which does he bother to back up with facts. And if any person or group want to "control" our lives, it sure as hell isn't Obama who is trying very hard to give us some choices (e.g. health care), and to allow more people to live their lives without interference from the government (e.g. gay folks). Those who want to control our lives are commonly known as Repugnicans and/or "conservatives."
Think about it. Who are those who would "control" our sex lives, who would replace the Constitution with their interpretation of Old Testament legalese, who would force their beliefs relative to a number of issues (abortion, prayer in school, teaching the Bible in public schools, gay marriage, contraception, etc.) upon the American people?
It's not the "not naive" President Obama.
It's the moronic Ledeen's of the world!
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Kirk Cameron, a monkey, doesn't like evolution
Except these copies will have have 50 pages of introductory bullshit by Ray Comfort, the moron.
I like the idea of our comedian - tear out those 50 pages, use them for toilet paper.
h/t to Salon.com
There's more on this godly devilment here.
Palin gets paid - Rachel Maddow
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Who's transparent now?
I remember hearing some nogoodnik, a Repugnican congressman, speaking at the so-called "Values Summit," say very sarcastically that Obama had promised a "transparent" administration when he was campaigning for president, but has abandoned any pretense of transparency.
The implication, which the "values" crowd ate up was that Obama is engaging in all sorts of nefarious actions behind closed doors.
More lies from the "values" crowd.
This little anti-Obama speech was made at the same time as the announcement that President Obama has held more press conferences during his brief time in office than Georgi W. Bush held in his entire eight years of screwing up the world.
But, when talking about transparency, there's more.
Back in July, the Guardian released satellite images of polar ice sheets taken in July 2006 and July 2007 which showed in graphic detail how the ice is disappearing. Here's what the Guardian wrote:
"Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic has been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months."
Now, read carefully: (Emphasis is mine)
THE PICTURES, KEPT SECRET BY WASHINGTON DURING THE PRESIDENCY OF GEORGE W. BUSH, WERE DECLASSIFIED BY THE WHITE HOUSE LAST WEEK. President Barack Obama is currently trying to galvanise Congress and the American public to take action to halt catastrophic climate change caused by rising level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."
We've known for some time that Georgi Bush and company attempted to play down global warming, even forcing scientists to rewrite (and thus falsify) reports detailing the horrendous, and very likely, possible consequences of global warming to our planet.
Other actions taken (or not taken) by the Bushites had to do with our "aging satellite fleet." It was not upgraded or replaced when necessary. And this has resulted in a real danger that we will not be able to gather the satellite data "crucial to predicting climate changes..."
Professor Jane Lubchenco, appointed by President Obama to head up the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), says "We are playing catch up."
Here's why: "...America, the world's scientific superpower, was virtually blinding itself to climate change by cutting funds to the environmental satellite programmes run by the Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Nasa."
The truth. President Obama's administration's "transparency" is like the light of the sun compared to the darkness that enveloped the secretive shenanigans of George W. Bush and friends!
The difference between the approaches of the Obama and Bush administrations relative to the problem of global warming are just one example.
It is an example, however, that carries great significance. In fact, it has to do with life and death.
And which administration sided with death?
[The Guardian article referred to above was titled "Revealed: the secret evidence of global warming Bush tried to hide," and was written by Suzanne Goldberg and Damian Carrington. It appeared in The Observer, Sunday, July 26, 2009.]
Worst case scenario
Which brings to mind that statement made by Paul Hill, who murdered Dr. John Britton (an abortion doctor) in Florida in 1994, just before he was executed in 2003:
"I feel very honored that they are most likely going to kill me for what I did. I'm certainly, to be quite honest, I'm expecting a great reward in heaven for my obedience."
The cartoon and Mr. Hill express "religious" values. You know, the ones that the rightwhitewingnuts talk about all the time.
[Thanks to Atheist Cartoons for the cartoon.]
Did you hear the one about the czar...?
Czars, life on Mars, and Jesus is coming back soon.
You'll find all kinds of absolutely goofy beliefs among the rightwhitewingnut set these days. They even parade their nonsense on signs and walk about our streets waving them in peoples' faces. If, however, you stop to ask them to explain their beliefs, you are likely to get a stunned grimace of incomprehension.
Like when some of the unhinged at Glenn Beck's 9/12 thingy in Washington were asked to explain why they were against czars. Most didn't know what a czar was or what a czar did, or the historical reference. All they knew there were agin' 'em, by god!
Some thought a czar was a Communist and thus anti-God.
Vincent Rossmeier, writing at Salon.com, notes how certain Repugnicans, desperately needing a way to ensure Obama fails, have launched themselves into the middle of the czar controversy, feeding lines to the "lions" who would eat Obama alive. People like Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (from Texas and who, by the way, is no "moderate" as some would have us believe!), and Rep. Eric Cantor (from Virginia) who has shown there is no depth to which he will not sink to bring Obama down.
Rossmeier also notes that historically, the czars were Russian monarchs. They were on the scene before the Commies and were tossed out by the Commies! In other words, for the hard of reading, CZARS WERE NOT COMMUNISTS!
Now the situation has come to this: Rep. Jack Kingston, a Repugnican from Georgia, has introduced the "Czar Accountability and Reform (CZAR) Act of 2009". This measure would deny a government paycheck to every presidential advisor not approved by the Senate. As of Sept. 16, the bill had 99 sponsors, including such leading intellectuals as Michele Bachmann from Minnesota, Eric Cantor from Virginia and one nogoodnik Democrat, Rep. William Clay from Missouri.
It's hard to wrap one's mind around the stupidity, the ignorance and the hypocrisy that defines so many of our public servants! Ronald Reagan appointed the first so-called "czar." To call someone a czar was and is nothing more than a somewhat humorous way of referring to a person who has been invited to advise the president on a particular issue or issues.
George H. W. Bush continued the tradition of appointing czars. As did Bill Clinton. And, in fact, Georgi W. Bush had a number of czars. Rossmeier says that "Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who has made public statements criticizing Obama's czars, actually supported Bush's appointment of an 'AIDS czar' and 'manufacturing czar.' And though Karl Rove served as Bush's 'domestic policy czar,' this hasn't stopped him from arguing that Obama's use of czars amounts to a 'giant expansion of presidential power.'"
That from the worm who oversaw the largest expansion of presidential power in history!
One of the things we learned during the Bush years was how effective "the big LIE" can be. Say something often enough with great sincerity and before long half the people in the country will believe it, even if it contains not one shred of truth!
Thus there are many people today who remain convinced that Saddam Hussein had WMDs, or that we invaded Iraq to bring democracy to that sorry mess of a country. We've got birthers and deathers, and now "czarists" who have so little brain matter that it is quite easy to get them to accept the most outrageous of lies.
In the end, of course, it's not about any of these things. The so-called "czarist" controversy has nothing to do with Obama's advisers. It is simply another mechanism, another lie, honed to perfection by the machinations of the Glenn Becks, Rush Limbaarghs, Eric Cantors, Sarah Palins, the Repugnican Party as a whole, and the corporations who control Congress TO BRING DOWN THE OBAMA PRESIDENCY!
Which is clearly unpatriotic, subversive and ultimately of incalculable harm to our country.
Read Rossmeier's entire article here.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
No more gravy train for student loan lenders
Sometime ago, Repugnicans got the bright idea to allow private lenders to provide the funds for our college student loan program. Well, why not? I mean, Repugnicans (and too many Democrats), have been bought and paid for by the financial industry. So let's put a few more companies on the public dole.
But, it went further than that. If you, as a student, borrowed money from one of these lenders, and then found you had a problem paying it back, you would be harassed for the rest of your natural life by "collectors" hired by these private companies. A nasty business all around.
President Obama, aware of this chicanery, promised to end it. That promise will hopefully be fulfilled soon. A bill which will toss these private lenders out of the program and turn it over to the government has passed the House of Representative by a vote of 253-171.
According to the AP, "The measure ends subsidies for private lenders, boosts Pell Grants for needy students and creates a grant program to improve community colleges, among other things."
The Congressional Budget Office has estimated this will save the U.S. taxpayers about $87 billion! And this money, instead of lining the pockets of the wealthy, can go directly to students by increasing the maximum Pell Grant amount.
Guess what? Only six Republicans voted for the bill.
Repugnicans in the Senate will do their best to shoot it down. Shame, shame, shame!
Mark Sanford of South Carolina & the misuse of public funds
Sanford, Mark. Repugnican. Governor. South Carolina. Joe Wilson's state. The state that started the Civil War. A state where many seem to be confused about how that war ended.
Sanford, a true Christianist believer, got caught with his pants down in Argentina. He wasn't taking a bath. At least not alone. He was "in love" with an Argentine woman.
Instead of stepping down, Sanford took the path of Sen. John Ensign of Nevada and the prostitute chaser, David Vitter of Louisiana, and hunkered down in his governor's office refusing to leave. That, in spite of the fact, that many, if not most of his Repugnican cronies want him to go away. Some are talking impeachment.
It turns out that Sanford's extra-marital hijinks are only part of his problems. Seems that Gov. Sanford likes to ride around on airplanes, rides funded by the taxpayers of South Carolina. He's under investigation at the moment for possible misuse of taxpayer funds.
But now there's another hitch in his plan to beg forgiveness, praise Jesus for saving his moldy old soul and stay in office. Sanford went off to Europe on two "business" trips. On those junkets, desperately important to the state of South Carolina, as you might imagine, he relied on charter jets which cost the people of South Carolina over $63,000.
The first trip was in 2007 when Sanford and two other state honchos flew from France to Germany and then on to Estonia. This year, he and three other state honchos got on charter jets to fly from Poland to the Czech Republic (the one McCain hadn't heard about!) and Switzerland (maybe to czech his bank account?).
Why didn't these clowns fly commercial? Flights were available and would have saved the people of South Carolina big bucks. Well, you just gotta understand that the scheduled meetings were so close together that they wouldn't have arrived in time.
Ha, ha, ha.
Reschedule the damn meetings. The purpose of these meetings was to entice European companies to do their business in the fine state of South Carolina. Surely such enticement was not dependent on an unbreakable schedule!
But then Sanford is just another Repugnican who lives by another set of rules; you see he's one of the "Chosen," elected by God to bring Christian values and principals to the whole world and thus cannot be judged by mere mortals. Well, that's what The Family, to which Sanford belongs, claims.
Barf!
Rachel Maddow - Conservatives are eating Republicans
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Rachel Maddow on Mike Ross and choice in health care
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Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The ignorant, the stupid, the haters, & the racists gather in Washington
Still, they are a danger and a threat, and should be taken seriously.
Any sane person with a modicum of intelligence, common sense, and a basic understanding of our history and our system of government, will probably need a barf bag to watch this entire video.
Thanks again to Dan Florien at Unreasonable Faith.
Rachel Maddow - Racism, porn paranoia, secrecy at 'Values Summit'
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Glenn Beck - Worst person in the world, ala Keith Olbermann
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Monday, September 21, 2009
Frank Schaeffer on Rachel Maddow
There is no hope for this land!
Rachel talks to Frank Schaeffer about these insane fundamentalist christianist wackos! Schaeffer pulls no punches. It's a video well worth your time.
h/t to Dan Florien at Unreasonable Faith
Rachel Maddow - the state of health (care) in So. Carolina
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The cost of nation building - a hell of a price to pay
Georgi said that was wrong, and he wasn't going to do it. Georgi wasn't going to send troops into harms way just to install democracy in some weird foreign country which he had never visited and knew nothing about (which would include almost every country in the world).
Reminds me of our last election, where the Repugnicans tried to put Obama down by saying he had no foreign policy experience. As if McCain did. As if getting shot down and being locked away in a jungle prison camp constituted foreign policy experience. And then, there's always Ms. Alaska, the doofus ex-beauty queen who just knew Russia was somewhere close by and so what if she confused a cloud with the former USSR? Her foreign policy experience was, and still is, about the size of a thimble.
So what did Georgi do when he got into office? He manufactured a war with Iraq so he could do some nation building. Actually, nation building was secondary to his main purpose of securing the Iraqi oil fields for his buddies in the oil industry, but he couldn't tell the truth to the American people 'cause they'd have had him for lunch.
So, he made up stuff: about WMDs; about nuclear possibilities and provoclivities; about terrible Islamic dictators; about how Iraq was involved in 9/11; about how ol' Saddam was a terrible threat to the U.S. of A.
He lied - over and over again! And then when those particular lies wouldn't work anymore, he decided to lie again and say that the war in Iraq was to bring democracy to those poor, backward people in that poor, blighted land. He decided nation building wasn't so bad after all. And we did need the oil. Of which Iraq has beaucoup barrels!
Now, five and a half years later, we're trying to get out of the mess. And it's an incredible mess! We don't seem to be able to do a lot about it, except build a massive embassy where hundreds of people pretend to work at unnecessary jobs behind a multitude of defenses to protect them from the people of the land for whom this massive paean to stupidity is a huge insult!
Jim Hightower, in his latest newsletter, notes that at the end of June, the U.S. military honcho in Iraq turned "military authority over to the government of Prime Minister Nuri-al-Maliki." That was followed by "a day of national celebration."
The Americans are leaving! The Americans are leaving!
Except, as Hightower points out, the Americans aren't leaving:
"First, only about 30,000 of America's soldiers in Iraq have actually left, and the Pentagon says it plans to keep 50,000 troops stationed there for years to come.
"Then there's the little matter of being stuck with the bill. Rather than paying for the war as we went, George W. and Congress put the whole thing on the nation's credit card."
Hightower references "two top economic analysts," Linda Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, who have concluded that this damn war has cost us a trillion dollars and by the time everything is added up ("interest payments on the war debt, replenishment of military equipment, and long-term care for the 80,000 troops who've been wounded or traumatized ... the bill comes to some $3 trillion)"!
"We won't," warns Hightower, "be 'through' with Iraq for generations to come."
But that's not the whole picture, either. Afghanistan is still a millstone around our neck. "Obama and Congress have committed about $24 billion this year to the carnage in that harsh land."
Hightower, who also noted that 4,300 American troops who died in Iraq, says:
"It's a hell of a price to pay for...well, for what, exactly?"
For what? Yeah, for what? For NOTHING! Every dollar wasted on stupid and unnecessary and unwinnable wars is a dollar that is unavailable for health care, education, rebuilding our infrastructure, renewable energy sources, fighting global warming, and all those things needed to provide social security for our citizens.
Can you imagine what we could have done with $3 trillion dollars over the past five and half years?
Where were all the so-called "tea-baggers" and other nogoodnik, moronic protestors when Bush/Cheney and gang rode the country into the ground for the sole purpose of making the rich richer?
But we're still nation building - in Afghanistan - an impossible task! There is No way we can win in Afghanistan. None! Every dollar we spend there is the same as if we tossed it into a fire-breathing volcano.
Or, again, as Jim Hightower put it, "It's a hell of a price to pay for ... well, for what, exactly?"
For more from Mr. Hightower, point your browser here.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Rachel Maddow's take on the No Values Summit
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What's good for the goose...
Only, the sign is being held up by a ... gasp ... gay person! Yup, if the christianistwhitewingnuts can quote their favorite bible verses, so can ... gasp ... gay people!
I mean, we all want to obey Yahveh's will, right?
Thanks to Dwindling in Unbelief
Value Voters Summit crashes into inanity and insanity
The "summit" is truly misnamed. The people attending would not know a true "value" if it socked them in their cold, cold hearts! Truth is simply a word that has no meaning to the bunch of Repugnican bums gathered here. They are all about tearing down Obama and the Dems and care not a whit about the country they profess to love. And they will use every dastardly device they can think of to accomplish their goal.
This was a NO-VALUES VOTER'S SUMMIT!
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Screw you, I've got mine!
From David Sirota at Salon.
"The me-first, screw-everyone-else crowd."
Mr. Sirota is happy because the rightwhitewingnuts are no longer pretending to care about people or their country. "Finally, the me-first, screw-everyone-else crowd's ugliest traits are there for all to behold."
He tells about how this bunch of nogoodniks are crying in their champagne because they might have to pay a surtax in order to subsidize universal healthcare.
The so-called sob-stories are breathtaking, like this "affluent" man's tale:
"Until recently, my family was in the top 3 percent of wage earners. We are in the group that pays close to 60 percent of this nation's taxes .... Think for a second how you would feel if you built a business and contributed more than your share to this country only to be treated like a pariah."
Heh. Heh.
Actually, as Mr. Sirota points out, "The Government Accountability Office reports that most U.S. corporations pay zero federal income tax. [My emphasis] Additionally, as even the Bush Treasury Department admitted, America's effective corporate tax rate is the third lowest in the industrialized world."
And the 60 percent figure mentioned above refers "only to the federal income tax. When considering all of 'this nation's taxes' including payroll, state and local levies, the top 5 percent pay just 38.5 of the taxes," which seems fair as they they make about 36.5 percent of the wealth.
Well, the people they employ make 36.5 percent of the wealth.
So sad. The rich have it so bad. They just can't afford to share. The American poor, the sick, the malnourished will just have to move to...France, perhaps...to get help and healthcare.
Real the entire article here.
The U.S. Congress - a club of brazen prostitutes
Max Baucus (a blue-dog Democrat, by the way), is a case in point. Long known for being a hooker for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, Baucus is flaunting his health-care bill, which is, as one might guess, a gift to the pimps who own him.
Mark Karlin, editor of BuzzFlash, in an article titled "First, 'Free Market' Welfare for Wall Street: Now Max Baucus's Welfare for Big Insurance and Big Pharma," turns a light on Baucus's perversity.
What's amazing is how brazen our Congressional prostitutes have become!
Karlin says that when "Baucus shared his bill with the public -- after first getting a sign off from K Street lobbyists -- ... it confirmed my basic premises: The Baucus, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Rahm Emanual 'Health Reform' Bill would be a massive financial boon to insurance companies and pharmaceutical firms, at the expense of the working stiff and the U.S. taxpayer."
Karlin goes on to note that "Senator Jay Rockefeller, no profiles in courage in general, knew that the Baucus bill would economically devastate the generally low-paid, poor, and unemployed of his home state of West Virginia, so he protested about the financing scam to once again redistribute wealth by getting those without many financial resources to enrich those who already have more money than they know what to do with."
Read Karlin's entire article here.
We know that Repugnican representatives in our Congress have long been bought and sold by the banking industry, the oil industry, the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. They have voted consistently in favor of those industries at the expense of the American people for years and years and years.
What many are not aware of is that a number of Democratic representatives are prostititutes just like the Repugnicans.
McClatchy, back on August 26, wrote that the blue dog Democrats are heavily in debt to the health care industry. "...during the first half of the year, more than half the $1.1 million in campaign contributions the Democratic Party's Blue Dog Coalition received came from the pharmaceutical, health care and health insurance industries ...
" ... The Blue Dogs, a group of fiscally conservative lawmakers, successfully delayed the vote on health care overhaul proposals until the fall."
As McClatchy noted, the health care and pharmaceutical companies are involved in an ongoing attempt to stop cold a government-run public health insurance option. One of their strategies is to keep paying their prostitutes in Congress, the Blue Dogs and Repugnicans, to derail the Obama train.
Take a look at one example - Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., who "heads the coalition's task force on health care." He has also "publicly expressed the Blue Dogs' misgivings about the Democratic leadership's efforts." He used to own a pharmacy! He has been "feted at a series of health care industry receptions. Ross has received nearly $1 million in campaign contributions from the insurance and health care industries over his five-term career ... "
Brazen! The prostitutes are right out in the open doing their dastardly deeds, jumping to the call of their masters, and then turning around to screw the American people!
For a detailed list of the Blue Dogs by name and state and the amounts of money they have received from the health sector, click here.
Unhinged rightwingnut hatred leads to violence and death
The country is awash in the violent rantings of the rightwhitewingnuts, all of which claim affiliation with the Repugnican Party.
What is important to realize is that this constant hammering of hate has consequences; usually violent and horrendous consequences. Thus, we enter each new day, wondering when the shoe is going to drop and who is going to die.
Eric Boehlert, writing for Media Matters for America, in an article titled, "The Last Time Right-Wing Hatred Ran Wild Like This a President Was Killed," takes us on a journey back in time to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
The city of Dallas, he notes, back in 1963, "stood as an outpost for the radical right, which never tried to hide its contempt for the New England Democrat," and Boehlert refers to another article by Sam Kashner in Vanity Fair who "offers up in rich detail the hatred that ran wild in Dallas..."
Then Boehlert says, "...the similarity between Dallas in 1963 and today's unhinged Obama hate is downright chilling."
[Side note: To gain additional perspective on what actually went on in Dallas in 1963, and the involvement of George H. W. Bush and the CIA, please read Russ Baker's book, "Family of Secrets."]
Boehlert quotes Kashner who quotes William Manchester, "who was tapped by the Kennedy family ... to write the definitive book about the shooting." Manchester noted that Dallas:
"had become the Mecca for medicine-show evangelists ... the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry Societies, and the headquarters of [ultra-conservative oil billionaire] H.L. Hunt and his activities.
" ... a kind of fever lay over Dallas Country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, 'Impeach Early Warren.' Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas....Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools ...
" ... A wanted poster with J.F.K.'s face on it was circulated, announcing 'this man is Wanted' for--among other things--'turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist-controlled United Nations' and appointing 'anti-Christians ... aliens and known Communists' to federal offices.
Most telling perhaps, Boehlert says "in a wealthy Dallas suburb, when told that President Kennedy had been murdered in their city, the students in a fourth-grade class burst into applause."
Responsibility for political violence today must be laid directly at the feet of the spewers of hatred - Beck, O'Reilly, Coulter, Malkin, Limbaargh, Savage, and all the rest who make millions of dollars while trying to destroy our country and that for which it stands. Said responsibility must also be laid directly at the feet of those Repugnican politicians who could possibly mollify the wingnuts and tone down the rhetoric, but choose, instead, to join the unhinged in a horrific and misguided attempt to destroy the Obama presidency and gain back the power stripped from them by the American people.
It isn't surprising, that given the evil done by the aforementioned, President Obama has received more death threats than any president in American history!
You can read Boehlert's entire article here.